Insights

Abby June Richards is the founder of The CPG CFO, a fractional CFO firm helping emerging, better-for-you and sustainable CPG brands know their numbers and build businesses that last. She spent 15 years in operations before becoming a CPA, then nearly 7 years at RSM across audit, outsourced accounting, and tech implementation, before launching her own firm in 2023 focused exclusively on CPG brands in the $0-50M range. In this episode, Jack and Abby trace her path from being homeschooled as the oldest of six kids in South Texas (where she was literally running a ledger for a game of Little People) to watching her dad's engine-rebuilding business slowly fail, to finally taking the leap and starting her own firm with zero clients. She breaks down her CASH FIGHT framework for CPG cash flow, gets real about the fear and doubt in year one, and explains why she stayed locked into her niche even when easier work was on the table. Chapters: 0:00 Intro and the sophisticated vs scrappy question 3:09 Homeschooled in South Texas as the oldest of six 9:34 What The CPG CFO does for clients today 12:51 College, community college advocacy, and the CPA path 18:41 Early jobs, her dad's failed business, and the leap to starting her own firm 22:07 Zero clients and posting on LinkedIn for 600 days 24:22 Landing the first client and locking in her ICP 28:05 Cash flow, contracts, and the CASH FIGHT framework 35:30 Lightning round: scrappy habits and money mindset 37:25 Branding, the logo, and inside her home office The CPG CFO: https://www.thecpgcfo.com Abby's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbyjuner/ The CPG CFO on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecpgcfo/ The CPG CFO on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCPGCFO LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-tompkins/ Consulting: https://www.pineapplecf.com AI Analyst Product: https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalnj5yLU0ZH9y_tVl1J4ng

Russ Sorrells has bought, built, and sold six businesses, starting with a machine shop he ran out of his garage as a 21 year old with one electrical outlet and a rotary phase converter that sounded like it was going to take off. Today he is the founder of Beyond the Grind, a certified Pinnacle Business Guide who helps owners get out of the weeds so their teams can actually thrive. In this episode Russ traces the whole arc: riding along with his sales rep dad in the 80s, raking leaves and mowing lawns as his first hustle, welding a customer's coin die back together at 3am, buying a prosthetics company for a dollar, and eventually building the coaching practice he runs today. Jack and Russ dig into how many goals is too many, why "reality is undefeated," and what it actually takes to get owners to stop doing the thing that is sinking the ship. Chapters: 0:00 Welcome and the Purdue vs IU rivalry 1:06 Scrappy, sophisticated, or a hot mess 2:29 Small town Indiana roots 2:51 Riding shotgun with his sales rep dad 6:09 First hustle: raking leaves to a garage machine shop 23:09 The coin die disaster and the 3am weld 28:54 Buying a laundromat and a prosthetics company for a dollar 36:23 Lightning round: Star Wars figures and crock pot squirrel 46:52 Beyond the Grind today and where to find Russ Russ Sorrells: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russ-sorrells-001391b/ Jack Tompkins: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-tompkins/ Consulting: https://www.pineapplecf.com AI Analyst Product: https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalnj5yLU0ZH9y_tVl1J4ng

Most "AI reports" still aren't instant once you're managing dozens of clients. Pineapple Analyst fixes that. Build your dashboard once and roll it out to 200+ clients with one click, no rebuilding every month. Custom dashboards by client, without the manual work Spend your time perfecting the metrics that matter One click to roll out updates across your entire roster Clients actually check it before monthly reviews No more duplicating the same report over and over Try for free - https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/get-started / Learn more - https://pineappleanalyst.ai

Most accountants and advisors spend hours putting together a monthly report their clients never even open. Here's how to flip that into a dashboard clients actually use, and happily pay you more for. Pull all your client financials into one automated spot Build an AI analyst that understands the data it's looking at Roll out a dashboard so each client sees their own performance Turn that into a true advisory offer, not just reporting Charge 250 dollars a month on a platform that costs you 50 Some clients pay over 1,000 dollars a month for a great dashboard It's called Pineapple Analyst, and it's already built for you. Try for free - https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/get-started Learn more - https://pineappleanalyst.ai

If you're a fractional CFO using AI, you're probably three steps away from it feeling truly game-changing - and you're not alone. Most advisors hit the same wall: building one report and rolling it out to every client, giving clients their own login to see just their data, and pulling in more than financials in one spot. Build one report and share it across your entire client roster with a click Publish reports so clients log in and see only their own information See every client's data yourself while they only see theirs Link financial and non-financial data - forecasts, sales, marketing - in one spot Skip the manual rebuild-per-client workflow entirely Get these as default features, not a custom build Pineapple Analyst AI was built for exactly these gaps. Try it for free. Try for free - https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/get-started Learn more - https://pineappleanalyst.ai Questions - support@pineapplecf.com

