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Cool Careers in Accounting Ep. 15 - Building A Business: Insights from a Construction CFO with Joel Sisto
287 Plays1 month ago
Join Joel Sisto, CFO of IOC Construction, as he shares how he transformed a small construction business into a thriving midsized company. His career path proves that skilled financial professionals are valuable in any industry, which he emphasizes as encouragement for accountants to pursue positions in their areas of interest. Learn the importance of confidence in growing your career, and insights into enhancing efficiency and implementing new processes for greater business success.
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Transcript
Introduction to Joel Sisto and His Role
00:00:01
Speaker
you
00:00:09
Speaker
Here we are today, Spencer Payne with Becker and Cool Careers in Accounting. Guest today is Joel Sisto. And Joel, for those who are in the know in the accounting and finance world and understand all this niches and where people can play, where do you tell those folks of of kind of what you do in this great big finance and accounting world and what your title is in your business? and and And how do you tell those people what you do for a living?
00:00:33
Speaker
Sure. So I'm the CFO of IOC Construction. ah We're a general contractor in the western suburbs of Chicago. We range anywhere from about $20 million to $40 million a year in and construction work.
00:00:48
Speaker
ah We specialize in multifamily ah reconstruction. So that's roofing, siding, painting, build-outs. And then we also do a lot of work for healthcare. care So ah senior living facilities, things like that, apartment buildings downtown.
00:01:04
Speaker
We're kind of kind of all over Chicagoland.
Mission and Success at IOC Construction
00:01:07
Speaker
yeah my My role there as CFO ah over the last few years is really to take this company from a small business to a midsize company.
00:01:19
Speaker
And we'll kind of talk about over the course of this, I'm sure, what what that means in terms of systems we've had to replace and change and upgrade and roles we've had to add and change and replace and upgrade and and a lot of other fun things we've had to do over the last few years to kind of get this business from really a very successful, large ah mom and pop to kind of that that next level as a mid-sized business.
00:01:46
Speaker
yeah on On that note, to to tee that up, um maybe how do you know you're doing your job well or say over a you know a long time frame from now to three, five, seven years from now, what would you look back on and say, this is successful if we did X, Y, and z like what what what are you What are you there to do and how do you know if you're successful in that role?
00:02:06
Speaker
for For me, the the biggest thing is confidence. right so If my team and and and the rest of the company has confidence in what they're doing, then I know that I've done my job.
00:02:17
Speaker
So take a project manager, for example, right? They are basically handed a estimate for what they're allowed to spend on a job. And it's their role to take that thing from a piece of paper to, you know, physical roof on top of a building or multiple buildings, right?
00:02:35
Speaker
um If they go into that, unsure that the estimate's good, unsure that the tracking of the expenses is going to be good, unsure that the schedule can be adhered to.
00:02:46
Speaker
um It's not going to be a successful job for them. It's not going to be ah successful job for the client. And it's not going to be a you know, even if the job gets done the way it's supposed to be and the roof is great, it might not have that warm, fuzzy feeling of, you know, what you really hope for with a contractor.
00:03:03
Speaker
um If I do my job and the system works the way it's supposed to, that project manager walks in with confidence knowing that the estimate's right, knowing that the schedule can be adhered to, knowing that the the numbers that they're seeing are correct, that you know change orders if necessary are being applied correctly, the customer has a better experience.
Client Relationships and Challenges
00:03:23
Speaker
um so So for us, it's it's really about creating an environment where not just our employees, but our clients can have a very confident experience in what they're and and what they're seeing.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yep, awesome. And that sounds like, right, if if every job micro level, if that job and the next job and the next job, everyone walks into it with confidence, the end user client, your project manager, you, your team, et cetera, that this job we can do for this price, we can make this much. like There's a little bit of room maybe for a couple snafus because they always happen, but everyone walks in with confidence at that micro level on that particular job.
00:04:02
Speaker
You've done your job and and help us understand what what does that lead to? What is a year's worth and two years worth and three years worth of doing all those jobs well with confidence? where where does that Where do you hope that leads, especially with your earlier statement of taking this small business to more of a well-functioning medium-sized business?
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, for us, it's really about deepening relationships with with our clients. You know, when you think about roofers, you know, normally you think of like the single family guy who's got, you know, 50 salespeople and, you know, you meet somebody on Monday, the roof's on by Thursday, you know, insurance checks up to you by the following week and and you're out of there and you never talk to him again.
00:04:41
Speaker
um we're We're a little different. we We have very long term relationships with you know property management companies and the associations that we work with. We we perform you know routine maintenance for for a lot of these associations. So we we have very long relationships with these with with our clients.
00:04:59
Speaker
um And that... confidence in those jobs leads to ah deeper relationship, a better relationship that, you know, oh, hey, we need siding. Hey, let's call IOC. Oh, you know, our HVAC went out. They can call us. well We don't do HVAC, but hey, we'd be happy to, you know, source that for you and let let you know who we like.
00:05:17
Speaker
um Our goal is really to be the go-to company for anything that they need for their properties. And
00:05:30
Speaker
every time you deliver a quality product, the likelihood of them coming back to talk to you again, just goes through the roof, right? I mean, if you had if you had a great experience with a plumber in your house,
00:05:44
Speaker
the next time you need a plumber, you know, you're not even reaching, I almost said yellow pages. You're not, you're you're, you're, you're not going out to, you know, Google or Angie's list or, or, or reaching out on, you know, your local Facebook page for a recommendation. You're going, Hey, I'm calling, you know, Bill to come back over. Cause he's great plumber. He didn't screw me last time on, on pricing. He got it done when he said he was going to get it done.
00:06:07
Speaker
And, and, you know, every time you go back to him. So, um, But the flip side of that's true too, right? you have a bad experience, right? not Not only are you not using them again, but you're telling all your friends when they have yeah to never use them, right?
