How FP&A Expertise Paves the Way for Becoming a Chief of Staff with Trevor Anthony

I could see a future with AI. It helps lower the cost or maybe even streamline the implementation process. FPA is a core mission critical group should invest in technology. I think a great business partner in FPA is actually very strategic but it's usually around numbers and trends and all that fine business partnering side. I think the business partnering side is probably the best way to do it.

What is the number one technical skill that FP and a professional should master?

I think the ability to create a.

The third Generation FP and a Tools Showcase is this week's title sponsor of fpa. Tomorrow, join the showcase and see the latest technology in FP and a planning software. Hello everyone. Welcome to FPNA Tomorrow where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host Paul Barnhurst, AKA the FPA Guy, and I'll be guiding you through the evolving landscape of fpa. Each week we will be joined by thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners who share their insights and experiences helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your journey in fpa, this show has something for everyone this week. I'm thrilled to welcome to the show Trevor Anthony. Trevor, welcome to the show.

Thanks Paul. Excited to be here.

Excited to have you. So let me just give a little bit about Trevor's background. In a few minutes here we'll give him the opportunity to tell us more. But he comes to us from Lehigh, Utah, so he's up in the Silicon Slopes area. He's currently serving as Chief of Staff at Fran Connect. He earned his Bachelor's in finance from Brigham Young University, my alma mater and he spent the majority of his career so far in private equity backed software companies. So Trevor, the first question I'm going to ask you here. What does great FP and A look like in the world today? What do you see as great FP&A?

Yeah, it's a good question. The best FPA groups I've seen, they have solidified themselves as a mission critical function, not just a check the box type of group. They're. They're easy to work with, they're not roadblockers, but they're enablers, Right? They're responsive, predictable, they deliver things on time, that kind of stuff.

I really like. Two things you said there. One is mission critical and two is they're enablers, not roadblockers. Right. They're not cf. No. As we've all heard, right. Those, those are good answers. So I'm curious, how do you see FP day changing over the next few years with you know, AI and technology moving so rapidly? Do you see it being different five years from now?

I, I do and I hope so, maybe both of those. I've always said when I've led my teams or even in my own role, I want to automate myself out of a job. And what that really means is you become more of a strategic partner. I really believe in that business partnering ship with FPA or with your executives in the FPA world. But what I would love to see is AI tools because today you have FPA to organizations, they are small and it's sometimes hard to get the budget to invest in the, the biggest, greatest technologies. I can see a future where the with AI process where before it took 300 hours to implement a tool and now with AI, maybe it significantly lowers it. But I, I'm a believer of investing in technology. I think every finance group should invest in technology. It's just sometimes they don't. It's cost prohibitive and maybe that's where AI can help.

Yeah, let's hope so. I mean I definitely know finance is often the last department to invest in itself because they're looking at it saying hey, I can get bigger returns this partner.

And then somehow along the lines, and we'll go into more details. I got this chief of staff role and I'm actually on my second stint of chief of staff at a, at a company that's actually headquartered in Washington D.C. but I'm, I'm remote here in Utah, so I travel out there. But yeah, chief of staff at software. Private equity backed company.

Great. You know, and that's one of the things that I thought was really interesting to have you on as a guest is kind of talking a little bit about how that came about, maybe how FP and A prepared you for it. And we'll definitely dive into that more as we get into the interview. But first I want to ask you a question. You mentioned you started your career in M and A, dealing with both buy and size up sell side transactions. How did that help prepare you for an FP and A role? What did you take with you from that experience when you went into your first FP and A role?

