By Roger James Hamilton, Founder, and CEO of Genius Group.
The pandemic, global prices increasing, and the war in Ukraine have all created global uncertainty and because of this many SMEs around the world have been struggling to keep costs down and profits up. In times of huge uncertainty, such as we are living through now, we often (sadly) see many companies struggle to survive, but uncertainty also offers huge opportunities and that’s just what happened when Deborah Harris, Founder of the Grow CFO Co., based in Brisbane, Australia, launched her business, offering chief financial officer services into other small businesses helping them to deal with any cash flow issues, help reduce outgoings and streamline finances.
The biggest problem many entrepreneurs come up against is that they need to be experts in so many different areas, or hire others to fill their knowledge gaps which can become costly. Education and lifelong learning are key to fixing this problem and by learning new skills entrepreneur is better equipped to deal with any challenges that come their way.
It was this thinking that has meant Deborah’s company has been able to help many small and medium businesses through these difficult times and it continues to be a vital service for any business facing challenges. Because the CFO is outsourced it is much more cost-effective than employing one in-house and as they offer education alongside their services, eventually the entrepreneur can learn to handle all of their financial needs inhouse, or take the best course of action
Deborah and her virtual Chief Financial Officer team grow the strategic financial capabilities of purpose-driven businesses by creating the key strategies to maximise revenue, profit, and cash flow available for growth. During the recent crises, this capability has been the difference between surviving and thriving for many companies.
Deborah comments, “Company Tax is something very few people are delighted to pay. The real problem businesses face is poor cash flow and an inability to translate their profits into business value. We wanted to shake things up and move away from completing tax forms as we knew that was being increasingly automated and provided no real value to the customer. We felt the entrepreneurial mind frame had skipped the accounting industry even though there was an increasing plethora of platforms and software that made it readily available to advisors to translate numbers into actions for their customers. We believed an entrepreneurial approach would benefit us, our customers, and our industry.”
She continues, “Our business has now had 9 consecutive record quarters and our investments team has grown to enable us to fund and co-develop some of the world’s best technologies. We are working with amazing entrepreneurs making a substantial difference in our world and actively working to address the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We actively measure the impact we make – through our own philanthropy and through the growth of our customers.
I first met Deborah and her husband, who is also her business partner, at an Entrepreneur Summit that Genius Group hosted and they signed up for two programs – Crystal Circle, a business mentoring group that I head up, and iLab, a training programme for entrepreneurs. They have continued in Crystal Circle mentoring, so I have been privileged to follow their journey closely.
Deborah recently won Entrepreneur of the Year at the GEM Shine Awards from Genius Group. She was chosen due to her consistent business growth and understanding of what her client base needs and adapting to offer it. The Grow CFO Co. offers its customers more than just a service, they are actively working to educate other business owners and help them understand the financial sector better to enable them to manage their business better. She set out to create a company from which she could bring wealth and prosperity to companies and entrepreneurs. Deborah has found her flow and thanks to a market upswing the business is now celebrating its record returns.
Deborah concludes, “We are regularly bringing great value to our customers and love it when a business owner says, ‘I’ve been in business for 20 years and this is the first time I’ve ever really understood my numbers and what to do next,’ we believe that the number crunching side of the work will all be replaced by AI but the real difference we make is the confidence that someone who understands the numbers can interpret them into next actions… eventually this too will be intelligence-driven and we aim to be part of that change. We now consider ourselves to be more of an education company than a financial services company.”
