Storytelling For 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:

- Storytelling For Finance

- The Email Nobody Sends

- 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

Storytelling For Finance

Do you have any workshops or material on Storytelling Andrew?

Its probably the one question I get asked the most. Like there is some magic elixir we can cover in two hours that will make every finance person brilliant at this.

The reality is storytelling and crafting your narrative and delivering it in a cohesive and impactful way takes work.

It's a build of a number of techniques and tools you can draw on to make it compelling.

In my early days I used to spend 70-80 % of my time doing the analysis, copy and paste some graphs and visuals into a powerpoint document and take everyone through the facts.

That's NOT storytelling

In fact it misses the main component of storytelling which is engagement of your audience. And that is a right side brain thing.

These days I understand the analysis is the easy bit. And I spend 70-80% of my time crafting my message and my narrative?so that my audience is engaged and understands it.

Storytelling takes work, experience and practice.

Luckily there is a four step method that makes it easy. And if you follow it you can craft a sequence that your data, visuals and analysis can slide into.

Step 1: Once Upon a Time

Show us and tell us what the world was like "once upon a time". What was going on and how we got to where we were. In other words set the scene.

Step 2: Identify the Event

In any good story there is an event that disrupts the scene setting and changes things. Highlight this to your audience. "Here is where things changed" and there are some consequences to that.

This change in things is what grabs people's attention.

Step 3: Transition them?

Once you have destabilised the status quo with the event use specifics and details to transition your audience to a different place. We did or are doing this this and this.

Step 4: The new place

Show them what it looks like now after you have changed some stuff. Or what it will look like if you do.

Throw in a number in step 1 and the what that number looks like now in step 4 and voila.....you have a story.

For more on this?check out Freytag's Pyramid. It's the classical story telling process most storyteller use some version of.

The Email Nobody Sends....

When you are working in Finance, email is your friend.

You use it to communicate everything and to make sure things are done.

Send out reports, ask questions, share information, hold people accountable.

The problem is, if used poorly, email is your?enemy not your friend. It's the worst tool for doing all of those things

As a business owner? email is the one tool I hate. Why?

Firstly it creates communication conflict as you can't convey tone or body language, two huge communication tools

And secondly, I have no read on whether the other person has received what I sent.

And I am not about to start attaching notifications to my emails and become the most hated person on the planet. Nobody clicks yes to them anyway.

And this problem is real. Sometimes people don't read your email, sometimes they don't even receive it. And this has happened to me on a number of ocassions.

To avoid these issues I stick to a couple of clear rules around email. And always send a specific email that very few people ever bother sending.

I try to only ever send emails to

- confirm what has been discussed or agreed

- to share information (FYI) to lots of people I don't expect action from

I never send emails to:

- discuss or agree something

- share the action I expect from someone.

Why? Because I have learnt to treat emails as if the other person has not received it.

You don't know if they have read it. So assume they haven't, don't assume they have.

My old boss had been working in his role for one month and had 1,236 unread emails. He simply took the view if it was important they would call him.

Your email can also get stuck in firewalls. Now this is less common internally but externally it happens, especially with attachments.

So for every email you send that has a document, and you want to make sure the other person has received it simply send a follow up email saying:

"I have just sent you an email and wanted to ensure you received it, could you please respond "received" so I don't annoy you with follow up"

It's an email very few people send. And when sent it's an email very few people do not respond to and confirm.

Unless of course they didn't get the first email, in which case they likely didn't get the second either :)

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Upcoming FBP Programs & Clients?

The Leaders Lab

Expressions of Interest for The Leaders Lab are now in full swing and I have been quite overwhelmed in the interest.

Who would have thought finance professionals would struggle getting their career to the next level. I thought we knew it all.

But remember we are only taking 20 people for the first cohort kicking off in 2025.

So if you are interested please get in contact and express your interest. Just click on the button below and we will arrange a chat during November to assess your suitability.?

No new news :(

I woud love to sit here and say the last two weeks has been an influx of new client work.

But that would ignore the realities and seasonality of what we do and just be a lie.

The second half of November we typically spend a lot of time talking to former clients about 2025 development plans. And those conversations take time.

Most new clients are really really busy bringing the year home.

Or worse trying to finalise budgets.

Which is why we have these conversations now.

So if you have built your budget, and it has training allocated give us a call. We would love to help you spend it on something your team will get some great wins from.

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

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