Overview

Cultivate CFO is about cultivating abundance in business and life through engaging timeless principles in clear and practical ways to build wealth, achieve dreams, and bring a positive impact to the world.

Learn how to build a profitable, valuable business and accelerate your wealth through CFO insights and Tax Planning strategies from an expert CPA, CFO Consultant, and Tax Advisor as well as lessons from the world’s best business minds.

This content is adapted and expanded from my Mastermind programs for CEOs, CFOs, and Entrepreneurs, where I will guide you through a clear blueprint for designing the right business model, and a roadmap to help you apply the timeless principles and value drivers to unlock the next stage in your business growth.

This Cultivate CFO newsletter is taught through distilling the best value and principles from my work with entrepreneurs as well as curated video clips, books, and articles of the top business minds and entrepreneurs from generations past and present that have transformed my thinking and approach to business.

I will help you understand and apply principles to your business to help you be successful from great minds and entrepreneurs like Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, Peter Drucker, Michael Porter, Bill Campbell, Marc Andreessen, Andy Grove, Clayton Christensen, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Alexander Osterwalder, Patrick Bet-David, Dan Sullivan, Roger Martin, Jim Collins, Eric Ries, Ray Dalio, Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Miller, Ram Charan, Tom Wheelwright, Mark Kohler, Alex Hormozi, and many others.

Over the last 10 years as a Fractional CFO, Tax Advisor and Exit Planning Advisor, I’ve coached and guided hundreds of business owners through the challenges of starting a business, building a robust business model, scaling their model effectively, and saving money on taxes through innovative tax planning and wealth creation strategies. I credit a large part of my success with business owners to studying the best practices and principles from the world’s top business minds, distilling them down to practical steps for implementation, and organizing them in the right way for business owners to understand and implement.

The Problem?

It takes time. A lot of time. I’ve spent many thousands of hours doing research and analysis. I’ve read over a thousand business books, watched thousands of hours of talks and trainings, and spent hundreds of thousands on courses and programs to distill only the most valuable and practical of ideas into what you will read here.

Entrepreneurs and business executives are under an enormous amount of pressure and have so many demands on their time. What you need are the best and most actionable insights, tools, and direction so that you can make the best decisions and take the next step to bring your business to the next level of success. To get unstuck or achieve a breakthrough in your business, you often need to hear the right ideas in the right order and in the right context for your business.

Ultimately, this is more than just a newsletter. This is a series of business mastermind courses and lessons learned in the trenches with business owners and taught in the board rooms and through keynote addresses.

With this newsletter, I am going to walk you through the process of building a business from $0 to $100M that will change the world. My goal is for you to build wealth through creating a profitable business through the CFO articles, and keep and invest that wealth through the innovative tax planning articles. These articles will distill the lessons that have brought financial transformation to many businesses and help you develop the skills, mindsets, and the business, financial, and mental models to be a successful entrepreneur.

How It Works

1. The internet has all the information you need to run a successful business… but that information is expanding exponentially.

2. Amazon and Barnes & Noble have 10s of thousands of business books distilling some of the best knowledge from many millions of business articles, podcasts, and Youtube videos… but do you have time to read all those books?

3. This often leads to entrepreneurs trying out one idea after another that they read or hear to see what works, which is both expensive and time-consuming when you get it wrong.

4. This is where I come in.

5. This newsletter provides a clear blueprint for designing the right business model, and a roadmap to guide you to build your business.

6. In these newsletters, I…

   1. Prepare an article in either the Business Growth or Tax Planning series to guide you along your entrepreneurial journey.

   2. Prepare an article on one of the best business books of all time that summarizes the key points and practical takeaways along with curated video clips from the author to help you understand and implement their value into your business

   3. Search the Internet for the top videos and content from business leaders talking about building successful businesses.

