Jordan Bucker (00:00)
As your CPG brand grows, the problems often get more complicated. You need better systems, stronger financial decisions, and sharper strategy, and people who have actually navigated these challenges before. But does that mean you need to go out and hire a full-time executive? Not necessarily, and usually that doesn't always work out.

So today I'm joined by three fractional CPG leaders, Beth with S3 Connect Solutions, which Rich with Atomos and Rachel with Severo Consulting They represent a much larger informal community that Beth is building out, which brings together cross functional, fractional CPG leaders from across the US. The group supports one another across areas of expertise and helps connect growing brands with the right experience fractional leaders for when and where they need it. So today I really

want to unpack what it means to hire a fractional CMO, CFO, or COO and how to integrate those within your brand. Beth, Rich, Rachel, welcome to the podcast.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (00:59)
Thank you. Thanks us.

Beth Brown (00:59)
Thank you.

Jordan Bucker (01:00)
So love to do just a couple introductions to help set the context. And Beth, maybe you can start and just give a quick overview of what your business does.

Beth Brown (01:08)
Sure. Thanks for having us. basically I help growing food and beverage brands build their processes, their planning and partnerships within their operations and supply chain areas to get them ready for scale and continued growth.

Jordan Bucker (01:24)
Excellent. And Rich, how about you?

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (01:26)
Thanks, thanks for having me, Jordan. I'm Rich Rodriguez Maya, I lead Atomos, which is a fractional CMO and strategic marketing consultancy backed by big CPG veterans. So we help brands and founders with their marketing, whether it's just a short project of a what we call a strategy sprint, open and close packaging refresh perhaps, all the way through servicing fractional CMO.

So clients between early like pre-revenue all the way through fifty-sixty million dollars. So you know it's happy to be here and yep.

Jordan Bucker (01:56)
Excellent. And Rachel, how about you?

Rachel Severo (01:57)
Hey Jordan, thanks for having us. I'm Rachel Severo and I act as a fractional CFO for emerging CPG brands, helping them understand their underlying business to performance and with capital planning.

Jordan Bucker (02:10)
Awesome.

Thanks so much for being here everyone. Excited to get into it. So Beth, we'll start with you with our first question, because I really am curious of you know, why would a founder bring in a fractional C suite leader instead of continuing to figure things out themselves or hiring someone full time?

Beth Brown (02:28)
Sure.

So it's not necessarily that you're thinking about bringing in a fractional exec. It's more about that you you need some help with leadership or you need some help making better decisions faster, or you're trying to avoid making those mistakes that you know you don't have maybe capability or background in a certain functional area, whether it's marketing or finance or your operations. So

We think of it, and I sort of speak for for racial and rich, but we've talked through this number of times that it's really about just trying to bring somebody in to help. And sometimes it's just about what stage you're at and what pain point you're having at the moment.

Jordan Bucker (03:10)
Yeah, I think that's key. You know, one thing that I often see is that founders who are getting into this for the first time that don't come from the CPG world have a underst a vision that like one person or a few people should be doing everything, but that's not necessarily the right approach as you start to grow. And so Rich, I know you had and your team has experience within larger CPG brands. Like what really is the role of a higher level leader and what

value are they bringing into the conversation that maybe someone who's like doing the day-to-day creation and execution isn't really seeing or thinking about.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (03:45)
Yeah, fantastic question. I think that what we bring is the the flight hours. my whole team comes from big CPG where it's

Mondeleese, PepsiCo, Free Delay, Colgate Palm Olive, et cetera. And we've been in the rooms, we faced the challenges. and when you come to a fractional, you're you're mitigating risk, right? Because we've collectively, and if by always say if if we don't know it, if we haven't faced a problem somebody in our company has or in our in our network has. So you know, just like Beth and Rachel and I collaborate, we

We have the that network to help a founder solve problems that they might not necessarily know even where to begin. and you know, we've lived a lot, so we've seen a lot of it.