Yeah, a couple of things. First and foremost, part of that role was I would sit down with the business owner and have to intimately understand their business, their financials, not just the financials, but financial was a key part of it. And I'd have to anticipate the Questions I think a private equity buyer might ask them and then be prepared to. To address it. And so that almost was like the beginning of what I'd call a business partnering relationship. And then on the flip side, I got to know the private equity world really well. I got to know what they're looking for, how they value businesses, what, you know, what makes a business valuable to them, why would they invest. And then, you know, they. They come with thesis of how they grow a business, how they make it profitable. The. The other thing that I got really involved in is these business owners had very, I'd say less sophisticated way of managing their business. So they'd send over like a PDF of their financial statements. And I used to get very messy financial data and I'd have to make sense of it. I'd have to put it together, clean it up, and present it back to the business owner or the private equity group. And I found like, it was such a natural transition to go into FP&A, because I was. Do you know, that's what you do in FP&A. You take something that's messy and ugly and you make it look nice.

There is a lot of truth to that. You're trying to pull all that data together and find some insight or drive some value from something. When you start, that's often a complete mess, for lack of a better word. Right, right. So I like that. So I can see where that definitely helped prepare you for FP&A. So I'm curious, you did FP&A for quite a while, and then you ended up as the chief of staff, and this is your second time being chief of staff. So first, how did that come about? Like, how did you end up becoming a chief of staff? Why did you pick that role when you had been in FP and A? So maybe a little bit of that backstory.

It's kind of an interesting story, but at one of the companies where I was the business partner for an executive, that, that and I was. I worked underneath that executive. I would say like a mini cfo, even a mini chief of staff then. And I was with him for about four years. And then a few years later, he actually left that company and became the CEO of another software company. And him and I just regularly caught. Would catch up, we'd go to lunch or whatever, and I was telling him how I had left that prior company. I was actually leading the FPA team in another tech company. I was telling about all the things I implemented, the software tools we implemented, the processes we created and he just said, hey, I want you to be my chief of staff. And to make a really long story short, I was like, no, that makes no sense. I don't know what a chief of staff is. Is that like an admin role? But then he actually had me interview with board members, and I'm like, oh, wow, this is. This is a big deal. Like, I could get interaction with the board of directors. I could get, like, in the trenches with our private equity owners. And I took it, and that's kind of. That's how I got into it. And it was a really fun, awesome experience for me.

Yeah. So what was your kind of favorite part of that role of chief of staff? What did you like about it once you got into it and realized it wasn't just an admin role?

You know, there's so many projects that a CEO can't necessarily lead or be involved in, but they're. They're really important. And that's often what I've done, where they say, hey, you know, we want, like. Like, as an example, we wanted to better him. How I had left that prior company. I was actually leading the FP and a team in another tech company. I was talking about all the things I implemented, the software tools we implemented, the processes we created, and he just said, hey, I want you to be my chief of staff. And to make a really long story short, I was like, no, that makes no sense. I don't know what a chief of staff is. Is that like an admin role? But then he actually had me interview with board members, and I'm like, oh, wow, this is. This is a big deal. Like, I could get interaction with the board of directors. I could get, like, in the trenches with our private equity owners. And I took it. And that's kind of. That's how I got into it. And it was a really fun, awesome experience for me.

Yeah. So what was your kind of favorite part of that role of chief of staff? What did you like about it once you got into it and realized it wasn't just an admin role?

You know, there's so many projects that a CEO can't necessarily lead or be involved in, but they're. They're really important. And that's often what I've done, where they say, hey, you know, we want, like. Like, as an example, we wanted to better understand a segment in our industry, if we should invest more in it, you know, make more hires, hire more salespeople. What is. What does the industry even look like, how many, you know, what's the TAM look like? What's the market size? What's our current penetration of that? And I did a full P and L analysis and presented that back to our CEO or even broader, our board of directors on what we believe we should do to go after that market. And we didn't have someone who could just naturally lead that. And that's what I did. And I did a lot of those things also got. I've always gotten involved in M and A. I've led the corporate development side. And that's a ton of fun. You know, looking at prospective companies to acquire. That was a big part of my role in my last company. And then also we. We did sell the company, and I was intimately a part of that process, which was a ton of fun also. Great.

