Tom Dillon, founder of Frak Finance, joins Craig Andrews to break down how smart financial leadership unlocks business growth. As a fractional CFO, Tom helps companies escape the trap of gut-based decisions and start leading with data. He exposes the cost of common blind spots—like selling at a loss, underestimating hiring costs, or ignoring traction metrics.

Tom shows how predictable revenue isn’t a myth—it’s a method. From analyzing ROI on marketing channels to knowing when to hire ahead of growth, he explains how leaders can build confidence through numbers. He also tackles the tension between branding and financial metrics, arguing that long-term value often looks unpredictable in a spreadsheet but is crucial to sustained success.

Leadership, Tom says, is about accountability—not just managing costs but owning outcomes. His insights push leaders to stop hiding from the financials and start using them as tools to scale.

Want to learn more about Tom Dillon's work? Check out their website at https://www.frakfinance.com.

Connect with Tom Dillon on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-dillon-cfa/.

Key Points with Timestamps

• 00:01:12 – Introduction to Tom Dillon and his mission to simplify finance for business leaders

• 00:03:21 – Why many businesses unknowingly sell at a loss

• 00:04:45 – The gap between bookkeeping and strategic financial insight

• 00:05:34 – Gut got you here—data gets you there

• 00:06:30 – Why leaders avoid hiring early—and how to shift that mindset

• 00:07:30 – Predictability in revenue starts with tracking marketing KPIs

• 00:10:05 – Decoding ROAS: what business leaders should really measure

• 00:13:01 – The reality: most companies don’t budget or forecast

• 00:16:28 – Scarcity vs. abundance: mindset differences in financial leadership

• 00:19:02 – Defending branding spend in a data-obsessed environment

• 00:21:35 – Branding drives trust and higher-margin sales—even if it’s hard to measure

• 00:25:28 – Tom’s top three financial moves for SMB leaders today

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment in my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on this show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;12;04
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Tom Dillon. He is the founder of Frak Finance. I is a fractional CFO who helps growth stage companies scale smartly. As mission is to demystify complex financial concepts so you can empower entrepreneurs, business owners and business leaders.

00;01;12;04 - 00;01;21;16
Craig Andrews
He wants executives to make more confident, informed decisions to fuel long term success. And we're going to talk about a number of things.

00;01;21;16 - 00;01;40;20
Craig Andrews
But, you know, I was talking to a business owner yesterday, and we went through some quick math and we realized he was losing money on his business. And that's why you need. He was losing money on a particular thing he was selling. And that's why you need people like Tom in your life. So listen up. I think Tom's going to bring the heat.

00;01;40;26 - 00;01;42;26
Craig Andrews
Tom, welcome.

00;01;42;28 - 00;01;45;13
Tom Dillon
Happy to be here, Craig. Thanks for having us.

00;01;45;16 - 00;01;49;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You know, on that thing, I mean, I was I was,

00;01;49;11 - 00;02;06;24
Craig Andrews
you know, I was talking to somebody, and they mentioned their business, and they were doing something, and it was they were basically they were a subcontractor of a larger firm. I'm not going to get too many details. So, you know, don't don't want folks connecting the dots necessarily.

00;02;06;24 - 00;02;17;07
Craig Andrews
But he told me what they were. He was getting paid to do this one service. So I'm thinking, wow, that sounds cheap. And so I started asking him, like how much? How much?

00;02;17;07 - 00;02;30;01
Craig Andrews
When this happens, tell me what your employees are doing. And he kind of mapped it out, and the whole process was like 30 minutes for his employees to deliver the service.

00;02;30;03 - 00;02;45;03
Craig Andrews
He was he was getting paid $12.50 for that service. And I asked him, I was like, how much for you? How much do you pay your employees? And it's like, oh, 20 to $26 an hour. I'm like, I think you're losing money.

00;02;45;06 - 00;02;49;24
Tom Dillon
Yeah. The unique and Amex do not check out on that one. That's,

00;02;49;24 - 00;02;53;11
Tom Dillon
that's a quick, easy one.

