How a Fractional CFO Helps Founders Grow with Ephraim Egbele

Sebastian Rusk 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian frost Abram, welcome to the show.

Ephraim Egbele 0:25

Man, it's happy you'd be here. Thank you for having me.

Sebastian Rusk 0:27

I'm gonna have you here, man. You and I connected through the great Dan Martell's elite coaching program. Man, what a community, what a coach. D all the above, huh?

Ephraim Egbele 0:35

Everything. Like he's he's on top of it. And I I love that I found the community and you know, we met through there as well.

Sebastian Rusk 0:42

Yeah, it is. Uh he's bringing folks together, uh, one conversation and one coaching call uh at a time. Absolutely love that. So um I love telling people stories on this show. Obviously, it's called Beyond the Story. So uh yours is no different. Well, your story's different, but um the this interview is no different from how we what we typically talk about on the show. But for for context purposes, I always like to go back to the beginning of the story. Uh and the beginning's different for everyone. So you decide what that beginning point uh is for you. But let's let's take a few minutes and bring us back to the beginning of the story on where this all started and how you got involved with being a uh a CFO, a fractional CFO uh and and working in the in the in the world of uh uh of accounting and money and uh and helping businesses get their books and and and accounting all situated.

Ephraim Egbele 1:32

Yeah, yeah. So I I guess I could take you back to, you know what, I'll take you all the way back to college. How about that? So, you know, went to college, University of Houston graduate uh years ago. Actually, it's about 20 years since I graduated, so that's kind of crazy how time flies, right? Sure. And uh, whenever I went there, I started out as an engineering major. And I did engineering for four years. And then once that fourth year came, the dean of the engineering school was like, Yeah, your grades are terrible. We need to get you out of here. Literally, like, so they they kicked me out of the engineering school. And so for one semester, I didn't I was trying to figure out what do I do next, right? What's next in my career? And I just remember when I was doing engineering, I wasn't happy, I wasn't passionate about it, I was depressed, but no one could really tell, right? Because you're just having fun in college. And then um, I remember a friend of mine told me that, hey, you know what? My uncle is an accountant, that's uh industry that you need to look into. And then um he also told me that accounting is the language of business, and so that always stood out to me because you know, one day I wanted to be a business owner, an entrepreneur, but I never knew what it would be in. You know, I remember back in junior high, um, I had a little taste of entrepreneurship because um bubble yum, right? They used to sell bubble yum like five packs for like, I don't know, like let's say 30, 40 cents. I'm sure you remember. And I had this idea of, well, if I go to the corner store and I buy like a pack, I can sell each of them for a quarter, right? And so I had like a good taste of entrepreneurship. I was doing that, I was making a lot of money until someone told me. I did that with blow pops. You did it with see? So yeah, yeah. So I was I was doing well, you know, like because I wanted all the nice things and stuff. So my parents obviously, you know, weren't gonna buy all that for me, so I had to figure out how to get it. Um so I knew back then that, hey, you know what? Entrepreneurship is where I want to be eventually. Um so I switched over to accounting and I did that for the next couple years, and I I graduated. And when I graduated, I got a job in one of the big accounting firms, one of the big four, right? That's like a prestigious thing to do when once you're in accounting. You know, you need to get into one of these firms, right? Because that solidifies you as an accountant. And so when I got in, you know, it was cool. I did it for two and a half years, excuse me. But then um 2009 happened, right? That 2009, 2008, the economy was really bad back then, if you I'm sure you remember, right? Where a lot of things were happening. And so I was one of the people that got let go. And for six months, I was trying to find my my next role, you know. And I I remember talking to uh um a recruiter, and the recruiter told me, Ephraim, like, what I'm seeing in the market, I don't think you're gonna be able to find anything for the next six months. And I was like, What? Like, there's no way I'm coming from this prestigious company, I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of companies that want to hire me. And he was right, for the next six months, I was getting interviewed, I was doing well in the interviews, they liked me, but no one reached out with an offer. And so one day I just woke up and I said, you know what, I'm gonna start my own business. And I remember that I was doing taxes for people in college, and I really enjoyed taxes, and I really enjoyed the tax class that I took in college too. And I said, you know what, why don't I start out doing that? Because I already have experience doing that. So I got a location, and you know, it's like an HR block style type of location where people come in and they do their taxes with you.

Sebastian Rusk 4:51

That's a good hustle in college, yeah, yeah.

