The Secret to Transforming FP&A into Business Strategy with Ron Monteiro

What is great FP and A Great.

FP and A is very involved in the business. It's not sitting in the background. If you really pay attention to cross functional stakeholders, they pretty much turn away. If you did not develop your presence, you're not advancing, pushing yourself a little out of your comfort zone with the right support and coaching. To me, leaders who invest in training, whether they do that themselves or whether they bring external people like myself, whether they do a book club, it's spirit of we can continue to learn and grow. That's really, really important. I really believe a leader has the opportunity to create a team where people love to come in, make a difference when get things done. So it's all about the passion for helping people who don't believe they can get there first. Learn the business as much as possible. Whatever your industry is, learn the business inside out. And then the second is people bring your ideas to the table and don't sit on them. The technical skill I would say it's all about.

I'm going to give Ron a couple minutes to tell one or two embarrassing stories about me.

We all know Paul is the friendly FPNA guy. I get to see Paul when he's spicy. So.

FP and A guy here. Have you ever wanted to level up your FPA skills? Then check out the FPA Guys Ultimate Course Bundle at the FP&A Guy.com that's the Fpanda Guy.com and use code podcast to save 25% get started learning today. Hello everyone. Welcome to FPA 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 and I'll be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. Each week we welcome thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners to share their insights and experiences with us. This week I'm thrilled to have on the show Ron Montero with me. Ron, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Paul. Very excited to be here.

For anyone who doesn't know, Ron and I work together quite a bit. We're partners in a lot of the training we do. And so I thought I would start with a little fun. I'm going to give Ron a couple minutes to tell one or two embarrassing stories about me because very people don't get to do that very often on the show. So Ron, nothing's off limits. Go ahead. What are you going to tell the audience that know about me?

Yeah, no, it's.

It's interesting.

It's kind of fun doing this so thank you for the opportunity. So one of the things that Paul myself have is we have this with this code, right? So Paul and myself will join a call and I'll ask him how many. How many peppers, Paul, which means how spicy is. So we all know Paul is the friendly FP and a guy. I get to see Paul when he's spicy. So now that's one, which is fun. But, you know, we've also.

How many peppers does it go? What's the scale for this?

I've got a five pepper scale. And interestingly enough, when it's five peppers, I try to get off that call really quickly. So you know that that's one. And then we were just talking before we did a trip together to Nashville, and we're walking together and Paul literally just fell down in front of me, but he just literally rolled. And we call it the tuck and roll. So we've had some good times on the zoom call and off the zoom call, so to speak.

I figured tuck and roll would be in there. I didn't think of the spicy, but that doesn't surprise me. So there you go. There's a little bit about me that most of you don't know. I can be spicy from time to time. Just ask my wife. She'll be like, I'm avoiding you at the moment. Moment you're grumpy is what she calls it. Ron calls it spicy. All right, let's get to the meat of the interview. First question I want to ask you is, what does great FP and A look like? In your mind, what is great FP.

And a great FPA is to me, is very involved in the business. It's not sitting in the background. It's being. I am at the table, so to speak. And I'm helping make future business decisions. You know, all the things we do in FPA very, very important. But to me is, are we shaping the business? Are we shaping future results? Are we looking forward or are we looking backwards? So to me, it's clear that super involved in the business, of course, taking care of all our financial obligations, but it's. Are we implementing things going forward and really impacting and challenging the business?

Agree with that. I think it is about being involved in the business. I've been in FP&A roles where they don't really want FP&A involved. And I'm sure you have. And they're not very fun. They're not really companies. I want to work with it. What would you say about that when you have that Situation where they don't want you involved. Great. FP&A requires you be involved. What do you do?

So I think you got to find a way to wedge yourself into the business. And to me it's all about starting Web UI by building trust, like, you know, showing them that you truly care and them being your cross functional partners and getting out of your cube, getting out of your spreadsheet and going to the plant, going to a marketing event, going out with sales to see what it's like to be with them. So for me, you know, as I got later in my career, I started very intentionally saying the first few weeks of my role, I'm going to build trust, learn other sides of the business and ensure that my business partners know that I'm there for them, so to speak. So not necessarily looking for my own lens, but looking from their lens and saying, you know, the magic words, how can I help?

I love that, the magic words, how can I help? But before we get further into the podcast, tell our audience about yourself, your background, what you're doing today, why you got into fpa.

Yeah, amazing. And, and so I started my career. I graduated from the University of Toronto and frankly, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I, I got a Bachelor of Commerce and I struggled to get my first job and I ended up landing at Hitachi in an accounting capacity. I did a three, three year stint there and I learned what it's like to work in business as opposed to school. And so it was a good learning, but it was a very methodical, hey, month end we're busy, non month end, we're kind of twiddling our thumbs and it was one of those environments where it's just very static.

Right.