00:06:20
Speaker
yeah um And in contracting more so than than a lot of other businesses, one bad experience can can ruin an entire relationship.
00:06:32
Speaker
And because we deal with property management companies that branch down to all of the different associations, one bad relationship and an association can sour a lot of that, right? So we don't really have a margin for error when it comes to customer satisfaction.
Transitioning to a Mid-Sized Business
00:06:48
Speaker
um it Going from a small business to a mid-sized business, Personally, I think it's the hardest thing to do in business. Going from midsize to large, you're just doing more of what of what you've already done.
00:07:03
Speaker
Going from small to midsize, you're talking about a complete overhaul of processes, right? I mean, take accounts payable, right? In a small business, it's usually the spouse of the person who actually does the work,
00:07:20
Speaker
one of their friends or the spouse of somebody else who who's in the company that runs the accounting department, right? And HR and the office and fleet management and insurance and, right?
00:07:33
Speaker
um Going from that to a mid-sized business means that you actually need processes in place to do this stuff right. So AP stops being a manila folder on somebody's desk that may or may not be entered into a system that may or may not be recorded into a job.
00:07:48
Speaker
And now it becomes a real process. Oh, wait, this thing's got to get entered in before we pay it. This thing's got to get approved. you know ah I need to start managing cashflow.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah. And and at your earlier point, potentially, if it is a cost that needs to be allocated across four jobs, that it's allocated appropriately, at least so that you know, your costing across those jobs is accurate. So you can go back and give that project manager confidence in the cost estimate for the job that it's correct.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah. And it's so it's, it's very difficult to make that to make that leap from small to midsize business. And, you know, kind of going back to, you know, if I were to explain this to somebody in in the accounting field, kind of what I actually do,
00:08:29
Speaker
What I actually do is I'm helping a small business transition from
00:08:37
Speaker
ah mom and pop way of doing things. Now, they were very successful as a mom and pop. They grew this thing to $30 million, dollars yeah incredible you know just patching things as they came up. right But now to get it to that next level,
00:08:54
Speaker
You can't do it that way. And our our owners are very ah forward thinking. They understand that that there's there's value in creating these these repeatable processes and that there's value in creating a company where people have that confidence and doing things the right way.
00:09:12
Speaker
And it may mean that for a year, you have to shift down a little bit. right yeah yeah You got kind of go, hey, look, we're going to spend some money on some processes and we're going to spend some money on some software and we're going to add some people.
00:09:25
Speaker
And in order to get this thing repeatable, and now we're at this point where after, you know, it's been um almost five years, it'll be five years at the end of this year for me there.
00:09:38
Speaker
We're at this point where anything could walk through the door right now and we know we can do it. yeah And any amount of volume could come through the door right And we know we could do it.
00:09:48
Speaker
And that is a totally different place to be than in that that mom and pop world. um on On that note um of going from mom and pop to it sounds like the foundation has been laid to scale.
00:10:04
Speaker
and he Any horror stories or success stories as you look back on that five years that you'd particularly like to highlight of, you know, we went from that manila folder AP and we thought we would just transition to system X and it would take 30 days and it was actually 18 months of like any any particularly tough stuff things that were harder than you expected? yeah Any particular proud moments when something spit out and you're like, that finally works? like and So on on on both ends of that spectrum, anything stand out to you of things that were way harder than you thought were proudest moments where like, this finally, where we finally got there. This finally works.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, so when I came on, we we were actually four separate companies um because, you know, small business happens, and pop business happens this way, right? Where you need something so you implement a tool and then something else comes along and instead of adjusting the tool, you just add another tool and add another tool and add another tool.
00:10:56
Speaker
So we we actually had four separate entities that were on four separate instances of QuickBooks. got So we had a painting company, a roofing company, a so construction company, and then a shared services company that kind of sat over top of all of those.
00:11:10
Speaker
yeah And it's not unlikely that if you replace somebody's siding, you need to paint it. So The construction company would replace the siding and the roofing company would replace, you know, ah by where the gutters were. And then the painting company would come in at the end. So the construction company would hire the roofing company to hire the painting company. And there's transfer pricing and everything. Big mess. Right.
00:11:33
Speaker
So one of the one of the first things I did when I came in. As I said, look, we got ah we got to get to a point where we can automate the transfer pricing here because we need to understand what each of these companies are worth and then we can combine.
00:11:48
Speaker
it' So kind of they blew it up into this big thing. Let's bring it back down, simplify it and get it and get it right. um So as part of that first couple of years, we converted from four separate instances of QuickBooks to a software called Acumatica, ah which is...
00:12:07
Speaker
rapidly gaining in popularity in like the people that are currently using like Sage or Microsoft um or QuickBooks if online they're still on that.
00:12:18
Speaker
Acumatic is starting to move up in the ranks of of that that kind of software. We were one of the first, not first, we were one of the early construction companies that came onto their construction edition.
00:12:29
Speaker
And And through that, we automated all of the intercompany transactions. And that was like, win number one. Because we we'd get to the end of the year, we try to reconcile the books and it'd be like, none of this matches.
00:12:43
Speaker
yeah Because you'd enter in an invoice here, but you'd forget to enter it in on that instance of QuickBooks. yeah And really the biggest the biggest thing that I feel like I accomplished when it when it comes to like the accounting system is we combine these companies into a single entity.
00:12:59
Speaker
So going through that process of individually valuing four separate companies, getting them onto a unified accounting system, and then kind of that big moment where Behind the scenes, obviously, there was a lot of you know figuring out what each of these is worth. And of course, they all had different ownerships, percentages for all the different owners.
00:13:20
Speaker
So figuring out you know who who had what percentage of what equity and what company and what it was all worth. That moment when we finally smashed all those things together and that first month end close where I hit a button and there were no intercompany transactions was just like, okay,
Joel's Career Journey and Insights
00:13:39
Speaker
we did. like We did something cool here.