Jordan Bucker (04:23)
Yeah, I think that is that's key, just having that outside perspective. So that, you know, as a founder I always say like a of times you're solving problems for what feels like the first time when in reality thousands of other people have already solved those problems or seen different approaches. And not that there's one way, but they know like, okay, maybe there's four key ways that you can approach it and you can decide which one's right for your brand, or if something else you can decide if there's another approach. So I think that's key. And then Rachel, you work in the financial world, you know, it's I always see a lot of brands

They're like managing their internal financials themselves. Maybe they have a bookkeeper, maybe an accountant, but what are they kind of lacking without having someone in like a CFO type role?

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (05:03)
Doing them yet.

Rachel Severo (05:04)
terms

of what they're lacking, it's the time. And you know, I I don't think a lot of founders and CEOs get into CPG because they love finance and you know really want to explore that part of the business. But it is integral to developing a company that has legs. So it requires time and it requires, you know, building the correct reports, the correct models, the correct forecasts. So

what I, you know, often see with clients is I step into, you know, this fractional role. I'm able to show them, you know, as Rich was saying, show them what they should be considering from a financial perspective that they maybe don't know just because they haven't done it before. And, you know

The fractional work then lets them focus on building the brand, building the product, and you know, focusing on all the reasons why they got into CPG in the first place instead of being distracted by things like, am I gonna have enough cash to actually get this product on shelf?

Jordan Bucker (05:56)
Yeah, I think that's that's key. And then Rachel kinda stick with you. I to kinda think through, right? Because as

Founders are thinking about like hiring some help. Maybe they're like, okay, I need to figure out my finances. Maybe I'm pitching an investor. Maybe I want to make sure my business is is solvent, right? Like when they're coming to you, what are you what kind of work are you actually doing with them? Is it about the strategy? Is it about kind of advising them? Or is your role to actually like put together the cash, like the models and speak with them every day or every

every week, kind of what are the different types of engagements that that are possible and that you work with?

Rachel Severo (06:34)
I mean, it really runs the gamut. And I think, you know, one thing that Rich, Beth, and I talk about often is the fact that we have kind of a plethora of different engagements that we we offer to clients. And since we've seen so much in the CPG world before, we we kind of know what a client needs after having some initial conversations. So there are certainly some clients where they have a very specific question they, you know, are raising around and they want to know.

exactly how much they should raise and how long that's going to last them. And that's, you know, one of the most common questions that I get to kick off an engagement. And, you know, that just involves building, you know, sometimes just a simple cash flow model, sometimes a fully fledged operating model. It depends on the stage of the business. Sometimes I have clients coming to me initially and saying, hey, we are, you know, getting questions from the board that I no longer have the ability to answer related to the finances and related to the forecast.

And that, you know, allows me to delve into the operating model, the forecasting process, and also get into kind of investor relations and stakeholder communication. I find that those entry points then often expose the areas of the business where I can be most impactful. And I'm sure Rich and Beth see this as well when

The question that you answer initially ends up very often not being the question that you end up answering on a regular basis. So, you know, maybe those are two of the things that start an engagement, but then what ends up happening is, you know, I'm working in the model with them, I'm evaluating their actuals on a actual financial performance on a monthly basis, we're looking at the forecast, we're looking at customer P<unk>Ls, channel performance, SKU, KPIs, unit economics, kind of you name it, depending on the needs of the business.

Jordan Bucker (08:13)
Yeah, no, one thing that I've experienced as well is that different fractional leaders, different consultants have different areas of the business that they work in. And as you mentioned, sometimes it could be multiple. Sometimes you're doing thinking about the strategy and then someone else is doing the execution. Sometimes you're kind of doing it all in and owning that. And Beth and you and I have talked about this a lot too, right? Like what are the different roles that a fractional leader can come in with and how do you set up that expectation to align that at the beginning?

of

a project in terms of like what you can deliver and what the the team actually needs. And Zelbeth, I'd love for you to talk through like different roles that you've worked with and that you've seen fractional leaders do within organizations.

