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When I am networking with new business relationships, a frequent question I am asked is whether my firm’s CFO services specialize in any specific industry. As a business nerd with a lot of consulting experience, I think this is a legitimate question but not how we approach the market. In the lower middle market, most companies have one or two revenue streams and if they have more, they are usually cousins of each other.

So when I respond to this question, I tell them that there are nine fundamental business model templates and all businesses that we work with fit into one of them. Therefore, understanding the mechanics of making money is pretty easily understood and where we add value is in the strategic financial components.

Here is a good example. An e-commerce company might need working capital to grow. For that style business, asset-backed inventory and receivables lending is a critical component to expanding working capital. As it turns out, expertise in these lending products has little to do with e-commerce and might actually come from the construction industry or even credit financing businesses. The key to growth is working capital, not the mechanics of the business model at face value.

In this blog post, I want to talk through the nine business model templates that we reuse in our CFO work all the time. If you can think of others that I missed, let me know.

**TL;DR**: Every business fits into one of nine mechanical revenue models, regardless of industry. While industry specialization helps accelerate certain aspects of an engagement, what truly drives strategic finance value isn’t knowing whether you sell software or sandwiches; it’s understanding the fundamentals:

• How cash flows through your business
• How predictable your revenue is
• Who owns the assets being monetized

Industry specialization can help accelerate:

• Benchmarking
• KPI identification
• Understanding customer acquisition channels

However, we find these elements are learnable within weeks.
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