DOPE CFO

One of the most effective things anyone in this program has ever done came from a member a few years back. He didn't do anything complicated. He opened his phone contacts and scrolled from top to bottom. Everyone he hadn't talked to in a while got the same short message letting them know he'd started building a cannabis CFO advisory practice and asking if they knew anyone in the industry.

He sent it to about 150 people. Within days, he was hearing back from contacts who had connections he'd never thought to ask about.

I tell this story on almost every coaching call because it works every single time someone actually does it. The connections are already in your phone. You just haven't asked yet.

This week we had three new members join from Texas, New Jersey, and Georgia. For every one of them, the same thing applies. You don't need to wait until your logo is finished, your LinkedIn is polished, or you've completed every module. While you're building those pieces out, open your phone and start texting.

The members who land their first client fastest aren't usually the ones with the best marketing. They're the ones who actually told people what they were doing. Your old college roommate might know someone. Your former manager might have a friend who just got licensed. The accountant you worked with five years ago might have a cannabis client they don't know how to serve. Your neighbour might have a cousin with two dispensaries.

You won't know until you ask, and each message takes about thirty seconds to send.

One of our members was tracking her outreach in five different Excel spreadsheets. Who she'd contacted, what events they'd be at, who had responded, who needed a follow-up. Every few days she'd lose track of where a conversation was and end up sending the same message twice or forgetting someone entirely.

She did some research and found a free CRM tool that let her upload everything in one place. Connected it to her email and calendar so meetings, follow-ups, and new contacts all flow into the same system. It took an afternoon to set up and now she opens one screen instead of hunting through tabs.

This is one of those things that sounds obvious but most people in our community skip it. They'll spend hours perfecting a LinkedIn headline or tweaking a logo, then track their actual business development conversations in a messy spreadsheet or, worse, in their head. The outreach is the work. The system that tracks it is what keeps the outreach from falling apart once you're juggling six or seven conversations at the same time.

You don't need an expensive tool. You need one place where you can see every contact, every conversation, and every next step. If you're still running your pipeline off memory and scattered notes, that's the thing to fix this week.