00;02;53;13 - 00;03;18;26
Craig Andrews
Well, and what's what's interesting was he went through all sorts of reasons why that was an important part of his business. None of them made sense to me. But I'm sure you run into this all the time when you're dealing with clients. I mean, what do you see? What are some examples of things that you've seen where you go in and you see some guy's business and you're like, dude, you what you're doing here is it's not helping you.

00;03;18;26 - 00;03;21;01
Craig Andrews
It's hurting you.

00;03;21;03 - 00;03;21;19
Tom Dillon
Yeah.

00;03;21;19 - 00;03;33;14
Tom Dillon
The interesting part is a lot of times these business owners don't even know they might have someone that is handling the product. And in order to win a bid, you know, they they've lowered their price below,

00;03;33;14 - 00;03;47;20
Tom Dillon
a profitable margin. And so just doing a quick scan of, of kind of product margin and what the contribution margin per service or product or whatever they might be offering, depending on the business, you're going to quickly see that,

00;03;47;20 - 00;03;58;11
Tom Dillon
there's a lot of businesses out there that are they might, might think it's a loss leader, but when you really get down to brass tacks, it's it's not they're just losing money because they wanted to to

00;03;58;11 - 00;04;00;05
Tom Dillon
win the bid. And

00;04;00;05 - 00;04;15;04
Tom Dillon
and for whatever reason, I don't think they've ever run through the actual unit economics of that client or that product or that service line. And, you'd be amazed at how many companies are operating at a loss on a lot of their services or products.

00;04;15;07 - 00;04;45;03
Craig Andrews
Well, and it can be confusing. You know, I remember once asking my, my bookkeeper, how much does it cost for me to hire an employee? You know, when I bring somebody in. What's my cost? And and I never got an answer. Now I probably was asking the wrong person was asking a bookkeeper, not a fractional CFO. But I have a feeling that a lot of business owners don't know that answer.

00;04;45;05 - 00;04;54;01
Tom Dillon
I think there's a lot of business owners that need help, probably with resource allocation or resource management, meaning you know when to hire,

00;04;54;01 - 00;05;08;14
Tom Dillon
where to, you know, double down in certain traction channels for their marketing spend. A lot of them don't even know the KPIs or what their best channel is. And so I think ultimately, you know, they don't have time.

00;05;08;16 - 00;05;34;26
Tom Dillon
A lot of the business owners, they're they're focused in on the thing that got them to where they are today and a way that a lot of business owners get their is through gut and grit. And so at some point, you're no longer in this void, this vacuum of no data making decisions, growing, building the business. You start to find yourself sitting in a lot of data, but it's not what got you there.

00;05;34;28 - 00;05;46;04
Tom Dillon
And the problem is, I think a lot of business owners don't realize that to get to that next stage, they're going to have to start relying on it because it's it's what's going to get them there to that next phase.

00;05;46;06 - 00;05;48;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;05;48;15 - 00;06;00;03
Craig Andrews
What? What what puts them in that position? I mean, so, you know, you say a lot of people, they they get started, they have an idea, they get going with grit.

00;06;00;03 - 00;06;08;18
Craig Andrews
But then they linger in that place. I mean, they get that first sale, then they get the second sale, and then they start, you know, they start having some sales and,

00;06;11;14 - 00;06;30;14
Craig Andrews
And a lot of them, I think there's a little bit of a chicken and egg at least. You know, as I think about a few people I talked to, they're like, well, I can't afford to hire some more horsepower to help me figure this out. I need to make more money first.

00;06;30;17 - 00;06;31;07
Tom Dillon
Yep.

00;06;31;07 - 00;06;54;24
Tom Dillon
I hear that all the time. And I think what it comes down to is there's not enough decision making with real data to make a confident decision. Now, there is some gut and there's some grit. When you j curve a business, you start investing in it and you're hoping that you get the return. You know, you start losing money and then you're starting to come back up and you really,

00;06;54;24 - 00;06;58;23
Tom Dillon
you know, are hitting that inflection point, which is a wonderful feeling.

