Why Your Brilliant Financial Analysis Gets Ignored: The Precision Trap with Asif Masani

Finance people are very good at doing analysis, but they're not very good at influencing decisions. If the business teams or people who you work with are reaching out to you before making a critical decision or before making a decision that is impacting the business, I would say that is what a great FP&A could look like.

Meet Asaf Masani, Program Director at the FP&A Professionals Institute, Project Lead at FP&A Jobs, and Udemy instructor. With over 12 years of experience across financial planning, budgeting, audit, and tax, he is also the author of The Precision Trap.

So the pace of business today has changed so much. The decision that could wait earlier for 3 weeks can't wait today for 3 days. In the last 6 months, how many times did the finance team help you influence or shape a decision? And if that answer is, say, zero, then that would be a perfect example of Your finance team stuck in the precision trap?

How do individuals get out of the precision trap? How do organizations get out of the precision trap?

There are a few tools that I have.

Welcome to another episode of FP&A Unlocked, where finance meets strategy. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy. Each week we bring you conversations and practical advice from thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who are reshaping the role of FP&A in today's business world. Together, we'll uncover the strategies and experiences that separate good FP&A professionals from great ones, helping you elevate your career and drive strategic impact. This week's guest probably needs no introduction if you're ever on LinkedIn, You follow someone in the FP&A space, you probably heard of, read one of his books, seen one of his posts. So I'm going to welcome to the show Asif Masani. Asif, welcome.

Thank you so much, Paul. And it is always great to be back on your podcast. I think we did one 2 years back and I still get people reaching out to me because of that podcast. So it's always good to be back.

Well, good. Welcome back. I'm glad I could send people to you. Remember to send me referrals each time. I'm kidding. No, I hear that a lot from people that somebody reached out after being on the show. So it's fun to, when people tell me that, I love that people listen and they get value. That's what it's all about. Before I get into the questions, why don't you go ahead and take a minute, introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your background?

Sure, Paul. So I do 2 things. One is I write about FP&A, so there are 4 books now out on FP&A. One is All About FP&A, which was the first one back in 2022, which was then followed by From Accounting to FP&A, which came out in 2024. And then the latest one was the Data Storytelling Playbook, which happened in 2025. And as we speak, the next book is in the pipeline, which is The Precision Trap. So that is one. And the thing that I love is training people on FP&A skills, which is where I have, or we have a certification, which is CDFPA certification at the FP&A Professional Institute. So I am the CDFPA certification director at the FP&A Professional Institute. So those are the 2 things that I love doing and I spend most of my time doing that. Got it.

Now that, that's cool. I know you did a lot of training. So 4 books now, when you wrote your first book. Did you have any idea that you'd be writing one a year?

I did not actually. So I always wanted to write one. Then the second happened as a result of people reaching out to me on more questions on the first book. So that is how the second book happened. The third book happened because of money. I think the publisher was paying me some money for that. So that is purely for money. This one is more out of— I had a couple of more books in the pipeline, but this one was a book which came out of instinct. So as soon as I got the idea, from the time it was initiated till the time it was published, it was, I think, happened in 4 and a half months. I got the idea in February this year, just 4 and a half months back. And I had so much, I had to get this out as soon as possible and it got postponed because of that reason and then came out this month.

Got it. All right, so before we get deep into the book and some more things about you, I like to start every show with this question. I'm sure I probably asked something similar last time we chatted, but I'm going to guess a lot of people haven't heard that interview or don't remember. So if I ask you to define what great FP&A looks like, how would you define it?

I would say first is that somebody who's good in FP&A should be reached out Before the business makes a decision. So that is, I would say, the number one quality if you are evaluating yourself as an FP&A professional. If the business teams or people who you work with are reaching out to you before making a critical decision or before making a decision that is impacting the business, I would say that is what a great FP&A could look like. I could add, so Having a good point of view as a finance person for business is another good quality. So if I am producing a report or if I'm sending an analysis, I just don't send the analysis, but I send my recommendation, which could be out of the 5 different recommendations and why I would pick that one. So giving your own point of view is, I would say, another good quality. I see in good FP&A professionals.

Okay, appreciate that. I think that's a great point of they want you in the room when they're making decisions. And so I could totally understand with that one. So I know you started your career as an accountant. How did you end up ultimately getting into FP&A? How did that change come about?