Beth Brown (08:54)
Sure, that's a good question. I would say just to echo what you were talking about before, I think the conversation sort of changes from problem solving early on. Like that's typically the engagements start with, you know, there is a specific need, a specific problem, and then it comes down to okay, how can we find the root cause of that problem? And then it's about building capability or sort of building the foundation so that they can make decisions.

Faster and things become easier. So to answer your question about how do we sort of work or what does it look like, for me, I think it starts with sort of you can talk to someone if they're, you know, Rachel mentioned earlier about they might need some strategy or advisory guidance. So maybe occasionally you might get a question of we can't we're having trouble answering this question for a country.

Or a co-packer. We're having trouble answering it for an investor, so we need some additional help. And Rachel and I actually have a little bit of overlap. you know, certainly naturally in the operations and finance areas, you get into some of those questions around cost and and what does the volume look like. A lot of times it comes to me with the I'll give you one example. They say, you know, we have a volume plan, but we're not understanding where we have the

These

cash pinpoints. Like they think they understand the cash flow and the timing. But what happens is they've built out this volume plan, but they don't have it at a SKU level, for example. They have it at a total level, or they understand it's coming from you know D to C or and they know it, you know, part of its retail, but they don't have it broken out. And so sometimes it goes from that strategy and advisory piece to then, okay, I need a little more tactical support.

So it's okay, I need help making the decision. So that's sort of like one. And then how do we build something out that can answer the question? And then how can I help my team that I already have use that tool or that foundation? So it's I I look at it from that standpoint. It does get into some bit tactical work and coaching and development on a process and a plan.

And then the third piece of it I would say would be: okay, we figured it out, we've sort of built the plan, but then how do you bring the team in, the resources in to get the work done? So would be what does that look like? It could be internal, it could be you know a junior hire that's coached and trained, or it could be something that's outsourced to a team that would, for example, there are teams out there that do day-to-day operational execution.

Jordan Bucker (11:36)
Yeah, I think that's important. I think, you know, even within there, right, like you're working with someone who actually knows how things can be set up, how they should be set up so that you don't have to reinvent that process yourself. And then as you were just mentioning, like maybe it's you as the founder who's in executing it. Maybe you have an internal team member or hire someone who's gonna manage the day-to-day, or maybe you figure out there's a an agency that's going to help with that execution, but then the fractional leader that you're bringing in is representing your interests and understanding

you as the brand who can then communicate that to other partners effectively and and clearly. I think that's a lot of things that founders sometimes miss as well.

Beth Brown (12:13)
Yeah, it's it's

You know, it's really just about the making sure we're clear about what stage they're at, what capability doesn't exist, and that we're not only solving the problem, we're preventing other problems from happening in the future. It's that sort of proactive approach that that's what you know, the years of experience like Rich mentioned. You know, I also come from a background of some big CPG companies like Pepsi and Diagio, but I've also worked with a lot of small brands. So I've seen both sides of it. I and not everyone has that.

you know like same thing with Rachel and she's seen sort of the big and the small and it's you're not bringing in a full-time leader, you're just helping with experience judgment and perspective.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (12:53)
Yeah,

and I think that to

Jordan Bucker (12:54)
I love that.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (12:54)
compliment what what Beth is saying, for me it you're only paying for the strategy and the strategic direction of a senior leader for the hours that you need, versus, you know, the the alternative would be hiring somebody at the you know, a ten, twenty year experience for forty hours. Like that that's very, very pricey, right? So the the fractional model allows brands to leverage

All of our expertise, our network, our knowledge, and where we add the most value, for a fraction of the price, really, at the end of the day. So you're just taking that like those ten hours, the twenty five percent of super valuable like thought leadership and and direction, and then the the rest of the stuff that's like busier work or lower level or or can be delegated outsourced, like

We we delegate, you know, ruthlessly is basically how how it works. I always tell my clients that like you don't want me doing the little work, like that that me like the the the easy work. You want me on on the big meaty challenges. 'cause you don't want to sp like pay the hours the power hourly rate for me to like

Work on your social media posts or you know, something like a

Jordan Bucker (14:01)
Yeah.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (14:02)
a very small thing. Let's let's figure out that big problem that's making you your your business bleed and let's fix it for you once.

