Count Me In®

Mike Wallace, Partner at ERM: Environmental Resources Management, joins Count Me In to talk about all things relating to ESG. Mike previously spoke with IMA around the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in 2011 and was able to provide insight into some changes that relate to ESG data and integrated reporting. With so much data now available, businesses and investors are very interested in particular metrics that represent an aptitude for managing their money and their firms responsibly. Mike is an internationally recognized expert in sustainability, ESG, and human capital, and brings this global knowledge to IMA once again to provide advice and insight into the development and implementation of sustainability. He has helped launch a range of sustainability programs inside existing organizations, helped create new initiatives, and helped organizations expand into new markets and, in this episode, he speaks specifically to those in accounting and finance of small and medium sized businesses. Listen now to hear about how your business can measure its reporting and performance with all the tools and resources available in today's industry!Contact Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikewallace/Mike's Recommended Resources:https://www.gmsustainability.com/gri.html https://www.erm.com/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch: (00:05)Thanks for coming back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is Mitch Roshong and I'll be bringing you to episode 52 of our series. My cohost Adam Larson, had a great conversation about various reporting expectations with Mike Wallace. Mike is partner at erm environmental resources management and is an internationally recognized expert in sustainability, ESG and human capital. He explains the recent changes since the global reporting initiative, measuring data for the expectations of different sectors and all things accounting and finance professionals should pay attention to regarding ESG. Keep listening to hear about how you can measure your company's reporting and performance with all the tools and resources available.  Adam: (00:55)So we first met, uh, almost a decade ago when you were working for the GRI or the global reporting initiative and a lot's happened since then. And can you let us know what changes you've seen most since then?  Mike: (01:08)Yeah, sure. The I mean I think, you know, the GRI is an interesting one where we met because the GRI itself is an entity but also the world's leading provider of our sustainability reporting framework, which has now become a standard. But that year I was created literally almost 20 years ago and was developed by a group of stakeholders that got together and said, you know, it's really fantastic what all these companies are doing about their environmental reporting and voluntary sustainability reporting, but they're not doing it in a very standardized manner. Let's create a framework by which companies can, how used to guide how they disclose this type of information. And that was the birth of the GRI literally 20 years ago. At about the same time a similar group of companies and stakeholders got together and they were talking about of all things greenhouse gas emissions disclosure and how those disclosures weren't consistent either. And that was the beginning of the greenhouse gas protocol. So today the GRI is the most widely used reporting framework out there. If you Google any company and and the word GRI after it, you're very likely to find it. The GRI report for the company so you know that they've done it according to a recognized global. My standard and the greenhouse gas protocol underlies all of the ways that we measure and manage and disclose carbon emissions today. So it feels like there's a sudden flood of all these things but it's actually been growing for the last, you know, 20 years or so. Probably the biggest things that have happened to the most significant changes that more and more people have grabbed onto the GRI's approach and enhanced it and tweaked it in ways to help focus it into certain areas or directions. For instance, the CDP is very focused on greenhouse gas disclosures and it's backed up by lot of investors who were saying, we want this type of information. There is, there are things that are specific to health and safety and how you treat your people or your human capital one in particular. It's called the workforce disclosure initiative and they've taken the ball and run with it around disclosures that companies should make about how they treat their people. And that can be gender and diversity issues or it could be right down to health and safety policy. And probably the biggest, most influential is, is the TCFD cause it's, it's the biggest one out there with the most players around it. And in essence the entire global market. The financial community, it's gotten together under this entity called the task force on climate related financial disclosures. Long name, but just think about it from the name of the standpoint of TCFD. You look up the signatories on that and you're going to see stock exchanges, the major rating agencies, insurance companies, lenders, asset management firms, commercial banks, private banks. And you'll see a lot of companies names on it and essence. They all got together and said to each other through this platform, the TCFD, we've got some issues here related to climate change risk and we all want to do business together. But it's in all of our best interest. If we figure out how we as individual companies and within our industries should measure, manage and report on the risks we face. I want to list, you says stock exchange, who's part of TCFD? But I want to know that you're going to be around for the future. I want to ensure you says insurance company, but I want to see your TCFD disclosures. I want to rate you says one of the ratings firms, but I want to see your TCFD disclosures and the companies are turning around and doing this because they want that finance financing. They want those business partners and they realize that these risks are true and real to their business. That's probably the biggest thing I've seen in the last decades, the TCFD emergence. But then this week we just last week we just had Davos and the world economic forum throughout all sorts of new news for us to digest. And yeah, it might feel overwhelming for companies, but it's actually pretty consistent with the pattern that we've been monitoring for the last 20 years.  Adam: (05:09)So thanks for those points, Mike. One of the things we noticed that um, black rock released their letter in January. You know, how was this shaking out in the marketplace?  Mike: (05:21)Yeah. It's interesting, Adam, because we've seen the letter come out for the last few years from Larry think and it's increasingly evolve to include more and more discussion about environmental, social and governance topics. And it's just put yourself in the driver's seat. There. World's largest asset manager. They have a lot of customers, asset owners like the big public pension funds and sov...