00:13:41
Speaker
And along with that came a lot of, you there were a million processes that had to happen in order for all of that to work. But that moment when that, when those four entities finally combined in that accounting system was just like, it was like the moon landing. It was, it was great.
00:13:57
Speaker
And what, going back to your, your main point of giving that project manager or that, that lead person who's got a new client, a new job, giving them confidence that, you They understand what their costs should be, that this data is accurate. Like ballpark, right? Like put myself in that person's shoes. What percent confidence do I have in my numbers four years ago before you did this to today? Do I go from, I don't trust anything you guys tell me to, if Joel says it, I know it's right. And I i i know we can we can do this job for X profit. And I know I can trust all the input caught. Like like but put myself in his shoes. What's his percent confidence gone from and to?
00:14:34
Speaker
yeah You know, before it was... um I don't even know that they had a percentage because I don't even know if they even thought about it. yeah I think it was just, Hey, like we can do this for 30 grand. Yeah. you what Not even that. Hey, you got to go put a roof on that, on that, uh, you know, condo complex over there and they would just go do it.
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, by the grace of God and, and, and some good, good upfront planning from some salespeople and some good estimators, um, you know, we, we made money along the way and and the prior, you know, 25, 30 years.
00:15:07
Speaker
um But now being able to see that stuff up front, you know, it, it allows you to do things that that that you couldn't do before. And now those guys are, you know, they're confident that what they see in the system is what really is, you know, there's not, there's not this multiple company,
00:15:27
Speaker
you know, horse trade that goes on anymore. It's really, um it's really what you see is what you get in the accounting system. And in construction, especially having, you know, concrete numbers that actually are what they are, is, is everything to those guys.
00:15:43
Speaker
And help us understand, how how did you end up in this small business world in the first place? So CFO of IOC Construction on this path of taking them from, again, a small business to a ah the ability to scale to a more medium-sized business going from, say, 20, 25 million in REV to, you know,
00:15:58
Speaker
I'm making up numbers, hopefully 40, 50, 60 and beyond. Yeah. How in the world did you find yourself in this position? Like going into small business, a $30 million dollars company doesn't even necessarily get on the on the realm of being audited by a big four accounting company. How did how do you how do you end up in this world?
00:16:15
Speaker
Well, I started in big four. So i ah we were both in the honors program at ah at Ohio State for accounting. And and the way that I tell it, and you can, you can correct me if you, if you felt it was different, but it felt like the big four came into our public or our honors accounting class and basically just said, who wants to work for Ernst and Young, raise your hand. Who wants to work for PwC, raise your hand.
00:16:42
Speaker
And and the goal was that you would walk away from your junior year there with basically four offers in hand from, from each of the big four. And you just kind of went wherever you wanted to go.
00:16:57
Speaker
So there wasn't really an option. It felt like that if I was going to be an accountant, I needed to get my CPA and I was going to go to public accounting. and I remember getting an offer from PwC and being like, all right, I made it.
00:17:11
Speaker
Like I did exactly what I was supposed to do. yep And now I'm going to go to, you know, I was originally going to go to New York and coming back and and and starting in Chicago. Um, you know, but Hey, I'm in the big city. I'm working for the, for a big four firm. I've got, you know, my, my big offer that, that at the time felt like a lot of money. Now it, now it doesn't feel like so much, but, uh,
00:17:34
Speaker
I remember going there and thinking like, all right, this is it. Like, I'm going to work for this big four firm. I'm to be there for three to five years. And then I'm going to, you know, parlay that into a high profile job or ah or a high ranking job at a Fortune 500 company.
00:17:53
Speaker
But that was the track, right? So that that was that was your mindset going in. And somehow you've ended up you've you've ended up in a very, very different world. So what what yeah happened? So what I found is that public accounting wasn't really for me yeah for for a lot of reasons.
00:18:10
Speaker
um One is i started in public accounting in 2009. And I was there in 08 for my winter internship.
00:18:22
Speaker
and then started, i guess, and and end of that year, 08. um And it was a little bit of a tough time in public accounting. In 08, there were a few things that happened ah at that time with you know housing crises and and some other things that caused a lot of people to leave public accounting.
00:18:42
Speaker
And it was a very hard time to be employed there because you were always in busy season. ah We had so many clients that had multiple, you know, that different year ends and in the first, you know, nine months that I was there that I was literally on busy season.
00:19:02
Speaker
ah from January through like July. Yeah. And it was just too much. I mean, I mean, at a certain point, you can't work that many hours for that long and expect to, you know, have it be sustainable. So it just, and even more than that, I didn't really like the work that I was just doing.
00:19:23
Speaker
I remember learning a lot of stuff in the last two years of accounting at Ohio State and getting into public accounting and going like, wait, I'm going back to like the first week of the first class.
00:19:36
Speaker
Like all I'm doing here is reconciliations and I'm doing tie outs on, you know, monster, you know, 10 Ks and 10 Qs. Like what? Like this is not, this is not what I thought this was going to be.
00:19:47
Speaker
And what really struck me though, was looking ahead five to seven years and seeing the seniors and the managers and the senior managers.
00:19:59
Speaker
And they were still miserable. At least might my perception of what they were doing was was I would be miserable if I was still doing that you know for that for that period of time. And seeing that, i I didn't see a path forward for me that that I thought would get me to a place where I'd be happy.
00:20:19
Speaker
And so I started looking elsewhere. um At the time, my dad was at a community bank and I got very sick at the time. He had stage four cancer, ah still alive, made it through.
00:20:36
Speaker
ah Don't know how, somehow it did. um And it was one of those situations where I i knew I didn't want to do public accounting. And i knew I wanted to go into private, you know, small, small business or smaller business.
00:20:53
Speaker
And with him being sick at the time, it was kind of one of these things where it said like, all right, you know, it makes sense for me to, to go to this, this community bank that he was at. So the offer that I was given to go to community bank, to go to this community bank was to be a teller.