I learned a lot, I gotta say. Look, my manager was amazing, but it was a pretty static environment. And then I had the good fortune of landing at Kraft Foods where I spent 15 years. And my first role was corporate and it was, hey, integration. And it was really, really good. But then I ended up moving to a cross functional role in FP&A. And I had no idea what FP&A was at the time. And within the first week I'm like presenting pricing to the president and instead of being in the background doing a bunch of reporting and Excel work, I was at the forefront and thrown into the fire, so to speak. And you know, I would say the 15 years of craft were kind of like that. You're thrown into different buyers and working with different people and learning the business and how can I really get involved and FP&A. I remember this funny story. This one guy was transitioning from me, and he's like, can you give me the job manual? And I. I kind of laughed. I was like, fp and A. There's no job manual. Every day is a little different, which makes it exciting. And so accidentally, I landed it up in fpa and I absolutely loved it.

Right.

So I did, you know, a bunch of roles at Craft. I actually did FP and A as an analyst, a manager, and a director at that company. So I was so fortunate to see so many different sides of it. And then from there, I had a stint at a private company as a VP of finance. Again, my FPA experience came in so handy. So instead of the finance controller just sending the information to the executives or the owner, I was like, hey, I want to be part of the meeting. I want to be involved. I want to help make decisions. Right? And that was a little bit of a shock to the system. Like, hey, who is this guy? Is he a finance guy? Why is he trying to get involved? And then I worked at Campbell Soup. I worked at Kruger Products for one of my mentors, DDL Bianco. And at Kruger, I actually had training as part of my mandate. And what's interesting is I started loving that part of my job more than the other side. And that's what's, you know, kind of helped shape my current role, which is I started my own trading business three years ago. And I have the fortune and pleasure of partnering with you, Paul, on many, many different training gigs, so to speak, around the world. I mean, it's cool that we have, you know, you're in the U.S. i'm in Canada, but we've done sessions in Sweden and India and lots of places. So, you know, that's a bit of a synopsis, but it's just about finding areas I'm really passionate about and going all in.

Yeah, agreed. What have we done? Probably almost 100 sessions together at this point.

Yeah, and it just started with, I remember, you know, one of my clients said, hey, do you know anyone who teaches Excel? Because I clearly can't teach Excel.

I'll vouch for that.

And you and I had spoken at a webinar, you know, FP&A trends webinar together. And I just reached out, I asked the question, and you said yes. And that was your first of many training sessions, which has been pretty cool. And so there's a big lesson there. You know, I call myself an ask hole, so I asked. You said yes. And now we've done all kinds of sessions in Canada, the US And CHI and lots of different countries.

I call them an asshole as well. I sometimes call them other things, but we won't talk about that on the out. All right, question for you. You mentioned all the companies you worked with, almost all consumer goods there. Was that deliberate, like, was there something you really enjoyed about consumer goods, or did that just kind of naturally happen?

Yeah, it's another accidental benefit.

Right?

It's. It was really cool that I landed at a company, Craft, which was, you know, work hard, play hard, and immediately I fell in love with the fact that, hey, look, I'm helping launch a product like, you know, Philadelphia Cream cheese. What's the next flavor? Working on the financials and then seeing the product on shelf was just so fascinating to me.

Right.

As opposed to as a Hitachi doing the accounting. And it was very much the spreadsheet.

Right.

So for me, the tangible product was phenomenal. And then, you know, sitting there at the table and working on acquisitions, on new product launches, on discontinuations, on such a dynamic business that pretty much change every day was, you know, an accidental benefit, but it was one where, like, man, I love this industry.

Yeah, that's great. So an example. Is there a particular time you remember going to the grocery store and maybe seeing a product you worked on that you're like, wow, I was part of that. Maybe share an example there.

Yeah. And, like, I got to the point, Paul, where I was so passionate about craft, like, was something about that culture that drew you in. I would go to people's fridge, refrigerators, open the fridge and say, is it craft or is it a competitor? I'd be like, if it's a competitor, let's throw this thing in the garbage and. And do it. But back to your question. I, I like, I remember I helped launch a Costco Philadelphia 2 by 400 gram cream cheese, and I had made a mistake on the financials. So every time I saw it as I like. But in all seriousness, like, you know, we launched flavors like blueberry cream cheese, raspberry cream cheese. I mean, that was a while ago, so that those flavors are no longer in existence. But I was the lead on the financials for those. And really rewarding to tell my wife, hey, here's. Here's a product I work on. And then my kids, you know, when they were a little small, we worked on these little string cheese called Amuza, and they would love it. And like, hey, I worked on that and now I can get that for you, right? It's, it's pretty rewarding to see how it tied into my personal life.

I could definitely see how the consumer goods, especially someone like Kraft, you could see that in your day to day life. I love the Costco example. We've all been there where every time you see something remind you of, I messed that one up. That, that's just part of the job. You just have to learn from those mistakes. So what are the kind of key operational metrics you like to look at in cpg? What are those top, you know, two, three things that you're like, I need to know how these are doing to understand the business.

Yeah, it's interesting. So I had this one leader I worked for and I still keep in touch with him. His name's Dan Delisandro and he had the quad chart. He used to call it the quad chart. And he actually had T shirts made up because his quad chart was all up and to the right, which is what you want. So on his quad chart he had volume and revenue on the top left. So how's the top line doing? On the right side of the page, what he had was what's my profit doing?