Absolutely. So I started as an auditor back in 2010 with EY, and To be honest, I really liked doing that job for a couple of years. So from 2010 to 2012, I absolutely loved doing audits. At some point after working there for a couple of years, so the things I liked in the audit role was especially the respected commands from your stakeholders, be it the accounting team, be it the finance team. So if you are an auditor, that is, that was something that I really liked when I started. That if you, if you ask for something, that is something that they take it as, that is a wish that they need to fulfill as soon as possible. Otherwise it could lead to consequences. So that was the initial reason I used to absolutely love the audit role. However, over time, I think about a year or 2 years into the role, what I realized was that respect was not out of will. It was more coming out of compulsion. Over time, I realized that auditor is not somebody who you would like to talk to willingly, but it is more of a forced conversation, and you don't get invited because of your work, but it is because of your designation.

So yeah, nobody wants the auditor in the room because they like the auditor. The reason the auditor's there is they want to stay out of trouble, or they want a certification, or So totally understand that. I always, I will admit it, I hated working with the auditors because I didn't want to deal with it. I mean, I did it and I was nice, but there were more than a few times I'm like, can you guys just please leave me alone?

Yes. Yes. So over time I realized that, and also I was working on reports which were looking at numbers which happened in the previous year and not being close to making decisions. Which I could see was happening on the other side with my clients. And yeah, those were the 2 reasons which led me to change after 3 years of working in audit. Although I was very happy first couple of years, but at some point I realized that I need to be in a role where I am closer to decisions, working closely with the business rather than working after everything is done. So that was the reason. And at the time when I decided to move back in 2013, 2014, end of 2013, I did not know even what FP&A was. So my first choice or the first few profiles that I wanted to get in was, as you mentioned, right, investment banking was your favorite as well. So investment banking was very hot at that time and valuation. So those were the 2 profiles I wanted to get in. And The number 3 was equity research. I could not get into investment banking. I could not get into valuation. Gave a couple of interviews, did not make it through. I gave a few interviews on equity research. I got the offer, but the pay was too low compared to the other offer, which I got, which eventually turned out to be an FP&A role, which I did not know till the time I got into the role. So what I would say is it's not that I chose FP&A. I did not even know what FP&A was till the time I got into my role, into the first couple of weeks. It was FP&A who chose me rather than me choosing FP&A.

Yeah. Uh, I have a similar story in that sense of I got into FP&A because the role was open. It was a promotion and they hired me. So I was making more money. So I totally, I get it. I think a lot of us, cause it's not, it's not something you hear about in college. Very few universities have program or even courses around FP&A. So I totally agree with you. All right. So you have been up to a lot since the last time I interviewed you. You start, you've started your own business. You've moved to the Middle East. You've written a couple books, one of which we're going to talk a little bit about. But let's start. Tell our audience about your business, FP&A Professionals Institute. What exactly is it? Who does it serve? What's that journey been like?

Absolutely. So. You mentioned it, Paul, right? Just in the previous conversation, not a lot of people know about FP&A while they're in college. So that is what our mission is. One is to help 1 million finance professionals upskill in FP&A. So that is the primary goal, which is why we started FPI, and also to build that awareness among university students and college students. you should look at FP&A as an option, especially in today's time and age, other than audit, other than accounting, other than taxation. So those are the 2 reasons why we started FP&A. One is to create awareness about FP&A roles among young finance professionals who have just come out of college, come out of their CA, CPAs, and then to help people who are stuck in accounting, audit, taxation roles where they know that they need to get into FP&A. And that is where the FP&A Institute helps these professionals.

They're kind of trying to help those people either get out of their current roles, find FP&A, train them so they can be better at it.

