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.
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.
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
"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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.