So it sounds like you've done a lot of different things in the Chief of staff. You're kind of wearing a lot of different hats and really helping be an extension of the CEO on different projects and strategic initiatives to kind of analyze those, make recommendations, see if they make sense.

Yeah, that's right.

No, sounds like a. Sounds like a great role. And how, how did FPA prepare you for that role?

Yeah, you know, because of my. My role as what I define as a true business partner FPA role. It was very natural. I was already acting a lot in that. I think that a big difference, though, is in FP and A. My role was very focused on the analysis, the numbers, the forecasting, the budget, you know, the year over year, the trends. But the. The Chief of staff elevates that beyond just the tactical numbers. It's the strategic side. How do we actually create a plan and execute it, which is very different than your traditional business partnering relationship, which shouldn't be. Right. I. I think a great business partner in FPA is actually very strategic, but it's usually around numbers and trends and all that.

Very good. I would agree with that. So it leads me to a question. How do you think we become more strategic in FP and A? I think we're starting to see it myself and become more commercially minded. But how do we get to that next level? So we're not so caught up in the tactical, which is really easy to get overwhelmed. On the tactical side of FP and A. Yeah.

I had one of my mentors. He was actually, I reported to him. He's the VP of Finance at a prior company. And I was in this business partnering role. Something he said to me over and over that I think has changed my mindset as I interact with Executives is we'd be sitting down and I present, like, our forecast for the next year. And he would use this phrase. He's like, well, the CFO, right. He would speak on the CFO's behalf and he'd say, this is how they might react to what you just showed me. And, and I, and I think about that often where I'm in a role where I need to think higher. I need to think, how might the CEO react to what we're putting together? How might the CFO react? Put your, your, put your feet in their shoes. Put the CEO hat on. And I think once you do that, you start to realize some of these tactical things probably aren't very important to them. It's like, how do you tell a better story of what's going on? And it's not just like, hey, we were over budget by 5%, but like, what's actually going on, you know, or, or even it. Does it even matter if we're over by 5%? Like, what's the bigger story of, of how we're trending towards the end of the year? And how do we, like, what do we need to do today to, like, right the ship? I think that's the strategic mindset is put the CEO the owner hat on.

I think that's great. I love that. The owner hat on. Are there any other frameworks or thoughts or maybe ways to go through processes to help you be more strategic that you use?

This is not the answer you want, but I also think it's experience. Align yourself up with someone who truly has been in these roles for a long time and listen to them. Listen to how they react to things, Listen to how they manage these things. I think initially, when you're in your early career, you're very reactionary. You're very sensitive. You don't understand, you don't know what they're asking. Things are confusing to you. Listen to your. Those more senior people who've done it, who've been in the trenches, you'll learn a ton from them. And I think as you think about that too, you can learn what questions are they asking? How are they listening? How do they react to this question or how do they deal with it? That's how I've learned the most, is from other people. I rarely just learn something on my own. And I'm like, ah, I'm genius. It's like, no, someone taught me that.

Yeah. I think there's so much truth to that, is often I'm training something and someone's like, how did you learn this? Kind of stole the idea from somebody else.

Right.

That's where most good ideas come from is other people. Yes, sometimes we come up with a great idea on our own or sometimes somebody does. But so much we learn is from observing, watching others, whether that be people you work with, reading, whatever it may be. I totally agree with you. Especially at work, having that mentor who's been through the fire, who's had those experiences that you can turn to is invaluable. It's one of the big reasons I've created a community called Plan Buddies is so people can come and talk and you can learn from other people's experience in FP&A. Because you know, sometimes you don't have that, especially if you're in a small company. Right. You don't have that person to go to or you don't want to go to your Boss for the 10th time that day and ask him the question because you know he's busy.

Well, well, it's common, Paul. It's common that FP groups are actually small. Like there's very few that, that are big. It's just, it's just not how it is.