Pulling one report across dozens of QuickBooks clients shouldn't eat your whole day - but it does. Here's what that actually looks like, and the faster way to get it done. Jack breaks down a real example: manually pulling the total bank accounts line item across 10 clients took 30 minutes. With 96 clients on the roster, that's a full day of work just for one report - and QuickBooks AI still only works one client at a time. In this video you'll see: The manual QuickBooks process for pulling one line item across multiple clients Where QuickBooks AI helps and where it still falls short for multi-client work Consolidated views in Pineapple Analyst showing every client's data in one place Line-by-line comparisons generated by AI from a single prompt Building one report and sharing it to every client with one click Why this problem shaped how Pineapple Analyst was built Try for free - https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/get-started Learn more - https://pineappleanalyst.ai Questions - support@pineapplecf.com

Ron Latz is the founder of LegalFenix, a fractional CMO and marketing advisory firm that works exclusively with law firms. After more than 15 years in legal marketing, including stints at FindLaw and Mockingbird Marketing, Ron built LegalFenix into a vendor-neutral shop that helps firms sort out what is actually working in their marketing and what is not. In this episode, Ron and Jack cover Ron's path from a metal band and umpiring Little League games in New Jersey to running a marketing consultancy built entirely around law firms. They dig into why Ron refuses to take referral fees, how his hiring process still ends with him flying out to meet every candidate in person, and the KPIs his team leans on to prove value to clients month after month. Along the way: dot-net domains, the credit card timing game, and eating cereal out of clean Tupperware. Chapters: 0:00 Welcome and the scrappy or sophisticated question 1:08 Growing up in New Jersey and an early love of hockey 3:31 Garage sales, fundraising calls, and a band in the emo days 7:42 What LegalFenix does for law firms today 8:47 Landing on legal marketing and staying vendor neutral 10:39 From Xerox to FindLaw to starting Athlete Consulting 14:30 Three name changes and finally landing on LegalFenix 16:35 Leaving agency life and going vendor neutral for good 27:01 Proving value to clients and the KPIs that matter 32:01 Scrappy versus sophisticated lightning round 43:40 Where to find LegalFenix and final thoughts LegalFenix website: https://legalfenix.com Ron Latz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlatz/ Jack Tompkins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-tompkins/ Pineapple Consulting Firm: https://www.pineapplecf.com Pineapple Analyst AI: https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalnj5yLU0ZH9y_tVl1J4ng

Katie Bedford spent seven years as an aerospace engineer building space robotics before pivoting through digital agencies, project management, and five years as a fractional COO to land where she is today: a strategic advisor and thinking partner for agency leaders. She's the founder of K Bedford Consulting in Vancouver, and her whole approach is built on giving business owners the honest, unbiased conversation they can't get from anyone else on their team. In this episode, Katie and Jack dig into how an engineering brain wired for risk and rigorous logic became the perfect training ground for advisory work, why so many small businesses mistitle their staff, the real difference between AI-as-pattern-finder and AI-as-judgment-maker, and the emotional weight of helping leaders make the calls they already know they need to make. Katie also shares two tools she built herself using AI (a custom CRM and a cash flow forecaster) and makes a genuinely useful case for why chasing AI tools without a centralized dataset is putting the cart before the horse. Chapters: 0:00 Scrappy or sophisticated: Katie's answer 1:29 Cinder blocks, jewelry, and Katie's non-entrepreneurial roots 4:13 What a thinking partner actually does 7:33 How the advisory relationship gets structured 9:41 Why small companies over-title their people 13:40 From grade one space obsession to aerospace engineer 14:41 NASA, the Canada Arm, and getting the "get out of jail free" layoff 16:43 The pivot into agency life and finding the thinking partner niche 20:36 Where AI actually helps (and where it can't) 24:04 Building her own CRM and cash flow tool with AI 27:23 The overbuilt website and the box of unused business cards 29:20 Her one scrappy money story: fighting for a business credit card 34:02 The Steve Martin mindset and Katie's rotating hobbies 36:08 Broadening her niche beyond digital agencies 43:09 The Thinking Partner ROI calculator Katie Bedford: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-bedford/ Jack Tompkins: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-tompkins/ Consulting: https://www.pineapplecf.com AI Analyst Product: https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalnj5yLU0ZH9y_tVl1J4ng