Right.

So gross profit as well as EBITDA or whatever the metrics were. On the bottom left he had where my investments, advertising and trade spend, right. So what do we spend with our retailers? And on the bottom right he had his margin percents. So it was really interesting to say, like even a guy who was a classically trained marketer had realized, look, I need to look at all aspects of my business. So that was his very high level look. My top line, my profit, my investments and my margin percent. But then each one you could drill down and say, hey, let me go deeper.

Right.

And so if he was kind of working with the plant, for example, there'd be a, maybe a quad chart for the plant to say, hey, what are the metrics there? And it was about being very deliberate and very simple to say, here's the metrics I'm going to look at. And he even had a page for all his brands. Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Kraft Singles, Velveeta, where what am I doing? And let me look at it over the last six years, actually, right. To say, hey, what's the six year trend in addition to the short term trend? And it really taught me a lot about how important it is to have a really good pulse to say, let me look high level, then decide where to zoom in.

Yeah, I like that. So it sounds like here you're Talking kind of that, you know, not P L but bringing it back up at the high level and the revenue and the growth and the EBITDA and then being able to drill down depending on what you want to look at and see a mix of operational and financial metrics. So it might be what was the production output for these products, what was the cost of them? Whatever those different key metrics are that you need to understand. Understand why volume is down or why, why all four quadrants are up and to the right as we always like to say.

Right, absolutely, absolutely.

Got it. I like that. I could see where that's really helpful to just kind of start that high level and drill in. Because sometimes finance, we have a tendency to throw everything out there as we, we like to call it the wall of numbers.

And yes, you know what our business many walls, I've seen many walls of numbers. And if you really pay attention to cross functional stakeholders, they pretty much turn away when they see those walls of numbers. So to me it's like how do we simplify to make it engaging? Interesting to back to what, you know that your first question you asked me to help shape the numbers.

Right.

Not just report the numbers.

Yeah, exactly. So I want to kind of zoom back a little bit. You start your career in accounting, you spent a few years at Hitachi, you went over to craft, you ended up in FP&A. What was the hardest part of making that transition from accounting to fpa?

Yeah, it's interesting. So I'm, I'm a little bit introverted. Like I'm not exactly sure where I'm on the scale now because I think I've developed a lot, you know, in terms of my ability to connect and present. But I was very comfortable in my accounting capacity. It was hard work during month end, really taxing. But then during the middle of the month it was kind of like, okay, let me regroup, let me, you know, take some time off, so to speak, and, and recollect myself. And then, you know, you're thrown into the FPA fire and it's just like day to day fires are. You're working on.

Right.

And what I always say about fpa, one of the biggest, two of the biggest adjustments, one is it never seems to stop because you're either forecasting, reporting, doing something, but you've also got all this ad hoc work, which is very interesting work.

Right.

We talked about product launches, for example, but it just never stops.

Right.

And you're kind of at the epicenter of the business. So you've Got the corporate team coming to you, got the cross functional team coming to you, you got the maybe the US team maybe sitting in Canada. So that was a big adjustment to saying it's always like up here, whereas in accounting it's maybe here, then up and then down. And then the second one was working with cross functional stakeholders.

Right.

Right away you're, instead of working with just kind of the finance function or accounting function, I'm like in cross functional meetings all the time. Marketing, sales, supply chain, I'm in the plants, I'm working with marketing. They're asking me for opinions. And so that was a shock to the system. I was like, where am I? Like, how do I thrive in this environment? That's completely foreign to me. But then what's wonderful as I started loving it to say, look, I never looked at my watch in an FPA capacity in my accounting roles, like, hey, it's only 2O'. Clock, how do I get to 5O'? Clock?

Right?

Like it's during the middle of the month again. And I would, you know, I do want to emphasize my accounting role was such a fundamental role that I always came back to. And there's many other people worked at CRAFT who didn't have the accountant roles who struggled, right. To say, how do I connect the balance sheet to cash flow to the pnl? So I'm still, I'm still saying very, very important. But those were the two big changes that I had to deal with.

And any advice for those who may be going through those changes? We get accountants that listen that want to get into FP&A. What, what did you do that helped you most make that transition from, you know, like you said this to kind of always being up here and all of a sudden having to be very involved in being asked a lot of questions about the business versus being in the background, so to speak.

Yeah, the other, the other thing I should say is it's being able to play in the gray is what I call it.

Right?

So instead of, you know, my accounting role is pretty much black and white, like, hey, what's the rules? You know, what's, you know, what does the gap say when you get into fpa? There's a lot more gray, right? And you got to figure out, okay, how do I still walk the line of I am a business partner, but ensure we are following the rules and that becomes a big transition. So I think, you know, as I think about maybe somebody moving from accounting to FP and A, it is about saying, hey, how do I adjust to what I call a different pace and how do I become really curious about the business.

Right.

