In any business—big or small—the chief financial officer (CFO) is a special position. The position is responsible for handling all financial aspects of a business and minimizing the financial risks associated with the business to allow it to grow.
When looking to hire a CFO for your franchise restaurant, you can consider the option of hiring either outsourced CFO services or a full-time, in-house CFO. If you are a small-scale franchise restaurant, then the latter can be a burden on your finances. So, only one viable choice remains for you: contracting outsourced CFO services for your franchise restaurant.
However, it is important to keep in mind that not all CFO services are created equal and they will vary in terms of experience, services provided, and costs. If you’re not careful, you could end up with CFO services that cost you both valuable time and money. To ensure this does not happen, look to avoid the following 4 mistakes made in hiring CFO’s for franchise restaurants to more effectively evaluate if outsourced CFO services are right for you.
1. Running Ads on a Job Board for the Position
This is a big no! It’s no less than a crime to run an ad on a job board for such an important position as the CFO. People or companies looking on job boards for an opportunity are mostly unemployed people who are not suitable for an important position such as the CFO. Therefore, you must navigate the world wide web or use a referral network to find CFO services that have the right experience and expertise for your franchise restaurant.
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2. Not Performing Due Diligence
Due diligence here means asking the CFO your shortlist of your unique business questions to create a plan that shows what they can and hope to accomplish for your business in the first 2 to 3 months after taking over your business’ financial responsibilities. This will provide you with a good picture of a candidate’s thought process and how they can help your business. You should do this same Q&A with a service provider offering outsourced CFO services.
3. Not Having a Benchmark to Measure the Candidates Against
For a business, it is very important to have a benchmark which they can use to measure candidates when hiring CFO’s for franchise restaurants. For example, do you have a job description with roles, responsibilities and short and long-term goals? This will allow you to know if a candidate meets your criteria for your business needs or not, which can only be a good thing once they start working for you. Taking the same approach with reviewing outsourced CFO services makes good sense and you have the added benefit of being able to contract CFO services “on-demand” as the business ebbs and flows.
4. Not Having a Trial Period
Even if you have found a CFO that meets your criteria for the position and it is justified with your business finances, make sure to have a trial period during which you can assess their knowledge and experience. This will serve you well in the future. You should do the same with outsourced CFO services.
At Global Shared Services, we would be more than willing to test the waters so you can make an informed decision about hiring our company.
We are confident of clearing your evaluation because we have some of the best talent and software in the world to provide CFO services. With us, you get high-performance, end-to-end virtual CFO services that you can trust. These services are delivered by a team of experienced professionals and tailored to the needs of your restaurant business. Outsourcing your franchise restaurant’s CFO functions to us will provide you with streamlined processes and the ability to scale through operational efficiencies