In terms of your other question, which is on moving to the Middle East and getting into the business. So This was back in 2022 when we first met. I don't know if you remember that. It is, it was first when we had a small group of Anders, Leo Lindberg, Christian Wettig, Nicholas Burchell. Now they've all become very big names in their respective, already they were big at that time as well. So it was inspired by actually you and Anders and Paul and Nicholas who were doing so well on LinkedIn in terms of educating the audience. And I saw that you started your own business back in 2021. Okay. So that was one of the reasons. Then I saw Christian get into the FP&A training. When I saw Nicholas get— okay. So that was the environment. I believe that was one of the biggest reasons for me to get into business because I saw this could be a real opportunity where you get to do something which you like and make money as well. So I would thank you and all the other people that I mentioned for that. In terms of moving to the Middle East, so while we were doing the LinkedIn content back in '21, '22, I also started writing on my first book, which was basically using the same content and then creating a book out of it. And as soon as that book got published, it became Amazon bestseller in the management accounting category for quite a while, for a good 5 to 6 months during 2022. And I started getting a lot of requests from people on LinkedIn, on my DMs, to who, who read the book, who figured out about the book and wanted to learn more and wanted to do trainings, structured trainings on FP&A. So that is when I reached out to my present business partner, which you've met, Dhaval. So I used to direct all the people who used to come to my DMs to the FP&A Foundations course, which Dhaval had back from 2020. So he was already doing FP&A trainings on Udemy. And so I used to— that was the only training available which I knew of at that point of time, which was 4 years, 5 years back. Now there are plenty, but at that time it was the only training that I knew of. So I was giving, or I was directing them to those, to the Udemy course, which is the FP&A Foundations. And at some point me and Dawal connected and he shared a similar mission like I did. And that's how we came together. So we did FP&A trainings on Saturdays and Sundays for a good 1 year before we went in full-time. So we did it for 1 year and then parallelly we were talking to each other on Slack. You, me, Nicholas, and I was looking at you guys doing it as well. So that's how it came, right? That's how I got into the business. I left my Coursera FP&A APAC role, which was 2023, 2023, end of 2023. And that's when we started FP&A Professionals Institute. Dawood was supposed to join me after one year, but looking at me, He immediately gave and he resigned after 2 months. So he joined me in March 2024. So that's how we started. And at that time, Dawal was already in the Middle East. His CFO role was in the Middle East and he had settled down with his daughter and wife in the Middle East and he didn't want to move back to India. And we were evaluating different options for where should we have our— where should we register our company? Or FP&A Professionals Institute, and India and Middle East were the 2 options. And Middle East was a clear winner because of various reasons on the taxation benefits and the residency benefits and all of that. So we registered our company in the Middle East and I was in India for 2025, but eventually Dawal made me come to the Middle East eventually once we are doing well on the company. So that's how I moved to the Middle East just last year, about 6-8 months back.

Thank you for sharing a little bit of that journey and how you ended up in the Middle East. I appreciate that. So next I'm going to ask, in the 3 years you've been running the business, what's been the most rewarding experience? What have you enjoyed the most?

So I think you would resonate or relate with this because I know you do FP&A trainings and a lot of good things about that. So what I would say is the best feeling is when somebody reads your book Or watches your YouTube video, or does— somebody takes this program like the CDFPA program, and after they do that, they go to the interview and then are able to get into the FPA at all. I think that is one of the best feelings that you could ever get. And that frequency has kept on increasing. So earlier, I used to get one message a quarter back in 2022. It kept on increasing. Right now, I would be surprised if I don't hear from one person a week who's either read my book, watched a YouTube video, or taken our, one of our certifications and has cleared the FP&A interview. So I think that is the reason why we do this every day and day in and day out.

Yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing that. It is always rewarding when you hear from people. All right, so let's jump into your book. I want to spend some time there. It's called The Precision Trap. I think you ended up deciding earlier this year to write it. How did that come about? Let's start with Why did you pick this topic for the book? FP&A Guy here, and I'm really excited to tell you about an event I'm excited for. If you work in FP&A or enterprise planning, you're going to want to check out the EPM Summit this November in Vegas. What makes it different is that it brings together the entire enterprise planning ecosystem— software providers, implementation partners, analysts, and practitioners for independent discussions, hands-on learning, and real conversations about where AI is taking enterprise planning. If you're evaluating platforms, planning a migration, or simply want to stay current, it's definitely worth a look. It's November 16th through 19th at the Bellagio in Vegas. Who doesn't want to hang out in Vegas? Go to epmsummit.com /register to learn more and register for this exciting event. That's epmsummit.com/register.

