The 1st Thing You Can Do to Help Non Finance

Hello and welcome...?to our weekly newsletter, where we share 3 things weekly to help you become a great FBP.

This week those 3 things are:

-?The !st Thing You Can Do To help Non Finance

-?What To Highlight In An FBP Job Interview

- Upcoming programs and clients

And don't forget, theFBPteam is here to help you develop a highly engaged and commercially?strong?finance team that other functions want to work with.... book in a call to see if we can help.

The 1st Thing You Can Do To Help Non Finance?

Where do you start if you are new to an FBP role?

The list?is potentially enormous and most roles and organisations are situational (different for every situation).

The first generic thing to focus on is to make sure your business partners don't feel threatened by you, and to build your credibility with them.

The first?comes from spending time with them. The second comes from you offering things they dont have and need.

A low effort high return way of doing this is to run a finance for non finance session.

Gather all of your non finance colleagues into a room and tell them you are going to run through the P&L line by line and?explain it for them.

Then just dig out a report they all use, and go through it line by line:

- An explanation: This line represents x - An example: here is an example from last month of the things that are on this line

- How do we impact it: things they can do to make it go up and down.

It may be simple for things like sales but dig down a little and sale its only a sales when x happens and show some examples.

It seems really simple and you probably think they should know this

But if they don't (which is highly likely) you will instantly gain their trust and credibility through your knowledge of it

If they do know it,?then use it as a platform to talk through the things you think of when you look at that report.

It is a low effort, high return task to do early on in your FBP role.?

It helps you build a connection with them and it helps show them you have some knowledge that they potentially don't have that they can leverage you for.

I did this 15 years ago when I was given a slot for a sales offsite.

I thought wow this will be boring and being the slot before lunch I was in the way of them eating.

This session ended up going overtime and they ate lunch during it. And the amount of sales people that came to my office after the monthly reports went out after that meeting increased significantly.

They wanted to talk about their results and they wanted me to help them understand them better.

They trusted me more, and I had some credibility with them

Now if you can't do that.....then you shouldn't be an FBP.

What To Highlight In An FBP Job Interview

I have seen man many finance professionals CVs over the years.

From the ones I saw as a hiring manager, to the ones I now get sent as professional coach.

And if there is one thing you want to focus on in your CV and your interview for an FBP role

Your Achievements

And most importantly being able to quantify them for the organisation you worked for.

A lot of potential FBPs talk about the reports they improved, the month end cycle they reduced, or the implementation of a new accounting standard change. Which is all great but that's not the goal of an FBP.

That's the accounting team that does that.?

An FBPs role is to add value to the organisation - and to prove you have done that you need to be able to quantify it.

So if all you have is some reports you have improved then talk about the decisions these reports helped to make and the bottom line impact of those decisions had.

If you improved a process quantify the dollar impact on it. It doesn't have to be perfect, but say we saved two days a month which meant we could spend $x a month on y instead. Which of course led to $x improvement somewhere else.

If you helped implement a new accounting standard well what did that deliver.

Your prospective employer is looking for two things in you as an FBP. Can you deliver value and does your style work well with non finance.

Show them both in your examples. And have 2-3 that are tactical (short to medium term) and 1-2 that are strategic (long term).

And whatever you do don't make like you owned a whole process when you were just part of a team that did it.?

I once had a finance professional tell me they lead the expansion of a product into a new geography. I thought wow finance doesn't usually lead that.

Little did they know I knew their sales director who confirmed they did some spreadsheets for it.

For your interview focus on your achievements and make sure you can quantify them.

Upcoming FBP Programs & Clients

Bootcamp?later this month plus our latest FBP Accelerator: Essentials program.....

FBP Bootcamp - Transform Data Into Insights into Action

Wednesday 22nd May

Our May FBP Bootcamp?is digging down into something specific with a discussion on how to transform data into getting others to action your insights from that data

In 60 minutes we will introduce you to the model we use to help you understand this. And give you some tips on how to do it effectively.

In language you can put to work the minute the session finishes.

Hint: Its not done through reports, emails and from your desk

Signup below by clicking the link

FBP?Accelerator: Essentials (14 hours CPD before 30 June)

Our flagship Essentials program is back on again for those looking to become a great Finance Business Partner - and its five weeks away.

Kicking off on Wednesday 5th June we will show you some of the tools and techniques you need to be effective with other functions.

All virtually and in 4 x 2 hour workshops?

Only 6 places remain for this session

Register by clicking this link

Recent Client?Wins

This week?we benefited from some new work and add ons from current clients who want more more more......

Large Global Infrastructure Group

After a few years of training this large global infrastructure groups FBPs, we have now been asked to roll out our Presentations Program to them.

This is a deeper sub program of our FBP Accelerator that we perform for both finance and non finance.?

Any time you get a chance to present you get a chance to propel your career.....and?we aim to propel the careers of these finance and non finance leaders

Dubai based luxury retailer

After a successful introductory session of FBP back in January we have now agreed a second round of training for this luxury retailer based in Dubai.

This is one of my favourite clients as they?prefer doing Friday workshops and their 10am is my 4pm so fills a nice gap in my diary right before the weekend.

They are also a great team to work with.

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?? I own and run the global finance training company theFBPteam

?? We don’t help finance teams report performance, we help them improve performance

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