EPISODE SUMMARY
When it comes to accounting, how much time is spent creating entries and spreadsheets? While this is not a big deal, as long as you have an accounting department or a talented CFO, it may cost you loads of revenue.
In this week’s episode of Scale Your SaaS, FinOptimal Founder and CEO Jesse Rubenfeld expounds on the massive impact of automation on accounting with Host and B2B SaaS Sales Coach Matt Wolach. He also touches on the importance of knowing yourself and the buyer to succeed in your software business. Scale more efficiently and strategize thoroughly with the power of automation!
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach
Episode: Episode No. 274, “The Best Ways to Get an Accurate Financial Picture of Your Business – with Jesse Rubenfeld”
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS sales coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Guest: Jesse Rubenfeld, Founder & CEO at FinOptimal
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
Automate Your Accruals Faster
Accounting for accruals tends to be tedious because of the need to create entries for each month. Now, multiply 12 entries by the number of accruals that you do have. While you can always hire an accountant, you have to be sure they understand it well, which is why automation is critical.
Making life easier for your accountants aside, automating accruals and other related processes means you will no longer have to fret when you urgently need the information. FinOptimal will also be perfect if you want to have one less thing to worry about before attending your board meetings.
Free Your Mental Bandwidth
Another blessing of automation is that it allows you to release your cognitive load. You no longer have to worry about time-consuming manual labor or high-stress tasks. This means you have time to analyze your company to iterate and refine your product adequately.
Strategizing also allows you to remain on top of the game because you can continuously innovate to your buyers’ needs. You can open additional income channels by releasing new services and predicting what your competitors are lacking or doing. This will also allow you to optimize the departments of your company itself.
Hire Talent with Relevant Hybrid Experience
The most common recruitment route is to hire an applicant with the most extended experience for the company’s salary range. This means they prioritize those with a decade or so of experience for the role they are applying for. However, lesser years of experience may be more valuable.
Rubenfeld is an example of what happens when having a critical hybrid experience. FinOptimal works effectively because it’s from a founder who is a CPA, knows how to code, and performs sales. His expertise allowed him to intimately understand the gap between the accounting and dev teams which he designed a solution.
Keep Knowing the Buyer
You will continuously hear founders preaching to know your buyer, which is solid advice. However, knowing the buyer is a process that takes time. It has to be performed regularly because what you know about your market 10 years ago may no longer apply. And operating on outdated information may cost you your customers.
It is recommended to have 30-50 conversations with your existing customers and prospects to understand their current pain points and goals. You need to know if they have new obstacles that should be addressed in your software. It also provides direction to the brand and potential opportunities.
Filter the Noise from Your Vision
We live in a world where people are more social because of technology. This means you will hear tons of feedback about your company and business decisions. You will also hear advice from your friends and family which is nice because it means they care.
Hearing suggestions may seem optimistic, but it can lead to analysis paralysis. Accommodating everyone is not advisable because many likely need product market expertise. This is why it’s essential to know and stick to who you are as a company while applying improvements that help in scaling.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Accountancy is the Language of Business
There is more to business than making revenue, but the business will only be alive with it. After all, the numbers speak about the health of the company and the effectiveness of specific departments and products. This is why it’s imperative to quicken translating that language.
Automation is a Money-making Machine
The first benefit that comes to mind when hearing “automation” is that it saves time. But business owners need to understand that it also means scaling their revenue. This is because it makes more room for high-leveraging tasks like strategizing while removing disengaging manual tasks.
Discovery is About the Buyer
Most people would think that older sales reps would improve discovery, but the reality is the opposite. This is because their expertise is getting in the way. Making the buyer understand the problem and feel their pain is more crucial than quickly determining if they are the right fit.
TOP QUOTES
Jesse Rubenfeld
[17:19] “Knowing thyself is being able to follow your lights, hear others and incorporate suggestions, but not get derailed by every opinion that sounds well-informed.”
[23:45] “Think about your business as a financial package. Look for ways to articulate that financial package more clearly without doing much work.”
Matt Wolach
[4:47] “You’re like… Well, I’m already doing this. I figured out some great ways to make it quick and simple. Why don’t I open up some of that bandwidth for others.”
[20:41] “The sales reps doing it for a long time did much worse discovery. Their discovery process was far worse than the newer reps. And the reason is because they feel like they’ve seen it all.”
LEARN MORE
To learn more about FinOptimal, visit: https://www.finoptimal.com/
You can also find Jesse Rubenfeld on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesserubenfeld/
For more about how host Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com/
