Couverture de The Fractional CFO Show with Adam Cooper

The Fractional CFO Show with Adam Cooper

The Fractional CFO Show with Adam Cooper

De : Adam Cooper
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Every small business owner needs financial advice to help scale and grow. Each week successful Operators join fractional CFO Adam Cooper, to share their experiences, tips and tricks to help improve your business cash flows, profits and help reach your financial goals. If you are an entrepreneur looking to take control of your business finances, this is the podcast for you.

© 2026 The Fractional CFO Show with Adam Cooper Direction Economie Management Management et direction
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  • Is AI Actually Making Your Agency More Profitable?

    Is AI Actually Making Your Agency More Profitable?
    Oct 8 2026
    Is AI actually making your agency more profitable, or is it simply adding more tools, processes and experimentation?In this episode of The Fractional CFO Show, Adam Cooper is joined by Emily Hatton, Founder of AI in Agencies, to explore how agency founders and finance leaders can approach artificial intelligence in a more practical, structured and commercially focused way.Emily has spent years working in agency operations, including helping to scale a digital marketing agency before moving into business operations consulting. Today, she helps agencies understand where AI can genuinely improve their businesses, with a focus on processes, efficiency, profitability and measurable outcomes.Rather than starting with the latest AI platform, Emily believes agencies should start by understanding the problem they are trying to solve.That means auditing existing workflows, identifying where teams are spending too much time, finding opportunities to increase output or improve quality, and only then deciding where AI can help.The conversation moves away from generic AI hype and focuses instead on the questions agency leaders and finance teams should really be asking: What are we trying to improve? How will we measure it? What return should we expect? And is the technology actually helping us build a better business?In this episode, we discuss:• Why agencies should start with process, not AI tools – and how understanding existing workflows can reveal where AI can make the biggest difference.• How to audit agency operations for AI opportunities – identifying repetitive tasks, inefficient processes and areas where agencies could increase output or improve client delivery.• Setting measurable goals for AI adoption – whether that's saving time, increasing output, improving quality or achieving a specific commercial outcome.• The risk of AI “anti-productivity” – why unstructured experimentation can create additional work and potentially eat into agency profit margins rather than improve them.• AI and agency profitability – where artificial intelligence can genuinely improve operational efficiency, capacity and profit margins without compromising the quality of client work.• Measuring the ROI of AI investment – and why CFOs, finance directors and agency finance teams have an important role in challenging whether AI spending is delivering a meaningful return.• Why agencies may not need more AI tools – and why getting more value from existing platforms such as ChatGPT or Claude can be more effective than constantly switching to the latest technology.• AI costs and investment decisions – why agency leaders need to understand the commercial return from AI, particularly if subscription and usage costs increase in the future.• AI implementation and change management – why successfully adopting new technology is as much about people, training, processes and culture as the technology itself.• How AI could change agency team structures – including the changing role of junior team members and the growing importance of AI skills, quality assurance and effective prompting.• Why human expertise still matters – how judgement, creativity, quality control and subject matter expertise become even more important when AI can produce information and outputs at speed.• Creating better AI processes across an agency – including documented workflows, guidance on when AI should and shouldn't be used, verified data sources and appropriate checks.A key theme throughout the conversation is that using AI is not the same as improving productivity.If an agency introduces a new AI tool without defining what success looks like, it becomes difficult to know whether the investment has actually saved time, increased capacity, improved client delivery or generated a financial return.For agency founders, CFOs and finance leaders, that means treating AI investment with the same commercial discipline as any other business investment.Rather than simply deciding that an agency needs to “use more AI”, leadership teams need to establish what business problem they are solving, which process they want to improve and what measurable outcome they expect.That could mean reducing time spent on reporting or research, increasing creative output, improving quality or creating more capacity for higher-value client work and new business.For agencies where people are the largest cost base, this distinction matters. Saving time is useful, but what happens to that saved time ultimately determines whether AI creates financial value.This is also where the finance function has an important role to play.A strong CFO or finance director can help leadership teams challenge the assumptions behind AI investment, define the expected return, measure progress and understand whether operational improvements are translating into stronger financial performance.The episode also explores why agencies should be careful about constantly ...
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    38 min
  • What Nobody Tells You About Selling Your Business