Contact Kelly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellypaxton/Pink Collar Crime site: https://pinkcollarcrime.com/IMA's Annual Conference & Expo 2020: https://bit.ly/2HXTN42IMA's website: https://www.imanet.org/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch: (00:00)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. In the past we've included some IMA focus bonus episodes where we spoke to Ima, staff members where I am a volunteers and young professionals. Today's bonus episode is very interesting because we are going to share a conversation held with Kelly Paxton, a certified fraud examiner and pink collar crime expert. She spoke with IMS manager of brand content and storytelling, Margaret Michaels Kelly presented on pink collar crime at IMA's 2019 annual conference and expo in San Diego and she was nice enough to sit with Margaret after her presentation to share some additional insights as we approach our 2020 annual conference. We thought it would be a great opportunity to share some valuable perspectives like Kelly's and make sure you look out for this year's speakers and topics. Let's head over to the conversation now.  Margaret: (00:57)I'd like to start with your area of expertise. Can you tell us a little bit about how you became interested in pink collar crime and how you learned more about it?  Kelly: (01:15)So I became interested in pink collar crime when I was working as the fraud analyst at a local Sheriff's department. Prior to that I was, my original career was in finance and I became a customs special agent. So I was used to arresting bad guys you know, money launderers, drug dealers. But then when I go to a local Sheriff's office and I'm doing primarily embezzlement type cases, all my suspects are women. And I came across the term pink collar crime and I just started researching it and it fascinated me because we were arresting women that look like you and me. They were nice woman. I had a detective one day who, she arrested a woman who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from her child's school where she worked at. And the detective said it was the hardest day of her career. That was this nice woman. She was crying, she was devastated, she had no criminal history, nothing. She made a bad decision and it just spiraled out of control. So I was fascinated because I was, we think of criminals as bad guys. We don't think of them as the people that live in our neighborhoods. And that's what I was seeing in embezzlement cases.  Margaret: (03:54)This is so interesting. Can you explain to us what is the difference between pink collar and white collar crime?  Kelly: (04:03)So white collar crime came in in 1939 by Edwin Sutherland. It is a crime committed by a person of high social status in the course of his occupation and it was his occupation. So it took another 50 years for pink collar crime to come out, which is petty amount stolen by lower level workers in the workplace, primarily women because women are in those positions. So what I say a huge part of the difference between pink and white collar crime is it's position, not gender. So white collar crime is generally considered to be fraud, which is Ponzi schemes, financial statement, fraud and corruption. Whereas pink collar crime, I call it garden variety embezzlement. It's the main street crime. It is the dentist who gets ripped off by his trusted office manager. It is the manufacturing company who has an accounts payable, you know, employee who steals. It's relatable. That's, I use a lot of hashtags in my social media and presentations and I call it the relatable crime. I can't tell you how many people come up when they find out what I do and they have their own story of how they are. A family member had been ripped off by someone or a school club that their kid belongs to. So I call it the relatable crumb. We don't relate to Bernie Madoff. It's just we don't, we don't live in his world. We live in the world of mainstream. Margaret: (05:37)Are there patterns in the behavior of pink collar criminals? For example, I'm not sure if you consider Elizabeth Holmes a pink collar criminal or not, but there have been reports that her behavior seemed to raise some red flags. In the cases you've worked on. What have you commonly seen?  Kelly: (05:56)So some of the common characteristics of pink collar criminals are the trusted employee. It is your right hand person, you own a business, it is your trusted employee. I will tell you it's positioned not gender. A man can be a pink collar criminal. It's the position, it's just the women are in more of these types of positions. According to census, you know, reports 90 plus percent of administrative positions are filled by women. And that's where the cash is in a business. It's in accounts payable, it's in accounts receivable, bookkeepers, receptionist's office managers. So, but they are trusted employees, absolutely trusted employees. So, um, Elizabeth Holmes, I don't consider it to be a pink collar criminal. I don't know what she actually financially profited from Theranose. But the thing about the women and pink collar criminals or the men and pink collar criminals is they're indispensable in a business. They really are indispensable. One of the, I call them pink flags instead of red flags, I call them pink flags is never taking a vacation. So if you have an employee who never takes a vacation, it is a huge pink flag. Of course, lifestyle I do, I tell businesses to do a parking lot audit, look outside and does their salary match the car? I mean, I've had a dentist who, when you find out you've been embezzled, it's horrifying. You are just gutted. And so what do people do when they're horrified? They try to bring humor in it. And so here I have this dentist, he realizes he's been ripped off and he said, you know, when I realized she drove a newer model, BMW's than me, that would be a clue. And I'm like, yep, that would be a clue. So there are patterns men steal more than women. So if you get a male pink color criminal or embezzler, he's going to steal more than a woman. Women steal 45 to 50 cents on the dollar compared to men. Embezzlers and that's been my practice. The two biggest cases I've had male embezzlers.  Margaret: (08:14)Very interesting. Well obviously you don't know someone's behavior before you hire them. Not fully at least. So what are some of the best practices for background checks or industry standards that organizations can follow when looking to hire new employees?  Kelly: (08:31)So I did background checks for many, many years and the ACFE has their report to the nation that most company, about 50% of companies do background checks. Now a background check is a rear view looking assessment. We went to look now into the future. So that's what I say, a parking lot audit lifestyle audit. Many States you can no longer run credit reports unless you did. There is a, you know, a need that can be documented. So the problem with the background check is a lot of these people may have done it before and just been fired or terminated and not prosecuted and so it won't show up on their record. But then there's a huge amo...

Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope is an Associate Professor in the School of Accountancy and Management Information Systems at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois where she teaches financial, managerial and forensic accounting. Kelly’s research on organizational misconduct culminated into directing and producing the award-winning documentary, All the Queen’s Horses, in 2017 which streamed on Netflix from July 2018-2019. In 2018, Pope became a TED speaker with her impactful and timely TED Talk entitled ‘How whistle-blowers shape history.’ Her research has been published in the Behavioral Research in Accounting, Auditing: A Journal of Theory & Practice, Journal of Business Ethics, The CPA Journal and WebCPA. She holds a Ph.D. in accounting from Virginia Tech and is a licensed CPA. In this episode of Count Me In, Kelly summarizes all her above experiences and shares an insightful perspective on how accounting, and accounting education, can effectively combine her passions for fraud, film, and lifelong learning. Her general curiosity and involvement in various topics enables her to peak the interest of and engage her students on a regular basis. To hear about how you may be able to weave your passions together and enhance your learning in the area of accounting, download and listen to this episode now!Contact Kelly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-richmond-pope-cpa-83689a5/Kelly's Website: www.kellyrichmondpope.com TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_richmond_pope_how_whistle_blowers_shape_history/up-next All the Queen's Horses: https://www.allthequeenshorsesfilm.com/Red Flag Mania: www.redflagmania.com FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMAs podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and I will be previewing episode 51 of our series for you. In this episode, Mitch spoke with Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope and associate professor in the school of accountancy and management information systems at DePaul university in Chicago, Illinois. Mitch asked Kelly about her various passions and how she works to combine them all in her accounting classes. Kelly is an education innovator who is an extremely engaging and thoughtful speaker. So at this time I'd like to bring you episode 51 of count me in with Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope.  Mitch: (00:48)So based on your LinkedIn and some other podcasts I've listened to you contribute to, I know you've said in the past, your passions are fraud, film, and lifelong learning. So to kind of start and we'll talk about fraud first, what is it about that and ethics that makes you so passionate?  Kelly: (01:06)Okay. Well, I think what makes me so passionate about fraud as a subject area is that any of us can find ourselves either engaged in one or victimized by one. And so it doesn't discriminate. And so I think it's not a situation where it's them. It could be any of us. And so I think the, the fact that anybody could be involved in one is really what fascinates me about them. And I think if you look at the trend of popular culture with the number of shows about crime and fraud, I think other people would agree that it is a very addictive type discipline. And I think it's so addictive because it's so applicable to all of us. So that's really what fuels my fascination.  