00:21:09
Speaker
Okay. So I went from public accounting in the big city to being a $15 an hour bank teller in the Fox Valley of Illinois.
00:21:23
Speaker
um and and And sorry, i got like what what made you say yes to that? like Of all the things that you could have done next, like what is for someone listening, they're like why like, why would this person say yes to this? like why so i get there's a family There's some family, you know maybe emergency things going on, but yeah why why that? Why say yes to that?
00:21:44
Speaker
So the reason that I said yes to it was because
00:21:51
Speaker
small businesses are the path to gain experience. So in the first two years that I was at this community bank, I went from teller to banker to branch manager to accountant you know So i got to see a lot of different roles that I probably would have been it would not have been able to see kind of in the corporate world.
00:22:24
Speaker
yeah The other thing that small business gives you is an opportunity to move up quickly, but move up in a world where it actually means something to move up.
00:22:40
Speaker
so What I saw is that small businesses buy and sell all the time, right? And if you can position yourself the right way in a small business, you can be ah part of that transaction, even if you're not at the highest level.
00:23:05
Speaker
So one thing that this this bank did that I was at that was that I thought was really interesting was As you did meaningful projects, you would acquire stock options.
00:23:17
Speaker
Okay. Which really don't mean anything until the bank sells, right? Or until the the small business sells. And and um when when you joined, was that, I guess, was that part of the intention all along that you were on the same page with of like, hey, yes, Joel, we are trying, we're probably going to have an exit event in the next year.
00:23:35
Speaker
five to seven to 10 years. And yes, there is an opportunity to to gain some ownership. Was that was upfront kind of something that you walked into? um i don't think the plan was there to necessarily sell it at that time. It was still it was still relatively new. I think it started in like 04, 05.
00:23:50
Speaker
And this was 2009, 2010. But two thousand nine two thousand and ten um by
00:23:58
Speaker
having the opportunity to have that that level of of commitment from a company was something that I just didn't see in big big business. not Yes, you can get stock options if you go work for you know Bank of America. i and I'm sure that that's a thing. that you but um But in order to have that event happen,
00:24:20
Speaker
it it would need to be a pretty significant market move for a large corporation to to have have that happen. um But yeah, and in small business, it's you know the
00:24:32
Speaker
what I liked about it was that it gave me an opportunity to see a lot of different things. And they were this bank was was very specifically incentivizing people to take on roles that they otherwise wouldn't.
00:24:44
Speaker
So you know in the time that I was there, I got to do a ton of stuff that accountants typically don't get to do. like what So we did a tech conversion where we went from all of our servers were in-house and we went to the cloud. right but I don't know any public accounting person who would get to be on the team that would do that for a large corporation.
00:25:07
Speaker
right That's a specialized role that you have to be perfectly trained for. And it's small business. You got to do it. Somebody has to do it. um you know, we we redid all of our health insurance, right?
00:25:18
Speaker
I mean, as a 24-year-old twenty four year old you know, basic accountant, I was in the room for renegotiation of healthcare and I wasn't doing it, but I was in the room, you know, I was, I was a part of it.
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah. um You know, I got to get my, my any money laundering and ah bank secrecy act certifications, which meant that I got to do all the compliance work. So I got to see kind of the backend of, of banks, how, how that stuff works.
00:25:47
Speaker
The other thing that I got to see when I was there, is community banks are a little different than big banks in that they cater to the small businesses of the area that they're in.
00:25:58
Speaker
So what I got to see was all of the small businesses that people ignore. I got to see what those people are doing.
00:26:10
Speaker
And you know the reality is is that in every single town like across the country, There is an industrial park or a street that you've never driven down that is full of warehouses, garage bays, distribution centers, manufacturing plants, and every single one of those is a small business.
00:26:32
Speaker
Now, they may be doing 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 100, $250 million dollars worth of business, but it's owned by like two people. Yeah. Right? and And the overhead staff of those places are not...
00:26:48
Speaker
high-end accountant people. So you know the way that I say it is, is you know roofers are really, really good at putting roofs on buildings. They're not great at accounting, right?
00:27:00
Speaker
And there is a huge need for good accountants in every single one of these organizations. Because what's happening, and I i saw it probably 10 years ago, and now I see it more than I've ever seen The owners of these legacy businesses are aging out.
Opportunities in Small Businesses
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah. And the kids are not taking these things over. Yeah. So there's an entire generation of people who sent their kids off to school to go learn to be accountants and go learn to be finance people and go learn to be, you know, marketing and HR and all these.
00:27:37
Speaker
And now they're saying, hey, come on back to the family business. And they're going, no way. yeah I just spent the last four years in New York or, you know, or Columbus, or I just spent the last four years, you know, at at a cool university. I'm not coming back.
00:27:50
Speaker
No way. I'm not coming back to the the little podunk town that I grew up in. And These companies don't know what to do with themselves right now because they're not old enough to sell it and retire and move on.
00:28:03
Speaker
And they're not young enough to want to run it themselves. And they need they need quality accountants and and and finance people and organization organization organizational leaders to come in and take these things over for them.
00:28:17
Speaker
and and and the Because the kids aren't doing it. They don't want it anymore. So what i'm what I'm hearing, and correct me if i'm wrong, is for someone else to go down a similar path to the road that you went down.
00:28:28
Speaker
Today, the dynamics are, as you see them, because you still see many small businesses, and you saw a ton of them when you were at the building. drove down the street twice today. There you go. You drove down and saw those warehouses.
00:28:39
Speaker
um And ah a person today might not have to take the what seems like drastic step that you took of in Chicago, big four, fancy, fancy job title to was it $15 an hour? Is that what I recall? Fifteen bucks an hour. As a bank teller.
