The Advice That Made Me Feel Almost Embarrassed to Give

Last week Alex Moscow asked me a question during an interview:

"If you could give founders ONE tip to get more clarity on their financials, what would it be?"

I paused.

Not because I didn't know the answer. Because I knew the answer was so simple it almost feels dumb to say out loud.

Here it is:

Have one monthly meeting with your accountant.

That's it.

I've spent 20 years in corporate finance. Closed +$1B in deals as an executive at GE. Now I coach founders scaling from $1M to $10M.

And the single most powerful financial habit I've seen? A 60-minute meeting. Once a month. With your financial team.

Here's why this "embarrassingly simple" advice is actually the thing most founders are missing:

Most entrepreneurs treat their accountant like a necessary evil.

They hand off receipts.

They dread tax season.

They glance at reports they don't fully understand.

Then they wonder why they're always stressed about cash, why growth feels harder than it should, why they can't seem to find the profit that should be there.

The problem isn't their accountant. The problem is treating a strategic relationship like a transactional one.

When founders commit to a structured monthly financial meeting, something shifts:

→ Within 30 days, they spot profit leaks they didn't know existed.

→ Within 90 days, they're making faster decisions with actual confidence.

→ Within 6 months, they can predict cash flow instead of being surprised by it.

→ Within 12 months, they're operating with CFO-level intelligence—even without a CFO.

I've seen this pattern dozens of times. The founders who scale sustainably all share one trait:

They know their numbers cold.

Not because they're "finance people." whatever that means....

But, because they learned that financial intelligence is the foundation everything else is built on. It's the love language of money.

Think about it for 10 seconds...

But here's the thing, just showing up to a meeting isn't enough.

Most financial meetings are rambling, reactive, and end without action.

That's not a meeting.

That's an expensive conversation.

The difference is structure:

• What reports to request before the meeting

• How to structure the 60 minutes

• Which questions actually unlock hidden profit

• How to leave with clear action items every time

I wrote a full breakdown of the Monthly Money Meeting framework—the exact system I teach my clients.

If you want to find the $50K-$200K that's hiding in your business, this is where you start.

Read the full article here:

Sometimes the most powerful advice sounds too simple to be true.

This is one of those times.

What's your biggest challenge when it comes to understanding your financials?