Mitch: (02:02)And I completely agree with you. It really does draw you in all these movies and television shows. I know another part of, you know, or the main part really of what you do is teaching. And I'm just curious how you kind of weave this idea of this fascination and passion for fraud into the classroom.  Kelly: (02:20)Well, I think what is really important about accounting as a discipline is accounting is the backbone of everything or money or the ability to account for money correctly. And so regardless of what the fraud scenario is, there's always a money story and there's always a financial impact. So the person that can understand that and explain that to the lay person is the most powerful person in the room. So I use fraud as a way to really invigorated my accounting classes and my accounting students so they can understand the power that they're learning. Because I think that fraud and ethics is the absence of accounting done, right? And so really helping students and even adult learners or corporate learners understand the power of this information is important. And I think the fraud stories are so powerful, but there's always a money story in every case. And so if we can better understand that, then it makes for a more enriching learning experience, whether that's the classroom, whether that's a CPE session, whether that's a training workshop. So I use that really as part of my secret sauce, if you will, when I'm doing a presentation.  Mitch: (03:46)And then I suppose the next step is where we can start to weave in that second piece of your passion triangle, if you want to call it and film. So in addition to just basic fraud and ethics curriculum and your accounting courses, you know, how do you go about working in film and media? Are there any specific examples you'd like to share?  Kelly: (04:06)Well, I had a crazy idea about six years ago that I could create my own film. And so I did, I enrolled in a film fellowship program with Kartemquin films, which is a film collaborative based in Chicago. And I learned the business and the creative aspect of filmmaking and I want it to bring that type of storytelling into the accounting discipline because I think that stories are a way that we communicate and a way that we learn a lot of information. And I wanted to create my own. So I did this six month film fellowship program and out of that was the birth of my documentary, called All The Queen's Sources and All The Queen's Sources streamed on Netflix for a year from 27, 2018 to 2019. And I'm, it now lives on iTunes, Amazon, Google play direct TV, YouTube. And it actually was the number one documentary on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, direct TV on it's first debut two week debut, weeks on that platform. But I think it shows the power of a great story, but I'm teaching accounting through that, through the story. So that's how it really merged the two. I didn't always want to be in the situation where I was relying on another filmmaker to hit the key points that I wanted to hit. So I just said, you know what, I can do it myself. And I think it's really important when someone from our profession makes a film because we have, we're going to go about a film and the way that an accountant needs to pull out these key key topics, which is very different than a traditional filmmaker may pull out key topics. So I think film and accounting go hand in hand.  Mitch: (06:03)That's really interesting and I can certainly appreciate the perspective of knowing the steps to go through the process and convey the right message through the story. But everything you just said leads perfectly into step three, which is lifelong learning. You already talked about, you know, learning how ...

Jirav: https://www.jirav.com/Cloud Accounting podcast: https://www.cloudaccountingpodcast.com/Blake's website: https://www.blakeoliver.com/More About Blake: 1) https://www.cloudaccountingpodcast.com/about2) https://www.blakeoliver.com/bioContact Blake: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/blaketoliverTwitter - https://twitter.com/blaketoliver/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch: (00:05)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I am your host Mitch Roshong and I am happy to share our 50th episode of the series for this conversation. My cohost, Adam Larson, spoke with Blake Oliver. Blake is recognized by Accounting Today as one of the top 100 most influential people in the industry. He's the director of marketing for Jirav and is the cohost of his own podcast, the Cloud Accounting podcast. He joined Adam to talk about technology trends in accounting, like automation for reporting and forecasting as well as other things affecting the accounting and finance world. So without further delay, let's listen to their conversation now.  Adam: (00:50)So Blake, you're recognized as the leader in the accounting industry and you've spent much of your career connected to the cloud. Can you maybe give us an overview as to what trends you're seeing in the industry?  Blake: (01:01)Sure. And thanks for having me on your show. A real an honor to be here and talking to the IMA base. So I started at the very bottom of the accounting career ladder as a, as a bookkeeper. And a lot of what I know about technology is, is based on that experience. I was a in case you're curious, I was a music major in college, not an accounting major, not a finance major. So I think that's helped a lot, helped me approach things with a fresh set of eyes in a lot of cases. Okay. So what happened is I graduated from college and I had this useless music decree and I was still trying to freelance and maybe have a professional career and I picked up bookkeeping as a flexible kind of day job I could do. And so I was doing QuickBooks data entry mostly and I had some clients on the side. A lot of what I did, I would say 80% of what I did was keying in transactions into QuickBooks from PDF bank statements are actually more likely printed ones at that point. So, you know, people were sending me there bank statements they were receiving in the mail. I'd key those in categorize their transactions and create reports. And I liked it cause it was kind of a mindless, the thing that I could do in front of the TV or listening to my favorite music and anybody who's been paying attention to what's been going on over the last 10 years knows that we don't really do that anymore. At least in the world of small business. Manually keying in data is not necessary. We've got online accounting, we've got cloud accounting, we have bank feeds, we have API integrations and when that started to all happen around 2010 was when it really started to get big and become, you know, easy to do with off the shelf software. I jumped on that. And so within about five years, I had automated about 80% of my own job as a bookkeeper. Uh, and I started a business doing that and it was a cloud accounting from, we were virtual. We did bookkeeping in a new way. We could lower our prices off for clients more. It was a big business, you know, we grew to 200 clients in three years and I was able to sell that thing. So that kind of proves just how a successful automating inputs can be and so a lot of what we've scene over the last 10 years, both on the, on the small business side and now creeping up into the mid market and enterprise is basically automating that entry of transactions that getting the data into our ERP system or our accounting system, whether that's QuickBooks or zero or NetSuite or Intacct or Oracle or SAP. It's all the same concept. And I think it happened first in the small business side because small businesses are very price sensitive. And so there was this need to automate that, that entry of data. Lot of business owners, they just can't afford accountants or bookkeepers mean the vast majority of business owners do with their own accounting and so there was a motivation for developers to build that stuff. It's been slower in the mid market because, yeah, at scale when you're a big business, it's, well not that expensive really to hire a staff accountant right out of school and make that person just a import transactions manually every day and reconcile the bank account manually and all that, but I think that that's starting to change in some organizations have really figured out how to automate data flow. Some not at all. Right. And some are blocked because they're on, on premises ERP systems. It's very expensive to switch. So we're at this interesting place about 10 years after the birth of cloud accounting where we have some cutting edge folks that have completely automated most of their data entry. We've got folks that are continuing to do it exactly the same way they did 10 years ago, and we're going to continue to see over the next 10 years real divergence among those groups and it's gonna make people's careers or break them. I think.  Adam: (05:19)So I'm sure there's a range of people listening to this podcast right now, whether they've started some sort of automated reporting and forecasting or some others who hadn't even, haven't even begun to there. And like you said, they're still doing accounting like they did 10 years ago. Can you maybe discuss some of those barriers that they may run into and how could they overcome those?  Blake: (05:38)Yeah, the biggest barrier that I see is when a finance team or an accounting team is stuck with an on premises ERP system and for whatever reason it's decided that it's too expensive to change or perhaps there's not a solution out there that's customized enough to their business. There's always, you know, reasons for keeping old technology and you have to just figure out how to adapt. And that's been the big barrier to adopting cloud is if you don't have API's, if you don't, by the way, API is application protocol interface. It's simply a way for computer programs to talk to each other. And cloud makes us easy because you've got apps hosted in the cloud and they all have API APIs. A lot of them do these days. And so it allows you to hook them together and transfer data. Well not as easy to do when you've got an on prem system. It typically doesn't have an API and you could pay somebody to develop it, but that's expensive to maintain and it usually out of reach for a lot of organizations. So we've had this divergence where folks who are on cloud ERP systems or cloud accounting systems are able to take advantage of all this automation and those that aren't, aren't, well, there is a technology out there that has been talked about quite a bit and I think this is actually one of those technologies that is not a bunch of hype. It's going to have a real huge impact. And that is RPA, robotic process automation. And it sounds really fancy, but it's actually ...