00:28:57
Speaker
um Anyway, it wasn't even full time. It wasn't even full time um to go then have the hopes of doing all the things that you did later. Like there there might be a faster, cleaner, not quite as big of a pay cutty type path for people to go do something similar today versus what you did.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah. And just, again, all over the news, by the way, of all kinds of people who are Wharton MBAs or Harvard MBAs, et cetera, who are going out and starting search funds, and they're out buying small businesses from folks who are retiring. right this yeah This is now becoming much more of a thing than it was 10, 15 years Yep.
00:29:33
Speaker
yep um And help us understand a little bit more than of all right, you're at the bank. yeah I would love to understand this one, like $15 an hour to start part-time. I don't know what pay cut that is, but it's got to be 50% or more, maybe 70 by the time. That's the good thing about public accounting is you can't spend your money. Your ticket isn't working. So it yeah it was just it was just accumulating while I was there. I couldn't i couldn't spend it yeah yeah no Like I said, you know, I had some family things going on at the time. And, yeah you know, my my my parents were gracious enough to allow me to move back into my childhood bedroom for a couple of years while well but we got it going. And my wife, well, fiance at the time was was very understanding of what I was what i was trying to do.
00:30:19
Speaker
And so it all it all kind of it all kind of worked out a little bit there for a couple of I would just say, how how did it work out? So at the community bank, like do you have any recollection of it took three years or six years to kind of get back up to a similar salary that was quote unquote market of maybe what you'd expect to make? yeah i mean And ultimately, did the bank sell? Did you earn stock options? like how did How did that story work out? Because obviously you're not there anymore. You're at IOC Construction. Right. So help help us understand the macro story there of the bank and going from $15 an hour part-time teller to what did that, lead what did that lead to?
00:30:55
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, it, it you know, within, within, about 18 months or two years, I was, I was kind of back where, where I was salary wise. Um, but I was, I was just the basic accountant there, you know, and, uh,
00:31:10
Speaker
the The good thing about small businesses is that you can you can do a lot ah if you want to do it. So whatever project is out there, you know you can raise your hand and be a part of as much as you want to.
00:31:24
Speaker
and And that's amazing and will give you unbelievable experience. you know the The flip side of that is in small businesses, sometimes you've got to wait for somebody to retire or die before you can move up in a position.
00:31:37
Speaker
Now I was fortunate enough that that the the bank that I was at was in a big growth period. So it wasn't it wasn't necessarily that I had to wait for somebody to retire to move up because as the thing kept growing, you know space kept being created where, oh, hey, we do need an assistant controller.
00:31:56
Speaker
you know So go hire an accountant to replace whatever you're doing. And now we need somebody on that. Like, oh, hey, we do need a real controller. So go ahead and promote that person. Let's go find somebody. So, yeah um you know, the the biggest takeaway that, you know, I really had from from that experience at the bank was,
00:32:17
Speaker
Finding a small business is great. Finding a small business whose intent is to grow is even better. and finding a small business who has intent to grow that will give you access to a lot of other markets is like the gold standard of of of career development.
00:32:36
Speaker
So when I was at the bank, you know that the company I'm at now was a client. a Right. So I got to kind of see behind the scenes at the bank, but I also got to see what all, what all these clients were doing Hey, I got to know, Hey, who who's, who's taking out loans for growth.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Who's paying them back? but That's what that's a big one. yeah um and And, you know, there was probably a set of maybe 10 or 15 companies that that I kind of walked away from that with, you know, in the back of my mind that that that I wanted to consider.
00:33:10
Speaker
um To get back to your question about how how this thing played out. So while I was at that bank, I did probably about. six or seven projects um that kind of got me in that pool of of of reward. In 2019, we sold that bank.
00:33:27
Speaker
um And it was a very, it was a good experience to go through that, to see what it takes to do, to be on the on the sell side ah that yeah that equation. Yeah.
00:33:41
Speaker
um it Good is probably the wrong word. It was a difficult experience, but a very enlightening experience to see the real world impact of what that does to some people.
00:33:53
Speaker
yeah And understanding that I think might be a good thing for a lot of people that are thinking about going into small businesses because you've got 100 families that depend on And when you sell, there may be 30 or 40 families that may need to figure something out, right? So there's I learned a lot through through that process.
00:34:15
Speaker
um So yeah, and end of 19, we sold. ah I had a soft landing from that because of you know kind of all the all the projects that I had done along the way.
00:34:29
Speaker
Um, and quite, quite a few employees did, you know, I mean, it was, it was, it it was a good experience for a lot of, for a lot of, a lot of employees and the people that stayed on with the ah company that, that was there. Um, you know, I still talk to them and they're all, they're all happy.
00:34:44
Speaker
Um,
00:34:48
Speaker
so yeah, I mean, so end 19 itself, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna take, take a little bit of time off here and you know, regroup. And my wife and I were, we had just bought some land and we were going to build a house.
00:35:03
Speaker
um And
00:35:08
Speaker
I figured, all right, March 1st of 2020, I'm going to start to get my resume together and go figure out what I want to do with my life. So, March 1st, 2020, I've got my resume. I i'd used some resources that we were that we were given as part of the sale to put that all together.
00:35:24
Speaker
The world has not shut down yet, but it's close. yet. But it's close. You start hearing about it. Yep. And you know basically for the next you know six to six-ish months, it was basically you know everything was shut down in the world, but also you know trying to get a job was... was almost a worthless endeavor at that time.
00:35:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, so just, just to just bear with me for a second. So now it's, it's beginning of COVID times. The bank has just sold. You've been there for almost 10 years, right? You've done a million little different roles there working on health insurance, anti-money laundering, bank teller to bank, to rising up to all these different roles. I'm assuming a very integral part in all the diligence efforts to go sell the bank.
00:36:09
Speaker
ye And so you've, you've, you've, You've seen a ton now in 10 years of small business of how a business actually operates, how it makes money, et cetera. Not to mention, you have now seen in this community 10
Joel's Role at IOC Construction
00:36:24
Speaker
years worth of small businesses growing who are taking out loans, paying them back, et cetera. So you already have a target list because of the yeah position that you were in of places that might be interesting of where to go next.