   4. Prioritize and extract the best video clips and information you need to know.

   5. Summarize the key ideas in the clip so you can understand and apply them.

   6. Integrate those videos within the articles to help your learning and comprehension of the subject.

Bottom Line

Over time, I will walk you through every step of building a successful business including business & financial models, tax strategy, business value drivers, scaling your business, and exit planning.

Why Subscribe?

• Learn from a seasoned CPA, CFO Consultant, and Tax Advisor

• Learn tax planning principles and strategies we use every day to save clients tens of thousands on taxes

• Learn how to build a profitable, valuable business and accelerate your wealth

• Learn from the world’s top entrepreneurs and business thought leaders

• Get actionable insights to scale your business from startup to $100M

• Get a clear view of the value drivers that will transform your business and profits

Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.

Why Enroll in the Paid Version

This blog will include free content with every post. I am not going to hide the value and the concepts that can make you money and save you taxes. You will get substantial value out of every free post.

Beyond the free content, if you choose to enroll in the paid version, you will take your game to a whole new level. Paid subscribers will also get:

1. Bonus Tax Planning Strategies, Guides, and Tools for Implementation to help you save money on taxes every year. Each bonus alone is designed to be worth more than the price of the annual membership. These are resources we provide to those engaging in CFO tax planning services worth $10k+.

2. Bonus Business Mastermind Tools, Templates, and Tutorials designed to help you gain instant traction in your business. Each bonus alone is designed to be worth more than the price of the annual membership. These mastermind resources have previously only been available in our paid mastermind groups which run between $5k-$10k.

3. Live Calls & Discussion Threads with me where I break down different CFO, Tax, and Business Strategies. These strategic calls and discussion threads are similar to my mastermind group calls which are individually worth more than the price of the annual membership. If you want to know what people receive when they pay me a premium for my one-on-one or group calls, you’ll find out here.

Here is the breakdown on each:

1. Bonus Tax Planning Strategies, Guides, and Tools for Implementation

We work with our clients on tax planning strategies regularly and have hundreds of strategies that save between $1,000 to over $1,000,000 in taxes for business owners like you. These tax plans run between $10k-$20k+. I’m bringing these valuable resources here for Paid Subscribers

The challenge is that we are often implementing dozens of strategies for clients, not just one or two. You need a variety of tax planning strategies to maximize your savings in different business and investment situations.

The free articles will break down higher level tax planning principles and concepts, but the paid version will isolate specific tax strategies and steps for implementation so that you will be able to:

• Understand the specific strategies thoroughly

• Know how and when to apply them, or when you shouldn’t use a strategy

• Calculate your potential savings

• Take the strategy to your tax accountant to have them help implement on your tax return

• Access links to related resources and applicable IRS Codes and Court Cases

• Walk through tools to help with implementation.

2. Bonus Business Mastermind Tools, Templates, and Tutorials

The content I build here is based on my years of Business masterminds and CFO consulting. During this time, I’ve also developed a number of tools and templates that have been transformative for business owners and managers to help them grow and push through challenges at different stages of their business.

Paid subscribers will get access to these tools and templates along with tutorials on how and when to use them in your business. These have been previously only accessible to paying clients or our $5k or $10k mastermind group members.

These tools and templates will help you:

• Avoid common mistakes and traps

• Avoid reinventing the wheel through trial and error

• Fast-track your business growth

• Solve challenging problems

• Gain actionable, timely insights into your business

3. Live Calls & Ask Me Anything Discussion Threads

I normally charge a premium for my one-on-one or group calls and discussion forums, but my goal is to bring this value to a larger audience and have a bigger impact. These live calls and discussion threads typically fall into the following themes:

• Q&A - I answer your questions about business, finance, and tax.

• Deep Dives - A deep dive on a particular topic, tool, or template to help you master and apply to your business. This is similar to a mastermind session and will include some teaching, some practical application, and a chance to ask questions and troubleshoot.

• Webinars - I prepare a more thorough presentation and teaching on a CFO or Tax Planning subject for extended learning and review to give you a robust understanding of a subject.