Count Me In Episode 10 (Part 1) with Rhondalynn Korolak: https://podcast.imanet.org/10Contact Rhondalynn:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/imagineering/Rhondalynn's Work & Recognition:http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/11/prweb13878827.htmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb2rqTL4QW8&feature=youtu.behttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3rRoQUxb5g&feature=youtu.beFinalist - Best Digital Start Up - 23rd annual AMY AwardsTop 3 Finalist - Female Fintech Leader of the Year, Excellence in Data and Artificial IntelligenceTop 10 Cloud Accounting Apps of 2016Top 10 Small Business Apps of 2016FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch: (00:05)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I am your host Mitch Roshong and I am here to share another bonus episode of our series with you. If you recall a few months back, my cohost Adam spoke with Rhondalynn Korolak. She joined him from Australia to talk about how accounting skills translate to effectively running a business. Today we are going to hear the conclusion of their conversation and hear some of Rhondalynn's recommendations for adapting to the evolving accounting and finance world. She refers to it as future-proofing yourself. So let's head over and listen now.  Adam: (00:43)So how have you evolved your own career from public taxation to a successful business professional in the accounting space?  Rhondalynn: (00:49)Well, I started off with PWC in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. So my specialization I guess when I went through became a chartered accountant and article was oil and gas taxation. So primarily as you can imagine, me working with a lot of big firms, you know, the sort of shells and mobiles of the world. And it wasn't really until I immigrated about 14 years ago to Australia that I had the opportunity to start working with some smaller businesses. So when I became a permanent resident and a citizen of Australia, I decided I wanted to go out on my own. And the natural inkling, inclination, I guess for me is I wanted to work with small businesses. So I thought that I would go out into the world in a coaching capacity. So I thought I'm going to take everything that I've learned from qualifying and practicing as a lawyer and also a chartered accountant in Canada and I'm going to apply all those skills and I'm going to coach small businesses. And I kind of had a couple of aha moments, right? So aha moment number one is, no, please, please, I'm, forgive me because this is a little bit pre-cloud. So this is going back at least about a decade now. And it was before a lot of the cloud accounting packages even existed. And so I was going out and I was doing Excel spreadsheets. I was printing a lot of reports from my clients. I was giving them traditional dashboards and KPIs and you know, I would go out and coach these people and I couldn't figure out why nobody was actually taking action, you know, because I thought what I was telling them was really important. I was going out with all these KPIs and saying, do you know it takes 92 days to collect your debts and you know, giving them kind of a wrap on the fingers with a ruler. And people were listening to me a lot and they were shaking their heads and stuff and nodding in agreement and they, they knew that it was bad and they knew that they had to do some stuff, but they couldn't actually action it. They, they, they had no clue really what I was saying and what it tangibly meant to their business. So this was my first aha moment. I thought, okay, never worked with small business businesses before. I'm now trying to coach these people, but nobody's taking action. What's the problem? So I learned a couple of things. I learned that the number one problem by far in every single business is cashflow. But nobody wants to talk about it because people hate or they're terrified of their numbers. So that's kind of, you know, the big hairy, um, you know, wake up call for me, number one, number two was 90 some percent of all these people that we're working with, these small businesses, they're completely financially illiterate. So that was another big, huge surprise to me because I just sort of assumed as an accountant that if you had your own business, you might take some time out to learn about financial so that you could operate it correctly. But that is not true. That's not what people do. People go into business because they're good at what they do. They're technicians, they cut hair really well, they do plumbing or electrical contracting really well. They're excellent at selling shoes or you know, operating a retail store or running a restaurant. They don't want to become accountants. And so these were huge revelations to me because I just thought that I could take all this wonderful, you know, insight that I had and all of my accounting and math skills and legal skills and go out and coach people. But I realized that it is not about what you know, it's about what you can move your client to do. And so the biggest things that I learned about making this transition from what might be traditional accounting to more of advice or coaching or whatever you want to call it, is this, we need to find better ways to get leverage on our clients and to actually inspire them to step up and take some action. And that's all soft skills, right? That has nothing to do with learning more about cashflow or learning more about ratio analysis or or trends or cashflow forecasting. You know, in my opinion, we as accountants spend far too much time doing that stuff when, let's be honest, you know, my first client, one of the very first clients that I had was in the aged care business. And when I showed up on the very first day that I was there to coach her, she found out that she had just lost her, her top client. That was where 30% of her revenue. And so all of the work that I had done in preparation for that meeting, reading her financials, preparing cashflow, forecast, all that stuff throughout the window, it wasn't worth anything to her because she had just had a major shift in that business. And so all of that past stuff was irrelevant. And even what I thought the future was going to be like was irrelevant. And the whole coaching was how am I going to put enough value on the table and help her clop back the revenue that she lost so that she can bloody afford to continue in business and to pay me, be there to advise her. And so that was really the big shift for me, right? Is I just thought that I already knew everything that I needed to know from my legal studies and practice and my accounting to do this, you know, job that I wanted to do and I didn't. And so that's when I just became really curious about things like neuroscience, you know, how do our brains process information and make decisions. And that's when kind of my big, you know, lightning bulb or flash moment came for the third time. And what I learned from studying about the brain, and you know, I, I took a deep dive, I read 200 over 200 studies published in, you know, Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford on neuroscience. I took courses on a clinical hypnotherapy so that I could understand a bit better how the brain worked. And what I learned from all of that was this, the parts of our brain that ...

