GrowCFO Show

Do you struggle to write compelling reports that get the right response from the rest of your business team? Business Writing doesn't come naturally to many finance leaders. You are probably much more comfortable with an excel spreadsheet than drafting a report that needs to be persuasive and encourages others to back your arguments or take the right actions. When you produce a finance report you aren't just articulating the numbers, you need to tell a story. You need to make the numbers come alive and turn them into something meaningful that your audience will understand. It's often not an easy task. Martin Booth is an experienced copywriter and is the ideal person to help you improve your business writing. Martin is featured in the communications course within GrowCFO's new finance team training package. The course examines all forms of communication including sections on both powerful presentations and writing persuasive reports. Martin spent more than 20 years on the sports desks of various national newspaper titles including The Times, the Sunday Mirror and the Daily Express. More recently, he worked in the betting industry. Martin’s focus now is on creating, refining and delivering written content of the highest quality for business owners and leaders. In the podcast, Martin tells you about the things you should avoid when you draft your next finance report. He goes on to explain to you how to create better business reports that are properly targeted to the audience that will read them. He explains that even in finance it's all about telling engaging stories to real people. Links Enquire about finance team training and development for your teamFind out more about LeBoo MediaMartin Booth on LinkedInKevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamp 00:43 Martin's background in sports journalism 02:18 The biggest challenge in moving from sports journalism to business copywriting 03:01 What do finance folk tend to get wrong when they write reports? 07:12 The importance of creating a persona or an avatar from your intended audience 09:38 Getting behind the numbers and saying what they really mean 10:39 Storytelling brings things to life 14:01 The importance of a good headline and first paragraph 16:23 The power of the executive summary 18:27 People don't read reports start to finish they dip in and out 19:44 Have a call to action, tell people what to do next 20:20 The importance of a good structure 22:18 Audience research 27:11 Remember that while the report is about the business you are talking to people think about "what's in it for me?" 30:15 Paul Gascoigne.....If you want to know what Gazza has to do with writing better finance reports you have to listen to the audio!

You have just landed your dream job. Now your challenge is how to make an impact in that new finance role. You need to hit the ground running. What you do in your first hundred days in your new role is critical. If you get the first 100 days right then you will get the first year right. Get the first year right and you will set yourself up well to excel in years two and three. The first 100 days are vitally important. There are multiple challenges you will need to address. You have a new team, you need to get to know them as individuals, assess their abilities, and understand their strengths and weaknesses. You also have new business colleagues, you need to get to know them, understand their issues and begin to build a successful working relationship. On top of all this, you will need to find out how the business actually works, and understand its processes and systems. Particularly those you own or are directly responsible for. Where are the issues? what do you need to fix? You will need a clear plan for those first 100 days, and you will need to execute the plan effectively. In this episode, Kevin Appleby and Dan Wells go deeper into all of these issues and discuss how to approach the first 100 days in your new finance role; how to plan for those 100 days; what you can do even before your first day; and some of the things you can do to help execute your plan effectively. Links Enrol in our free course: "New Role: Your First 100 Days" covers all the things that Kevin and Dan discuss and goes into much more detail. If you are about to move into a new role then this course is ideal for you Enquire about finance team training and development for your new teamFind out more about the GrowCFO mentoring team and how they can support you in your new roleListen to the podcast: "Build a Heatmap for Change" with Susana Serrano-Davey, which focusses on a key activity in your first 100 daysDan Wells on LinkedInKevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamp 01:16 People move roles on average every 3 years 01:57 Franklin D. Roosevelt and the origin of the first 100 days 04:15 The different challenges of an external appointment and an internal promotion 05:46 Think carefully about your No.2 08:00 Why were you appointed to the role? What are you expected to fix? 09:49 Getting up to speed with business as usual 10:34 The first 10 days in your new finance role. The settling in period 11:33 How to plan the next 90 days 14:40 The first 30 days: Fix 17:03 The middle 30 days: Blueprint 18:00 The final 30 days: Transform 19:05 Involve your team. Build a heatmap for change 22:00 The importance of mentoring