00;06;58;26 - 00;07;02;02
Tom Dillon
The problem is, is a lot of people don't know,

00;07;02;02 - 00;07;30;17
Tom Dillon
confidently, should I be making this decision? And ultimately it really revolves around a lot of the the data and predictability around it. So again, so think about it from this standpoint. We we like to try to tell, you know, people to always think about your revenue drivers and really look at the marketing funnel and your sales process and see if there's any predictability there.

00;07;30;19 - 00;07;50;01
Tom Dillon
And looking around what those KPIs tell you and saying, can we if we spend this money and do one of the hardest things in business, which is hire ahead of growth, scary. But if you're able to do it with some level of confidence, hey, we don't know for certain if we're going to get the same level of interest.

00;07;50;04 - 00;08;12;19
Tom Dillon
But if we if we look at this and we don't, we don't have the money. So what could we do? We oh, well, you could raise some capital, you could inject some of your own cash into the business to hit that next growth phase, or maybe you get a line of credit. Now, I tend to want to stay away from debt unless there's a lot of predictability around the performance of that business.

00;08;12;19 - 00;08;33;19
Tom Dillon
And that really starts at the top line around revenue. We know the costs. They're pretty predictable, but top line is is pretty scary. And so if we don't have a good a good grasp on what those are going to be and look at the data and the predictability around that in the future, it's impossible to make that decision confidently.

00;08;33;21 - 00;08;41;26
Craig Andrews
So help me with this predictability thing. I mean, in concept, okay, it makes great sense, but I'm looking at these numbers and I'm lost.

00;08;41;26 - 00;08;45;18
Craig Andrews
How do I know what's predictable? How do I know what's not predictable?

00;08;45;20 - 00;08;46;19
Tom Dillon
That's a good question.

00;08;46;19 - 00;09;08;03
Tom Dillon
So, I mean, everything, like everything, there's usually a range, but there's going to be a, you know, a fair average within that range. And there's seasonal components and everything. But the way that we think about it, and maybe this could be useful to, to some of the audience from a tactical standpoint will really look at what KPIs.

00;09;08;03 - 00;09;13;02
Tom Dillon
So think of let's use an example. I'll give a story and then an insight. So think about

00;09;13;02 - 00;09;40;01
Tom Dillon
an e-commerce business boutique women's fashion company. So we have a lot of different traction channels that you go down email marketing, SMS, Google ads, meta. Let's just pick meta. So when you pick one of these traction channels, Facebook or Instagram, there's a level of predictability around what that KPI on that marketing traction channel is going to be.

00;09;40;04 - 00;10;05;08
Tom Dillon
I spend X, I get Y industry average for e-commerce. They typically will say it's around for Roas, meaning, you know, acronyms are terrible for anyone. So we'll break that down. That's a return on ad spend. Yeah. And so if I put an ad out to the world on meta, I'm expecting to get a four return on that investment, which is a pretty good investment.

00;10;05;08 - 00;10;30;23
Tom Dillon
Now there's a lot of other costs associated with the product. The people servicing it, how it gets from A to B, but overall, that's what you should be looking to in terms of benchmarking against an industry. And so when I think about that, that's the predictability is what is ours. We're at a 3.78 okay. You know what's the range been 2.5 to 5.5.

00;10;30;25 - 00;10;52;04
Tom Dillon
And then our average is that you know it's called the 3.7. All right. So we're not far off. You know we're improving. We've you know we've seen the trend line. We're improving. We're starting to really hit our audience. That avatar that everyone's trying to figure out. Like who should I be sending these to? And you're hoping that, you know, Zuckerberg really has a the right algorithm to help you get there.

00;10;52;06 - 00;11;10;23
Tom Dillon
Yeah. And so that's what I mean by predictability. So you take one traction channel. You say this is my return on that spend. In order to get there we need to hire this person that's going to handle this channel or we're going to or handle I don't know, you know, whatever it might be, we need to hire another person for merchandizing.

00;11;10;25 - 00;11;27;05
Tom Dillon
And in order to get to this next level, or we need to hire someone for fulfillment. And in order to get to this next level, we need to spend. We need to hire someone and spend the marketing. That's scary. So I like to look at the predictability around that and say, all right, do we have any for one?