Jordan Bucker (14:09)
Yeah, I think that's a big point because I think, you know, something I hear all the time from founders is, you know, this all sounds great, but like how can I actually afford

this level of executive even fractionally. And so I'm always curious like how to think about that investment. So I love how you frame that, Rich, in terms of whether the things that the value that only I or someone at my level can provide and pay me for those things and then hire other people at different rates and different skill levels to do some of the implementation of of that strategy because those are two different, multiple different skill sets that that are involved. And so Rich, I'm kind of curious within your business, how do you

Work with clients between that, like what are the things that you find that you're really good at, and then how do you work with them on the implementation piece?

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (14:53)
Yeah. so you know, I always say that we can service a client as early as pre-revenue. I have an idea and I have no idea how to make it happen. Clients all the way through larger enterprise clients that have been around for fifty, sixty years. And it's more about the moment in time, where all of a sudden, you know, in in in my space it's they they need to put booster rockets on marketing, right? Or they have a marketing big meaty marketing challenge to be solved. And so we and we meet

them where they are and we push them along on their journey. And we do that whether it's an open and closed project or a multi-month commitment.

Jordan Bucker (15:26)
Awesome. And then how do you help them in terms of directing them into like, here's this big strategy and idea that we've helped you kind of solve theoretically and then transitioning them to like, okay, now if this is how you can help like actually make it happen and get it into the world.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (15:40)
Yeah, and that you know, I always tell clients that that's that's the difference versus like a traditional consultant, right? Like consultants put together beautiful decks and beautiful strategy. they deliver it and they run away before like you know it falls apart. and what we say is that we're here through implementation, through execution, seeing it through because there will be curveballs, right? Like you can build the best strategy, but once you start rolling out, the business might change on you, right? It might be like out of like

Nobody's fault, but we're here to help when that happens as well.

Jordan Bucker (16:08)
Awesome, a little you?

Rachel Severo (16:10)
yeah, I was gonna kind of piggyback what off what Rich said. And I think there's also a real benefit of working with a fractional consultant at some of the, you know, execution of the plan versus a full time W-two employee because we're there for the client as an independent party. we are not they don't have to worry about, you know, our career development. They don't have to, you know, worry about

Saying the wrong thing and being a good manager, it's a true partnership at the level of thought leadership. So it makes the conversations that you know I think we have with our clients really honest when it comes to the execution side of things. So like Rich said, curveballs happen all the time. But what I found is in working with clients as a fractional CFO, it's very easy to have an honest conversation about, hey, this came up that wasn't anticipated, and therefore the original strategy that we laid out isn't working, and we need to pivot in

in you know way A B or C let's talk about the pros and cons of each and then you know let's go and do that instead. And those conversations are super organic when you're working with a fractional leader in a way that I think can

have different implications when it's, you know, a full-time employee. So that's just I think one of the ancillary benefits that I didn't necessarily anticipate when I started fractional work that I actually really enjoy now having done it. It's that, you know, openness, the transparency and the honesty. It's it's it allows, you know, there to be kind of a single team in a in a really meaningful way, I think.

Jordan Bucker (17:34)
Yeah, I think that's a really good point, like the additional benefits that that you get from it. You know, I'm kinda curious, especially Rachel, since you see a lot of the financial sites, right? Like

How should a founder begin to evaluate the price for fractional help, which I know can widely vary, to the value that they provide? Is it like a dollar value? Is it like how much I can actually afford? Is it a not thinking like, okay, if I'm paying someone this much, this is like an ROI that I can get from it? Right, there's all these different things going through founders' heads, but how do you think about it yourself and then

kind of coaching founders through other help that they should kind of bring on financially.

