At this point, it might be an understatement to say that 2020 has been a challenging year. Businesses were forced to make many tough decisions, from laying off key employees to deciding where to focus their energy and attention. Some companies had to press pause on plans to expand and grow while others were forced to close their doors for good.
Despite the challenges of the year, many companies are still out there, growing and making plans for the future. Often, the CEOs behind these companies aren’t doing things on their own, but have instead decided to hire a virtual CFO to help them map out a plan for growth and help them make challenging financial decisions. Many CEOs experience the same or similar pain points as they work to grow their business and thrive during tough times. Learn more about how a virtual CFO can help soothe the pain and help your business reach its goals.
CEO Pain Point: Continuing to Meet Customer’s Needs
One common source of pain for CEOs is figuring out ways to continue to meet the needs of their customers when new and unexpected obstacles get in the way. For example, some companies found that key pieces of inventory or key ingredients or materials used to make their products were unavailable in the early days of the pandemic, limiting the company’s ability to get clients the items they needed.
A virtual CFO can help ease this pain point by working with your business to find new workarounds or solutions to the obstacles you’re facing. It might be that it’s time to pivot and focus on selling something new. Or it might be time to change your product’s formula or the suppliers you work with. Your virtual CFO can help you weigh the pros and cons of the options available to you to come up with a plan that leads to customer retention and customer satisfaction.
CEO Pain Point: Finding and Keeping the Best Employees
Hiring the right people and retaining the best employees is a challenge CEOs face at all times. The issue became even more painful in 2020 when many employees suddenly found themselves working from home, alongside their spouses and, in some cases, children.
The change in workplace expectations and demands can mean that employers need to look for certain skills that were previously not required by the jobs they hire for. It can also mean that employers need to work extra hard to keep their top team members on staff. A virtual CFO can help your company refine its hiring process so that it is better equipped to hire workers who will do well in a remote environment. Your vCFO can also work with you to develop plans and programs that will offer employees opportunities for growth or other incentives that encourage them to stay with and grow with the company for as long as possible.
CEO Pain Point: Achieving Sustainable Growth
Sustainable growth is a level of growth that your business can achieve without encountering too many problems. It’s the “just right” level of growth that keeps your company ticking along without stagnating and without growing too big, too fast.
Mapping out a plan for sustainable growth should involve putting together a financial strategy. Your virtual CFO can help you create a strategy that takes into account your current financial situation and cash flow and your potential future finances.
CEO Pain Point: Adapting to Changing Technology
2020 pushed many companies to adopt technologies that they would have otherwise been slow to pick up. Although the year has been a good one for digital acceleration, many businesses still struggled to adapt to the change and to embrace new technologies. In many cases, an embrace of technology and digitization was key to companies being able to pivot in the wake of the pandemic.
Although bringing in technology can save a business from obsolescence, it often costs money to do so. A virtual CFO can help your business put together a plan for paying for the adoption of new technology. They can also help you weigh the financial benefits of doing so against the costs of the upgrades.
Being CEO has its challenges and you most likely faced more of them this year than in years past. Keep in mind that you don’t have to deal with the pain points and complexities of running a business on your own. When you’re starting to feel overwhelmed, the virtual CFO team at New Direction Capital can step in and help you guide your company toward success and ongoing growth. Hire your virtual CFO today.
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