So this was a pattern I am sure you must have come across, and I have been looking at since I was working in FP&A back in 2015. And over the 10 years, I have noticed that pattern, and that pattern became very, very evident Especially when you work with so many students taking your programs. And after speaking to, I would say, hundreds of FP&A professionals who take our programs, certifications, courses, that pattern, which is finance people are very good at doing analysis, but they're not very good at influencing decisions, which is what the underlying theme of the book is. And at many places, finance teams go so deep into analysis and are so concerned about the numbers being 100% accurate that they miss the decision window. And then the business stops asking them questions. The CFO stops expecting answers on time, and the business usually moves on. So that is a pattern I'm sure you must have seen, and I have experienced it while I was working in FP&A, but at that time I thought it was probably just me. But after working with so many students and listening to CFOs and listening to FP&A people who have worked in finance, that pattern became very evident. And what I try to do is I try to give that pattern a name, which is the book, which is Precision Tab. So that is what the book does. Okay.

Thank you for that. So You started the book off by telling a story, and I'd love for you to lay that out, kind of that story and why you started the book with that story. So you start off, there's a line that says, honestly, most of the time the business has already decided before our deck is ready. Tell the story of someone who shared that with you and just kind of set that up for the audience.

Absolutely. So What the context of the story is that we as finance professionals, whatever we've learned in our curriculums back in the college, back in the university, or in the professional certifications, be it CMA, CPA, or CA, we have been trained for a world that has changed drastically. So whatever we've learned was built for, I would say, the early 2000s. And that was rewarding people for being 100% accurate. So what I would say is there needs to be some trade-off between you being accurate and you delivering your analysis or your report on time, which can influence the decision. So the pace of business today has changed so much that the decision That could wait earlier for 3 weeks, can't wait today for 3 days. So that is the exact gap that we are trying to address.

Got it. Kind of that whole gap of the decision taking too long. And so is the primary reason for that then, do you think it's the way accountants are trained? I mean, because yes, you have accountants in FP&A, but you have people that come from finance or different backgrounds. So there must be something more than just training. Training, I think, is one you mentioned, but what are the root causes?

Training is one. The other could be that finance is still trained and mainly operated by people who have been— so finance is mainly operated by people who have been in that environment for so long, and now it's hard for them to change. So that is what I would say in terms of, apart from the training, it could be the environment of the organization. So just to take an example, if I was in the early 2000s and I needed to take a decision, I could prepare a model, wait for 3 weeks because everybody was on that slow clock. And if I was late by a week or two, it did not really matter. And the decisions at that point, largely irreversible. So the fact that I need to wait and be very thorough and accurate made sense at that point of time. But now, as we are in 2026, a lot of the decisions are fairly reversible, meaning if you want to test the pricing, if you want to make some changes on the website. If you want to try out a new package or a new payment plan, you could do that quickly. And the consequences of that going wrong are not that high as it was back in the 2000s. So it makes more sense to take the decisions quickly. And for that to happen, you need to have a finance business partner that can help you do that. So that is what I would say has changed apart from the training. So it is the business environment that has made that switch.

Got it. So we have the training, we have different business environments. So obviously a lot of people struggle with feeling like they're in the trap. You know, the example you mentioned of, you know, they already decided before our deck is ready. A lot of times the decision is made before finance figures out what they were doing. So how do we get out of Well, I want on 2 levels. First, how do individuals get out of the precision trap? How do organizations get out of the precision trap? So let's start with the individual. I'm an individual. I notice I have this problem. What should I be doing?