Contact Katie: https://leaders-online.com/contact/Katie's recent content: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiethomascpa/detail/recent-activity/shares/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT(Foreword) Adam: (00:00)Hey everyone. Adam here. Before we get started with today's episode, I want to thank you all for joining us each week and taking part of these great conversations we are having, but I have to ask you a favor. If you listen each week and you enjoy this podcast, please go on iTunes and rate us and leave a review. This helps our podcast be able to reach more people. Thank you so much in advance for taking the time. And now here's today's episode  Adam: (00:22)Welcome back to Count Me In. I am a podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I am your host, Adam Larson and I'm happy to bring you episode 49 of our series one in which we are fortunate enough to be joined by Katie Thomas. Katie is a CPA who is the founder and owner of leaders online, a digital marketing agency for professional service providers. She is a content creation expert and national speakers strives to guide firms through their digital transformations and grow their business. Let's head over and listen to her conversation with Mitch now.  Mitch: (00:59)So in your role, what have you seen as far as technology changing the landscape of the accounting industry?  Katie: (01:12)So, Mitch, that's a great question and it's pretty loaded as it could be expanded to a wide variety of areas, but to focus in on a few areas, I'm going to have to go with the collaboration, work quality and efficiency. So with collaboration, the technology available to actually support collaboration has enabled small and large firms to truly reach way beyond the walls of just their building. So these firms can work with clients all over and then also have employees staffed all over. So no longer are they being constrained to a physical location. And then of course efficiency, that's huge. Firms are able to get way more done a lot quicker. And so like bill.com receipt bank and all of those apps available have allowed firms to become more efficient. And then the quality, this is really important aspect of technology. Of course it's great to be become more efficient, but the quality of the work and removing, you know, some of the chance of human error is great because there's, you know, the work is getting done correctly. Efficiency and like I said, collaboration. So tying all of these together, I think a really important piece that you can, you know, take all these aspects and kind of pull out is that we have better relationships both internally with employees and then also externally with class clients because we can focus on the things that truly matter, like the high level work output that needs done and then building relationships rather than just spending our time doing mundane tasks.  Mitch: (02:54)Yeah, I think those are all great points. And to just kind of follow up real quick, what kind of results do you think this collaboration work quality and efficiency ultimately leads to for the organization as a whole?  Katie: (03:07)It leads to, in my opinion, a lot better, stronger vision and fulfillment of the firm's mission whenever everyone is on the same page, both internally, so the staff and externally the clients, then everyone's working towards the same goal. And no one feels like they're being left out, but they're not on the same page. And the sense of unity that it brings is incredible.  Mitch: (03:37)I think that's a great point. So thank you for tying all that together. And I would say the next step of this technology that's available to these organizations is the ability to use analytics. So what is your perspective in regards to organizations embracing analytics and what does that really help the business answer?  Katie: (03:56)So with analytics, it's really important to just go to the basics of what gets measured can be fixed. And all of the software that firms are using today is providing data. So your marketing software, your practice management software, your client portal and so forth. And then you need to actually take this data and get it into a single location where you can understand the data and have context around what's impacting the outcomes. So you need to be looking at leading and lagging indicators with the leading indicators. These are the ones that look forward at future outcomes and events. And then your lagging indicator, it's going to look back at whether the intended result was achieved. So for example, let's say a firm has their profit down, that's going to be a past event. It's a lagging indicator. Now we need to actually look at why and see what went into this happening. So some of the leading indicators, you know, we might look at our, is it because we don't have enough new clients coming in the door? Is our client churn rate too high? What are our marketing efforts looking like? And you have to bring all the data together to understand the story and for the data to tell the correct story, you can't be missing half of the pages, right? So it's really imperative to have all this data in one place and then we can take action based off the entire story telling us.  Mitch: (05:25)So a big you know, baseline for the analytics that we typically talk about are going up the analytics curve from the descriptive analytics all the way through the adaptive analytics. Ideally, once technology is really enabled throughout the organization. So as people are making these decisions and we have all this data in this one place, I'm just curious what you think. Um, you know, if there are any specific technology tools or certain types of analytics that businesses should be really focusing on to get some better results.  Katie: (05:57)So it really depends upon, you know, what technology they're using in terms of what sort of analytics platform is going to work best for them. Because you know, if you're trying to use a piece of software that doesn't say connect with your marketing data that's going to be difficult to look at some of those leading indicators. But for example, a platform like Malartu, they're really awesome at bringing all the data together. A fathom is of course very, very popular in our industry, power BI, they're looking, you know, to get really complex. So there's a whole lot of tools available. And I wouldn't say that there's like a best tool because what works best for one firm or maybe for one of the firms clients to help them analyze their data. It's gonna vary, you know, business to business.  Mitch: (06:47)And I think that's a great segue into kind of giving you an opportunity to talk about what it is specifically that you do. So we're accounting and finance, but I know you have a very unique perspective on how accounting and finance organizations can use this data. So what does all of this really mean when it comes to building a sustainable brand for an organization?  Katie: (07:08)So when it comes to building a sustainable and strong brand, I think it's alwa...