    What Nobody Tells You About Selling Your Business
    Sep 17 2026
    In this episode of The Fractional CFO Show, Adam Cooper is joined by Dan Maudhub, founder of branding agency Be Wonderful, now an investor, advisor and Non-Executive Director.Dan built and grew Be Wonderful before taking the business through an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) transaction - a very different route to the traditional trade sale, merger or management buyout that many agency owners might consider when thinking about their exit strategy.The conversation explores the full journey: building an agency with a future exit in mind, choosing an EOT, valuing and structuring the business for the transaction, and then dealing with something that receives far less attention in traditional business exit planning - what happens after the deal is done.Building a business with an exit in mindDan shares how Be Wonderful developed from a founder-led creative agency and why changes in the ownership structure became an important part of its growth.After initially building the company with several minority shareholders, Dan gradually bought those shareholders out. That gave him greater control over the direction of the agency and, ultimately, made the eventual exit process simpler.The discussion highlights an important lesson for anyone thinking about selling a business: exit planning can start many years before an actual transaction.Ownership structure, shareholder alignment, financial performance, management capability and founder dependency can all influence both business valuation and the range of exit options available.Dan also explains why scaling an agency organically can become increasingly difficult as the business grows. New layers of management, relatively short client contracts and the challenge of securing recurring revenue can all affect the route an agency takes towards greater scale and long-term value.Rather than waiting until he was ready to sell, Dan says the business developed its financial model with the eventual exit in mind.Why choose an Employee Ownership Trust?A major part of the conversation focuses on Employee Ownership Trusts and why Dan chose an EOT rather than a traditional M&A transaction or trade sale.Dan explains in straightforward terms how an Employee Ownership Trust works and how employees can effectively become the majority owners and beneficiaries of the business.He also discusses some of the financial and commercial considerations involved in an EOT, including:Business valuationTax considerationsThe structure and timing of payments to existing shareholdersFuture profitabilityEmployee incentivesLong-term financial performanceThe interests of different stakeholdersFor Dan, the decision wasn't simply about finding the exit route with the most attractive headline number.He wanted an approach that could allow him and his family to realise value from the business while also giving employees a meaningful stake in its future success.That made the EOT particularly relevant to Be Wonderful's existing culture and values as a B Corp certified agency.The financial realities of selling a businessOne of the most interesting parts of Dan's experience is the financial risk that remains after an EOT transaction.Unlike an exit where the founder receives all of their proceeds immediately, Dan discusses having a longer period over which value would be realised. That meant considering whether the business could continue generating sufficient profit over the years following the transaction.It required honest conversations about what the business might be worth, what could realistically be taken off the table initially, and what would happen if future performance didn't go according to plan.For founders considering how to sell a business, it's a useful reminder that the headline business valuation is only one part of the equation.Cash flow, profitability, financial modelling, deal structure and the ongoing ability of the company to perform can ultimately be just as important.What happens after the founder leaves?Dan describes the transaction itself as relatively smooth.The bigger surprise came afterwards.After years of being the founder and MD, Dan suddenly found himself returning to board meetings where he was no longer the person leading the conversation or making the final decision.Instead, he had become one voice around the table.Dan talks openly about learning when to contribute, when to step back and even when to bite his tongue as other people made decisions differently from the way he would have made them.There was also a more personal adjustment.The routines and responsibilities that had structured his working life for years suddenly changed. Meetings disappeared from the diary, his role within the organisation changed and he had to consider where he could make the greatest impact next.It provides an interesting perspective on an aspect of selling a company that can easily be overlooked: an exit isn't purely a financial event. For many business owners, it's also a major change in ...
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    40 min
  • What 150+ Fractional Executives Taught Me About Winning Clients