Especially in smaller companies, private equity fast growing, you know, getting a big, big public company, it's a little different. But I agree with.

Sure, sure.

FPA is a very small part. Especially early stage companies. Right. Often one person and then the CFO or single threaded VP of finance. There's. It's not like you have a 10 different salespeople you can go talk to. And what should I do in this situation? I totally agree with you. So if we have someone listening today that's heard you talk about chief of staff and like that sounds like the perfect role to me. I'd love to get involved more in strateg do something like that. What advice would you offer them as far as, you know, maybe looking to get into a chief of staff role?

Yeah, I think it depends on what your current role is. As an example, if you're like a traditional corporate FPA person or you're just a data analyst or maybe you're an investor relations, but you haven't done what I call the business partnering side. Find those opportunities. I think the business partnering side is probably the best way to do it. And, and not every FP and a organization does business partnering. Some do it really well, some that's not important to them. But find an organization that does that because that's where you actually become like a mini CEO or even a mini chief of staff to that partner and you're part of their team, you become like a chief of staff and that's the best way. Other than that, I think anytime there's an opportunity to raise your hand to lead a project, let's, let's say you're at a company, they just did an acquisition and they're looking for someone to help with integration. Raise your hand, say I want to be part of this. And even if you're just on the side, but someone else is leading it, you can see how they're leading an integration, leading a project, because as you learn how to do that, that'll enable you to be a great Chief of staff.

FPA Guy here I want to personally invite you to the upcoming third generation FP and a Tools Showcase. It is a virtual event you don't want to miss. On May 30, join FP&A Professionals and industry leaders as we delve into the latest innovations transforming financial planning, discover cutting edge solutions from top providers and learn through in depth sessions including company overviews, product demos and customer success stories. As a CFO or FPA professional, this showcase is tailored for you. You'll be able to get insights from experts such as Glenn Hopper, Waterborne and myself. Spaces are limited, so go on over to my LinkedIn page and learn more in the featured section or check out the show notes for the link to register for this event. You will not want to miss the third generation FP&A tools showcase. See you there. I think you gave some great answers there and I would 100% agree with the business partnering role. You know, there's different types of FP and a. There's the corporate roll up role where you're just rolling up all the data from finance. You're not dealing with the business partners day to day having that business partner role. You're a mini CFO or like you said, a Chief of staff. I've had several of those roles and regular conversations and being involved in all those meetings and seeing all those projects really helps prepare you. Because if you have a company that trusts finance, that looks at finance to be a seat at the table, you're helping make strategic decisions or providing insights and recommendations. And so it's a great way to prepare yourself for something like that. And you never know when that business partner becomes the CEO.

That's right, that's right. I mean just my, my perfect example, that's what happened. The one that I, you know, he trusted me, he knew me and he went on to, to do great things and he brought Me with him?

Yep. Yeah, it's usually who. Who we know that gets us a role, not necessarily what we know, right?

Yeah, for sure. There's a lot of.

I mean, obviously we need to be competent, but it pays to know people and to build your network, without a doubt. So I'm going to shift gears here a little bit because I know you've implemented several FP&A tools during your career. And so I would just like to know, what are some of the lessons you've learned from those experiences, going through that more than once. What are maybe some of your key takeaways?

First and foremost, keep it simple. I think in the sales process that they demo flashy things, they will show you the coolest stuff, they'll show you charts, they'll show you dashboards. Be like, this is going to change your life. Truthfully, a dashboard or a report isn't necessarily the thing that's going to make you great. It's what the tool actually does. How does it save you time, how does it enable you to replicate yourself over and over, Version control, those kind of things? And so I would say have one to two really important outcomes and focus on that. I know there's plenty of people, they say, wow, we should do all 10 of those things and let's do it now. And. And some people can handle that. But I promise you, your implementation and your speed to success will be significantly delayed. I'm always of the favor. Just. Just get it going, get it in and get using it. That's the other thing. They'll drag it out for a year. They'll be using their old system. You know, you'll have a spreadsheet and a tool here, and you're using them both at the same time, and it's hard to cut over. And you got to get value from it immediately. And then you have to commit to use it. You got to get everyone on board. Otherwise, I've seen it. I've seen it time and time again where they invest in a tool and they never got out of the implementation and they never used it.

