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December 23, 2025•6 min read

Welcome to The Grumpy CFO: Where Strategy Meets Funding

After 34 years of helping B2B companies access the growth capital they deserve, I've seen the same problem hundreds of times. And it's not your fault.

You run a profitable B2B company. You have growth opportunities in front of you. You need capital to seize those opportunities. But when you approach your bank, something goes wrong. The conversation that should be about your company's potential turns into a discussion about numbers that don't tell your real story.

Here's what's happening, and why I built this practice to fix it.

The Problem Nobody Talks About

Your financial statements were never designed to be useful management tools. They exist for tax compliance and historical record keeping. That's it.

This creates a conflict that hurts your borrowing power, and most business owners don't even realize it's happening.

Your accountant, doing exactly what you hired them to do, minimizes your taxes. They reduce your reported profit. They keep your retained earnings as low as legally possible. This is good tax strategy. It saves you money every April.

But then you walk into your banker's office looking for growth capital.

Your banker looks at those same financial statements and sees weak retained earnings, thin profits, and limited cash flow. The very things your accountant minimized to save you taxes are the exact metrics your banker uses to evaluate your creditworthiness.

You're caught in the middle. Your accountant wants to show less. Your banker wants to see more. And you're wondering why a profitable, growing company can't access the capital it needs.

It's a strategy problem disguised as a financial problem. And it's completely fixable.

Who This Website Is For

I built this practice to serve three groups who all care about the same thing: helping B2B companies grow profitably and access the capital they need.

For Bankers: Your business banking clients need strategic CFO guidance to become more bankable. They need someone who understands what you require in a lending package, who can help them present their financial story in a way that builds your confidence, and who keeps you in control of the banking relationship. I work with your clients to prepare professional financing packages that make your job easier and your lending decisions clearer. I never contact competing banks. Your relationship stays protected.

For Business Owners and CEOs: You built a profitable B2B company, and you see growth opportunities everywhere. But accessing growth capital is harder than it should be. You want to grow revenue, increase valuation, and build business wealth that gives you freedom. You need strategic clarity on what drives profit, which customers are actually profitable, and how to present your business to bankers in a way that gets you funded. You need a fractional CFO who thinks like an MBA, understands what bankers need, and helps you build a fundable, valuable business.

For CFOs and Accountants: Your clients need more than compliance and tax prep. They need strategic growth advisory, but you're already stretched thin. You want to build a more proactive, strategic practice, but you need proven systems and methodologies. I've spent over three decades developing these tools, and I'm building a community where strategic advisors can access the Growth and Funding Blueprint methodology, learn customer interviewing frameworks, master Strategy Sprint facilitation, and connect with other professionals who are building advisory practices instead of compliance factories.

What I Actually Do

I translate business success into banker confidence. I find hidden profit in your accounting system. I turn strategic clarity into funding approval.

Over 34 years, I've helped hundreds of clients across 65 industry segments in seven countries. I've seen what works and what doesn't. I've learned what bankers trust and what makes them nervous. I've discovered where profit hides in accounting systems and how to make growth fundable.

I helped a B2B company grow from $26 million to $36 million in revenue in one year while increasing profit by 293%. I helped a startup raise $7.7 million in external funding by showing investors exactly what they needed to see. I helped a professional B2B services firm quadruple their revenue by identifying which services were actually profitable and which ones were destroying value. I helped another company raise $5 million to buy a railroad. I helped a high growth industrial company obtain $4.5 million in operating capital when three other banks had already said no.

I've helped companies build facilities, buy competitors, and expand into new markets. I've turned busy, hardworking entrepreneurs into millionaires by helping them understand where their profit actually comes from and how to build enterprise value that banks recognize.

The pattern is always the same. These companies were already successful. They were already growing. But they lacked three things: financial clarity on what actually drives profit, strategic focus on where to grow next, and a professional financing package that builds banker confidence.

Why This Matters

I'm grumpy because I see the same fixable problems over and over.

Accountants minimize taxes, which destroys borrowing power. Owners don't know which customers are profitable because accounting systems bury that information. Decisions get made on instinct instead of data. Growth opportunities get missed because companies can't access capital. Bankers see incomplete financial projections and decline deals that should have been approved.

These aren't spreadsheet problems. They're strategy problems. And when you fix the strategy, the funding follows.

I built this practice around one insight: your ability to access growth capital depends on strategic clarity, financial visibility, and professional presentation. Get those three things right, and banks compete to fund you. Get them wrong, and you'll struggle to borrow what your business already earned.

That's what the Growth and Funding Blueprint delivers. It's a 60 to 90 day program that gives you complete financial clarity, validated customer insights, aligned growth strategy, realistic financial projections, and a professional lender package that builds banker confidence.

The result is funding approval, strategic clarity, and a business that's worth more because it's built on data instead of guesswork.

Let's Talk About Your Business

I'm still putting the finishing touches on this website. The Growth and Funding Assessment tool isn't quite ready yet, but I didn't want to wait to start these conversations.

If you're a banker with clients who need strategic CFO guidance, a business owner who's ready to stop accepting "no" from banks, or a CFO or accountant who wants to build a more strategic practice, let's talk.

Book a free call. No sales pitch, I promise. Just a conversation about your business, your clients, or your practice. We'll discuss what's working, what's not, and whether what I do might help.

After 34 years, I can usually tell in about 20 minutes whether we're a good fit. If we are, great. If we're not, I'll tell you that too.

Welcome to The Grumpy CFO. I'm glad you're here.

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Phil Symchych

Phil Symchych is a seasoned expert in business growth for small and medium B2B companies. With over three decades of consulting experience across 64 industry segments, Phil has helped business owners grow their companies, increase profits with less stress, scale operations, strengthen management teams, and build wealth for shareholders.

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