I’ll typically open up a new discussion thread every few weeks and will answer the questions posted during that time. Live calls will usually be monthly and will be based on your feedback in posts and discussion threads .

Who Am I?

My name is Mark Sharman… I’m a passionate disciple of Jesus, a Husband, a Father of 7 girls (yes… 7!), an Entrepreneur, CPA, CFO, Writer, an Australian living in the United States, and a Beekeeper.

Over the past 15+ years, I have worked in, with, and started a number of businesses. I began my CPA firm in 2013 with the desire to help businesses be more strategic and successful with their finances. I’ve spent time in the trenches with detailed financials and taxes, and I’ve also spent many years helping business owners with tax planning, consulting, fractional CFO work, and as an executive coach.

I began as a typical accountant with my Masters program, CPA license, and typical compliance work, but found that this work wasn’t where I could really help my clients the most. I kept getting asked questions by business owners for help with aspects of entrepreneurship and building a business that they simply didn’t give me answers for in school. In fact, I think I use about 5% of the knowledge I learned in my Bachelors and two Masters degrees in my daily work… it wasn’t enough!

I made a commitment to myself that if someone asked me if I could help them, that I would say yes, then I would work to search out the answer no matter what it took, and then share it with them. This commitment sent me on a journey away from the typical accountant/CPA industry and into what would end up being over 2,000 of the best business books I could find, thousands of articles and resources, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on courses, training, and access to the best strategies in the world.

I came to the point where compliance work wasn’t creative enough for me. I wanted to bring exponential value in every relationship, conversation, and interaction I had. I went from accepting any client who called me up, to hand-selecting just the clients who would allow me creative license to reimagine and build their business in new and powerful ways.

I’ve worked with many hundreds of business owners in mastermind groups, one-on-one coaching, in-person, and online to help them build and grow successful businesses - and I’m not even close to being done.

This newsletter is simply an extension of this journey because I don’t have a creative outlet for all of the ideas and strategies and value that I want to bring to the world. I want to explore so much deeper into so many areas I’ve touched on, but I don’t have the opportunity to do so with my clients right now.

Beyond this, I’m tired of building sandcastles… Every year we work with business owners to grow to the next level, to analyze financials, to make adjustments to the business model, and to file taxes. While we do get some growth, much of the financial work is still tied to the year’s financials and tax returns. We build and build and work so hard to get the sandcastle of our business plan in place and implement strategies and complete the filings and tax plans. Then the toll rings on New Year’s Eve. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. And January 1 it begins all over again.

I’m tired of watching my life’s work disappear and be forgotten like last year’s financials and taxes. I’m ready to build stones into a castle of work that can go out into the world. I’m ready to put down my knowledge and explore the many rabbit trails I’ve passed over as I’ve rushed to the next thing.

I want to share the thousands of tools and resources and books with the world and build a body of work that can be used by business owners, executives, accountants, bookkeepers, and tax accountants to help them build their business, build their wealth, and save on taxes.

Each resource and article cost me or one of my clients hundreds or thousands of dollars to create and implement. It seems such a waste to let it sit in files and never be shared again.

Not only this but I’ve also got 5 books in rough draft form that I have fully written or outlined but have not polished off to publish. My goal is to take these ideas and this content and share the value I have built and worked on crystalizing for many years and share it in bite-sized chunks. I want these ideas to engage the world in a more robust way before I finally condense them back into the final book.

You Made It This Far!

If you are among the very few who made it this far, I want to thank you! I also want to provide you with a commitment. If you are willing to support me in this endeavor to write and publish these articles, videos, and resources by becoming a paid subscriber, I want to commit to you that I will provide you exponentially greater value in the resources and information you will receive here than you will get anywhere else.

These resources in each article will transform your business, your financials, your tax liability, your mindset, and ultimately your destiny. I’ve made a good living doing this for business owners over the last decade - and I want to share that value with you for a small fraction of the cost. That is my vision for this newsletter, and that is what you’re invited into.

- Mark