Ephraim Egbele 4:55

Yeah, and so so I did that, you know, after I got laid off, right? And you know, the first year I opened my doors, I'm like, okay, everyone's just gonna come in, right? Like I had no concept of you need to go market, and yeah, that didn't happen. Like we we had probably about a hundred people come in, which is not bad, but that's not enough to pay the bills for the entire year, right? Because tax season's from January through April. And so the next year, uh, you know, we opened the doors again. And same thing, you know, we increased by let's say 50 to 100 tax returns, but it still wasn't enough to really move the needle. And so I was like, you know what, what can I do to really get people in here? And I remember seeing an HR Block commercial in April where they were like, you know what, it's the end of the tax season, we're doing second reviews, and all you gotta do is bring your tax return into one of our locations, and when you do that, we'll review it for you. If we find any mistakes, we'll amend it and we'll send it to the IRS and they'll send you a check. And then, you know, you could pay us like a small fee. If we don't find anything for you, then you don't have to pay us anything. And so a light bulb went off in my head. I was like, one of the things I noticed is that HR Block stopped it at April 15th. And I was like, what if I continue doing that throughout the rest of the year when no one else is doing taxes? And so I started to do that, and you know, I didn't really pick up any traction in the beginning, but then there was one woman that came in and I did it in like I think June or something like that, right? And I found it like $3,000. And we did the amendment, we sent it to the IRS, they sent her that check, and then she literally went into her phone and texted like 50 people in her phone, like, hey, this guy can help you find some additional money or whatever. And so that was when everybody started to come into my office and I started to really pick up business. And then um, you know, we we grew, and then I started to get a lot of people that were saying to me, like, hey, you know, I'm a small business owner, and I like the fact that you're doing my taxes, but I need something more. Is there anything else that you can do for me? Because, you know, I'm making money in my business, but I keep owing all this money. And that was when another light bulb went off in my head to say, you know what, why don't I pivot into working with small businesses exclusively to where we can help them to manage the money that's coming in so that they can continue to grow their businesses confidently. And so that that's where I am now.

Sebastian Rusk 7:10

Cool, man. Love that, dude. And how long has it been now? How many years have you been in business?

Ephraim Egbele 7:14

Oh, 17 years. So uh yeah, since August 2009 was when I started the business.

Sebastian Rusk 7:20

So, what's your your primary focus right now being a fractional CFO, or are you helping businesses in addition to that with their with their bookkeeping and taxes?

Ephraim Egbele 7:28

Yeah, yeah. So we we do accounting and fractional CFO services. So the whole scope pretty much, like you come in, we work on your books, you get those by at the end of the month, and then we also meet with you monthly to go over everything that happened, but then also to really forecast for the future. A lot of business owners have goals, right? I'm trying to hit certain revenue numbers, and so we help build that financial plan for them. You know, a lot of them don't realize that, okay, if you're trying to scale to this level, you need to start planning for how many people will it take at that level because you probably won't be able to do that, you know, with the current team that you have now. You might need to add more people. Do you need to expand your location that you're in? Do you even need to get into a location? These are all the conversations that we have with our clients so that they can be confident and say, you know what, I can go out there and I can scale comfortably.

Sebastian Rusk 8:17

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of businesses don't understand the importance. And I I was and I think every business, especially newer businesses, um, I I had that realization that okay, I'm I'm not gonna be able to just connect my bank accounts to QuickBooks and do a turbo tax HR block return on here. I mean, I can, but I'm probably gonna be leaving a ton of money on the table and not really being able to maximize all of the benefits of having a tax professional. So when I finally put my big boy britches on and decided to hire a CPA firm, have them go through, clean up my QuickBooks, which was a disaster in and of itself, and then actually monitor my books on a quarterly basis and then file my taxes and do all the things, everything started to change. Most business owners don't understand, new business owners don't understand the importance of that. Let's talk about why that's important.

Ephraim Egbele 9:12

Oh, yeah, it's extremely important because, you know, for different reasons. Number one, obviously come tax season. A lot of times, you know, people will wait till the end of the year to now get everything together and send it to their person that's doing their taxes. But at that point in February, March, April, the year is already done. So there's nothing that you can do. So they'll put together your numbers, but then you'll end up finding out that you have this big profit that you have to pay all this tax on. And so now, you know, you're talking to your tax person, like, hey, can you do anything? Is there anything else that you can do? And it's like, well, not necessarily because the year's over, right? But having someone that you work with on a more regular basis, you can actually plan ahead. You know, you can, like, for example, we're in the month of November, we still have two months to where we can do things for your business to help you not to owe all too much. Um, another thing, too, is a lot of times we have these um ideas of, you know what, I want to hire this person at this price point or at this salary, but you might be paying too much or you might be paying too little. Like, do you even have the budget to pay someone that much money? These are the conversations that need to happen. Also, too, if you have a product or service that you're selling, are you pricing it properly? You know, so many times whenever we start our business, we might look at what our competitors are are charging and say, you know what, I'm gonna charge around that or I'm gonna charge cheaper. But then we don't understand that, well, they have a lot of their stuff together. Like if I'm trying to compete against Walmart, they have economies of scale, they have all this money that they're able to price everything extremely low to where a small business like me can't really do that and stay in business, right? So all those types of financial conversations, like it's extremely important for businesses to have someone that they can have those conversations with, especially as you're scaling and growing.

