B2B CFO | Scott Butler

"What keeps me going? Well at the end of the day it's the people, right? I mean, it's the reason we get up in the morning. If it's not family, it's friends. And if it's not friends, it's associates."

- Scott Butler | B2B CFO

This week's interview was with Scott Butler, who currently operates as a Certified Business Transition Expert with B2B CFO.

Scott has worked in accounting for 25+ years with some of the largest firms in the country. He also has a wonderful wife and son and nothing is more important to Scott than family.

Check out the transcript of our interview and the video below to learn more about the background of Scott Butler with B2B CFO!

Queen City Review Let's start with you. Are you from this local area?

Scott Butler [00:01:03] No, I'm not. I arrived here in 2006 and it was kind of a funny story of my wife. And I had been driving through Charlotte for a few years. I'm a St. Petersburg native, but grew up in Toronto and my wife is from Toronto. So we would take a trip down to to my hometown and then eventually became you know, we both lived there because Jackie went to law school down there that we would always pass through Charlotte. And we thought it was just a wonderful place when we were looking to start a family. That's kind of what we thought of. And that's when we came here. So. So we've been here since 2006.

Queen City Review And, why did you choose this line of business? Well you've done a few different things, right?

Scott Butler [00:01:47] Primarily I started life as a bookkeeper, accountant in the hospitality industry, restaurants and hotels. They call that or euphemistically the salt mines of accounting. You're kind of tucked away back somewhere. It's kind of the last thought when you plan out a space for your back office and it's usually under some stairs or something of that nature and next to a freezer. But those were good years. But certainly it helped me cut my teeth. I moved next into consulting when my wife to be wanted to go to law school, we had sort of relocated to St. Petersburg. There I found I was able to catch on with Anderson Consulting, which then became Accenture. And then that started my twenty, almost twenty five year career with them in that kind of work through various areas. But corporate development and transactions were kind of my bread and butter. And then naturally, I'd always been helping family and friends doing their own businesses. And and that's kind of more where I saw myself fitting in a post, you know, big consulting kind of world. And it really did with a young son, now I wanted to get back in my community. I mean, I knew the airport much better than I did my own area. So to me, it was very important to kind of get back to that. So when you have an opportunity to join the partnership with B2B CFO came along, it was something, you know, I'd done a lot of research on and I kind of felt like that really took a lot of boxes and take a lot more pleasure in my work life. So give me a little more balance at least. But we always strive for in consulting, but you can never get.

Queen City Review Absolutely. That's perfect, and leads into my next question: What made you decide to start your own business? I think you kind of briefly touched on it, but expand on that.

Scott Butler [00:03:51] Yeah, it was more of an overwhelming desire - I've always liked helping people and teaching people. So, if it wasn't going into education and essentially I feel like I still am getting to be able to be an educator, at least in what I do being an advisor. So to me, that was just kind of a natural fit. I was leery at the outset of of how I would approach the the sales aspect or getting clients. Fortunately, the philosophy that this partnership embraces is really much like, BNI that embraces the same philosophy of "givers gain." They use the psychology of reciprocity which has always been my natural tendency. I'd like to give more than I get. And it fills me with immense satisfaction. That's really what led me to do that on my own and get out of that rat race, right? I probably was putting two to three thousand hours a year and on the road quite a bit. And now I kind of get to pick my own clients. And it's always best when you work with your friends, right? Most ideal.

Queen City Review It's always so interesting to me to hear the answers to this kind of question because I feel like I generally get similar responses about wanting to spend more time with your family, wanting to do more with your community. Starting a business is a tough thing to do, so next question is, what really inspired you to keep it going as you're getting it off the ground?

Scott Butler [00:05:32] Well, at the end of the day, it's the people, right? I mean, it's the reason we get up in the morning. If it's not family, it's friends. And if it's not friends, it's associates. And that to me in all three of those things, really tight also together, especially when you're hanging out your own shingle because that it touches every part of your life. So if you've got clients that are having challenges, it's going to take you to jump back in and help them through that. And it feels like you're helping family members out.

Queen City Review Looking back, what would you say has been the most difficult challenge that you've had to face, whether it's in business or with the launch of your own business?

Scott Butler [00:06:17] It always the family ones come to the fore because they kind of test your mettle and in many different ways. But in terms of business - I studied philosophy in college and and then with that background, I take a little bit of a different approach when I approach things. So I like to think through things a little more so than generally other folks in the consulting world who do it, although that's really where you get paid for thinking. Right. But fortunately, it kind of worked out for me. But in terms of facing business challenges, it's, you know, just being able to get a broader perspective on a few different aspects and then start to work your way back into it. And I think, at least when I advise trying to get them, get the business owner out of the, you know, the sort of the urgent emergency thinking of things that maybe lead to poor decision making and help them gain a different perspective and able to reapproach. And then we can certainly then look at more effective ways that planning to address that challenge. You know, I find at least in my consulting life, it was always kind of getting the clients to a point of understanding between each party. It's setting the right expectations and then delivering on those expectations but also keeping the open communication channel along the way because stuff is going to change and then move sideways. So you've always kind of got to be ready to address those at a moment's notice.

