In this episode, James Kennedy sits down with Chris Gwinn, CFA and founder of Midwest CFO, to unpack how a fractional CFO helped a $7.5M digital agency boost gross margins from 26% to 48% and add $1M in EBITDA – without forcing creatives into traditional timesheets. Chris shares why he exited a successful process-improvement consultancy to build a more recurring, finance-driven practice, how he uses podcasts as a growth engine, and the simple pricing and cost-allocation shifts any B2B services firm can use to increase valuation.
About Chris Gwinn
Chris Gwinn is the founder of Midwest CFO, a fractional CFO firm serving growth-oriented, U.S.-based B2B professional services companies – including digital marketing agencies, IT managed service providers, home services firms, and SaaS businesses.
With a double major in accounting and finance from Marquette University and a CFA charter, Chris started his career in corporate finance and portfolio management before becoming Director of Finance & Operations for a Midwest small business. He then founded and scaled Great Lakes Advisory, a process-improvement consultancy focused on SOPs and training, ultimately exiting the business and launching Midwest CFO to return to his true passion: analytical, finance-led growth and profitability.
What You’ll Learn
- How to Add $1M in EBITDA (Without Timesheets):
The step-by-step breakdown of how Chris helped a $7.5M marketing agency redesign its chart of accounts, allocate labor intelligently, and move EBITDA from 7% to 18% – without turning creatives into timesheet warriors. - The Power of Gross Margin Math in Agencies:
Why a 26% gross margin had the agency on a knife edge, how targeting 50%+ gross margin transforms cash flow, and what to do when your biggest service line is also your least profitable. - Practical Pricing & Cost Controls for Service Firms:
How to spot when your prices have stood still while costs climb, where “quiet” overstaffing hides inside departments, and the simple changes that immediately improve the economics of project work. - From Process Consultant to Fractional CFO:
Chris’s journey from running a lumpy, project-based consulting firm to building a recurring CFO practice – and what he learned about client resistance, change management, and revenue predictability along the way. - Using a Podcast as a Sales Channel (Without Being Sleazy):
How Chris used his Agency Accelerator podcast to get in front of Inc. 5000 founders, add real value, and organically open up high-value consulting conversations.
Episode Highlights
- “Most owners can read top-line revenue and bottom-line profit – but everything in the middle is a black box. That’s where we go to work.”
- “When your prices haven’t moved in two years but compensation and benefits keep rising, your gross margin is quietly dying.”
- “We didn’t need perfect timesheets – we needed a sensible way to allocate labor and see which service lines were actually pulling their weight.”
- “Project-based consulting is lumpy. A recurring CFO relationship, tied to a calendar rhythm, is much easier to scale – for you and your clients.”
- “For B2B services, 50% gross margin and 30% or less on SG&A is the magic combo – that’s how you get to 20%+ EBITDA.”
More About Chris’s Role
At Midwest CFO, Chris and his team act as the embedded finance leader for $3–10M B2B professional services firms in the U.S. Sitting in the “finance seat” for EOS-run businesses and other growth-oriented companies, they:
- Build and maintain KPI dashboards tied to the company’s operating model
- Redesign charts of accounts to reveal true service-line profitability
- Implement capacity planning, pricing, and gross margin targets
- Lead budgeting, forecasting, and board-ready reporting on a quarterly and annual cadence
The goal: turn messy financials into a clear, actionable growth and valuation playbook – so founders aren’t just working harder, they’re building a more valuable company.
