How To Structure Your FBP Team

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:

- How To Structure Your FBP Team

- Your Audience Needs a GPS

- Client Wins and Programs

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 at...

www.calendly.com/andrewjepson

How To Structure Your FBP Team

The structure of your finance team and how you set up your finance business partners is one of the key factors that defines your ability to be successful in this space.

Get it right and you have a chance

Get it wrong and its lipstick on a pig.

I had an interesting chat in our FBP Bootcamp yesterday about the best way to structure business partnering - when the only person who does the business partnering also does everything else ie month ends, budgets, forecasts, etc

And?right there is the problem in big neon lights.

If your finance business partners are doing month ends, budgets and forecasts then they simply will not have time to do business partnering effectively.

2-3 days a month on month ends, another day or two on board reports, another 2-3 on forecasting and a third of your time is gone. And that's best case scenario.

Layer in 2-3 months of budget and another quarter of your time is gone.?

Which leaves not much left to truly help the business solve real issues and focus on its strategic goals.

And what happens when non finance have no finance resource they can use (or even find).

They work around you.

They do it themselves.?

And they make decisions without you.

Not because they want to.

But because they have to - because the business doesn't stop because its month end or budget time.

To solve this you have to separate resource to focus on business partnering.

Free some finance resource up to focus on it. Without the burden of compliance and reporting activities.

You only need a small amount of resource, but imagine if your best and brightest were a key part of the major decisions in your business.

And the compliance type work had a major automation overhaul and was left to the entry level and newer staff. Who then become the breeding ground for the next FBP role.

That's why I believe Finance Business Partnering is for the best of the best. And it is best done by people who have been in the organisation some time.

They understanding the business, the systems, the people and how to get things done quickly.

And recruiting externally to get someone to do that leaves you with 6-12 months before they are even up to speed.

So what's the best structure.

Keep your normal finance structure. Just separate some key people to focus on this and spend all their time on the adhoc.

Feed it from within and then replace their role externally, not the other way around. Someone from within with "organisational experience" will be way more successful than a fresher.

It will repay itself very quickly if they have the skills and behaviours needed to be successful

If they don't have them, then call us. We will have them sorted in less than?a month.

Your Audience Needs a GPS

This week I was lucky enough to sit through one of the most poorly structured and boring presentations I have ever seen.

Lucky because it gave me material for my newsletter of what not to do

Unlucky because I couldn't wait for it to end.

But I didn't know when it was going to end because I hadn't had my expectations set.

I thought it was going to be a?10 minute presentation. It went for over 45 minutes.

Which meant by about 15 minutes I was getting annoyed every time another slide started.

One thing you must do if you are doing a presentation is to set the sat nav for your audience

Give them a GPS.

A navigating system so they know where they are in relation to the start and the finish.

And you do this in the setup of your presentation by following the sales mantra of.....?

Tell 'em what you're gonna say

Say It

Tell 'em what you said

And only give them three things maximum. Our brains can't really absorb much more.

Remember your audience more often than not does not know what you are going to say.

So you have to calibrate them

Tell them what to expect up front. "Today I am going to talk about..."

And as you go through it highlight where you are up to.

Point number 1 is this. Then talk about it.?

Point number 2 is this. Then talk about it

Point number 3 is this. Then talk about it.

If you tell them at the start you were talking about three things then they are safely navigated through it.

If you just start talking and keep turning the page (like the presentation I saw) your audience doesn't know where you are up to and doesn't know how much longer is left.

And after 2-3 points you end up waffling on about things that just aren't that important and completely dilute your key messages

So not only have your annoyed your audience, you have sent them to sleep as well.

Remember this recipe for any great presentation.....

Today I am going to talk to you about three things....1 is this, 2 is this, 3 is this.

Talk about 1

Talk about 2

Talk about 3

Then finish by saying "Today I talked about 3 things, 1 was this, 2 was this and 3 was this".

Bookend it with a catchy headline and a call to action and your audience will arrive safely at the end engaged, they will remember what you said, and they will likely action it

Upcoming FBP Programs & Clients?

The Leaders Lab

If you hadn't yet heard, in 2025 will be launching our new program dedicated to individuals who want to propel their careers. Its called The Leaders Lab...

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What is The Leaders Lab?

Stay tuned next week as we bring you more details but needless to say this is a one of a kind program for finance individuals wanting to get themselves to the C Suite.

You will gain?the skills needed to get your finance team humming and partnering the business properly.

And you will develop the leadership skills needed to get to the next level and set you up for the C suite.

The?exposure,?the ongoing sessions and the experiential nature of this program will have your learning and development set to hyper speed.

$'000s in value each and every month

And you can opt in and out as you see fit.

If it sounds of interest to you (or your high performers) just click on the link below and we will?set up a call to assess your suitability.

But be quick, the first 20 to register receive over 40% discount on the monthly fee.

Expression of Interest

The new FBP Micro Course from?Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand

This week I had the privilege of working in the studio with the Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand on their new micro course on Finance Business Partnering.

As their third party partner and subject matter expert on the topic, we have been working on a three?course program over the last couple of months

And this week it was time to film for it.

We are still a fair way off the release of this but stay tuned. It should be ready in early 2025.

I can't wait to see the final outcome and get these key skills into the hands of?CAANZ members.

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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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Because once the robots arrive, the only thing left will be business partnering