Reed's Contact Details:Bliss Profile: http://www.blissintegrated.com/people/reed-handley/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reed-handley-08738254/ Additional Relevant Content from Reed:Bliss Blog: “What’s Driving Digital Transformation in Financial Services?” by Reed Handley, December 8, 2019.“Fresh-Brewed News” Podcast: “Episode 90: Data Difference,” by Reed Handley, March 19, 2019.FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:04)Hey everyone, thanks for coming back and listening to episode 48 of Count Me In. As you will hear Mitch address in a moment, today's episode features an expert guest who talks about accounting and finance from an outside point of view. Reed Handley, senior vice president at Bliss Integrated Communication, shares her perspective on the changing needs of finance organizations when it comes to their PR and media. This content is highly transferable for all our listeners and we're excited to share another great episode. So let's head over to the conversation now.  Mitch: (00:39)So our conversation is a little different today as we're going to talk about accounting and finance from the marketing and communication perspective, right? So to kick things off and give us an idea of what exactly it is that you do, what are some of the popular needs of companies and financial services when it comes to PR and media?  Reed: (00:57)Well, thank you for having me. I'm very excited about discussing this with you. I will jump right in and say from my vantage point, I think there are three core issues, from a PR perspective that have overlapping spheres of influence. And those are raising awareness, building trust and brand loyalty, which supports the never ending drive to expand share of wallet with customers. And then the third piece is harnessing data for storytelling and also to use data as a jumping off point for more strategic insights. I'll jump into the raising awareness piece just because I think that that's the most overarching issue that we come across. And it really depends on where an organization falls in its life cycle. So the goal could be to become a household name, or to hold onto your place as a household name among target audiences. And that can be regardless if you're, focusing on a B2C space or if you're a B2B professional. So that brings up the big question of innovation and how that plays a role. I will say, and I'm sure you're seeing this as well, but digital transformation across almost every industry out there is having a seismic impact. On how we're communicating about the value of the product or service we're providing. And nowhere, in my opinion, is that more apparent than in the financial services space. but it's absolutely happening across management consulting, accounting law firms as well. It's something that I think every single, major industry is grappling with how to manage effectively. So I could give you an example from the wealth management space, which is where our sort of, a lot of my personal experience stems from. you know, technology has completely up-leveled and democratize the way consumers and also the individuals and businesses who sell to those consumers are managing money and receiving advice, which is not that hard to think about. You consider the ease with which people are now reviewing or trading or analyzing their financial lives. compared to the days before FinTech apps and SAS platforms existed, like mint and RightCapital capital and Expensify, you know, there's a whole universe out there now, that makes it easier. So from a marketing and PR perspective, there's a huge demand from financial institutions and professional services firms to create programs that showcase the value of your technology, especially as it relates to enhancing the customer and the employee experience. ultimately you're looking to attract and retain both targets and talent. So, you know, figuring out how the communications workflow fits within the technology workflow is really, really critical.  Mitch: (03:46)Now you've been with bliss for over five years, I believe. Is that correct?  Reed:Yes, that's right.  Mitch:And I'm sure more communication roles prior to that. So with all this technology and innovation, you know, how has your job changed? Like what exactly is different about the needs of these financial services and any other industry really as far as who you are trying to put out this awareness?  Reed: (04:07)Well, this is a big meaty question. I will say I think from a practitioner standpoint and a strategic standpoint, the number one need and in many cases I would argue pain-points is harnessing data for storytelling. and that, that goes for both B to B and B to C companies. I think practically every institution in the financial services space and certainly in professional services is seeking new ways to aggregate data for more research backed data driven, driven customer focused experiences. and you may ask why the, and what's shocking to me is that the expectation across the spectrum is so high among people that we're trying to target. we're now in a period where people are more willing than ever to pay a premium for exceptional service, which is particularly noteworthy for increasingly commoditized industries like ours, both from a marketing standpoint but also from an accounting standpoint. I came across two really great pieces of data about this recently. Forrester, reported that 70% of B2B firms say cup customers have higher expectations than in previous years. And Gartner also reported that 82% of B2B CMOs, so vast majority, believe they will be competing mostly on customer experience and not on product or service attributes by 2020, which is this year. so that tells us that customer experience and the way you're communicating with your customers at any point of their sort of journey in terms of getting to know you and your organization is really the crux in differentiating yourself in a competitive environment. which means, and can be a little bit shocking, but it means that the, that you'll be left behind. Absolutely. If you're not thinking about how to responsibly integrate user behavior data into your client service approach.  Mitch: (06:15)So you're mentioning so many buzz words that we talk about with within our industry. You know, we're always looking to turn insight into foresight and make sure that everyone's on the same page as far as awareness and understanding through storytelling. So I think this is fantastic. And along the lines of this digital transformation, you said all this data might actually be a pain point for certain organizations. What else do you think certain organizations need to be aware of or contribute to the PR and the media that you're putting out there for them because of the technology?  Reed: (06:49)Well, I think that they have options. You know, on the one hand you've got, from a financial institution stand...

MaryBeth's Links:Website: http://www.sparkvisionnow.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marybethhyland/Events: http://www.sparkvisionnow.com/events/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:00)Welcome back for episode 47 of Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson and today's conversation features Mary Beth Hyland the founder and chief visionary for spark vision. Mary Beth talks to Mitch about the different strategies she implements to help organizations identify and close the gap between their current and ideal culture. Let's tune in now to hear her perspective on a healthy and thriving culture and what leaders can do to create and sustain these values and behaviors.  Mitch: (00:38)What is organizational culture to you and why do you believe that so important?  MaryBeth: (00:43)Organizational culture is such a complicated thing, but the way that I think about it is basically how things are done around here. So when people talk about their company, it sort of those norms and behaviors, the rituals and routines, what are the expectations that people have? It's also thinking about what is the emotional experience within your company. So how do you feel before you get to work while you're at work and after you leave? It was quite a dynamic thing to think about, sort of a short definition of what organizational culture is. but the way that I've sort of distilled it for the work that I do is I think about it in a formula. The formula that I use is values times, behavior equals culture, so that can take a lot of this intangible and start to make it feel like you can actually pinned some pieces of culture down. When you're thinking about values and you're thinking about behaviors and the reason that this is so incredibly important it is because it's ultimately going to greatly impact the way that people are engaged in their work, the productivity within your teams and your office overall, the loyalty that people have within the organization and ultimately how people feel their health is directly connected to an organization's culture as well. So investing in your company's culture and being intentional about really getting clear on what that definition means to that specific institution or organization, why it matters to them as as a company at large and as the individuals that make up that company, it's really critical in being able to create environments where people can thrive. My job as a workplace culture consultant is most of the time coming in and just being a really effective listener. Because the reality is the people who work there, they know exactly, exactly, exactly what they like to see change. They might not know what the solution is for that change, but they understand what the pain points are and they understand what's going well. So being able to identify not just where things need to shift, but wow, we're really effective when it comes to fill in the blank. So let's just say communication. So how can we make that even stronger and make that proven practice really go out deeper within the company.  Mitch: (03:15)So in your current role, you know, I'd like to go back to kind of what you were just talking about is being a good listener and while you're listening, and I'm assuming you watch the organization as well, what is it that really sticks out to you when you're looking at a healthy and thriving culture? What does that look like and how, have you ever worked with an accounting or finance organization that you knew just by looking and listening that things were going well?  