Queen City Review It seems like you're the guiding angel on the shoulder of a business owner...

Scott Butler [00:08:10] I try to be! As I alluded to with my family and helping them through their business challenges, it's definitely feels much like that, trying to dissuade them from making a decision that may have a consequence down the road. And it just luckily for me, from my experience, being able to see sometimes where those things can go and advise from that perspective. At the end of the day, experience helps. The more you know, the better you'll do. Right. So it's staying on that education theme. 

Queen City Review Scott, what do you enjoy the most about the communities that your business takes care of?

Scott Butler [00:09:00] As I maybe said earlier on, the people that I get to work with, you know, they're passionate, especially private business owners. This is their their baby, so to speak. So it's kind of like something that's a part of their family. So ensuring that giving the proper respect to that and as well as making sure that you can advise them in a way that moves everyone to a successful outcome.

Queen City Review Let's say that a potential business owner has to pick between three different companies that provide a similar service to you. What would you say that makes you stand out to be the obvious choice?

Scott Butler [00:09:41] At the end of the day, it's going to come back to relationships and the more credibility you can build in that aspect of your interactions is going to go the farthest I mean, like at the end of day, we enjoy working with people we like and try to foster that as much as possible. And I think, using that philosophy, that psychology of reciprocity is being able to give yourself out first and and to help establish that credibility is what will distinguish you at the end of the day. Relationships are important. If that's not there, then, you know, you're kind of your advice is just kind of hitting that in the airwaves and it's not really going to land anywhere. And then if they don't make any decisions based on that and just keep going against that.. You know we don't need to work together. It's kind of like I would sooner cut ties with something that I see is not helping them because they're not doing anything that I'm advising, then they're just kind of wasting their money. And I don't want anybody to do that either. And I'll take the time to try to help them see some other way, if their philosophy kind of runs a different way. I've got a lot of other partners that are happy to step in and help them out. So I'll always find something better for them. At the end of the day, I just want to make sure it's better for them. 

Queen City Review Where do you see your business going forward in 2021 and beyond.

Scott Butler [00:11:21] We had a challenging year. I always see opportunity out of chaos or wherever we've got something that is stressing ourselves. So for me, I was fortunate enough to pick up clients during this odd year. It may have been that I've got to do some things like taking the business without getting paid. Right. So it's working with them, showing the forbearance, because I know it's going to turn around and I'm helping to turn them around. And so there will be something I know in the long run that will be beneficial. But going forward, it's just myself, I can't take on a lot of clients. So I kind of just keep juggling the pipeline that I've got. So in many respects, if I get more business, I may not personally be able to do it myself. But I've certainly got a a partnership I can lean on and and get somebody that would be the right fit for them and be able to carry them to the success I would have been able to do. And I have more bandwidth or more of me. Right. You know, if you could replicate yourself, that's certainly the the process we take. One client at a time. One relationship at a time... 

Queen City Review Thinking back, anything that you would have done differently to meet your goals faster?

Scott Butler [00:13:06] I might have chosen this a little earlier. My son's twelve now, so probably 10 of those years. I would have liked to be doing this in those ten years instead. But that would be the only thought I would have on that, because this is fun. You know, it's much more fun. I mean, certainly the people that I worked with in my corporate days, I enjoyed them as they were, but then being able to have hindsight, to be able to choose a different lens to look at that through is kind of like, oh, man, you know, I really did sacrifice a lot of things that I'm glad to be able to to enjoy them now. So, if it weren't for some of those trials and tribulations, I wouldn't see things the way I see them now. 

Queen City Review Any advice to anybody that's just getting started in business?.

Scott Butler [00:14:07] Putting yourself out there is just the most amazing thing. I mean, at the end of the day, I've always taken great pride in that it all hangs on you and your reputation. If you gain success in it just comes back to you much more forcefully.

Queen City Review That's about all the questions that I have. What else do you want people to know about Scott Butler, about B2B CFO?

Scott Butler [00:14:45] When we get engaged in kind of a part of that, establishing that credibility, I do like to get into and analyze the client's business. I provide a discovery analysis that takes their business benchmarked against similar businesses so that they can see where they sort of sit with some of the operational aspects of their business. And then I can chart out a game plan for them to do this on a complementary basis just to help them see maybe the bigger picture of things. There's a lot of times business owners get bogged down in sort of the minutia of the operations where they, in many cases take their eye off the ball, right? And the thing that was making their business great early on is certain to founder a little bit maybe. And this because of having to turn their attention away from what they did great and when they were early on. So those are the kinds of things that can help them sort of take their mind off, help them sleep at night, and then, part of our our mantra is, we have it in our tagline, "Cash: We help you get it." So it's taking the aspects of your business to making sure that is presentable in the way that people want to invest in you and invest in your business if it's generating capital or funding or of any nature for expansion or acquisitions, we get that into the right audience and then make sure that that's an easy decision for those lenders and or funding sources that can say, yeah, I want to invest in this business.