There are a few tools that I have recommended or have written about in the books. I'll mention a couple of them. So one is about understanding how accurate your analysis needs to be. Given different parameters. So for example, I would say there are, just to categorize it broadly, there are 3 different levels of accuracy that you need to understand about. So first is something called as a directional number. Okay. So if you're looking to make a quick decision within the next couple of hours, you don't need a number that is required for say, an annual report or a board report. You could go and work with something called a directional number. So directional number is something which you should be able to easily pull up in the next 10 minutes and be reasonably confident about using that to make a decision. The second is a working number. Say for example, if you want to use something for the CFO review or the CEO review, which is for internal decision or which is for internal monthly presentations or QBRs, that is where you could use something called a working number, which is slightly more detailed or accurate than a directional number, where you understand where that number is coming from. What is the source? How does it reconcile to the final number? So that is what the working number is. And the final number is what we call the definitive number, which is what you should be waiting for, which you should spend a good amount of time These are the numbers that go outside of your organizations to investors for statutory filings. So a lot of time what I've seen is finance professionals do not distinguish, are not able to distinguish between them, and they end up spending the same amount of time where they could have used a directional number and they're spending 3 days or 5 days or couple of weeks assuming that a definitive number is required where a directional number could have, could have done the job. So that is one, which is what we call as the accuracy dial, where you need to understand where you need to use the directional number and where you need a definitive number. Another one that comes in my mind is what I called as the stakeholder contract, where you need to ask your business stakeholder a few questions before even you start your analysis or you even open the Excel file. So these are questions which are, why do you need the analysis? You need to understand the purpose of the analysis before you start doing the analysis. Second question is where this analysis will be used. So where are you going to use this analysis? That could influence how much time you need to spend on the analysis. The third question could be, if I give one, once I give you this analysis, what decision are you going to make on based on that? Okay. That could be another cue for you to be able to gauge how much detailed the analysis needs to be. Another question could be what do you need in terms of the format of the analysis? Should it be an Excel file? Should it be a PowerPoint? Is an Excel file with the table okay, or you need a 10-page detailed report? So that is the 4th question. And then finally, when do you need this analysis? So is it today, end of the day, or you could wait till the Friday, end of the day? So based on these 4 or 5 questions, you can gauge what level of analysis you need to be able to perform. to be able to address the stakeholders' requirement for making that particular decision. So I would say these are 2 of the ones that I can share. One is the accuracy dial, which I talked about, and the second one is these questions that you should ask your stakeholders before you even begin or open the Excel file.

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So first is if you are a business leader and you need to understand if you are in the precision trap, you should be asking this question, which is in the last 6 months, how many times did the finance team help you influence or shape a decision? And if That answer is, say, zero, then that would be a perfect example of your finance team stuck in the precision trap where they are doing a lot of analysis. However, they are not helping you influence a business decision, or you're not— they're not helping you in time to be making decisions. So that is one. And second is for the CFOs. So this was first one, also business leaders. Second one is for the CFOs. If you notice that your business leaders have stopped asking you questions, or if you notice that you have stopped getting invitations to the meetings where the strategy is made or where critical business decisions are made, I think that is another cue for somebody who's in a senior finance position to be able to identify that they are suffering from getting into a lot more detail than they should be.

That's helpful. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think what you said in both of those make a lot of sense. So I'm curious, from writing the book, kind of stepping back for a second, what was maybe the biggest surprise or biggest learning that when you went into writing the book, you didn't expect?

And this is something which I just recently experienced. So the book just went out 2 days And one of the surprising things that I found out is my objective of writing the book was to address the senior finance leaders and CFOs and help finance professionals to become better business partners and take more initiative in business decisions. That was my objective of writing the book. However, what I noticed is after I started Posting about it on LinkedIn, I started business leaders and CEOs take a notice of them, and few of them messaged me about stories and situations where they exactly came across that situation. So I was not expecting it to resonate with CEOs and business leaders as much as it would resonate with FP&A professionals, FP&A managers, finance managers. However. That was a little surprising that I got more DMs from people on the business side and the CEOs rather than from people on the FP&A and the finance side.

That's interesting. Not, I mean, I wouldn't have guessed that, but as you share it, I guess it's not surprising, right? Because at the end of the day, if we're in the precision trap, it's the business we're hurting, not ourselves.

Surprising element is that I got more messages from the business where I was expecting maybe More from finance and FP&A people. That was surprising. So I was expecting the response, but not in the proportion that I saw.

Sure. That's interesting. Thank you for sharing that. Before we move into our standard sections here, last question. What's the final advice you'd give to an FP&A professional to avoid the precision trap? What's something they should start doing today?

2 things. So one is, before you do any analysis or before you work on any finance report, ask those 5 questions that we discussed. Why are we doing the analysis? Why are we preparing this report? Who is it going for? Who is the audience? What are the decisions that are going to be made after somebody who is going to read the report? When are they expecting that report? So these are some questions that you need to ask before you do any analysis or you prepare any report. So that would be my advice. And many situations, what you would notice is a 70% accurate analysis is going to be much, much better if it is coming on time rather than you being 100% accurate, which comes 4 weeks after the decision is made. So what you should do is you should observe whatever you're doing in the last 6 months and see if this hypothesis is making sense for you. If it is, then you should definitely implement some of these frameworks that we discussed, and that can help you.