And ask questions and just develop that muscle. So well, before moving into fpa, I would start asking the questions, trying to attend other meetings, try to talk to FPA people, build relationships with them to say is this something I want to do? Because Paul, you know, I actually noticed there's certain people will be like, they'll go to fpna. Yes, it's a learning curve and they'll love it. There's others who are like, I got to stay away from this area.

Right.

And it's. And we're all built differently. So I. There's no issue with that. It's, you know, some people love the, maybe the predictability of an accounting role compared to fba. So I think it's being able to experience it before going into it. And then if you truly are, it's like how do I get curious about it? How do I get involved early so you don't go through my drinking, through the fire holes learning curve that I.

Had FP and a Guy here today I want to Talk about the FP and a Guy's Ultimate FPA Course Bundle. This bundle includes over 10 hours of content recorded by Ron Monteiro and myself, many templates and great lessons to make you a better FPA professional. The content includes FP and a business partnering how to manage tough conversations, build world class relationships and hold the business accountable. Includes Modern Excel, which is a real game changer for the way you'll work in Excel. Excel Tables, the gateway to modern Excel Power Query, a game changer for transforming your manual processes and loading data and then dynamic arrays. Next we cover modeling design principles. In this course we talk about the importance of designing models in a certain way and how important it is that you think about design. And last but not least, driving value through smart analysis, how you can conduct data analysis to be a better FPA professional. Go ahead and sign up for this bundle@the fpnaguy.com that's the fpnd a n d a guy.com use the code podcast to save 25% get started learning today. Yeah, and something you said reminded me of an experience I had. I had an accountant that I worked with was fabulous accountant. I really enjoyed working with him and he'd been promoted some and had an analyst role open. I remember asking him any interested in applying and he looked at me like no, none. I dealt with that funny money before all that gray stuff. He liked black and white and accounting was black and White. I'm like, okay, that's fine. You're good where you're at. But I knew he'd also make a good analyst just because I could tell he was analytical. But he's like, yeah, no, no, thank you. And, and that's where you have to know yourself and your personality.

Yes.

Because everybody thinks, oh, be more interesting. But are you really curious in nature? Are you comfortable in the gray? Like you said, if those aren't your traits, you might need to look somewhere else in the business. It doesn't mean that you have to be an accounting your whole career. There's plenty of areas that may fit your personality. It's just trying to match that. Yes. You can adjust. At the same time, you don't want to do something that's completely different from who you are, that's just going to be miserable. So it's finding that right balance.

Yeah. And I think it's about being able to ask great questions because the other thing that came to mind as you were saying, that is my role, my FPNA role at Kraft, 100% different than Campbell's. When I went into Campbell's, it was more like, hey, we send the numbers, we report, we. It's a little bit more methodical and not as involved in the business. So FT&A. It can mean a very different thing. Every single company or even within departments at a company.

Me fully agree. And you know what, what task do you have? Sometimes you see SEL commission sitting in FPA and calculating them and helping with plans. Other times you might do a cursory review and nothing more. And, and a lot of other things like that. Sometimes you're very much with the general manager every week. Sometimes you're more of a report background role. And again, it depends on the role. Are you in corporate fpa? Are you in the business unit? So knowing those type of things really help. And I know, you know someone who's working on a book to talk a lot about that. Awesome. That we know. I just saw some of his pre pages for his book to do testimonial for him and I think it's great. We're seeing more and more people sharing information that can help people understand to make sure they're getting into the right. You're never going to 100 know. You have to experience something to really know it. But you can do your homework 100%. All right, so next question I want to ask you is obviously you progressed quite a bit in your career. You did the accountant, the analyst manager, you know, director vp. I know you even were on the path to CFO before you started your own business. So why did you leave? What made you decide? You mentioned you love training. Maybe talk a little bit more about that. What was the thinking that made you say, hey, maybe this isn't the right career path for me when you'd gone pretty high. Right. You're close to that CFO level as maybe that next role. So why. Why training? What. What did you find that you loved about it?

Yeah, so it's interesting. I always reflect on, you know, a lot of us, what we do is we follow the path that is kind of normal, I should say, like, hey, let's just climb the ladder. Analyst to manager to director to VP to cfo, but whatever that is. And it's almost like you're just doing it in on autopilot. And so I rose through craft. And I can tell you the story of how I had to go through some hurdles a little bit later, if you're interested. But when I got to a certain place, I. You know, actually it was Campbell soup. I took this training course, and the training course was. Was led by these three wonderful coaches, and they asked a simple question. What was your best experience professionally and your best experience personally? And both of them connected back to teaching. I had led a cash course at craft. I was like, 15 years there. And that was the experience that really said it lit me up, and it helped challenge me and helped me grow in different ways. And it was one of those light bulb moments that said, like, I'm more of a teacher in finance clothing, as opposed to a finance guy who likes to volunteer for training sessions. It's just like, that was a light bulb moment. And it has like, okay, I'm not quite happy anymore doing the finance side. And I actually hired one of those people who led the training course to be my coach, who's still a guy who I'll call. His name's Wayne Stark, and he helped me bridge into starting my business, but it was more around I was at a point in my life. Maybe it was a midlife crisis, I don't know. But I was like, hey, this is the time to go for it. And, I mean, you see the joy that we both get from this new world that we're in. We were in Walmart Canada a couple weeks ago when Paul visited in Toronto, and you see 55 people watching us do this training session. And we did a case study. And it's just, you know, the feeling, right? It's. It's a different feeling. And that's for me, where I decided to deviate from that typical path.