00:36:38
Speaker
um And one quick question, when the bank sells 10 years in, like like did that make up for the $15 an hour like upfront? like did this Did this end up being like, ah hey, like yeah, we're we're we're back in business. like Maybe i'm i'm I'm in a better place than I ever thought I would be out of this situation.
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah. yeah um I don't know. So had I stayed in public accounting and made partner. Yeah, yeah. i probably i probably would have been better off financially.
00:37:16
Speaker
Two things on that. One is i don't think everyone makes partner. I'm pretty sure. i don't know. In public accounting, I don't think you just stay there long enough until they- pretty sure the hit rate of new associates to partners at 100% is not the way that that business works. pretty sure. don't think that's how that works. Yeah. um
00:37:39
Speaker
If public accounting is for you, it is absolutely for you. And you will know probably within three to six months whether or not it's a thing you want to do. um If it's not for you, the chance that you are going to be successful there on a long enough time horizon to get to the top position there is probably pretty low.
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah. So as I would say, as is true with anything, right? If you're if you're in a role that you're just like, this is fine, but i'm not I'm not, this is not really where I want to be. The chance of you making it to the top rungs is going to be very low in any profession, if that's how you feel about it, right? so And it sounds like you dove into this small business world and were like, Andy Munderlaning, yes.
00:38:23
Speaker
Health insurance, don't know anything about it, yes. sounds like that was a world that just lit you up where every day you might raise your hand to something new. and You wanted to explore all the tentacles of what made a business operate. Yeah.
00:38:34
Speaker
And, you know, so, so had I stayed and been a partner, I probably would have been off better financially off than, than I was yeah at the time. So now all that to say, i don't know if I'd have been better off emotionally, socially, spiritually. i don't know. I mean, like, I don't know if the work-life balance would have been there.
00:39:01
Speaker
where I would have had all the things that I have now. Right. I mean, have three kids. I don't know if, I don't know if that would have been in the cards if I was still in public accounting, if if I would have gotten married when I got married, I, we may, you know, if I was, if I had just become a manager,
00:39:22
Speaker
I don't know if getting married and having kids is on the same time horizon. Yeah. Right. Um, I don't know if living in the community i mean that I'm in is, is, is, is in the cards there. Right. I'd probably be living downtown. You know, that's a whole different life.
00:39:35
Speaker
Um, So it's it's it's different. So even if even if the dollars aren't the same, I think I'm still ahead, if that makes sense. Yeah, it absolutely does.
00:39:47
Speaker
And now, so bank exits, going right into COVID times, you're you're about to get back out there. Then let's just lets be honest, there's a six-month hiatus where nothing really happened. yeah What's the story of how you ended up in this role that you're in right now? Especially, you gave us a little thread earlier that at the bank, you had already...
00:40:05
Speaker
seen how yeah the company that you're working with now, IOC Construction, works. There was some loans. So you you already knew something about them. So how did how did you end up there? What's the story of how that happened?
00:40:16
Speaker
So i we we were going for a walk. as if I just finished you know ah c Cloroxing my groceries and you know putting on you know my my rubber gloves to go to go for a walk. It was insane times at the time.
00:40:30
Speaker
and took the family for a walk. We went to a park and the CEO of the bank that, that had sold who had, he'd stayed on and and and gone, gone to the new, new organization um was walking down the street the other way. And this was like, you know one o'clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday, right? yeah Well, everybody's working from home. Nobody knows how to do it.
00:40:52
Speaker
Nobody knew how to do it yet. yeah So, ah so, you know, he was, he was on a walk and, you know, just said hi and said, Hey, you know, of curiosity, what are these three companies have going on?
00:41:03
Speaker
And it just so happened that ah ah there was a controller that was it that was at IOC that worked from home and and you know it wasn't quite working for him. It wasn't wasn't what he thought it was. He was kind of ready to retire anyway.
00:41:20
Speaker
And about you know a month or two before he had he resigned and they were kind of trying to figure it out. um And two weeks later, I started. Oh, wow. So it was, I mean, boom.
00:41:33
Speaker
And so you started you started it as controller at this company and then in four or five years have gone from controller to CFO. Is that correct? So I came in with really no title.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah. um So like I said, they they had just lost a controller and things were very you know very confusing for everybody, but especially at a company where they had just lost a controller and construction didn't stop.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Construction was, was essential and especially roofing is essential. Right. I mean, COVID doesn't care if your roof is leaking, right. You've got it. You got to fix it.
00:42:08
Speaker
So they had a lot going on and I didn't think it would have been responsible to come in with a title that if it didn't work out, I didn't want to leave them kind of out to dry.
00:42:21
Speaker
So yeah, so Basically what I told them was, hey, look, let me come in and see how things are operating.
00:42:33
Speaker
Let me take a look at how your accounting function is working and make sure that everything is kind of happening the way that I think it should. And if it is, we'll we'll move forward.
00:42:46
Speaker
And so I came on November 1st. By the end of January, i I was like, okay, hey, you know what? i've I've done my due diligence here. i' I've seen a couple of months, in month ends. I've been through a year end close with you.
00:43:01
Speaker
I have a roadmap for what we need to do to kind of get this place going. If you're in, I'm in, let's do this. And, you know, so I think I took that controller up. title maybe director of finance.
00:43:13
Speaker
We might've made up a title at some point there um to just kind of get me into that process. yeah um And then we did the four companies smash into one project.
00:43:24
Speaker
And then when that when that was done, then I said, all right, you know ah I'll take the CFO role. um you know if you'll if you'll If you'll have me, and they said they said, sure. so yeah and i want to highlight one more ah advantage right of those potentially thinking about small business, medium business as a result of this conversation. right is um a lot more things can be done kind of on a handshake or on a, yeah, bring bring me in for 90 days. Let's both test drive each other.