00;11;27;07 - 00;11;39;07
Tom Dillon
Do we have any predictability from our past data? And can we confidently or at least somewhat confidently say, we think we're going to get that same return and,

00;11;39;07 - 00;11;49;24
Tom Dillon
you just have to track it and you have to, you know, kill things that aren't working and fast, especially in the SMB world where, you know, cash is very sacred, you know?

00;11;49;24 - 00;11;51;05
Craig Andrews
So I'm a marketer, and I had,

00;11;51;05 - 00;12;16;00
Craig Andrews
I had a client come to me once and they said, hey, we what? Management's asking us what the budget for this item should be. And I said, well, for every dollar you spend in ads, you get $2 in revenue. And it was super high margin. It was it was for a newsletter or is for an electronic newsletter, you know, so to add one more person cost almost nothing.

00;12;16;03 - 00;12;38;15
Craig Andrews
You know, it was just the basic management cost. And so I just asked him, I said how much revenue do you want? How much profit do you want? You're like, we need a budget. I'm like, that's the wrong question. Sorry. If for every dollar you spend on ads, you get $2 in revenue. Now it's not that 4 in 4 x Roas, but

00;12;38;15 - 00;12;40;16
Craig Andrews
yeah, nevertheless it was positive.

00;12;40;16 - 00;12;59;25
Craig Andrews
I mean, it's like, you know, we can dial up the budget and you can get more profit wing dialed down the budget and get less profit. What do you want? Can you we need to tell the boss what our budget should be. It was so frustrating.

00;12;59;28 - 00;13;01;01
Tom Dillon
That's too funny.

00;13;01;01 - 00;13;21;15
Tom Dillon
Most businesses don't have a budget and most businesses don't have a forecast that I like. 80% of the ones that I've run into, and it's probably higher. It's more like 90. Don't. And so did that. It's so frustrating and it's so difficult. But then you realize, all right, this is this is why we're here.

00;13;21;15 - 00;13;32;07
Tom Dillon
We're we're the ones that are going to be a lot of a lot of times, you know, like people think about the finance, accounting people, but they're really delivering is accountability.

00;13;32;10 - 00;13;37;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. And it's it's important.

00;13;37;14 - 00;13;44;28
Craig Andrews
I mean, I'm not a fan of controllers because of I'll tell you a story. I mean, I'll tell I love that.

00;13;44;28 - 00;13;45;14
Tom Dillon
Yeah. Lay it.

00;13;45;14 - 00;13;46;27
Craig Andrews
On me.

00;13;46;27 - 00;13;58;05
Craig Andrews
So I was at a company and I had a capital acquisition to do, and it was about a quarter million dollars of capital equipment that I had to buy. And,

00;13;58;05 - 00;14;01;04
Craig Andrews
I reached out to,

00;14;01;04 - 00;14;07;15
Craig Andrews
you know, I was talking to the supplier, and we were going back and forth, and I said, hey, look, how about this?

00;14;07;15 - 00;14;26;09
Craig Andrews
I give you my shopping list and I give you a price target. If you hit that target, we're good. That's it. You know, and I don't care if you send us new equipment or, you know, because they all came with a warranty. You know, if you have a refurb, I really don't care. And,

00;14;26;09 - 00;14;38;04
Craig Andrews
and so I gave them my shopping list and they said they came back and pretty much everything on the list was new and it was 20% below list.

00;14;38;06 - 00;14;40;13
Craig Andrews
And I went and told the,

00;14;40;13 - 00;14;44;28
Craig Andrews
the CFO, who came from a controller background,

00;14;44;28 - 00;14;54;14
Craig Andrews
and she's like, go ask for more. I'm like, I'm not doing that. I just got a 20% discount. And we were a small company. We were startup,

00;14;54;14 - 00;15;01;14
Craig Andrews
you know, we were a startup. And so it's like, it's a miracle they did anything for us at all.

00;15;01;16 - 00;15;07;04
Craig Andrews
You know, I would have been happy with 5 or 10%. They gave us 20%. And,

00;15;07;04 - 00;15;16;15
Craig Andrews
and so that's mindset. I, you know, I see in controllers that whatever you spent, it's too much.