Great point when you said the 70%. I remember I had a business leader where, you know, we had data that was a total mess. This is before I ever even worked in finance, and I was working in kind of some data integrity type roles. And she goes, as long as we can get the data 80% accurate, Most of the time that's good enough for the decisions I'm making. Like if I need it better, I'll let you know, but let's try to keep it around 80% accuracy and just make a decision because we're, it's too costly to get to 100%. And I think that's one thing that definitely people need to keep in mind in addition to everything you said is it's a lot more costly in resources and time and effort to try to be that 100% accurate, which you can never do with a forecast anyway. So, alrighty. So here's the FP&A section. I got a couple questions I'm going to ask you. First one, I ask everybody this one. What is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals need to master?

I would say financial modeling, and this is maybe slightly biased because that is what some— that is what has helped me tremendously. So I could picture myself not doing financial models properly or not using the best practices in financial modeling. And once I started doing that, I could see drastic change in my productivity in terms of at the analyst to manager level. So yes, so I would say financial modeling, and I could be slightly biased about it.

We're all slightly biased. We're all human. So that's all right, but you're in good company. A lot of people say financial modeling, so you're not alone on that. I know for me, learning proper design and modeling made a big difference, so I get it. What's the number one soft or human skill that FP&A professionals should master?

So I would say one thing that I struggled with, which was back in the days when I was an FP&A analyst, was being able to interact with senior stakeholders. So A lot of times what happens is because you are in a junior position, or if you are in an analyst or a senior analyst position, and if you are directly dealing with the CEO or a head of sales, it can be slightly intimidating. So what I would suggest is that is a part of the role and you need to internalize it. The earlier or the faster you do that, the more beneficial will it be for you. So I would say being able to talk to somebody senior in the organization as, as the number one soft skill that you could develop.

So basically the ability to have conversations with those more senior than you.

Absolutely, yes.

What do you think is the most important skill people need to master AI for finance?

Uh, so this is again very interesting. So I would say being able to ask the right questions to to AI so that you are able to get the desired output. It may be called with different names. So prompt engineering for finance, I have heard as a popular name. So based on whatever you are looking for as an output, you should be able to interact with the AI tool in the way that is giving you the best output. So basically it is writing the prompt in the way where you cover everything in detail. So that you get a better output compared to what somebody else which is not doing that would get.

Got it.

All right.

Appreciate that. And then this is the first time I've asked this question, but if you could share one framework that you think would help FP&A professionals the most, maybe the one that's helped you the most in your career, or that you've seen the most impact when you teach it to people, what is that framework?

So this is what, what one of the frameworks we cover in our training, which is for being able to do variance analysis very effectively. So we call it the DERP framework. So D stands for defining the variance, where you talk about what the variance is. E stands for explaining the variance. So you get into the detail and the 5 Whys, and you explain what is the root cause of the variance. You talk about the detailed root cause, which is the second step. R stands for recommendation. So where you recommend what should be done now. Okay. What has happened in the past has happened. What should you be doing now to get back on track or what should you be doing in the next quarter? That is what the recommend stands for. And P is optional, but if you can, you should do it, which is projecting the impact of the Recommendation. So for example, if you are projecting or if you're recommending some action for the next quarter, how would that impact the numbers for the next quarter? So that is called the projection, which is basically forecasting the impact for the next period. So that is DERP, where you cover all of these elements, you have a very solid variance analysis commentary.

Thank you. So we have DERP. Let me see if I got it right. Define, Explain, recommend, and then potential kind of cost or outcome, revenue, expense, just kind of projection.

Absolutely.

All right, so there you go. D-E-R-P, everybody. Next, we're going to go into the Get to Know You section. So this is where I ask a little bit about you. First one I'm going to ask, this is a fun one. I'm really curious to see what you say. I've never asked anyone this question before. If you can only keep one app So just one on your phone for the next year, what would it be and why?

That's very easy actually. So I feel a lot of our institute runs on WhatsApp. There are so many groups for our cohorts, so there are like 25 different groups that are for different courses, different cohorts. So I think if WhatsApp disappeared, we'll be in a lot of trouble. So I would say WhatsApp is the number one tool.

