#2 - What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There

It’s one of those things that splits opinions when you look at popular quotes.

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If you were to search for them, you’d find those such as Albert Einstein’s “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”, which suggests old solutions aren’t fit for modern challenges and a need for change or growth beyond what worked previously.

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On the other hand, you’ll find Winston Churchill’s “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”, which suggests that valuable lessons about the future can (and should) be learned from the past.

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Far from me to disagree with either position of such greats, but for the purposes of this newsletter, let’s just say that when it comes to business and finances, we’re much more in the Team Albert camp than Team Winston on this philosophical dilemma!

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Let’s start with a finance individual.

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When you start out, often as an accountant or similar, it’s all about the numbers.

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The black and white.

The right and wrong.

“But the textbook says…” and so on.

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What those who become proficient FDs realise (usually pretty abruptly!) is that what got them to an FD position is, in no way, shape or form, what will help progress them from there.

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Because to be a successful FD takes a whole different skill set. Emotional intelligence rather than spreadsheet wizardry is the order of the day now! When working as an FD, your job is to proactively forecast the good and the slightly scary and ensure everyone is prepared for all eventualities.

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In contrast, when coming through your early years as an accountant, your job was to make sure people had all the facts, knew the state of play, and hit their HMRC deadlines – it’s about as far removed from emotional intelligence as you’ve ever seen!

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It’s why not all accountants should try and become FDs – but that’s for a whole different newsletter entirely.

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Let’s look at this through a broader business lens, then.

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You start your business bright eyed and bushy-tailed, whether short on cash but giddy with excitement or with a heavy load of investment in your back pocket – the point is, it’s exciting, new, and all about growth in those early days.

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Bagging your first client, putting sales processes in place – hell, even hitting the phones as a founder if you have to make it work in those early days! Sell, sell, sell and then as soon as you do, it’s deliver, deliver, deliver.

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Because in those scrappy early days, once you get a sale in, the smart businesspeople will know that that sale is your best chance of landing another sale – by way of a brilliant case study and hopefully some referrals.

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So your focus then, naturally, becomes on ultimate delivery for that client/project. But, with that comes a drop off in BD/sales activity… and so once that project nears an end, you’re on the lookout for more work again!

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And that cyclical nature generally continues until a hire is made – either to take up some of the load from a delivery or a sales perspective, or sometimes both!

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That usually continues until suddenly, year 1 has turned into year 3, and you now have seven staff to account for and still no robust systems or standard operating procedures (SOPs) in place across the business.

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It is a recipe for disaster before too long.

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That’s even before you throw in the complex challenges that staff bring – multiple personalities and ways of working, disciplinary issues, the whole culture debate with work from home or office-based etc etc, etc.

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Your job is no longer to sell what your company delivers – nor be responsible for delivering said projects!

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It’s at this stage that many business owners go wrong.

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They either:

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A.)?? Hire more people without real strategy, training or plan, and it all goes Pete Tong.

B.)?? Miss the hustle and bustle of being involved, so end up micromanaging everybody.

C.)??? Realise that their job has completely changed and embrace their new reality…

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Those that land in bucket ‘C’ realise that “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There” – how’s that for a callback?

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You can take the logic to any expert profession, and it’s the same.

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Pep Guardiola won everything there is to win at Manchester City, and yet, every season sells a key player and significantly changes the style of play – why?

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Because What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There.

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Though it’s tempting to suggest such… Unfortunately, I’m not the Pep Guardiola of the finance world (yet).

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But when it comes to running a profitable business, there is one commonality I’ve observed in my many years in business.

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Get the right support around you.

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You may be sh*t hot at your finances but not know where to start with writing a LinkedIn post or marketing collateral.

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You may be operationally savvy but emotionally not-so-intelligent.

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You may be incredible at selling yourself and what you do but horrific at keeping the admin and CRM side of things matching the sales.

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Ultimately, we all have different strengths.

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And whether it’s down to a lack of “real-life” financial education from a younger age, a mutual hatred of maths or a system which encourages complexity rather than simplicity when it comes to numbers, the finance section of a business is (bewilderingly) often the last to get external expert support involved in,

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Whether it’s upskilling yourself, getting external support or helping progress individuals to take responsibility internally, leaving finances as an area to fix when something goes wrong is beyond backwards.

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You work so hard – why would you let it all go down the drain because you buried your head in the sand when it came to having a monthly finances meeting?

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To keep with the Einstein theme, we’ll round this edition of the newsletter off with another, more well-known, of his – “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

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(And as much as that would have been the perfect sign-off to this newsletter, it’s worth noting that such a quote is wrongly attributed to Einstein when in fact, mystery novelist Rita Mae Brown deserves the credit!)

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As ever, any topics that you think should be covered by this newsletter, let me know, and thanks for reading!