Rachel Severo (18:13)
Yeah,

I mean it definitely depends on the founder and their profile and the stage of the business. I always like to have conversations with founders and CEOs of these, you know, exciting companies about what their weaknesses are, whether personally or within the team. and the the bigger the gap or the more meaningful the gap, the more you should allocate budget to filling it. because and I'm sure, you know, Beth and Rich can talk about this in detail as well, the

The real fee isn't the advisor's fee. It's the cost of what you're not catching by not having an expert on staff in the areas that you don't have the expertise. So, you know, just using a real world example, I help clients with fundraises all the time. and I've come in after, you know, series A when you know certain terms are not favorable to the client. And you can't fix it at that point, but it's something that could have been, you know, maybe.

earlier in the fundraising process. You know, raising too much too soon costs you in dilution, raising too little will constrain your growth, and raising on unfavorable terms, you know, costs you in other ways. So it's really thinking about what do I think I'm not understanding? What do I think I'm missing? Because I don't have the experience, I don't have the time, and what's the value of that is is how I kind of help potential clients think through it.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (19:32)
Yeah, and I see it that

Beth Brown (19:32)
Yeah, that could

have it.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (19:34)
Besides what you know

what what Rachel just mentioned, I also see it where you know a client will say, Well, you know what, I can hire the end product directly, right? So in in my case it would be I can hire the advertising agency directly and I'll direct them, right? but what they don't know is that first like an agency might try to rob them blind. Or they might just not deliver because the the the client is not asking the right things and hasn't had that experience you know, managing these these vendors, right? So like Rachel.

can manage finance vendors way better than than than anybody else or or Beth making sure that the Kopaker you know delivers on on the right terms, right? And similarly, a marketing leader knows exactly what to expect from an agency and how to how to brief them and how to give them feedback and how to talk their their language.

Beth Brown (20:19)
Yeah, that's a that's that's it's just thinking the same thing that, you know, we started this discussion talking about like it's not about the cost, it's can you afford to not have this advisor or this input because you're making such you know important decisions, but also decisions that are c cost quite a bit of money. So you're may every day you're making decisions about how to spend the very little funds that you do.

Have whether it's buying inventory, you know, signing on, sign a contract with a COPAC or a supplier, bringing, you know, it's like every day there's financial implications to your decisions. And I think it's just trying to make sure our job is to try to make sure you're avoiding spending extra cash. or you know, I've seen a couple examples where someone will say, I

Had a bad experience with a Copac or a supplier. and it's not necessarily that those partners are bad partners, it's because they didn't ask the right questions. They didn't think they needed to have, you know, processes in place or agreements in place. So it's some of it is about you know just having walked the walk before, and some of it is about just thinking through your cash decisions and making better pri you know.

sort of proactive decisions with your whether it's third party advertising, marketing partners, you know, before before you make these costly mistakes. I think that's what we say, you know, the most expensive decisions are the ones you either delay or you try to figure out on your own. And then it's either doing rework or coming back and finding out that you know you wish you had known something sooner, you wish you could have avoided spending this extra money or

having these extra costs come into play.

Jordan Bucker (22:05)
I think that's a good point. I think it could be helpful for listeners to kind of hear examples of some projects like that. And so Beth, maybe starting with you, do you have any examples of like project that you've worked on that you were able to come into a company and create a meaningful impact?

Beth Brown (22:21)
Yeah,

I have many, but I'll I'll keep it keep it brief. one is just really understanding your supplier pricing and purchasing practices. I think that sometimes this or I should say very often this gets overlooked. You can come in pretty quickly and I'll call say a quick win small focus project to look at your purchasing and your cost of goods or your unit economics and see where there's opportunities.

So just do mini assessment to understand what your suppliers who your suppliers are, what the pricing is, what the terms are, how often you're buying, and then where there could be savings opportunities. That's probably a pretty easy one. I say easy for me, because I you know can pick these things up pretty quickly. And then second one I would say is is a good example would be also we just talked about co manufacturing, kind of a lot of times if they do get recognition.