Yeah. And I could understand at your age having a midlife crisis. So I understand that. Anyone who knows that that's an inside joke is Ron's a couple years, not much, what, 18 months older than me or something. So I always.

He's old.

But anyway, what I was going to say is I'm going to guess on the personal side, a lot of that is the coaching, the soccer you do. Right. Talk a little bit about that because I know you work with youth and training. Maybe how that helped you in training and starting your own business. Working a lot. I know it's a little different working with kids, but spending a lot of time teaching.

Yeah, exactly. No, it's, it's fun. So yesterday I was coaching a bunch of 13 year olds playing soccer. And you know, for me it's all about learning, right. To say, how can I, you know, when you first start with kids, it's a lot of babysitting, but now it's like, how can I help she them, how can I help them grow? And again, I think it's connecting back to your why.

Right.

And for me, Paul, and I think it's about how do, how do I help people build confidence, whether it's on the soccer field, whether it's my business team, whether it's in our training sessions, what's the one thing to help others?

Right.

That, that connects. All the things that I'm passionate about is helping others. Coaching, training, teaching, whether it's on the field or on a zoom call or on a podcast like this. It's about how can I share my experiences to help others because others have done that for me.

I love that when you mentioned youth helping shape them. You know, I did Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts for years and I love those moments when you got through to that youth and you knew you were helping them with something they were dealing with in life. Yeah, a lot of fun. We'd have humor. There'd be all those great moments. I'm sure winning is nice in soccer, but I'm going to guess if I ask you for your favorite moments in coaching soccer, it's not, it's not when you won.

Yeah, actually was. I'm just kidding. I had the ice bucket thrown. No, it's, it's very much about the moments of, you know, even when some, one of the kids maybe will say something inappropriate, that's a teaching moment to say, okay, let me be the example. To say, that's not acceptable. We are a team. Let's support each other, let's not call each other out. And so that becomes rewarding. And look, that's the reason I loved my finance careers, because I had some big teams and I had the privilege of leading those teams.

Right.

And that's where the joy comes in.

Yeah, great. No, I love that. And I'm glad your favorite moments were winning. I knew where your priorities were.

I didn't want to. I'm competitive as well.

Right.

Just like the Raptors and they won the championship.

All right, moving on past that. All right, so you tell the story in our trainings about how you went from being terrified of presenting to today, you're one of the better presenters. I know you're a fabulous presenter. I've seen you present hundreds of times. Can you walk our audience through that story? You know, maybe that first time you presented to getting to where you're at today? And if you want, I can tell the story and mock it, but I won't. I'll give you the opportunity to tell it.

Yeah. And. And that's one of the secrets that Paul just talked about is preparation and practice. Right. So he's heard the same story over and over. And I've heard his story over and over, and it gets better because of the refining. So where I started was I grew up in Kenya, and, you know, over there there's a heavy emphasis on learning math and science and things like that. And I was very advanced academically, but on the social side, I was not.

Right.

So there wasn't much emphasis on that. So I flew to Canada and my very first presentation, Paul knows the story well, was in grade nine. And the topic was foreboding, which means something bad is going to happen. And it is one of the worst presentations in history.

Right.

I joke about it being in the Guinness Book of World Records, but anyway, so that's where I started being terrified. Sick days. I would avoid presentations at all costs. Fast forward I get to my business career and I'm still very shy, but I'm still pretty good in excel. Paul wouldn't believe that I was technically gifted. I would say not. I shouldn't say gifted. I was technically strong. And then I got to the point where my managers basically said, if you do not develop your presence, you're not advancing. It was very black and white. But more importantly, they said, look, we're going to help coach you, we're going to put you in situations to learn. And I slowly started building the skillset of becoming comfortable. One of the cool experiences was they said, we're going to have a finance off site, 200 people, plants, finance, everybody. And you're co leading it. And I was terrified and I got to lead it. And funny enough, I got to enjoy it. And so slowly over time I did that. And then on the business side, I was always in presentations. Right. And so Paul, you know, back to your question. It's about Kate pushing yourself a little out of your comfort zone with the right support and coaching.

Right.

And even you and I, we always reflect and we say, how can we get a little bit better? How can we get tighter with that story? Maybe that story is irrelevant. And so it is about a lot of practice and diving into it. And you know, again, what was my biggest fear is now something I truly enjoy.

Right?

And I think we both enjoy that piece.

So if you're an FPA and you want to get better at presenting and you're not able, you're not doing it much, maybe for whatever reason, you're in a role that's not requiring it, your manager isn't asking you to do it, what do you do? How do you find ways to practice? Because you need that repetition. So what advice could you offer?

