Your leadership is holding you back

How the solution led to £5 million investment

Author

Matteo Turi
January 08, 2025

Welcome, Business owners,

This is Matteo, your personal CFO. 

This year, my resolution is to make you financially savvy and strategically smart and I take my resolutions seriously!

So, let’s kick off your wealth-creation journey.

Don’t worry, this won’t be as long as your board meetings!

In this issue,  we’re tackling the hurdles every growing business faces. Here’s what we’ll cover:

  • The Cost of DIY Leadership.

  • Business is like football: You are the captain.

  • Growth Case Study: From Stagnation to a £5 Million Expansion.

If you’re new here, welcome! You’ve found the right corner of the internet for business and financial growth strategies. Ready to grow your business and increase valuation? 

Join us → we’re all Wealth Creators here. Subscribe to The Exponential Blueprint.

Over the years, I have observed if there’s one thing every business owner loves dearly…. it’s GROWTH.

You see the revenue climbing, the team expanding, and the upward curve everyone dreams about, but what next?

❝

HERE’S A FACT:

70% of scale-ups (growing businesses) plateau or collapse because their leadership can't keep up with the growth.

This stage requires a different leadership structure.

Most businesses plateau because the founder is the CHIEF of everything. We call it the...

The Cost of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Leadership

You can’t be the CFO, COO, and HR head all at once. This DIY approach leads to predictable, and dangerous problems:

1.  Financial Missteps

The sales are growing but the business isn’t making any money.

Ask Yourself: Is the business optimized to grow or to burn cash inefficiently?

2. Operational Chaos

Your organizational structures can’t handle the speed and change that growth demands.

Ask Yourself: Is your business running smoothly, or are inefficiencies piling up?

3. Talent Drain

Without clear direction, your best employees lose faith—and leave.

Ask Yourself: Are your best people leaving because they don’t see a clear future?

This isn’t just a business problem. It’s a leadership crisis. 

But the good news is it doesn’t have to be this way.

Business is like football: You are the captain.

In every growth phase, your role as a founder changes. 

You need to stop playing solo and start building a dream team.

Success comes from placing the right players in the right positions in football.

Here are the top 3 positions you need to recruit for to create a winning lineup:

1. Goal Scorer aka The Sales Director

This is the leader in attack, your star forward. 

This leader drives revenue, sells the business's produce, and ensures financial targets are hit. Because if you’re not scoring goals, you’re losing the game.

2. The Midfielder aka The Operations Director

This is the leader in producing results. The engine of the team.

This leader makes sure the goal scorer gets what the company produces. It’s their job to translate your sales strategy into efficient execution and seamless operations.

3. Goalkeeper aka The Finance Director

This is the leader in defense. 

This leader protects cash flow, manages risks, and keeps the business financially stable to fund future wins.

As the captain, your job isn’t to play every position—it’s to direct the play strategically.

Equip your leaders with the autonomy and plans to make decisions independently.

This isn’t an expense; it’s an investment in your business’s future success.

Let me share a story highlighting the power of strategic leadership.

From Stagnation to a £5 Million Expansion

Background: As a fractional CFO, I joined a company that had raised only £500,000 in 10 years and was looking to expand into the US market.

Surprisingly, I got this role via LinkedIn. I applied, interviewed, and got in. (no idea, how!)

The business was growing, sales were up, but profits weren’t following. They needed capital to scale.

The Opportunity: I was actively sharing insights about the company on LinkedIn when an investor reached out with a potential interest of £5 million investment.

The challenge: The company was forecasted to be loss-making for two years—a high-risk scenario. 

The board was skeptical, and not convinced. But we pushed forward and executed the deal.

The Result: The business initially lost money as planned. But, after one year, the expansion paid off—the company became highly profitable.

Your business is growing, sure. But….

Are you setting the stage for sustainable success?

Act wisely. That’s all for today.

In the next issue, I’ll talk about business valuation and how to prepare for an exit. 

If you’ve been putting off your exit strategy, now’s the time to join us so you don’t miss out.

Matteo Turi, 
Your Personal CFO

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