Many finance leaders have approached GrowCFO asking for help with training their finance teams: what sort of training and development does my team need? What should it cover? And how should it be delivered? In this episode, Dan Wells and Kevin Appleby discuss the requirements and options for effective finance team training and development. We draw valuable insights from our 2021 survey of over 200 finance leaders. There is a clear need for a broad range of skills training, ranging from financial topics such as cost control to soft skills such as communications. Self-paced online finance team training is popular, but many leaders still favour in-person training and where possible, have this bespoke to their organisation’s requirements. We talk you through GrowCFO’s team training online courses, mentoring and coaching, workshops, and team-building events and their benefits. Our team training resources are designed to cover the topics that will have the most impact on your team and organisation, free up your own time by delegating more, and improve your ability to retain your best staff. Links Enquire about finance team training and development for your teamDan Wells on LinkedInKevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 00:59 Finance leader training survey results02:16 The training deficit caused by the pandemic03:43 The four most sought-out areas of development05:15 Bespoke workshops available to you07:13 Online training (courses, mentoring and coaching, workshops, and team-building)08:09 The 10 most popular topics for training10:53 The typical time needed to complete an online course13:16 Cost-effectiveness of online training15:11 Saving your time by enabling you to delegate additional tasks16:01 Why investment in training and development helps you retain your best staff18:11 Taxation and local regulations20:35 How to find out more

In this episode, Kevin Appleby interviews Felix Velarde, author of best selling business book Scale at Speed: How to Triple the Size of Your Business and Build a Superstar Team. Felix is also the founder of 2y3x.com, a growth acceleration program. Felix has distilled some of the best strategies he's learnt over twenty-five years of leading businesses of varying sizes into an easy-to-read framework. He expertly lays out the journey a business needs to undertake to scale. He breaks it down into digestible steps, allowing you to achieve your goals through well-structured frameworks and engaging stories along the way. It's a great guide to achieving 3x growth in 2 years (2Y3X). We use this framework to examine the role of the CFO. The CFO's role within the team charged with setting strategy and delivering growth is vital. The CFO is key to the entire process. We also consider businesses that are in trouble and need to transform quickly in order to survive. Felix strongly believes that the same framework that allows you to scale at speed works just as well in a short-term crisis. He backs this up with evidence from his own clients who lost significant revenue at the start of the pandemic. Links Felix Velarde on LinkedInKevin Appleby on LinkedInBuy scale at speed on Amazon UK or on amazon.comListen to Felix on The Next 100 Days Podcast Timestamps 00:53 Felix's background as a serial founder03:02 2Y3X: triple your revenue in two years08:29 Scale at Speed: The role of the CFO14:24 The CFO is in a unique position on the Growth Lab team17:08 The Growth Lab team and its purpose18:43 Scale at Speed, the book19:30 Jim Collins and the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG)20:27 Edwin Locke and Goal Setting Theory23:17 The Scale at Speed framework in a crisis31:14 Team's holding each other to account37:34 Motivating the growth team: Do you need incentives such as EMI?40:01 The importance of shared values for your team46:37 The financial goal, the quality goal, and the people goal47:40 Summarising the role of the CFO in the growth process

Mike Henebery has been involved in private equity transactions for most of his career. He's recently co-founded Titan Partners. Titan has just completed its first 8 figure fundraising deal helping fast-growing technology business Wise secure minority funding from Inflexion. Mike's Career in Fundraising and Private Equity Mike is a qualified accountant, starting his career in Arthur Andersen. He quickly moved away from audit and into the world of deals and fundraising transactions. His 30-year career in deals started in Montagu Private Equity and then Gresham LLC. He moved on to found several businesses of which Titan is the latest. You can find out more about Mike in his Linkedin profile. What does Titan Partners do? In 2019 Mike launched a new consultancy: Titan Partners. The mission was about accelerating success for SME owners. Titan Partners offers DISRUPTIVE start-ups and scale-ups access to a diverse range of EQUITY and CREDIT CAPITAL solutions ranging from high net worth to institutional investors leveraging our own startup/scale-up fundraising. Titan Partners facilitates fast growth, disruptive and profitable SMEs with unfulfilled Big Hairy Audacious Goals and executes a clear exit strategy.  The steps: assess value objectively;access to capital on the best terms; boost innovation (along with sales and profit); close out the transaction. Mike explains to us how leveraging Dr Dave Richards experience is key to step 3. These steps help owners fulfil their ambitions faster while still maximising value The GrowCFO Fundraising Simulator While Mike has a wealth of experience in fundraising, this isn't something that is common for accountants and CFOs. Over two-thirds of aspiring and first-time finance leaders have little or no fundraising experience. This can easily derail your career progression and leave you feeling unprepared when leading your first ever fundraise. If that's you then GrowCFO can help. GrowCFO’s Fundraising Virtual Simulator provides you with essential first-hand CFO experience of leading and delivering an entire fundraising process from initial brainstorming through to deal completion. Our simulator is based on a real-life $12 million fundraise comprising equity and convertible debt for a high growth company with a pre-money valuation of $60 million. We have designed our simulator to help prepare you to confidently lead a range of fundraising deals so that you can thrive throughout the process. You will feel empowered to obtain the best available deal for your company. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