Yeah, I would say take the initiative and force yourself into positions like that. So for example, let's say there's a monthly team meeting. Hey, I want to present the monthly results of that team meeting. Even just take five minutes to do it. Another one that's been brilliant for me over the, over my career is, hey, do a competitor analysis and get yourself in there and say, hey, I want to present that. And so it is about being very intentional to create opportunities for yourself if they don't naturally exist. Because if you're going to wait for other people to call on you, it's not going to happen.

Right?

Not, not many people are going to call, hey, I would love to have a finance person present.

Right.

But if you truly say what's going to be really interesting for them, what's going to help them? And I remember we did a, you know, one of my first roles at Craft is we did a situational assessment from a finance perspective and we present to a cross functional audience. We would find stuff like, hey, this one skew is taking all this time, but it's only 1% of our overall profit. Nobody had a clue about that because the business was moving so fast and it was like, wow, there's some real value that finance bring to the table. So if you can find situations like that, you put yourself in a completely different Light.

Great. So I love that. Finding those situations, those opportunities present. What if you're terrified of presenting, what do you do to get yourself in a state of mind where you can present any advice or tips? There's a. Yeah.

So I would start small and start like, hey, let me join a Toastmasters Club. Let me find a partner, let me find. Let me ask my manager if I can get some support on that.

Right?

And I know this one individual used to report to me. She used to be absolutely terrified of any type of public speaking. And she joined Toastmasters and she got over that fear. She still, look, we all still getting anxiety in certain situations that never fully goes away. But it's like, how do you start advancing towards the fear as opposed to retreating away from it? And I'll tell you, like, I had a development plan, Paul, where I was committing to speaking at least once in every meeting. Because I would. My default would be just listen, don't talk. Even when I had a lot of stuff on my mind, I was like, it's probably value added. I was like, nah, I don't think that's, you know, right. What if I'm wrong? All these questions. So even just a simple thing like that one, speak once in every meeting. And then once you do that, you're like, hey, it's not so bad. Let me just say it. And then before you know, it couldn't shut me up in the meetings. But I'm just kidding.

But I could agree with that. There's times I haven't been able to shut up, so I could see that.

But let's start small and when you can get support, do it. And then, you know, Paul, you're a big AI guy. There's AI technology now, there's PowerPoint, where you can record yourself and it will give you some tips. So you can. You can do a lot of practice on your own with technology. You can do with people. You can join Toastmasters. You can have rules like mine which says, speak at least once. You can take initiative. But it all starts with that action, right? It has to be action towards the fear.

Taking that first step, you just, you have to start somewhere and you build from there. I love that. Great point. I want to talk a little bit about training. You do a ton of it. Why is it so important, important that FP&A departments invest in training? Why do they need to do that?

So I think, you know, back to your questions earlier. A lot of accounting people may get, you know, moved into fp and a. A lot of people may have the same struggles that I have as being, you know, a little quieter, you know, not as comfortable presenting. So I, I always say, look it, you know, one of the things and one of the books on my shelf is, is growth mindset. It's about how do I continue to learn. So whenever I found myself in situations where I love my job, there's always learning involved. There's always, it wasn't static, it was like, what's the next thing? So I'm a huge believer.

That's why you like my Excel training so much. Right? You're always learning something.

I mean, in all seriousness, I've sat through many of those and I've learned xlookup. I mean, and I've learned other things.

Right.

So you've even kind of convinced me that it's not just the soft skills I need to keep developing as a senior person, even the technical skills.

Right.

Because departments have less resources. So, you know, back to your question. I think to me, leaders who invest in training, whether they do that themselves or whether they bring external people like myself, whether they do a book club, whatever it is, it's the spirit of we can continue to learn and grow. That's really, really important to me.

Totally agree with you that, that mindset of always growing. There's many different ways companies can implement training and they don't have to spend a lot of money to do it. It's more about the commitment to that growth mindset and finding ways to help you and your staff develop, whatever that may require.

Yeah, 100%. Like training in isolation is, is not going to get you where you want to get to. It has to be the leaders who invest themselves. I mean, I think about a company like Highliner Foods, which we just worked with Tammy and Deepak. The leaders are working 100% invested in implementation of what we teach. And, and look at the growth we've seen in that team and the individuals.

Right.

So it's, that's where I get a lot of joy. When you have a combination of a leader who really wants to be involved, not just in the training session, following the training session, that's where the magic happens, so to speak.

Agreed. I, I'm fully with you. It's that follow up and that continuing development to make sure it's implemented. Because we've all been in training where you walk out of it, you say, oh, I'm going to do all these things and you throw the training in your drawer. Six months later when you're moving offices, you're like, oh, okay, I can throw that away. Now, I guarantee you 90% of the people listening on the call can relate to that in some way. Right. It's unfortunately what often happens. But I agree with you. It's all about that mindset. But one more question on training, then we'll ask you a little bit about the book you're writing, and then we're going to move to what I call a rapid fire section here. So the question I want to ask. Favorite memory, since you started your own business, you're a little over three years into this now. What's your favorite memory been so far, by far?

Meeting you, Paul.

Okay, now what is it really?