00;15;16;17 - 00;15;44;27
Tom Dillon
Yep. Yeah. Normally it's interesting because a lot of times CFOs get a bad rap that their cost cutters come in and they, you know, they they're cutting jobs. And a lot of times, yeah, you're right, the controllers are doing that. But I also think it's a mindset. Someone that has a scarcity mindset versus an abundance mindset. Yeah. And so we like we only hire people that have an abundance mindset or growth CFOs.

00;15;45;04 - 00;16;01;09
Tom Dillon
We only focus in on people that want to grow. And make sure you can come in and plug the buckets, or you can you can come back and say, Craig, we're going to we need to ask for more. We're not looking to build relationships here. We want to just really put the bolts to them and get the most out of.

00;16;01;11 - 00;16;04;24
Tom Dillon
But to me, that's just not the right way to go about it.

00;16;04;27 - 00;16;06;04
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah.

00;16;06;04 - 00;16;28;10
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And I didn't go back and ask for more, but I just couldn't believe it. The thing I've noticed. So I've dealt with a number of CFOs and I saw the difference I see is those that came up through the ranks as a controller have that scarcity mindset. Those who come from the investment side have that abundance mindset.

00;16;28;12 - 00;16;47;07
Craig Andrews
You tell them, you know, and kind comes back to, you know, Jack Walsh. When Jack Walsh would talk about budgeting, he said, it's all screwed up the way, you know, annual budgets are set up. It's it's totally screwed up. So I'll give you as much money as you want. You just tell me what I get for it. If I'm if I like what I get for that money, you can have it.

00;16;47;09 - 00;16;50;10
Craig Andrews
Now. I'm going to hold you accountable. That's where the accountability comes in.

00;16;50;17 - 00;16;53;29
Tom Dillon
That's right. I love the way that guy does business.

00;16;53;29 - 00;17;01;11
Tom Dillon
My old boss, when I worked at William Blair, the investment banking firm here in Chicago, he flew him out. Brandon Nobel,

00;17;01;11 - 00;17;10;09
Tom Dillon
he flew them out to his place in Florida. They sat down on his yacht. Mrs.. Brought out some gelato, and they they had a conversation on the boat.

00;17;10;11 - 00;17;26;16
Tom Dillon
They were in and out, and it was very efficient. Lovely guys that got exactly what, what they both wanted. And it was just, hey, I want to make sure that everything checks out and I want to do business with someone who's smart. I want to make sure that we are, you know, aligned in terms of our value system.

00;17;26;18 - 00;17;44;21
Tom Dillon
And as long as those things were aligned, that's all that he cared about, because he knew he was going to be working with someone that had integrity, that had, you know, the value system in place that ultimately was going to lead to the outcome he wanted. And so that resonates with everything that you just said. And,

00;17;44;21 - 00;17;46;22
Tom Dillon
I always found that fascinating.

00;17;46;25 - 00;17;53;24
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. So so let's go back to predictability.

00;17;53;24 - 00;17;58;15
Craig Andrews
And there's something that I run into.

00;17;58;15 - 00;18;15;07
Craig Andrews
Not as much because I prep my clients for it. But where I do get worried is when the numbers guys show up and if they're getting a little too intrusive. So one of the things that we do is we'll run branding ads.

00;18;15;10 - 00;18;42;05
Craig Andrews
You know, now we, we work with high ticket service businesses, so we don't run an branding ad to God and everybody. We don't advertise like Nike or your app or something like that. You know, we we have a very, very targeted audience that only that ad goes to. And, and they're really, really critical because they, they create the emotional bond in a lot of marketing is transactional.

00;18;42;07 - 00;18;45;17
Craig Andrews
Hey, here's my offer. Do you want it? You know,

00;18;45;17 - 00;19;02;07
Craig Andrews
and what we found is, at least in my experience, you not only do you sell more, but you sell more at higher margins when you can come in and create an emotional bond in there. And that's why we run the branding ads. But those things are like real buggers to track.