MaryBeth: (03:40)Yeah, it's such an interesting question because every time I go into a company irregardless of the industry or the size or anything like that, everybody always seems to believe that what's going on there is really unique. And it's something that I probably have never experienced before and haven't seen before. So a lot of times when a company is thriving and doing really well, and this goes the same way, if you think about it in the opposite terms of they're not, so oftentimes these things aren't present, but when these things are present, it's apparent that things are, there's not as much of a lift as far as what are some intentional shifts that can be made for how people feel like they can thrive in that environment. So things like communication that is huge. It's amazing how many organizations, I believe that they're transparent and perhaps even have a value of transparency, but are making humongous decisions for the organization that directly impact the people who are going to be implementing that work and never involve them in the process or even loop them in to that as something that's happening. So communication is one of the key pillars to having, a culture where there's loyalty and trust. And those are also huge component. So, right, the trust factor is directly a dotted line connection to, to the communication, but really having people say what they mean and mean what they stay and then following through on those things. So there's this excellent book called the speed of trust, that really talks about how we have these, investments in trust that we're constantly making these small deposits of trust. And then another, another part is, is an organic goes directly connected. So dot line and even a hard line connected to trusting communication is being able to have to may feedback, being able to have conversations where people are able to bring to the table where their frustrations are, where they feel like change is necessary and have it received an open mind versus a, this is how it's always been done. Just get with the program or get outta here.  Mitch: (06:06)My next question is going to kind of build off of what you were just talking about and combined two different ideas here. So as we're looking to build or you know, see this thriving culture, what can leaders do, whether it's top down or bottom up, when the vision, their behavior is in line with the culture they want, but maybe there's others in the organization that just aren't buying in and they really want them to it's not just to get out, but what can they do to make sure that everybody involved in the organization is behaving in that way and ultimately, you know, will enable the organization to sustain this cultural success and their strategy for the future?  MaryBeth: (06:51)Well, I have a a little bit of a clarifying question for you before I answer because there is, it is, there is a differentiator between people who just aren't bought in and people who are toxic. So I'm happy to answer both. What I'd love to know if you're interested in a specific, you know, somebody who just sort of needs to be convinced versus someone who's creating extremely negative experiences in the workplace.  Mitch: (07:16)Very fair question and good point. I'm really more interested in the individual who maybe isn't fully bought in, in my opinion, if somebody were toxic, as you said earlier, it's kind of like, you know, jump on board or this isn't the right position for you. But if somebody is doing their work and maybe they're just not fully bought into the culture that somebody is trying to establish, how can you lead that person in the right direction so the organization goes in the right direction?&nbs...

Larry's Resources:Key Principles of Effective Financial Planning and Analysis: https://www.imanet.org/insights-and-trends/planning-and-analysis/key-principles-of-effective-financial-planning-and-analysisThe 12 Principles of Best Practice FP&A: https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/november-2017-12-principles-of-best-practice-fpa/The People Side of FP&A: https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/july-2019-the-people-side-of-fpa/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch: (00:05)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host Mitch Roshong. And today's conversation is between my co-host Adam Larson and our guest Larry Serven. Larry talked to Adam about strategy, execution, the role of the finance team, and creating long-term value and how companies can better align their strategy with their actions. So now here's episode 46 of count me in.  Adam: (00:36)So, Larry, what is meant by strategy execution and why is it important for creating long-term value?  Larry: (00:43)Well, you know, when you think about it, strategy execution is really about turning plans in a reality, making them happen. You know, actually doing what you said you were going to do. You know, I like to use analogies because you know, I personally find them helpful. So, I imagine I have a goal to lose 10 pounds. That's great. And I have a strategy and my strategy is to exercise more and eat less. That's a good strategy, you know, that's terrific. But what ultimately counts is whether or not I effectively execute that strategy in and lose the weight. Right? So personally, I would take a mediocre strategy that's been well executed over a great strategy, poorly executed, and I would do that any day of the week. And frankly, so will most investors. I started my career at Pepsi Cola international and that's a company that really prides itself on execution and they kind of have to the beverage industry is highly competitive and to survive you really need to be you know, you have to have a great strategy, but you also have to have world class execution. So, Pepsi actually paid a wall street firm to come in and determine the value of effective execution on the stock price. Now there's a whole back story to that I could go into if we had more time. But they concluded that predictability of earnings accounted for close to four points of the price earnings ratio. And that translates into about $50 billion in market cap. So, for Pepsi consistently executing strategy was worth about $50 billion. And since all the executives held stock in the company, you know, the value wasn't some abstraction. it was real money in your wallet. So, if you're a public company, then strategy execution is worth a whole lot. But you know, even if you're privately held, an effective strategy can be very valuable when meeting loan covenants, dealing with bankers. But I think even more to the point strategy execution means you're hitting your goals, achieving what you set out to achieve. And that's what every CEO and CFO wants. And it's, you know, what they get paid to do.  Adam: (03:16)So of course, every company wants their strategy to be executed perfectly. But why do they typically fail?  Larry: (03:27)Well, keep in mind the really four fundamental things necessary to execute a strategy assuming of course you have one to begin with. first people need to know what it is they need to do. Second, they need the proper resources to get it done. Third, they need some motivation to get them done. And finally, there needs to be transparency. Transparency in the goals and objectives, transparency and reporting, the actual results also transparency in the progress that's being made. So, for many organizations one or more, or sometimes all four of those fundamentals are missing. And you know that's obviously a problem or that's obviously a problem, but equally fundamental, there needs to be perfect alignment between all four, but more commonly they're disjointed. they all exist in some form, but they're not integrated in, they're not reinforcing. So, you know, for example the strategy calls for the company to focus on innovation to increase market share and revenue, but it never actually gets translated in concrete terms into an operating plan or the budget process. which is where the real allocation of resources happens. It doesn't actually reflect the strategy. You know, I had a CEO tell me you know, just last week about his frustration, you know, spending three days in an executive retreat that define the strategy and specific initiatives to execute it. He said, the session couldn't have gone any better. Everyone was really excited. You know, they had a real plan. But three months later when they were, you know, in the budgeting cycle, he was presented with a budget P and L and he has a seemingly very simple question where's the strategy and all this. And all he got was blank stares. People hadn't actually thought through what resources they needed to properly execute the strategic initiatives that they committed to, or in some cases they had, but it was done very quickly with the back of their left hand. And it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on and then, you know, you think about incentive compensation, you should be able to ask anyone what their goals are and see how they reflect the execution of the strategy. And I think we're going to be talking about a case study a little bit later on. And I think there's actually a good example there. But you know, for many companies you'd be hard pressed to see a clear line of sight between an individual's incentive comp and the strategy. You know, I could go on with, with other examples. But when you think about all four requirements being in place and actually well aligned, it's frankly not surprising that most companies struggle with strategy execution.  Adam: (06:35)So, what if you're listening to this podcast and this is the first time you've heard these four elements mentioned at the same time and executing strategy, how would one go about identifying which one they're missing?  Larry: (06:46)Oh, that is a great question. the practical advice here, and I'm big on practical advice, is map out today your processes from strategy, right through budgeting through the reporting of, of actuals your compensation. incentive compensation. We map it all out, put it down on paper, not the way you think it should exist in the future, but the way it actually exists today and those missing pieces of the puzzle, those disconnects are going to pop right off the page when you do that. So, the advice to get started is map it all out today and you're going to see where the disconnects are.  Adam: (07:37)That's some great practical advice, Larry. So, what role does the CFO and FP&A have in general in general have in strategy execution?  Larry: (07:50)Well, you know, what you think about it, a finances role is to co-create and then o...

