How To Influence Senior Execs To Pick Your Company When It’s Located In A Tier-Two City

Many of the clients I’ve been fortunate to serve over the years tell me that recruiting senior executives is one of their biggest challenges. These organizations often fit a certain type of profile. They are successful companies with established track records. They are financially solid, even somewhat conservative. But their headquarters is not located in a well-known city with a reputation for excitement.

Sometimes HQ is in a medium-sized Midwestern city without a lot of amenities compared to cities on the two US coasts. I call these tier-two cities. They’re not second-class. They just don’t have a big reputation. It can be difficult to convince executives to move their families to these areas.

Some organizations that fit this profile tell me that they’ve run executive recruitment programs that produced interviews with lots of great candidates. But very few candidates actually chose to accept the company’s offers. This has left members of the executive committee with real concern for the future. If they can’t recruit top talent, it will become difficult over time to achieve their growth plans.

I believe that companies facing this challenge would be well-advised to take a close look at their benefits package. I have come to believe the number one benefit that senior executives want and value is a personal chief financial officer (CFO). If you offer a personal CFO as part of your executive benefits package, I believe you create a real competitive advantage for your company—an advantage that can even overcome a somewhat staid city-life. Here are some ideas to help you win more in executive recruitment.

What Is A Personal CFO?

Corporate CFOs oversee and manage a company’s financial standing. They don’t make all of the financial decisions, but they do advise about how to use money to achieve the organization’s goals. They also ensure decisions are fully implemented in a timely fashion. Corporate CFO’s have the uncanny ability to make order out of chaos and to create financial solutions where other people only see problems.

The same is true of a personal CFO. This person is the most trusted advisor to an executive’s family. A personal CFO has a deep understanding of what the family is trying to accomplish. They also know how to make order out of chaos so the executive can really focus on their career. What sort of chaos is an executive dealing with?

• Time — They need someone to organize their financial life and build a plan for them because they simply don’t have the time to do it.
• Expertise — They know they’re not experts in all of the different areas that impact their financial lives. They are not confident that if they tried to do this on their own, it would actually work.
• Complexity — They have numerous advisors (CPA, financial advisors, estate attorney, insurance specialists), several accounts and many valuable assets. They can’t seem to get their arms around everything to ensure that it all fits together and that things go according to their wishes.
• Trust — They don’t extend trust easily and tend to be rather private.
• Sandwich Generation — They have aging parents and adult children and feel obligated to help both generations, which impacts their retirement situation.

Trying to manage all of the details of their financial life often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and out of control. This has a direct impact on their performance in the office where they struggle to focus on the work at hand.

This is why a personal CFO might be the single most impactful benefit you could offer executives. If a personal CFO can reduce stress, tame complexity and improve peace of mind, how much is that worth to an executive and their family? What does that do for their quality of life? What would that do for your competitive standing? How much would that influence senior executives to say yes—even if HQ is in a tier-two city?

How To Add A Personal CFO To Your Executive Benefits Package

Adding a personal CFO to your executive benefits package might not be intuitive to you. The process is actually very similar to how you might rationalize, select and roll out any other type of benefit. After working with several organizations, I’ve found this process to be the most effective:

• Identify your goals. What are you trying to accomplish and why does this matter to your organization?
• Establish a budget for this program based on what you are trying to achieve.
• Identify whom, among your employee base, to offer this benefit. Make sure that enough people need the benefit to ensure you get the greatest ROI.
• Identify what you want a personal CFO to do for your executives. How do your executives want to be served?
• Identify a short list of benefit providers to interview.
• Select a provider.
• Build a promotional program to roll-out the personal CFO benefit. I believe this is essential because most senior executives don’t understand what the benefit entails or how it will improve their situation.
• Institute a mechanism to receive feedback from your executives so you know it’s working.
• Evangelize the benefit on your next executive recruitment campaign, including getting testimonials from current executives about how a personal CFO has helped them.

Having an HQ in a tier-two city can be a challenge when recruiting senior executives. But in my experience, most senior-level people value quality of life over nightlife. A personal CFO can have a meaningful impact on your executives, and this can produce a real competitive advantage for your organization.