00;19;02;07 - 00;19;19;03
Craig Andrews
We can we can track about 50% of what our branding ads do. It's kind of like trying to measure the wind, you know, you can't see it, but you know it's there when you see the trees flapping. And so from a numbers perspective, how do you how do you manage that? If,

00;19;19;03 - 00;19;26;16
Craig Andrews
if I was working with one of your, one of your clients and you're looking over these numbers and you're like, what's Craig doing spending all this money on branding,

00;19;26;16 - 00;19;29;12
Craig Andrews
how would you process that?

00;19;29;14 - 00;19;55;08
Tom Dillon
You know, it's a great question. And branding brand advertising isn't necessarily something that you're going to have an immediate predictability around at something that's an investment, not the transaction. And so you can kind of think about it, you know, am I making a trade money for, you know, or expenses for revenue? And think of it like a day trader.

00;19;55;12 - 00;20;11;12
Tom Dillon
You know, they're actually they're in and out and it's a transaction. And there's people who are saying, hey, this is a long term hold, I'm going to make this investment. We don't know if it's going to be up or down near term, long term over the next ten years. We know this is great. This is going to be phenomenal.

00;20;11;12 - 00;20;41;29
Tom Dillon
There's the trends in the market. We're aligned there and we're already seeing. So what I do with those aspects because it is very difficult. And this resonates both with the early onset founders doing start ups as well as the established companies that are has a new competitor in town. I like to try to look at some of the micro traction metrics around, you know, well who's coming in and is there an ability to track and say, how did you hear about us?

00;20;42;02 - 00;20;59;01
Tom Dillon
And so some of those aspects around the branding investments can be helpful to know that you're at least you know, it's not a Northstar KPI type situation and key performance indicator, but you're at least able to put your finger, you know, into the wind and get a barometer on,

00;20;59;01 - 00;21;09;00
Tom Dillon
are we blowing in the right direction? And so I think for for us, you're right, you know, brand advertising and building that brand, it's extremely important.

00;21;09;02 - 00;21;35;07
Tom Dillon
It's it's very difficult to track in the near term. Long term. Yes. And a lot of times those those budgets get cut when they shouldn't. And that's part of that scarcity mindset. A lot of times you see marketing budgets get cut and they shouldn't. That's the time probably to double down because your competitors are and you can start to win the trust and earn the respect of of the customers, your clients that you're trying to win,

00;21;35;07 - 00;21;37;09
Tom Dillon
and build those relationships with.

00;21;37;12 - 00;21;54;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as an example, we had a, an account where we started running lead gen ads, and then as soon as we started running branding ads to a what we call a retargeting audience for that, the number of sales calls doubled.

00;21;54;08 - 00;21;55;06
Tom Dillon
I believe it.

00;21;55;09 - 00;22;01;05
Craig Andrews
And that's why, I mean, I you know, I can't see the wind, but I can see the trees blowing and,

00;22;01;05 - 00;22;11;05
Craig Andrews
and when we, you know, when we refresh the branding ads, we all of a sudden we just see these, you know, this little spike in activity and,

00;22;11;05 - 00;22;17;12
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, that's that's cool. I appreciate that perspective on that.

00;22;17;15 - 00;22;17;29
Craig Andrews
The,

00;22;17;29 - 00;22;26;21
Craig Andrews
And I'm going to shift here real quick. There's just something I was really curious about when I was looking up. So,

00;22;26;21 - 00;22;30;13
Craig Andrews
you live in Chicago? Your name is Dylan. That's Irish. Right?

00;22;30;16 - 00;22;31;22
Tom Dillon
Correct.

00;22;31;24 - 00;22;34;08
Craig Andrews
And you lived in Ireland?

00;22;34;11 - 00;22;38;06
Tom Dillon
I did, I'm surprised you know that.

00;22;38;08 - 00;22;39;23
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So,

00;22;39;23 - 00;22;44;28
Craig Andrews
you were doing an internship, but not like Dublin. You were on the other. You were ever on the Atlantic?

