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The essential skills and mindset to move your team fro Calculators to Coaches

Because information is not inspiration

When you know how to build rapport instantly, bring numbers to life, and influence with insights, you'll be a World class FBP. We'll show you and your teams how to do it easily and effortlessly. Because FBP just isn't hard, when you now how.

How human is your communication?

At home we tend to talk casually and in a friendly way. Then we get to work and sometimes we can sound like we've swallowed the jargon dictionary, using long, complex words to describe what is actually quite simple. Only 10% of FBP is what we say. 90% is how we say it.

Let's get one thing straight...

Before we start I want to be super clear on one thing: this is NOT a finance course. What do you mean, it's called 'finance business partnering' and we work in finance!

Yes, but here's the thing. You probably already know how to be a great accountant. You've got reporting, budgeting and forecasting nailed. You might even be able to use macros in Excel. And you probably already know how to appraise capex or promotional activity.

The thing is, while those things make you a great accountant, they won't help you to become a great FBP, no matter how good you are at them.

Why?

Because FBP is about building relationships, turning the data into insights, bringing numbers to life, and influencing decisions.

I didn't appreciate this when I was the finance director of a £600m consumer business in the UK. It only became clear to me when I moved to be the sales director of that business. Let me tell you that was a big change for me and I learned so much.

Like how to sell products and ideas, negotiate, present clearly with no slides under extreme pressure, build relationships with even the most difficult people, and maintain those relationships even under serious conflict.

I thought wow, I wish I'd know how to do this when I worked in finance. It was like I had uncovered the missing pieces of my jigsaw puzzle.

And for the first time in my career I had finance partnering me, and I didn't like it at all! I felt they only highlighted past issues, gave me very little help with my problems, and gave me recommendations that wouldn't work in the market. And even though I used to the the FD, I couldn't make sense of the numbers they were presenting to me!

So I've designed this course and perfected it over the last 7 years to show you all the tools and techniques I learned in sales.

I break them down to make them super simple and show you how commercial people use them to influence. Then I show you how to apply them directly to your day to day finance work.

See you there!

Andy Shambrook, FCA, Founder

Imagine if finance wrote JFK's speech?

"We choose to travel 238,855 miles at 25,000 miles per hour to the second densest known satellite with which we are in synchronous rotation"

Inspired? Me neither.

He actually said:

"We choose to go to the moon"

We'll show you and your team how to turn data and information into stories that inform, inspire and influence. And it's as easy as 1,2,3 when you know how!

On-demand video lessons, live virtual workshops, 1:1 Zoom coaching and Discovery Insights profiling. All on-line, with face-to-face added when safe.

Join our global public programmes, or for teams of 4 or more we'll run privately just for your team, with a range of tailoring options.

Who is this training for?

The biggest lesson I learned when I was finance director and launched finance business partnering was alienating the 80% of the finance team that didn't have FBP or commercial in their job title.

I soon learned that everyone in finance CAN be a finance business partner, and in fact needs to be for finance to flourish as a function.

I quickly changed my view.

Just because your job title is FBP, doesn't make you one. And just because your job title isn't FBP, doesn't NOT make you one.

FBPs

Our course is designed to shift the mindsets and behaviours of your team from an accountant focussed on what happened last month, to a commercially focussed BP helping people make better decisions that will show up in the future P&L, BS and CF.

So of course it's perfect for those you consider to be FBPs today, supporting sales, marketing and operations. But the approach benefits a far wider audience, here's just some examples.

Accounts receivable

Cash is king, we know this. Influencing customers to pay is a big FBP role. Influencing sales people to chase their customers to pay and resolve disputes is an even bigger role.

Do your AR team have great relationships with customers and sales? Do they bring the numbers to life so sales understands the issues and acts on them? Or do they send out incomprehensible spreadsheets?

FP&A

Budgeting, forecasting and reporting sucks up so much time in any finance function. Vast amounts of data is created and circulated, but how much is taken in and acted on?

Does your FP&A have great relationships with non-finance? Do their reports communicate the most important messages, clearly and simply? Or do they bombard non-finance with vast tables of numbers and complicated charts and graphs with a hundred different colours on them and a tiny legend no-one can read?

Internal controls

Wow this is a big influence job, because I've got to get people to do things they fundamentally don't want to do. More process, more admin, more sign offs.

I actually think working in internal controls is the single hardest FBP role in any company, because you need incredible relationships, be able to communicate complex things simply, and show people what's in it for them to follow the process.

Some of our clients

Over the last 7 years we've worked with over 7,000 finance business partners across over 100 companies all over the World.

More importantly in this online World, since March 2019 we've delivered over 30 programmes to over 1,000 people across the World, so we've got the new model down!

Here are just some of our clients running our programmes right now.