Sebastian Rusk 10:55

Yeah, they really are. They really are. So, what's the most exciting part about your job? Yay, accounting. I'm always like to ask accountants that.

Ephraim Egbele 11:03

Man, for me, the exciting part is when I have a discovery call with someone, they pour out everything that they're going through, right? Like, I'm not paying myself a salary, I don't have money set to the side for an emergency, um, I don't know if I'm gonna make payroll, right? Like all these type of things that they're going through, or my tax bill's too high. I I want to talk to my accountant, but I can't speak to them because they're always busy. And I'm always in my head saying, oh yeah, you come on over. Like once in the next 30 to 60 days, you're gonna see a total difference. And then whenever I do a follow-up call with them and they're excited about how their business is and they feel more confident in being able to grow and being able to go employ and hire more people, it it sets something inside of me on fire because it's like, you know what, I had a hand in helping them to get there. You know, so that that's what makes me excited and what makes me wake up every day to do what I do.

Sebastian Rusk 11:57

What's the worst part about your business and job? Worst part of it that won't send their documents.

Ephraim Egbele 12:04

That how'd you know? Literally, literally, I would say that's the worst part. Um, as far as, you know, obviously, and I try to tell my team this too, right? Um, as CEOs, we're busy, and a lot of times we may not have support to really help us do the things that we need to do, right? So I always encourage my clients, like, hey man, like have your EA or hire EA or VA to like do this for you so that you don't have to be the one doing it, you know, and so they don't realize that, you know, if they're not sending us the documents, we can't perform at the level that they need us to perform at, or we can't perform at the speed that needs to be performed at. Like, I always say people need to be looking at their numbers within the first to second week of the following month. But if you're not really giving us what we need, then that might not happen until the end of the month or the following month. And so now you're behind on everything that's going on.

unknown 12:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Sebastian Rusk 12:56

So we're almost at the end of the year at uh 2026, which is just wild to say I don't know where the hell 2026 went. My goodness. Don't blink, y'all. Don't blink. But uh, what are you excited for uh as we close out this year and uh into 2027?

Ephraim Egbele 13:12

Man, I am excited for everything that I'm learning about AI, mainly because I see the opportunity for better efficiency in not just my business, but even in a lot of businesses that we work with, right? Like just being able to handle a lot of the things that we truly don't need to handle as CEOs. I think AI is there to potentially support not just us, but even our team members, right? So even at EFS, like I'm getting the team in on hey, like use this AI to really support you in, let's say, checking your email. Because a lot of times, like as CEOs, we're checking our email all day, every day. And now we have something that can really do that for us and kind of alert us on, hey, you know what, Ephraim, you just got this email that is saying that you need to send this email, you need to do this, right? And so, you know, I I have a chief of staff, but my team doesn't have that, right? So, how can they utilize that to really support them and being able to perform at a higher level? So that's really what is exciting me right now.

Sebastian Rusk 14:12

Love it, man.

unknown 14:13

Love it.

Sebastian Rusk 14:13

Well, dude, I appreciate you taking some time out of your day to hang out with me and share your story and uh help us better understand why you're doing uh what you're doing. Uh you clearly love what you're doing, so keep up the uh keep up the great work. Um, any final thoughts for our listeners on the world of accounting, books, money, uh D all the above in owning a business?

Ephraim Egbele 14:32

For sure, for sure. I would say my final thoughts around that would just be to really fall in love with the numbers. I know a lot of people, numbers scare them and they don't really want to look at it, but the best CEOs know their numbers really, really well. And just think about how much more informed in your business, how much better decisions you can make, right? Like if you're running ads, how much more money could be could you potentially put into that budget? Or you know what, I might be paying too much of my ads. Let me scale back. Like a lot of those things are in the numbers, and the more you fall in love with the numbers and the data, the better of CEO that you end up being.

unknown 15:08

Love it.

Sebastian Rusk 15:08

Great final thoughts. Hey, thanks so much for your time, my brother. And uh I look forward to seeing you again over uh in the elite community on there. Glad glad we got a chance to finally connect here.

Ephraim Egbele 15:17

Yes, likewise. I appreciate your time.

Sebastian Rusk 15:19

You got it, man. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Signing off from the podcast with LaunchLab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.