Recommendations or founders will find opportunities to use, let's just call it some of these services to have a short list of co-mans or co-packers. But once they find them, that's one part. Then it's the how do you, you know, find a way to quickly vet these partners and understand the contracts and the terms. That's another mini project that often gets overlooked. They typically jump into the relationships pretty quickly.

Quickly after finding someone who can just check the boxes of their criteria, but they don't go through kind of the next phase of the process.

Jordan Bucker (23:50)
Awesome. That's really helpful as well. Rich how about you? Do you have an example of a project that comes to mind that you were able to create a meaningful impact?

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (23:58)
Yeah, tons.

And like I said, we we tend to meet our clients where they're at from a marketing perspective. And I can talk packaging. I think I always tell founders like get ready to spend more than you're comfortable with on packaging, because a hundred percent of the buyers will judge the book by its cover. and so it pays in dividends to invest on on your packaging and if done correctly with the right leadership, it pays for itself.

100%.

you know, we I've s I've come in for to a brand where they've done a packaging refresh. They hired their own agency, they directed them, and genuinely beautiful packaging work was done. it was put on shelf and they found double-digit decline.

And so Atomos came in and then we started doing the forensic work of understanding, well, what happened? Let me see the testing, right? you showed consumers like do you like A or do you like B and B of course is prettier? So consumers said B. That doesn't mean that pretty converts on shelf. There's a whole science behind what

actually converts on shelf and how you test for it. And so that's that's that's one of these projects where it was super fruitful and super rewarding because we were able to direct the the the client on how to re-redesign and get it back on shelf and and revert those trends thankfully.

Jordan Bucker (25:13)
I think that's awesome and I think super helpful. And how about you, Rachel? Any low-hanging fruit projects that you sh typically work with brands on?

Rachel Severo (25:20)
Yeah, one comes to mind I had a client recently that was looking to reevaluate its pricing with UNFI, one of their main distributors, and they were deciding what the price should be for one of their product lines and if they wanted to do like FOB or delivered pricing. And it's a pretty quick exercise for me to, you know, mock up theoretical unit economics using, you know, their historical trade rates, the contractual allowances, the clients' 3PL pricing to allow us to kind of clearly understand what that unit contributions.

margin is under a few different pricing scenarios. So within like just a few sessions the client had, you know, clear evidence based

knowledge about which pricing scenario actually protected their margin and helped serve their longer term goals. and the client really loved making a decision based on data after, you know, for so long they had been relying on their gut. And I think this specific example actually goes back to what we were talking about just before about, you know, the cost of not having the expertise. Anybody that's gone through a price change with UNFI knows how painful it is. It it costs time for the team. There's so much paperwork to fill out, so many

Emails that have to go back and forth between the account managers and then you're managing the retailer relationships because the retailer wants to change the SRP if the pricing economics are different, et cetera, et cetera. And it would have, you know, cost the company a lot less in time and a lot less in, you know, the money that they then had to, you know, pay down to get the SRP to be the same in the transition period, et cetera, if they had done this unit economic exercise before they had set the initial pricing.

Jordan Bucker (26:49)
Yeah, I think that is so key and can make such a huge impact like on a brand. It's something like relatively quick that you can work on, but it will have lasting impact. So I think that's really important. Well, this has been really great. I love our this conversation because it brings out a lot of different ways and opportunities to work with fractional leaders like yourselves and how brands can get drive immediate value, right? And just knowing that there's opportunities for short term projects, for long term projects, and honestly, just like having someone who can learn to understand your

your company, your brand, you as a founder, and provide you with specific actionable advice to to you and not just kind of generic advice if you jump on a 30-minute call with with someone for free. So I think this is all really helpful. So anyone who's listening, I'll definitely put the show notes for our guests in the show notes. And also if you have other needs for fractional help, reach out to Beth as well. Anyone on the team they're connected with lots of other fractional resources who can help grow your business. Thanks so much everyone for joining.

Today.

Rich Rodriguez-Mahe (27:46)
Thanks for having us, Jordan.

Beth Brown (27:47)
Thanks

for having us.