00:43:48
Speaker
like Here's the type of things I'll do. Here's the type of things you expect of me. yeah you know if If you feel like we want to move on, great. if you If you're like, it's not working out, Joel, say it. um well We'll all move on. If I say, hey, this also isn't what I thought it was going to be, we'll move on.
00:44:05
Speaker
no No harm, no foul. And there's just not necessarily the formal onboarding HR hiring process. right So the the point I'm making is in small business with that level of, especially if you're more established in your career, you're looking to find a really good fit.
00:44:20
Speaker
Like You can be wrong maybe four times in a year, right? Because there might be four companies that you do a 90 day trial run before you find the one where, oh, this is a great mutual fit.
00:44:31
Speaker
um yeah can take You can take a little more chances to then go find that one that one great yes, where it's just like, yeah, this is this is the one. um It's a lot harder to do that in in larger companies. so and And the beauty of it for, you know, ah I don't suspect that most people that'll listen to this are going to be applying for a CFO position.
00:44:50
Speaker
They're probably looking for a senior accountant, i you VP of finance level, yeah accounting manager, you know so something in that range.
00:45:01
Speaker
um What's neat about small business is how flat the corporate structure is. So you as, you know, even if you're going in as an accountant or as a, you know, an accounting manager or an assistant controller control kind of whatever, whatever level they, they, they want to put you at, you have access to everybody.
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, if, if you worked at bank of America, you're probably not going to get a lot of access to the CEO just because just Even if, you know, unless you're on the board or in the C-suite with them, you're probably not going to have a lot of face time with the CEO of Fortune 500 company.
00:45:44
Speaker
Small business, you deal with everyone every day. So your visibility up and down is is complete, right? I mean, you have visibility to absolutely every level and inside the organization. So, you know, I was i was in a meeting today with our head of sales, our head of safety, our head of HR, our warehouse manager, and two laborers, right? So think about the, the, the,
00:46:16
Speaker
um the amount of, you know, verticality in that meeting, right? The guy who's swinging the hammer was in the meeting with a CFO. Yeah. Right. So, so you have the ability at these, at these smaller organizations to see everything.
00:46:33
Speaker
And, As an accountant, it's really, really important that you understand what the work actually is. It's so easy at a large company to not actually think about the guy who's doing the work because it's a number and and there's so many levels in between you and and the person that's actually kind of down on the ground doing the work that they're a number on a spreadsheet.
00:47:01
Speaker
and not because And not because you're mean or unethical. It's just that you can't get visibility to 40,000 people. You can't. it's It's way too hard to do. But in a small company, you have visibility. I mean, I walk through the warehouse on my way in and my way out every single day.
00:47:18
Speaker
And I am talking to warehouse shop runners on a daily basis.
Leadership and Career Advice
00:47:24
Speaker
Right. And it's critical that, that I do that, not just because, you know, I want to be a, oh you know, open door, you know, come talk to me, whatever kind of, you know, executive, but it's important to me because that's how I can see what these people need.
00:47:40
Speaker
Right. So when they, when they say, Hey, the forklift is broken. Right. I don't have to talk to 10 different people to figure out how to get that thing fixed. I can go walk right. You know, the CFO is walking right by me. Hey, Joel, come here, take a look this.
00:47:55
Speaker
This forklift thing doesn't work the way that, you know, it it should. This, you know, the tires are all bald and we've had this thing for 25 years. what What should we do? How can we get this fixed? And it's like, well, let's just fix it.
00:48:08
Speaker
like Isn't that 10 times easier than you putting in a requisition form and going to your manager and him having to make a case to the... so I can see it. Let's just let's just fix the problem. and say yeah and you know And that's kind of where when you have that level of relationship with everyone in your organization...
00:48:30
Speaker
The credibility that you have with these people is so high that when you ask them to do something tough, yeah they know that you wouldn't ask them to do it unless it was really, really important. yeah And you know when we went from four QuickBooks processes and manila folders to a in-the-cloud ERP system that replaced not just for QuickBooks, but it also replaced our CRM and also replaced our materials ordering. It's, you know, it's in the process of replacing our, uh, our field, uh, uh, reporting and and management tools, you know, like, unless they trust me, I can't go to them and ask them to do this.
00:49:09
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and, and the number of conversations that I've had over the years where i say, look, you're going to, you're going to hate me. for like three months and then we're going to love it. And then, and then you're to love, but you're going to hate me for three months. And I'm okay with you hating me for three months.
00:49:23
Speaker
And, and you need to be okay with understanding that, and that when those three months are up, you're going to, you're going have everything you need. Yeah. and But if you don't have trust and credibility, like, it's you know it's It's another Six Sigma program that everybody ignores for for six months and then everybody forgets about it.
00:49:41
Speaker
but and you got And you got to deliver on that fact that at the end of those three months, they actually do love you because it's it's it made their job better, easier, faster, right gave them more confidence, right whatever whatever it is that that was intended to do.
00:49:53
Speaker
yeah You got to deliver on that. um Because yeah then there's a person who will you'll see in the morning, right? Maybe maybe Sharon Coffey, who's like, hey, boss, thing doesn't work yet. You're going to hear it. ah You're going to hear about it. Oh, you will hear it. if it yeah If it doesn't work the way that they think it should, you absolutely will hear it. 100%. But that's a good thing.
00:50:09
Speaker
You should be accountable. Exactly. A couple couple more quick hitter questions as we look to wrap up here. yeah One thing that I've noticed, like, I'm curious, what are some things that you have consistently done in your career that you just think seem to work really well? And you're surprised more people don't do those things. And if I may, it sounds like say yes to everything.
00:50:29
Speaker
Might be one of them. Even if you have no idea how to do it, just go learn. um But I don't want to put words in your mouth. That just seems like a theme here, but I'd love to hear your perspective on that. Say yes to everything, for sure. I mean, ah and and if you don't know how to do it, chances are the person who asked you to take over that role probably didn't know how to do it either.