Yeah, no. As I like to say, they become expensive data repositories and paperweights, so to speak. Right.

We've all seen happens over and over.

Where you just end up going, I'm just going to stay in Excel. So I think you made some great points there. Of one, you really need to understand what's important to you and stick to that so you don't get caught up in the hype of what some sales guy is telling you that looks great but isn't really important to do your day to day work or as important as those other five things you identified before you started.

That's right.

You know, and then it sounds like if I is hearing you, there is, you know, the other things is one, the training. You got to commit, you got to train the team. And two, don't try to bite the entire apple at once. Roll it out in phases, figure out what's most important and continue to build so that you're not overwhelmed.

That's right.

That's great advice. Any maybe experience you can share from the different tools you implemented? Maybe something that went well or any kind of real horror story that you've had?

I think sometimes when, when you have a way of doing something maybe in a spreadsheet and you're, you're just held onto it and the person who's doing the implementation, they might suggest, hey, you know, it's, it's kind of business as usual to do it this way. But you might be just totally convinced you have to do it your way. I think being willing to listen to them and, and maybe cater to like, hey, it's okay to do it their way. That's probably one lesson. I've seen it where I personally over complicated what I wanted and then it just, it made the tool so that we ended up not using the piece that I overcomplicated or on the back end. You know, months down after implementation it broke for whatever reason because you know, I wanted it a certain way. And they're like, well that's complicated to build it that way. You know, horror stories have been where, you know, after, after implementation for whatever reason someone deletes data. You know, that's always a scary thing where you spent a lot of time loading data a certain way or getting it in a certain format and, and for whatever reason someone mistakenly pushed the wrong button. So that's where I learned with some of the tools you can lock things down at certain periods so that people can't edit. That's like the beauty of some of these tools is you have these version or permissions.

Yeah. When you're telling that horror story of data being deleted. I still remember we had received this template from corporate that we were supposed to use for our plan. And it was built in such a way that you could just override everything that was in there. And so we, we wrote, we loaded just certain line items within different countries panels because that's what we manage. So what happened is they'd go in and override them all the time. So we had to figure out how to lock them and got to the point where my boss had a file every night where he would download everything to see what our numbers were at the end of the day and then compare it the next morning to figure out, you know, who had changed numbers. It was just, it was a nightmare because things weren't locked properly. And so I, I, I'm with you on that. You got to make sure you protect the data in the right way. Other, it just becomes a nightmare. So next couple questions. I want to ask you a little bit about private equity because I know you spent a lot of time with private equity. So what do PE companies from your experience expect from FP&A teams? How can FP&A teams make sure they're meeting the needs of the private equity investor?

And it always depends. Like your, your very first question of like what does a great FP and A team look like when you're in an organization that FP&A is a core mission critical group the private equity group will expect and they, they look to FPA as the source of truth. I've seen it time and time again where the salespeople will present data, they'll present numbers, and they'll just say, look, thank you. We want to get this from the FPA group. We want to know what the finance team is saying because that is the source of truth for them. And that's usually what we become. We become the source of truth for all things, analysis, forecasting, budgeting. You know, when you're thinking to invest in a new vertical of any kind or A new product, FP&A is the one who will lead it out. Then the PE groups expect that.