On this episode of the GrowCFO Show Susana Serrano-Davey and Kevin Appleby discuss how to Build Consensus so that your proposal is accepted without challenge. Have you ever wondered why some people can turn up to a meeting, present their proposals, and have them accepted without question? Yet at the same time, you bring your proposal forward and you get a hard time and no decision. Why? What are you doing wrong? The answer is you probably aren't doing enough outside the meeting room to build consensus. If you put in the hard work before the meeting, it's likely you will have a far easier ride in the meeting itself. There are three steps to build consensus Susana defines three steps to building consensus: Identify who you need to persuade. Who are the key stakeholders? These might not just be the meeting attendees. Some board members may take advice in some instances from their no.2 or other members of their own function. If that's the case, you need the advisor on your side and saying the right things when they advise their boss. Engage with each of your stakeholders in an appropriate way. Find out what their issues are and talk about them before the meeting. It might require a formal meeting. It might just be a chat at the coffee machine. Adapt your proposal to take account of their feedback. The consultation process is bound to give you some new information that will make the proposal better. Make sure you recognise this information and make the updates to your initial proposal. Listen to the whole episode to find out more. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Pinky Jangra teaches resilience to individuals and teams. She joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show to explain how to create a resilient finance team. About Pinky Jangra Pinky has delved into many branches of human development and behaviour, enabling her to build a rich understanding of the human experience - mind, emotions, body, behaviour and soul. Pinky has been teaching her own courses since 2015. She delivers her proprietary Resilience Training to a variety of audiences online, in person, in business and personal environments.  She combines her human development knowledge with 10+ years of corporate and consulting experience to help organisations with other people related areas including wellbeing, culture, change management and leadership development. Following this path enables Pinky to do what she loves - "leading people towards their greatness, growth and transformation. I love seeing people blossom. I love seeing them step into their own power and unlock their inner genius. We are not here to play small, to be bystanders, to be at the whim of our circumstances, beliefs and other people's expectations. We are powerful creators, each bearing gifts and talents, we are able to overcome even the toughest challenges. We're here to make our lives, our teams, our companies and our world better together." How to create a resilient finance team Pinky says it depends on what your focus is for the training. If you're doing resilience training for individuals, or for the team as a whole. Whichever it is, the first thing she starts with in all her training is self awareness skills. The first thing you have to understand is what's going on in any person's mind, emotions, body behaviour, any given time. So that's really what you do to set the foundation. And then if you are doing something for a team you can start looking at a vision of what you actually want to create, collectively, or you can do it for an individual. Visioning is only the start. Pinky teaches five or six different elements of resilience. Some people just say, oh, to build your resilience, you need to just work on your mindset, or you need to do some exercise. But you are a holistic being, everything about you is a system, everything is working together. Pinky does look at mental resilience, looking at your own mindset. But theres much more. She then considers emotional resilience, what do you do when you're stressed? And how are you handling difficult emotions and anxiety? And so on? Are you processing them? Are you regulating them? Pinky has a whole toolkit to help you. Then there's also behavioural resilience. So what are you doing? Are you one of those people who just says yes to everybody? And then you wonder why you're so overwhelmed as a simple example. Using these techniques together, you end up creating a resilient finance team Listen in to the full recording as Pinky tells us much much more about each element of resilience. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Helene Brichet Herbinet is the newest member of GrowCFO's mentoring team. She joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO show to talk about her background and what she believes makes a good mentor. Helene tells us about 5 types of mentor and the situations in which each type works best. About Helene Helene describes herself as "an inclusive and dependable leader and team player with cultural sensitivity, openness and integrity". Her focus is on delivering value to organisations, their people, customers and stakeholders. She leads change with a clear vision and close stakeholders engagement. Helene is passionate about building and leading high-performing teams. She says "I invest in supporting individuals' growth and development. Bringing commercial acumen, critical and strategic thinking in diagnosis, problem-solving and decision making". Helene's background is in financial services. Her experience includes Barclays, Visa, and Capital One. She describes her career as non-linear, meaning she has changed roles often, and not necessarily for promotion to broaden her experience. Helene tells us more about the benefits of a non-linear career path in the audio recording. Besides GrowCFO, Helene also mentors for the ICAEW. You can find out more in her LinkedIn profile The 5 Types of Mentor Helene believes everyone needs five types of mentors. The first type is the Jedi Master. They have the experience and the Wisdom. They can provide insight into the industry, the function, or the role you work in. The second type of mentor will champion your cause, they will have your back. They will be connecting you to people, influencing how people see you, and introducing you to the key people. The third type of mentor is the co-pilot, the peers, committed to your success as much as you commit to this in collaboration. The fourth one is your confident or your anchor. They don't need to be in a professional environment, or at least they don't need to be in your industry or functional role. They are a coaching type of mentor, a sounding board for you. This mentor knows that you're going to hit speed bumps and that you're going to go through challenges as you develop as a leader. They can give you a lift, a psychological lift, and help you see light at the end of the tunnel. And the fifth one is the reverse mentor. That's someone you learn from. Because they bring a new perspective, because they, they have a skill that you don't have. And generally, this is more intergenerational. You can learn more about each of the 5 types of mentor by listening to the show. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Tom Berry joins us on the GrowCFO Show to talk about communications. Tom is passionate about building businesses, creating brilliant places to work, teaching kids and making people happy. His background is in journalism and communications. These days he teaches business in a secondary school and has several non-executive directorships. We discuss communicating in a crisis. Communicating in a crisis isn't easy Tom's main advice is "Don't Panic". Communicating in a crisis needs to be calm and clear. Honesty is important, and it can be a mistake to hide bad news. The CFO needs to assess their skills. Just because the CFO has all the information doesn't make the CFO the right person to communicate it. If communication isn't your strength then get somebody else to deliver the message. Tom has much more to say than just this. Listen to the recording to get Tom's full advice on communicating in a crisis. Tom Berry as a Non Executive Director Tom moved from being a financial journalist to running a communications agency. He went on from there to become a Non-Executive Director. Tom tells us how that journey came about and his passion for working with mental health charities. Why a CFO should also be a NED Tom advises CFOs to consider taking on a Non-Executive role too. It gives an insight into a different organisation, allows you to see first-hand how other companies work. A good NED listens and is constructively critical. The CFO can enhance their skills by learning to do this. The transfer of ideas across organisational boundaries can be invaluable. CFOs can bring ideas back to their own business. What makes a good CFO? Tom has worked with quite a few CFOs. He believes a good CFO is somebody who will look very closely at the underlying truth and tell the board the truth. A good CFO doesn't talk to the board that often, but when the CFO needs to communicate he will do so and you know it will be important. There's no point in repeatedly talking about the status quo. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