No, no, it's in all seriousness, I mean, that was. That's been pretty cool. But I mean, there's been lots of different memories. And, you know, when I first started, people told me, like, look, you'll never get into the big companies. You're only going to work with the small companies we've got, you know, there's a lot of people who have good intentions who said, essentially, you're not going to make it with the big companies. And so when I started getting into some of the big companies, like, think about, I mentioned earlier, you and I got into Walmart. Over the last couple of weeks, we've done sessions in different parts of the world. And you know me, I love doing sessions in different parts of the world.

Right.

We did this CFO training in India. We did this training in Sweden virtually. We did another one in Malta recently as well.

Right.

So for me, it's like, I get so much joy out of, like, we get on these training sessions and we see people who want to be there.

Right.

I did another one in Vietnam and it was just like, people who want to grow and learn. So those are the moments to me, you know, me and you being Goodlettsville, working with Dollar General, like, okay, they're bringing us in to do a training session. And it just felt really special to say all the hard work that both you and I have done is now paying, you know, you know, paying fruits. Right. And so there's many moments that I could. I could just say. And there's also been many hard moments, right. As, you know, like, there's a lot of ups and downs as a business owner. So, yeah, a lot of. Lot of joy and a lot of hard work to get there.

Great.

And you, I know you've done a ton of work. I see how hard you work and I know you're writing a book, so I want to close on that before we move on to kind of the standard sections we have here. I know the title of the book is called Love Mondays. You're getting close to finishing that. So a couple questions. One, why are you writing the book? And then two, what do you hope people get from the book? What are you hoping they take away?

Yeah, amazing. I actually had a meeting with my editor earlier today. Her name's Adina, and it's just pretty cool. And she always asks me that same question. And so the reason I'm writing this book is I've worked with so many people, and I've been there at times where they just kind of what I call sleepwalk through their week.

Right.

Think about five days per week is of work. We should love what we do.

Right?

And a lot of us will be, including me, hey, let's just get through the week and then enjoy Friday to Sunday. That's, to me, the wrong way to live.

Right.

And so for me, it's all about saying it is possible to love what you're doing and then saying, okay, here's a path to get there as an individual and as a leader to say, how can you help your team Love Mondays? And back to your question about teams. I really believe a leader has the opportunity to create a team where people love to come in, make a difference, win, get things done. So it's all about the passion for helping people who don't believe they can get there start to take those actions that you talked about.

Right.

And look, it's a lifelong journey. So that's where I get a lot of energy. And I think you can probably feel a lot of energy just talking about to say, I had the wonderful fortune of landing a craft which helped me get there. And now I've had this wonderful experience with you of starting our own businesses where we truly look hard work for sure, but we love what we do.

Yeah. We love the training.

And that's the spirit of. It's like, how do we get. Imagine a world, Paul, where people wouldn't say happy Friday, they'd say Happy Monday.

Right.

I even hear people saying, happy Junior Friday, which is Thursday. I'm just like, you know, I get it. I totally get it, but I don't want us to be there. So that. That's where I get a lot of passion.

And I know you have a lot of passion for that. And you reminded me of a funny story. I don't think I've shared this on the show before. I worked with the guy that, you know, he would always leave early on Friday Very happy. He drag in late every Monday and he would always comment every Monday. He would always say, Friday, Tyler hates Monday, Tyler and I just always laughed. It was just so funny. But there's, you know, it's kind of like, okay, you could tell who likes their weekend and who doesn't want to be here on Monday. Right. It's kind of like that junior Friday and all. But that's what he always said. He's like, Monday, Tyler hates Friday, Tyler when he realized how much he had to get done. Because.

Yeah. And imagine reshaping that. Imagine reshaping that. Where we still love our weekends, but we also love what we do.

Yeah. And I think that's what we want in life. Everyone who can find that balance is going to be happier. It doesn't mean you're not looking forward to the weekend, but it means you're enjoying what you're doing. You're living in the moment each day, not just dreading five days of the week and then enjoying two. That's not a way to live. I, I agree with you. So this next section, I call it kind of rapid fire because the idea is to get quick, short answers, a couple, couple seconds on them. And we're going to start with this first one here. What is the number one technical skill FPA professionals should master?

So I think for me it's about the technical skill I would say is simplifying. And it's, you know, it's taking a P and L and being able to communicate it. Taking a balance sheet, taking a cash flow statement and finding a way to communicate it in a very effective way.

Right.

So, okay, so it's all about simplification. About simplification.

So what's the number one soft or human skill that we need?

So I think for me it is around storytelling and communication and think about anyone who tells a story and how engaged people come in. So it's about storytelling.

Okay, so got it. We got simplification and storytelling. I like it. The next two are just kind of going to be some fun where I'm going to force you to pick. Pick something. If you had to pick one method to use for all your forecasting and budgeting going forward, you could only do one. You're going to do top down, bottom up, zero based or something else. Which one would you use?

I would go top down. I mean, that's. It's a flawed question because I think top down in isolation is not the right answer, but I would start there.

Okay. And I get it's a flawed question. I realize it's more to have a little bit of fun and just force you to pick something. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about fpa, what.