And to me that makes a lot of sense because one, you know, finance is cross functional. You know, if you're defining CAC and you ask the salesperson or the marketing, they may define it one way. You go over to somebody else, they'll define it a different way and finance has a third one. And finance usually has the least incentive to manipulate the number. And I don't want to say that in a negative way, but yeah, you know, calculate it independent way that makes them look good. So I, I totally agree with you. It's huge to have that independent voice with both the operational and the financial metrics. Right. It goes so much beyond just the P and L as you mentioned, they, they look to you as a source of truth. So I, I'd like to see that continue and see more of that because I Think finance is perfectly positioned for that. And so next question you have, when you talk about, you know, kind of PE and what they expect, what are the type of reports that you're typically seeing that maybe PEs focus on that you wouldn't necessarily see in a non PE company or how, how are they different in that area?

It, it depends that there's a lot of contingencies on this. I've worked at various stages of size of companies or even where they're at their maturity of investment or even the intent of how they're growing. But the more mature ones, they have a very robust what I'll call monthly reporting package that is lengthy. You could have a spreadsheet that is 100 tabs on it because they want intimate details of P Ls, of geography, P Ls, product P Ls or even segment P Ls, you know, the sizing or how you group that, that can happen. They'll always, what's interesting is they'll ask for those level of details. Often you don't have it, you don't know how to get it, you don't know how to present it. But they'll ask for and then you'll start presenting it and they'll be okay. They'll be sad. They'll stop asking the question, saying, well, we're not sure the CAC and this makes sense. Do the analysis on it and then you do it. They're like, okay, we like it. That's pretty common. They're always asking to maybe look at something different or a different light or a different, you know, as you're thinking about forecasting, they want to see different versions of forecasting. Something I have seen, Paul, is they all want to see it in PowerPoint. They all want to see, you know, a PDF of your monthly reporting. I've seen where people try to enable them to look at like a dashboard somewhere. They don't want to see a dashboard, they want it in a PowerPoint, easily presentable that way.

Good, good to know on that one. And I appreciate you sharing a little bit more there and how it's different. But I know from my experience we were pretty large mature company when we were taking PE and definitely when they started rolling out all their month end decks, they wanted a ton of information. So I know what you're talking about. And also once you're able to get them comfortable, if you're growing, you're hitting your numbers, they're much, I found they're much less likely to dig. But if you're really struggling on your numbers.

Absolutely.

They're all over you.

Y. They'll show up. They'll come physically into the office and start talking to you when. When things don't look as good.

Yeah. So the best advice is give them what they want, hit your numbers and it will go smoother, right?

That's right.

If it was only that simple all the time. But. So I curious, what advice would you offer to someone listening who maybe just had their firm acquired by a PE company? How do you manage that transition? Because I know it's a scary one for a lot of people.

Yeah, I'd first say just get ready to learn. These are some of the brightest minds. They, they come with years and years of ex of experience in investing, typically. And my experience is I work with private equity groups who, who spent decades investing in software companies. They, they live it, they breathe it. They know what great looks like. They know how to analyze it. They will come with a thesis of why they acquired that business, whether it's rethinking your pricing strategy, a new product to develop. They'll come with a thesis around M and A, like, hey, you know, you have all these products, but your. Your competitors have these ones. Let's go acquire some of them. They'll also come with ideas on how to win against the competition. And guess what? All of that requires data analysis. That requires the finance team to get ready to do analysis you've never done or to rethink how you're presenting data. And my advice always is be responsive to them and manage their expectations. You can say no about something. You can, you're allowed to say, we will get to that, but let us get to you next month. Sometimes we're too excited. We're like, yes, we'll give that to you all today. And all of a sudden you got a team that's completely burned out because they spent so much time redoing the reporting package. But they are also very willing and listening to how you operate, and they can respect that.