    What 150+ Fractional Executives Taught Me About Winning Clients
    Sep 3 2026
    How do you build a successful Fractional CFO business when being a great CFO is only half the challenge?In this episode of The Fractional CFO Show, Adam Cooper is joined by Stewart Mathieson, Founder of FractionalClients.com, whose team has worked with more than 150 fractional executives to help them build their client pipelines and win new business.Drawing on that experience, Stewart shares what he has learned about why some Fractional CFOs and other fractional executives build thriving businesses, while others with equally impressive careers and experience struggle to consistently win clients.It’s a practical conversation about business development for Fractional CFOs, covering referrals, prospecting, LinkedIn outreach, niching, positioning, pricing, AI, lead generation and ultimately how to move from being an individual fractional executive towards building a more scalable business.Being a great CFO is only half the equationOne of Stewart’s biggest observations from working with more than 150 fractional executives is that succeeding in the fractional world requires two very different skill sets.The first is the ability to actually do the work and create meaningful value for clients.The second is the entrepreneurial ability to build a business around that expertise.For experienced CFOs, finance directors and other senior executives moving into fractional work, the first part can come naturally. They may have decades of experience helping businesses improve financial performance, profitability, cash flow, strategy and decision-making.But building your own Fractional CFO practice also means learning how to position yourself, generate leads, have sales conversations, price your services, build a pipeline and consistently win new clients.Stewart explains why this distinction is one of the reasons even highly experienced executives can struggle when they first enter the fractional market.What does a healthy client pipeline look like?Adam and Stewart explore one of the biggest challenges facing any Fractional CFO practice: creating a reliable pipeline without becoming dependent on one source of leads.They discuss referrals, networking, LinkedIn content and cold outbound as potential routes to market, and why the right combination will be different for every fractional executive.Stewart makes a particularly interesting point around referrals.If you're doing excellent work and delivering genuine value to existing clients, he believes referrals should naturally become a significant source of new opportunities.That means a lack of referrals isn't necessarily a marketing problem. Sometimes it can be an indication that there is a deeper issue with the value being delivered to clients.At the same time, relying entirely on referrals can leave a Fractional CFO business without control over when the next opportunity will arrive.The conversation explores why developing additional business development channels can create a healthier and more sustainable pipeline.Why cold outreach isn't just about immediately winning clientsFor Fractional CFOs considering outbound prospecting, Stewart argues that the value isn't limited to the clients you directly win from it.Cold outreach can also provide something particularly valuable when you're starting out: real market feedback.Rather than spending months deciding which niche to target, how to position your Fractional CFO services or what messaging might resonate with business owners, outbound activity allows you to test those assumptions against the market.Who responds?Which messages generate conversations?Which industries engage?What problems resonate?Where does your experience appear to have the greatest value?Stewart explains why this learning can create an indirect return on investment even before the first new client signs.The conversation also looks at realistic expectations around business development and why building a reliable sales pipeline takes time, testing and continual refinement rather than expecting immediate results.Should Fractional CFOs niche down?Niching is another major theme in the episode.For someone starting a Fractional CFO business, there can be a natural reluctance to specialise because choosing a niche appears to reduce the size of the potential market.Stewart argues almost the opposite.If you're trying to win your first one or two clients, you don't need an enormous market. A tightly defined niche can reduce the number of direct competitors you're facing and make your experience feel much more relevant to the prospective client.The more a business owner feels that your expertise, positioning and Fractional CFO service have been designed specifically for a business like theirs, the easier it can become to differentiate yourself.Stewart's view is that Fractional CFOs can start narrow, establish traction and then broaden their target market as the business develops.Adam and Stewart also discuss the connection between specialisation, positioning and...
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    41 min
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