00;22;45;01 - 00;22;46;07
Tom Dillon
Yes, I was in,

00;22;46;07 - 00;22;49;01
Tom Dillon
it was Kragen and medical devices, actually,

00;22;49;01 - 00;22;53;24
Tom Dillon
I was through a connection here in Chicago of someone who,

00;22;53;24 - 00;23;04;17
Tom Dillon
had a very interesting guy who lived in, in Ireland growing up. Came here to go to Harvard and didn't like it. Dropped out, moved to Chicago, went to DePaul. And,

00;23;04;17 - 00;23;09;20
Tom Dillon
and so we've been family friends for a long time, a little bit given the name and, and all of that.

00;23;09;20 - 00;23;11;11
Tom Dillon
But they were from Fergana.

00;23;11;11 - 00;23;11;18
Tom Dillon
Or

00;23;11;18 - 00;23;24;03
Tom Dillon
Galway. Sorry. And ultimately was looking to get some exposure into the world of finance. He was good friends with the CFO over at that medical device company and was able to,

00;23;24;03 - 00;23;28;15
Tom Dillon
help me out and get an internship, and it was just a wonderful experience.

00;23;28;18 - 00;23;36;23
Craig Andrews
Wow. It looks like I mean, I looked a look at that. It looked like a big fishing area.

00;23;36;26 - 00;23;38;23
Tom Dillon
It's it's a it's we've got some,

00;23;38;23 - 00;23;41;23
Tom Dillon
the big things for me, there was, you know, you got,

00;23;41;23 - 00;23;43;01
Tom Dillon
some horse racing,

00;23;43;01 - 00;23;52;25
Tom Dillon
industry wise, it's a huge medical. They've got a whole medical campus of a bunch of different, companies that are over there. They've got a ton of facilities in the medical device.

00;23;52;25 - 00;23;54;16
Tom Dillon
Arena in in Galway there.

00;23;54;16 - 00;23;56;25
Tom Dillon
And then it's a huge college.

00;23;56;25 - 00;24;01;28
Tom Dillon
A lot of young, you know, vibrant town. They have a downtown part,

00;24;01;28 - 00;24;03;08
Tom Dillon
in, you know, that,

00;24;03;08 - 00;24;08;16
Tom Dillon
is constantly kind of booming. I think there was a bar called Lion's Head or something of that effect,

00;24;08;16 - 00;24;12;10
Tom Dillon
which was a ton of fun to go to. They've got this huge old organ that,

00;24;12;10 - 00;24;16;13
Tom Dillon
that they, that used to be part of a church.

00;24;16;16 - 00;24;39;13
Tom Dillon
And so they just have bands come in and rock out live music, and it's a ton of fun. It's a really wonderful place. When I was there, I was fortunate enough to be there when the Volvo Ocean Races were coming to Galway for the first time, and they had the beaches lined up of thousand bound fires to welcome them in, and as they were coming in, they were delayed with the storms there was at night.

00;24;39;13 - 00;24;59;24
Tom Dillon
And so they were coming into all of these bonfires on the beach, which is an incredible sight. We stayed up till like five in the morning, whatever time it was late to watch them come in. Yeah, it was really incredible. And and they had such a warm welcoming in Galway that they ended up having to finish because there are different points in the race, the finish, be there

00;24;59;24 - 00;25;02;23
Tom Dillon
years after because they had such a great time.

00;25;02;25 - 00;25;05;20
Tom Dillon
So yeah, it was beautiful place, beautiful people.

00;25;05;23 - 00;25;15;04
Craig Andrews
And for those that don't know, the Volvo is around the world race. Caesars, sailors that sailed basically from port to port. Yeah.

00;25;15;04 - 00;25;17;25
Craig Andrews
That must have been fascinating.

00;25;17;25 - 00;25;18;22
Craig Andrews
Well very cool.

00;25;18;22 - 00;25;25;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. I was just really intrigued by that. I wanted to ask about their. Well, we got to wrap up, but tell me,

00;25;25;15 - 00;25;28;19
Craig Andrews
What,

00;25;28;19 - 00;25;31;28
Craig Andrews
what recommendation would you make to businesses?

00;25;31;28 - 00;25;35;11
Craig Andrews
So for business owners that are listening, we have a lot of,

00;25;35;11 - 00;25;41;17
Craig Andrews
a lot of folks that are SMB, you know, maybe a little bit more on the medium size.