I agree. They definitely do respect that. And I can still remember, you know, one experience where they asked for all kinds of data and I looked at them, I said, it's not doable. Systems don't allow that. Today we don't have it. We'll start working on it, you know, and it took me about a month, and it was just really understanding our product margins because this was a company that just had done a ton of acquisitions. And so I had a lot of outdated systems that had never been integrated. And, you know, it was just the descriptions were all wrong. So it's like, okay, which product does this actually really relate to for this bill? And you know, it took months and it was still funny. I showed it to the product people and they're like, we've been asking this for years. We've never even seen this. And you know, it was probably 80% right, directionally correct, but it was the best we could do. And, you know, they really appreciated it, helped us. Hey there, it's your host, the FP and A Guy. And today I'm thrilled to talk to you about Plan Buddies, where professionals meet excellence. This isn't just any community. It is a community ran by and for planning professionals. At Plan Buddies, we're all about fostering connections, sharing knowledge, and providing mentorship among FP and A experts. Ready to elevate your career? Visit plan-beddies.com and become a member today. And here's a special treat. Use the promo code the FP&A guy. That is the FP&A guy for an exclusive 25% discount on your first year membership.

You've described a scenario that's actually very common where you have that, where they do these acquisitions, they mash them together. They have different system, different data. It's hard to put it all together and present it, but they'll want it. And then the people, just as you described it, the product, he was like, this is amazing. Why don't we have this? It's like, well, this is hard to do.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm speaking to the choir in the sense that you've seen that more than once. So we're going to move into what's called a rapid fire section. I have five questions for you. You get no more than 15 seconds to answer the question. And then at the end, if you wanted to elaborate on one of the one or two of the questions, you can go ahead and elaborate. So we're looking for just kind of short, quick answers here. What is your favorite thing about Excel?

Power pivot.

I love power pivot. Have not had that answer before. I like it. What's your least favorite thing about Excel?

It just doesn't. It still doesn't do well with large files, complex formulas, and trying to share it with people, it just gets clunky. That's what I don't like about it.

I. I can relate to that one. I think a lot of people feel your pain there. Are you currently using Generative AI?

Minimally. I use Chat GPT probably once or twice a week to ask it. Fun Questions and sometimes I put in things about work in there.

Got it. What is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should master?

I think the ability to create a clean financial model. And I know you know what I'm talking about. A clean financial model. Not overly complicated, not, you know, no copy and pasting values like formulas.

I hear you. A clean, well designed model that follows some best practice principles versus you get the model with hard codes everywhere and inputs all over the place. And you're like, where do I start? This thing is a total mess.

Exactly.

So I hear you. What's the number one soft skill for FPA professionals?

I have two, but I'll give you my number one.

You can do two. Go ahead. I'll let you.

The first one is dealing with ambiguity. Especially when you're working with senior leaders, they constantly vaguely describe things and you as the professional need to understand what that means and guess what that takes experience and time that you, you don't just one day figure that out. That's hard to do. And my second one that I want to highlight is that anyone could do. Anyone is just showing urgency and being responsive. Someone emails you, hey, what's going on this thing? Send them a note right back. Anyone could do that one. The first one dealing with ambiguity I think takes maturity time.

I would agree. And I'm going to add one thought when you said, you know, responding back quickly. I still remember I had joined a new team and you know, I come to learn they had a reputation for not being responsive. And I think one of the VPs that told me that and about six months in, I remember I was in a meeting with him and just one other person, he made a comment about how the team wasn't very responsive. But he immediately turned to me as like present company excluded. Like, you know, because I had made it a point to respond quickly, especially since I've been told that's an issue from this team. Yeah, right. And so I really made a point of saying I'm going to make sure I do that. And people notice when you're responsive and you really show that initiative, it will be recognized.

They value it. They value, they're like, wow, this he cares. This person cares about what's going on. And anyone can do that. That is not a secret skill.