You are more than welcome to contact any of our clients to get a first hand view of how we helped them. Of course I'll tell you how great they are, but nothing beats hearing directly from an FD or CFO about how they've actually changed their function.

What is finance business partnering?

Well it's not reporting, budgeting and forecasting. because they're FP&A activities. FBP is mainly about people and psychology, with a splash of bringing numbers to life. And anyone is finance can be a FBP, whatever their formal job title.

FBP is about 3 things:

1 Building relationships

Influence starts with relationships. You can’t influence anyone if they don’t trust you. How do you get to know people when you can't get face-to-face?

2 Turning data into insights

Accountants deal in the data that tells us what has happened. Commercially-focussed finance partners focus on insight, by asking & answering the question so what next? Can you get deeper than 'it's because of Covid-19?'

3 Bringing numbers to life

The worst way to communicate numbers is to use a table of numbers. Bring their data to life by telling the story behind the numbers, and communicating simple, clear messages. But how do you do that remotely?

If you do those 3 things you'll influence decisions.

And the game just got harder, because you've got to do it from home!

The myths of FBP

One of the biggest problems is that conventional wisdom comes from within finance, and it's just plain wrong. We'll give you the mindset and approaches that the World's best sales and marketing people use to influence.

The myths of FBP

Here are the 3 biggest finance business partner myths that hold back our relationships and influence:

1 Be a critical friend

The easiest way to create resistance and damage your relationship is to criticise someone - especially by email! Your chances of influencing them have just crashed.

2. Challenge the business

The best way to make a sales, marketing, or operations person defensive is to challenge their ideas. Instead we want to coach & sell the benefits of doing things differently.

3 Make recommendations

Recommendations also create resistance - especially recommendations from finance to non-finance. Better to explore options and scenarios.

We have all been senior finance leaders, where we subscribed to the conventional wisdom.

Then we moved outside of finance, had finance partnering us, and realised that this advice and thinking is not helpful.

Are you dealing in data or insight?

If you only tell people what happened last month, you can't expect them to invite you to the table to talk about their plans for the future. But when you start to help people answer the question 'so what', that's when your phone starts to ring.

How far up insight mountain are your team?

The 16 behaviours can be simplified into just 1 model - Insight Mountain.

Data answers the question what?

Information answers the question why?

And insight answers the questions: so what, what next, how could we improve?

Finance are great at telling people what happened and surface whys.

And poor at giving people commercial drivers and helping to answer the so what.

And that's the fundamental difference between an accountant who tells people that sales are 4% below budget due to customer X.

And a finance business partner who says, hey: here are 3 things we could think about to grow sales and margin.

We work with finance teams to move them from data to genuine commercial insight that influences decisions.

Want to be the best, or just average?

If you want to get somewhere, you've first got to know where you're headed. Don't worry we've got you covered with our 16 behaviours of World Class FBPs. Do these and you'll be amazing. Simple.

The 16 behaviours of World class FBPs

The best FBPs have the 4 essential skills:

1. Build relationships

2. Turn data in insights

3. Bring numbers to life

4. Influence, sell & negotiate

And there are 4 maturity levels:

1. the CALCULATOR

2. the DASHBOARD

3. the COACH

4. the LEADER

Done well, online is even better than classroom

We'll show you everything we learned in sales and marketing, all from the comfort of your own home or office. On demand video lessons, live virtual Zoom workshops and 1:1 coaching. Easy.

After the course you will:

Understand the future of finance in a more virtual World and what it means for you

Be more commercially aware and be able to identify opportunities to add value (includes pricing strategy & tactics for FBPs)

Build rapport quickly with anyone, even remotely, and feel confident challenging elegantly

Turn data into insight in no time using a simple 3 step model

Turn a boring table of #s into an interesting, engaging & fun dashboard in just 10 minutes!

Present and communicate crystal clear messages with confidence

Sell your ideas, influence & negotiate for win-wins

How it works

Start with a quick online assessment against our 16 behaviours of World Class.

Then take 7 modules. Each module includes:

> 1 hour on-demand video lessons covering core concepts with examples & exercises

> 2 hour live virtual workshop to the learning to your situation in group exercises. For in-house we tailor these workshops to your business

Between each workshop you'll be set real-World tasking to embed the learning.

Choose to add optional Discovery Insights profiling and 1:1 video coaching to support specific development needs.

With lifetime access to the video courses you've got everything you need to embed and extend the learning.

Start with the end in mind

How can you develop if you don't know where you're starting and where you want to get to?

You'll take our super-quick online survey to see where you sit in our 16 behaviours of World Class FBPs - if you want to be the best of the best you'll be able move seamlessly between all of them depending on the context.

Next set your personal goals and get stuck into the course, clear on where you are now and where you want to get to.

Want to benchmark your team?