00;25;41;17 - 00;25;51;24
Craig Andrews
What are three things that you would recommend that they go ask their financial team, three things that they should do today before they go to bed.

00;25;51;27 - 00;25;53;15
Tom Dillon
Yeah. And I'm glad you didn't ask.

00;25;53;15 - 00;25;59;06
Tom Dillon
Ask or I'm glad you asked me about the Ireland stuff for that kind of an interesting little tidbit, because I, I know that

00;25;59;06 - 00;26;07;09
Tom Dillon
from the past, listening to some of your podcasts, you asked people for interesting stories. I thought I was going to have to share one I didn't really want to, but a time where I,

00;26;07;09 - 00;26;11;09
Tom Dillon
ended up finding myself in an after party with the machine.

00;26;11;12 - 00;26;13;05
Craig Andrews
Oh, wow.

00;26;13;07 - 00;26;16;15
Tom Dillon
Wow. That's good. We'll save that for another story, another time.

00;26;16;15 - 00;26;23;05
Tom Dillon
But in terms of let's see, in terms of the top three things for these business owners,

00;26;23;05 - 00;26;32;07
Tom Dillon
I think the biggest thing is, you know, what got you here isn't going to get you to the next stage. And so really having an understanding of,

00;26;32;07 - 00;26;43;09
Tom Dillon
not that you need to be a financial or accounting expert, but to stop pretending that it doesn't matter, I think is a one critical piece of advice that I can give.

00;26;43;11 - 00;27;11;18
Tom Dillon
And what I would do is I would first start really thinking about the predictability aspects that we talked about. And so number two would be look to try to build some level of top line forecast around your KPIs. Go back, figure out your marketing channel or traction channels or marketing different channels that you're bringing in clients customers with.

00;27;11;20 - 00;27;12;29
Tom Dillon
And ultimately,

00;27;12;29 - 00;27;19;22
Tom Dillon
start looking at that data, where they come in, how do they convert? Try to, you know, Google Funnels or whatever.

00;27;19;22 - 00;27;21;00
Tom Dillon
And ultimately,

00;27;21;00 - 00;27;36;00
Tom Dillon
from there, look at your sales process, find out where they're falling out. You got these type of funnel leads coming in, and then they're falling out. And look at the data around that and start tracking it and look at the past and try to predict the future and hold your team accountable for it.

00;27;36;02 - 00;27;53;12
Tom Dillon
So that would be the number number two. And then number three, just look at your pal on your variance. What I mean by that is if you can build a forecast and say, here's what we said we are going to do, and this is what we actually did, and have those little takeaways for each line item on the panel and say, well, what happened here?

00;27;53;14 - 00;28;05;05
Tom Dillon
And just use that as a learning tool. Those are like just so critical. I mean, that's everything that we do for the most part. Besides more of the strategic finance stuff, you can do it yourself.

00;28;05;05 - 00;28;10;02
Tom Dillon
But man, if you do those, you would be amazed at the insights that you'll garner.

00;28;10;04 - 00;28;13;13
Craig Andrews
That's awesome. More time. How can people reach you?

00;28;13;16 - 00;28;15;00
Tom Dillon
LinkedIn is a great way.

00;28;15;00 - 00;28;18;03
Tom Dillon
Apparently there's a trove of cool information there that you found.

00;28;18;03 - 00;28;18;23
Tom Dillon
And then,

00;28;18;23 - 00;28;21;08
Tom Dillon
also just our website for finance that's

00;28;21;08 - 00;28;23;26
Tom Dillon
free, aka finance.com.

00;28;23;29 - 00;28;27;05
Craig Andrews
Well that's awesome. Well, thanks for coming on. Leaders and Legacies.

00;28;27;08 - 00;28;32;05
Tom Dillon
It was a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

00;28;32;05 - 00;28;58;29
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;28;58;29 - 00;29;00;26
Craig Andrews
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00;29;00;28 - 00;29;24;08
Craig Andrews
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00;29;24;10 - 00;29;32;15
Craig Andrews
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00;29;32;15 - 00;31;34;18
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Ally's for me.com. Or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.