It's easy FP and a guy here. And I want you to join me. This October in New York City, there's going to be the Finance and Accounting Technology Expo. Connect, explore, expand. This is going to be all about technology for the office of Finance. This is an event you do not want to miss. Be there with me in New York City and listen to industry experts share their thoughts about technology and finance and see the latest tools out there that can make your lives easier. Easier. This event is from October 28th to October 30th. If you want to go ahead and register for this event, go to strategic CFO360.com backslash faith. That's strategic CFO360.com backSlash faith. Use the code ASY469. That is ASY469 to register for free. If you do that in the next few weeks, you'll be able to join me in New York at no cost. See you there. 100% agree. So this next section is our get to know you section. We got four questions for you here where we get to know you a little bit better. So tell me about a favorite hobby or passion you have.

I don't know if this dates me or makes me sound old, even though I'm not that old. I love to garden. I love planting trees, flowers. We got a nice sized property here and I love it. Me and my wife were always out in our yard all summer long.

What's the favorite thing you like to plant? Is it, do you have a vegetable, a fruit tree, something you really like?

I love some of my, my tree. Like I have a Zel kova tree that I absolutely love or a Norway maple. Those are just beautiful trees. And I do love my peach tree. And when it's peach season, we have almost daily fresh peach shakes, which is amazing.

Yeah, I have a peach tree. I love it as well. So I hear you on that one. What is one book you can recommend to our audience that they should read?

I'm going to cheat again. I'm going to give you two. The first one is just, it's, it's an older book and it's, it's weird to say that this book's almost 100 years old now. It's the book by Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence.

I knew you were going to say that when you said 100 years old.

I have it right back here somewhere over here. Yeah, it's one of my favorite. I listen to it and read it every year. But the other one that I think is more recent, that I think is also very relevant is a book by Clayton Christensen called how will you measure your life? He actually passed away last couple years.

Harvard professor. Yep.

Influential consultant. Great book. If anyone's trying to think about what they want to do in their careers. Read that book. I think it'll help you.

Great. Appreciate that. Next question. Favorite travel destination. If you can go anywhere in the world tomorrow, where are you going?

I, I love war beaches. I'd probably say Maui or Kauai. I like the Hawaiian Islands.

And so last one here. If you could have dinner with one person alive in the world today, who are you going to dinner with?

Oh, man, I don't have, I don't have an answer for this, Paul. My experience has been every time I sit down with like a business owner or somebody who has this great experience, I love to pick their brain and ask them questions of what made them successful. So maybe a Warren Buffett. Maybe there's my answer. Someone like that, where they just have a long list of experience and then I could learn from.

Okay, well, I'm going to be on the fly on the wall for your Warren Buffett dinner. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I've really enjoyed chatting with you here. Trevor, we have just kind of a final question here before we let you go. What advice would you offer to our audience to be a better business partner?

I think in addition to the soft skills that I mentioned, like being responsive, the one that, and again, this is another simple one that anyone could do is listen and take notes and follow up. I've seen time and time again I'm sitting in a meeting with people and they're not taking notes and they're asking them really important things and there's important follow up, like, just take notes and then email them back. These are the notes I captured. This is the follow up. And I'm going to do this by the end of the week. Really simple. But it's like amazing when anyone does that. You're like, wow, these guys really care. So I said, the other one is, is instead of like, like Paul, you mentioned, hey, we don't have that data. We don't have. Instead of starting with no, start with yes. Finding ways to actually solve someone's problem. We're so quick to say, oh, we can't do that. It's impossible to take too much time. Start with the ask. Try to figure out how you can get that data or how you can present it.

100% agree. It's a change in mindset if you're always starting with that yes. Or as one of my friends always says, I haven't done that yet. Which is the mindset change. Like when someone says, oh, I could never be good at that, he'll say you're not good at it yet just to make them think that I can learn how to do that. And so I think that's a, it's, it's about mindset and it makes a huge difference. And it's not like you said, it's not something that requires experience, requires effort.

That's right.

So thank you so much for joining us. You know, we'll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes so if anyone wants to contact you. But really enjoyed chatting with you today, Trevor. Just learning a little bit about your experience and you know, wish you the best of luck in your current role and your career as you go forward. Thanks again for joining us.

Thanks Paul. It's been great.

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