You changing, I, I would do away with the long drawn out budgets and forecasts and make them what I call Sprint budgets and forecasts, which just gets much more tighter on. Let's get there. Let's work with a business. Let's forecast effectively rather than, you know, these long drawn, drawn out processes that maybe don't add as much value. So that's what I would do is make them much more value added.

So go to a Sprint budget, reduce the time and focus on value add. I like it. And then how are you using generative AI today?

So my generative AI is Paul Barnhurst. No, So I, I use Chat GPT and I, you know, it's funny, I go through these waves where I use it at times, you know, emails and, you know, even for us, sometimes when we're a little stuck on course content, on course outlines and stuff like that, we use it. So I've used it a fair bit, but sometimes I'll need a reminder to say, hey, maybe I can do it in a different way because I'm not naturally wired to take advantage. So I appreciate people like you who have helped me appreciate, embrace and start using it.

Great. Thank you for that. We're going to move on to the get to know you section. So I have four questions going to ask you here. First one, what's your favorite hobby or passion?

So I would say my hobbies and passions are changing.

Right.

But I would say soccer is a sport that I love right from I grew up and I coach it, I play it, I'm. My circle of friends is connected to it. So that's my, my biggest passion. And Canada is doing much better. They actually outplay the US in the recent Copa America tournament.

Right, Paul?

Yeah, I know. You keep reminding me. All righty. If you could recommend only one book, I know you love to read, we could see it on your bookshelf. One book for our audience. An FPA audience. What's that one book you're going to recommend?

That's a tough question. That's like asking you to recommend one Excel formula.

I know it's like asking you to pick between your kids. I get it, but go ahead.

Okay, I'll pick one of the ones I could see on my shelf. The friend factor, which is about attitude. It's about saying no matter what the situation is, you can take it into your own Hands, take initiative. Bring your best self to the table. So it's a wonderful real life story about a mail carrier who just took his job to the next level. Fred Shea. And you and I have interviewed Mark Sanborn. I think there's such a spirit about that book. Imagine if everyone in that PNA did that.

Yeah, I know. It's a great book. And I can see it up on yourself there. The Fred Factory. Just the ride. I have it back here as well. You can't see it on mine, but I have it back there. It's a good, good book. All right, favorite travel destination. If you could go anywhere in the world tomorrow, where are you going?

So I, I had the fortunate pleasure of going to Brazil, and again, my favorite thing in the world is soccer, so I got to go to the World cup in Brazil in a little place called Natal, Brazil. I would say to me, that's been my favorite destination so far. But again, I could name so many others that have been amazing.

Now, I know you love to travel. You're getting ready to go on a, on a trip here again. So next question. If you could have dinner with one person who's alive in the world today, you know, other than me, because I know I'm the first person you take to dinner. Who you picking and why?

Yeah, that's another tough question, Paul. But I would say somebody who I love is Oprah, and, and I would say Oprah's somebody who, you know, sometimes I'll, sometimes I'll have like a little bit of a down morning, and I'll be like, let me put on Oprah on YouTube to help me remember what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And she has such a cool story about how she got into talk shows. She was on the news, she hated it, and she landed there, and it just brought some joy. So I think there's so much wisdom, so much experience that I, I just love listening to people like that. And I'd love to, to pick her brain for a three hour dinner.

I like a good long dinner. You got it planned well. All right, we're gonna go ahead and wrap up here. Just have two more questions for you. So if you could offer advice to our audience to be better business partners, something they could do today. What's the one thing they should make sure they're doing?

I'd say at first, learn the business as much as possible.

Right.

Go well beyond just the spreadsheet. Go out to plan sales, marketing, supply chain, whatever your industry is. Learn the business inside Out. And then the second is be bold. Bring your ideas to the table and don't sit on them. You know, we have an amazing 360 degree view of the business and the business is so much better with FP and A. Individuals who are willing to provide recommendations and what they think will move the business forward.

Right.

Not just report, but help shape the numbers, shape the business as we talked about.

Love that. Learn the business and then help shape it.

Great.

All right, so if someone listens to this today and they want to get in touch with you, they'd love to connect or learn more about you. What should they do?

They should call my secretary, Paul Barnhurst. I'm just kidding.

All right. My number is.

No, I, you know, for me on LinkedIn is probably the best way to get in touch with me. And, you know, I love connecting with people and, you know, getting to know them and learning about them and, you know, helping them and them helping me.

All right, great. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Ron. It was a pleasure to interview you. A little change from what we normally do. We're both kind of training together, but thank you so much for being on the show and I'm confident the audience will enjoy it.

Yeah, my pleasure. And continue doing the fantastic work you do, Paul. I think it's phenomenal to see you interviewing world leaders in FP&A and random people like me to advance the profession. So well done, Paul. Keep it up.

Thank you, Ron, and enjoy working with you. We'll chat soon. Thanks for listening to FP&A tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform form of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, taking a short quiz and getting your CPE certificate to earn Continuing Education credits for the FPAC certification, take the quiz on earmark and contact me, the show host, for free. Further details.