For in-house choose to benchmark your team against our anonymised database of over 3,000 FBPs.

On-demand video lessons

Our 7 on-demand video lessons cover the core concepts, theories, examples and self-study exercises.

And because we cover the theory in the video lessons, we can devote the live webinars to practical application, case-studies and audience questions.

Each video lesson includes:

> 30 minutes of professionally recorded video content, presented by Andy Shambrook

> 30 minutes of guided tasks and self-study exercises to really get people acting

> bite sized chunks, so easy to pick up

> extended reading, case-studies & real-life examples

Video lesson 1 – What is FBP?

Learn what great looks like and create your personalised development plan. Explore our Calculator to Coach model and the QUIET approach to FBP.

Video lesson 2 – Bring numbers to life

Learn how to take a boring table of numbers and in just 10 minutes make it interesting, engaging, and even a bit fun!

Video lesson 3 – Turn data to insight

Learn how to translate data (what) into information (why) and insights (so what). Explore Insight Mountain and how to use the 5 WHYs to uncover root cause.

Video lesson 4 – Relationships

Learn how to build fast-track rapport, challenge elegantly, and deal with any conflict. Map out your relationships and make a plan.

Video lesson 5 – Secrets of influence

Apply the secrets of influence from sales and marketing to the finance World. Learn the 5 step universal sales process used by professional sales people and how to apply it to your finance role.

Video lesson 6 – Tell stories with data

Learn how to tell the story behind your numbers using 3 storyline structures, the top 10 finance charts, and the 5 charts not to use!

Video lesson 7 – Present with confidence

Learn how to engage your audience, and feel confident presenting face-to-face, remotely and digitally.

Live virtual workshops

You'll join 7 live virtual workshops with our founder Andy Shambrook, and partners Andrew Jepson and Iain Dewson.

We use market-leading virtual classroom software to recreate almost all aspects of face-to-face. And we keep class sizes small so everyone can contribute.

You'll work with others in virtual breakout rooms and as a team present back to the group. Plus you'll watch video snippets, take live quizzes, and we finish with a Q&A session.

Public: new cohorts start monthly, with time slots across all time zones.

In-house: we tailor the workshops to your specific business and needs, and of course you can choose the dates and times!

Because we covered the principles in the video lesson, we can get straight into real-World application in the virtual workshop...

Learn from people who have done it for real

We've been senior finance leaders, but our methodology comes directly from our experience in sales and marketing. Everything we show you, we've done ourselves. We've made the mistakes, so you don't have to.

I’m Andy Shambrook. I used to be a finance business partner, struggling to build relationships and influence alongside reporting, budgeting, and forecasting.

When I became finance director I wanted to make time for genuine business partnering. So I put all reporting, budgeting and forecasting into a FP&A team. And created a few genuine, dedicated FBP roles.

Separating FP&A activities from FBP activities transforms finance's influence

Then I became a sales director. and saw a whole new perspective on finance business partnering.

In sales I learned to communicate clear messages, sell my ideas, and negotiate for win-win outcomes. I realised that these are the missing ingredients for finance influence.

In 2014 I founded The Finance Business Partner, and over the last 5 years I've worked with over 5,000 finance people and over 100 companies across the World in every sector.

All my partners are finance leaders with experience outside of finance, who train and consult from direct experience, not text books.

andy@thefinancebusinesspartner.com

Andy Shambrook FCA, Founder and Managing Partner

Iain Dewson

Partner, Global

Hi, I’m Iain Dewson. I’m a FCA and I’ve held senior finance roles across retail, investment banking, advertising, marketing services and insurance.

Most recently I was Head of Finance Academy at TUI (in the group HR L&D function) leading global finance learning for 3,500 people in 40 countries.

In 2019 I joined The Finance Business Partner, specialising in helping teams build better relationships, bring numbers to life and influence decisions.

iain@thefinancebusinesspartner.com

Iain Dewson, FCA, Partner

Andrew Jepson

Partner, Asia Pacific

Hi, I’m Andrew Jepson. I’m a CA based out of Sydney, running the Asia Pacific region. I’ve held senior commercial finance roles, and also experienced life outside of finance as a general manager.

I wrote the book 'Compliance to Commercial: The QUIET Approach To Finance Business Partnering', and I run Australia's longest running public business partner workshops.

Having worked both in and out of finance, I can bring both perspectives to the table.

Andrew.jepson@thefinancebusinesspartner.com

Andrew Jepson, CA, Partner, Asia Pacific

Some of our clients

Over the last 7 years we've worked with over 7,000 finance business partners across over 100 companies all over the World.

More importantly in this online World, since March 2019 we've delivered over 30 programmes to over 1,000 people across the World, so we've got the new model down!

Here are just some of our clients running our programmes right now.