00:50:49
Speaker
um But yeah, say yes to everything. ah My biggest philosophy when it comes to managing is hire good people, Give them the tools you need and get the hell out of the way.
00:51:02
Speaker
And if you can give people what they need and the right if you can give the right people the things that they need and get out of their way, they will... surprise and delight you at every turn, because that's all people want. It's all, it's all high right.
00:51:18
Speaker
All I wanted from our ownership was to hire somebody. Well, I think I'm, I think I'm pretty good at what I do. but I hope I am, but I just wanted them to hire somebody, give me the tools that I needed to be able to do the thing. And then just get out of the way.
00:51:29
Speaker
Just let, let me, let me tell you how I would do this yeah as, you know, the expert in this, in this thing. And, and by the way, when I didn't know how to solve a problem,
00:51:40
Speaker
I would go find somebody who you know potentially could solve it. I'd give them the tools they need and I'd get out of their way. yeah So you know I found that to be a pretty ah ah pretty successful recipe.
00:51:51
Speaker
Yeah. ah Yeah. To add a little bit of something I've seen is like that's a line on the North Star, right? of like we We both know this is where we're going, right? We're going from New York to Seattle, whatever. we're going here Here's the North Star.
00:52:03
Speaker
There might be a couple guardrails, right? Like you you can't fly private to go get there. There's a cost guardrail you have to keep in mind. Otherwise, I don't care if you go on this highway, that highway. like but Go there however you think best. You're the one who's doing the work, right? Right. A little bit of guardrail, alignment on the North Star, and freedom to operate. And a lot of people will surprise you to the upside if they have those things and trust that you're not going to come down on them if if if they ask you a question or if something goes wrong.
00:52:34
Speaker
A couple other quick ones. when did you like When did you knock out your CPA? And for those who are you know about to approach that, how would you recommend that they ah approach finishing that today? like Did you do that...
00:52:47
Speaker
ah while you were working part-time? you do that before you started? and And how would you recommend others knock that out? Yeah, I i did my CPA after I left public accounting. um i
00:53:00
Speaker
did, let's see, how did I do that? i I was working at at the bank. um I was full-time. um And then I did the, I did Becker prep um for it.
00:53:13
Speaker
And think I only to retake one. But i yeah So don't question, is it still the same? Is it still the same four modules right now that you have to do five?
00:53:24
Speaker
There's now there's four, but there is a new there's a new twist. There was a new test um called Evolution that came out last year. So now okay the old four sections, now some of that got combined into three and now there's an elective. So people can take one of these three new electives, like taxes, specialty elective.
00:53:41
Speaker
um So people can kind of choose one that's a little bit more in line with maybe the path that they're going to take and their level of expertise. Okay. All right. Cool. But yeah, i did I did Becker prep. It worked out swimmingly.
00:53:53
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. And ah if you could go back to that time of you know being in college, first year into the real world, um any knowing what you know now, any advice? If you were back in that honors accounting classroom, knowing what you know today, what advice might you go back now and give to yourself at that time?
00:54:09
Speaker
So what the advice that I would give to myself and anybody else is every company needs accountants. So whatever you love, there is a company that needs an accountant.
00:54:24
Speaker
So if you love golf, every golf course and every club manufacturer needs an accountant. And so does the PGA. And so does the PGA. yeah and you know And if you love cars, every single car company needs accounts and every you know leasing company needs accounts. and every you so What I've found to be a very successful recipe for for accountants is instead of trying to get an accounting job and then starting from there, start from what you love and find companies that do what you love and then work as an accountant in that field.
00:55:07
Speaker
That makes sense. Yeah, 100%. hundred percent I mean, again, every every business needs accounting finance help. And especially if you have that ethos of CPA, say yes to a whole lot of things, curiosity to go learn how that business works. Like there's There's no end to the paths of where you can go with that accounting background.
00:55:25
Speaker
yeah And on that note, knowing what you know now, would you still go down this accounting path in school, CPA route? um Because right now you're still doing accounting things, but you're also doing financial things, tech migration. Like this is way bigger than just kind of classical accounting.
00:55:41
Speaker
So knowing what you know now, would you still go down that path and recommend it for others? i Yeah. I mean, i I think accounting opens more doors than it closes. i So every company needs accountants, but having a CPA and being an accountant gives you a level of credibility that will allow you to go do a lot of other things.
00:55:59
Speaker
like if you can do If you can get your CPA, like you can probably figure out you know all of these other things. yeah um So having that having that distinction and going through um and accounting course and and thinking in that way,
00:56:15
Speaker
will get you to a place where you kind of do whatever you want. Yeah. Awesome. And anything else, last question that you think is valuable, fun, or interesting, or worth sharing with the audience, or maybe anything that you feel like is just so important that it's worthy of just restating a second time?
00:56:34
Speaker
Do what you love. That's really is is is what it comes down to. You know, I'm leaving public accounting, you know, at a time where, I didn't know how much time I had left with, with some family. Um, and now having a lot of time with, with that family, um, it's, it's too short not to do what you love, you know? So find, find a, an industry that you think is cool.
00:57:01
Speaker
Find people that are good people and just get in with them. And you will never be disappointed working with good, good people. Yep. Awesome. Thank you so much, Joel Sisto from big four to massive pay cut to $15 an hour, not in big time Chicago anymore, to 10 years at a small community bank, all kinds of different roles, helping that bank ultimately sell and then...
00:57:26
Speaker
parlaying that into working now as the CFO of one of the then bank's clients in this construction world, which obviously you genuinely enjoy and advise other folks to go find an industry that you love and go be the accountant in that industry, which sounds like exactly what you're doing. So Joel, a very cool career in accounting. Thanks so much for sharing with us.
00:57:46
Speaker
Thank Spence. OH. wait I-O.