One of the first tasks you have as a new finance leader is creating a blueprint for your finance function, and the other parts of the business you have responsibility for. Susana Serrano-Davey tells us how she uses a heat map for change to determine what needs to be done and in what order. Susana outlines a five step process to create a heat map for change. You have just arrived in your new finance leader role. Chances are you have been hired to fix stuff. Besides the things you know you have to fix there will be other things to change. You may well have your own opinions on what the solutions are and what needs to be done. Susana councils us to proceed with caution and follow a process. Step 1: Dont start too quickly You need to be mindful of your new situation. You need to get to know the organisation. How does your leadership style work within the culture of your new employer? The first few weeks are all about discovery, building relationships and finding out how things work around here. Until you understand these it's too early to implement change. Step 2: Beware of the pitfalls Change will fail if you haven't taken the time to build relationships. Take time to meet with the key stakeholders, and to really understand the nature of the problem. Make sure you ask the right questions. Why are things not working? Why those particular things? There may be a variety of issues to explore. Why is it so difficult to report? Why are we getting the wrong numbers? Or, why are suppliers not being paid? Why aren't we closing on time? Whatever the question there are reasons behind it you need to know about. Make sure you involve the people at the coal face in the solution. They will know more about the problems than you do. They will buy into the solution and the business change if they think they created it. Don't be a know-it-all super CFO. Be humble. Even if you think you have seen it all before. Then you can build from that. Step 3: Draw a Heat Map for Change The heat map is simple. It's a 2x2 matrix. Take your team off-site to populate the heat map. This way you get consensus about the problems, their importance and their ease to fix. First look at the problems and agree on your level of concern about each. Rank them red amber or green. Park the greens, and then map the reds and ambers on the matrix according to ease of fixing. Heat Map for Change Step 4: Build a plan The heat map will help you identify what needs to be done. It helps you prioritise what comes first. You need to turn this into a plan that identifies specific tasks, assigns responsibilities, and sets a timeline. Plan in detail for the first 90 days and an outline for the quarters that follow. Stop the bleeding first. This will create some quick wins with a big impact. Then think about the big projects. You may want to take in some low hanging fruit. This will give you some further successes to celebrate while the longer-term changes are being worked on. Step 5: Implement Implement the 90-day plan. At the end of 90 days take time to celebrate success. Review what went well, what could have been better and plan the next 90 days. Before you plan again you need to update the Heat Map for Change and make sure that any new or changed priorities are reflected in the plan Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.