Contact Anders: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersliulindberg/Additional Resources from Anders:Link to book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Create-value-Finance-Business-Partner/dp/1724850741Link to the ebook: http://businesspartneringinstitute.org/sign-up-to-our-newsletter/Link to blog: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersliulindberg/detail/recent-activity/posts/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)Hey everyone, thanks for coming back for episode 45 of Count Me In. Our featured guests for today's conversation joined us from Denmark as Anders Liu-Lindberg spoke with Mitch about the popular topic of business partnering. My favorite part of the conversation was Anders simple and clear equation. Insight times influence equals impact. Let's listen in for more valuable insight and hear what else Anders has to offer.  Mitch: (00:34)Recently we've heard a lot about the term business partnering. So in your perspective, what is business partnering?  Anders: (00:42)Thanks for asking that question. And I agree that a lot more posts than information is coming out about business partnering these years. But for me it's, it's really quite simple. Business partnering is insights times influence equals impact. What I mean with that, I mean, you've got to have some insights then you can share with business leaders that can improve that decisions. but You gotta be able to influence that decisions before you can improve that decisions? So if you insights and could influence decision making, you have impact. You have the ability to change business decisions, ideally for the better. Let me, let me try and break it further down. So what is insights? Insights is when you bring something new to business leaders that one, they didn't know and two, will help them make better decisions is if all you bring to them as information that they know already nice, but it doesn't help them and to what you bring to them as somebody they don't know but doesn't help him. It's even worse actually because you take away capacity from them to focus on making better decisions. and insights can come in really three broad, broad categories. There's the operator role, we optimize processes to drive efficiencies in both the finance function but also in business operations. Then there's the controller role, which is where we managed risks, which all the numbers and with you, who is this performance to see how things are going. Then there's the advisor role or recovery, new insights and perspectives that can help the business grow. That's really what insight is all about. And that of course means it can be lots of different things as long as it satisfies the first two criteria. You don't know it, but it can help make better decisions. How influencing is then more the secret sauce to this because I think finance professionals have been turning our insights for years, but maybe not gotten too far with it. You need influence to go the full mile. What does influence is about being customer centric or focus on your internal stakeholders and build trusted relationships with them? I said, if they don't trust you, it doesn't matter what you bring to them. It's about understanding the industry that you're a part of and your specific business. And if you don't understand the business, it is also hard for them to trust you and feel that you have something valuable to say. And last but not least, you gotta be assertive and communicate with impact. If you cannot communicate the result of your findings in a language that they understand, you're not getting very far with the insights either. But if you could do all of that, then you can have impact, can ensure better and more profitable business decisions. You can drag performance by tuning all these insights into action. So that's to me what, what business partnering is all about.  Mitch: (03:27)I think that's a great explanation and I really, appreciate your detail and explaining it all. So a lot of our accounting and finance listeners, they are hearing regularly about how they have to become business partners. Right. And with the explanation you just provided, what kind of, you know, advice would you give our listeners for becoming business partners or, you know, how do you get more time in that role to really secure their position in the organization?  Anders: (03:56)Yeah, so I think the first day was really making a personal choice to step outside your comfort zone. There's many finance and accounting professionals, they have a comfort zone that starts and ends with their desk in front of their Excel sheet or that BI tool, right? I mean, that might be a bit black and white and maybe it's not exactly like that, but I think many, many finance professionals can relate to the fact that every time they had to go talk to someone else, it's feels a bit uncomfortable. Especially if that someone else is outside of the finance function. So I at least from personal experience, if I go back five, 10 years, I feel that. And to some extent I still feel it today, but I've made a choice long ago to step outside my comfort zone and go where business partnering happens, which is together with other people together with, with business leaders and other other business stakeholders. So thing. That's really the first step because if you make that choice and you say, I'm going to stay out of my comfort zone and try to go do these things, everything becomes easier from there. I was saying it gets more comfortable right away over time. It will. Yeah, but that's what you need to do and yes, you will fail quite a few times probably before you succeed, but Hey, that's, you know, that's the new mantra these days, right? Fail fast to succeed sooner. So I think that's really key here. Then we can talk about all the skills that you need, you know be storyteller, communicate better, how to build relationships, understand other's perspectives and so forth. That is also hugely important. But we start with making that choice.  Mitch: (05:31)So what if our listeners are, you know, an accounting and finance professional is able to step out of their comfort zone. They take this first step, how do they measure their impact? You know, how can they actually become that business partner? When can they appreciate taking on this new responsibility?  Anders: (05:48)Yeah. So if you talk about measure impact as a business partner, I think there are, there are three things that you can look at. The first thing is does the business that you support deliver better results? Do the meet of beat the targets that we've set for them. So that's, that's one, right? That gotta be some sort of a business impact value creation part in them too The second is do the business leaders or the business stakeholders, internal customers call them what you want. Do they feel like that you actually helping them achieve these results or are they're thinking, Hey, you know, it's great you're there to your business partner. But hey you're not helping me and it's me and my team that are driving these facades, right? Because if they think you are helping them and you're delivering better business results, then to me you have an impac...