You just made Meta very happy.

True. We're totally dependent on them.

So you're going to be WhatsApp. If you had to give a TED Talk tomorrow on a topic outside your area of expertise, so outside finance, outside accounting, outside FP&A, what topic you picking?

I would probably talk about how to write better. So that is what something I'm working on. I'm not yet an expert. So how do you write and become better as a writer? So that is something I would like to talk about. And that is purely because something is, it's developing as an interest as I start writing more and more.

Interesting. So what have you learned so far? What maybe is your key takeaways to being a better writer? If you could give one or two things just real quick.

So one would be that you should write in shorter sentences. That is my number one key takeaway. So avoid longer sentences, make sure that you have shorter, crisper sentences. And because the attention span has gone down so much because of social media, make sure that you start with a pattern which starts with a hook, which I'm sure you are aware of. You start with a hook and then give them the content and then again end it with a cliffhanger and then again start with the hook. So you do that for every section and that's how you try to engage. Basically do the same thing the Instagram influencers do on Reels while you're writing the book so that you maintain that sort of engagement.

Got it. All right. Next one. I'm curious to see where you take this because you could consider industry training, you could it finance, FP&A. But here's the question: what's something everyone in your industry pretends to love but secretly finds tedious?

So this could be many things, but I would say number one is the annual operating budgeting.

I figured you were gonna say that.

So that would be the number one, uh, very close to a couple of others, but yeah, number one on If you're doing the budget for 3 months, uh, you are pretending to like it, but you don't, you don't like it. Eventually when you are on version 21, 22, 23.

I told somebody I never really liked the budget process. I liked working with people, but going through all the versions and I love the partnering more than the budget. And I look at them like, well, why were you in FP&A? And I'm like, well, the budget was just a small part of everything I had to do, but I'm with you. If I think of most people are honest, they don't love the budgeting process. Are there aspects of it that can be enjoyable? Sure. But especially when they drag on, I've had 6-month budgets and you're like, when will this thing end?

So I'm hoping they're getting shorter and shorter as we move along.

That's what we keep hoping for. I think, I think we've made progress in the right direction. All right. Last one. If you could recommend a book to our audience, Not your own, what book you're recommending?

Yeah, I would say the one that helped me a lot in terms of when I transitioned from my employee life to the life of an entrepreneur is what I would recommend is called— I'm sure you must have heard about it— it's called Thinking and Growing Rich. I don't remember the title. So Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is the title. So Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I must have read that book at least 3 times, 4 times now. And every time I read that book, I find something new as a takeaway, which I could implement and get something out of it. So purely because of that, because I've read it multiple times and every time I read it, I find it that I should read it again, maybe next year.

Got it. Well, thank you. That'd be a good one for our audience. And then where can our audience find your book if they're interested in your new book? When does it come out? Where will it be available? Share a little bit of details about the Absolutely.

So the books are always, the older ones are already available on amazon.com. So that should be the go-to place to get the books. Right now at this point, the new book is available in India. It should be out by the time this recording comes out. So it should be available on amazon.com by end of August, early September.

August, September. Perfect. And then last question before we let you go here. If you could give one final piece of advice to our audience to be better at their job, what advice you giving them?

It would be the same which we talked about. So make sure that you become that finance person who is in the room when the decisions, or you become, or you earn that position where you are invited to the rooms where decisions are made. And one of the ways you could do that is by making sure that you understand all of the things that we discussed in the precision trap conversation. So you make sure that you understand what level of analysis is required for what purpose, and then you decide your next steps accordingly. So that is what I would say. So become better business partners. and help represent finance teams in much, much, much better way.

I like it. So thank you for joining me today, Asif. I really appreciate you carving out some time. If someone wants to get in touch with you or learn more about your things, what's the best way to do that? Is it LinkedIn? Is there a website? What's the best way for them to reach out?

So you could reach out to me on LinkedIn and message me there. Or the other way could be you could go onto our website, which is the FP&A Professional Institute website, which is fpnaprofessionals.com, which is the other way you could reach out to us.

Alrighty. Well, perfect. Thanks again for carving out some time and good luck with the book launch. I hope it's a huge success for you. That's it for today's episode of FP&A Unlocked. If you enjoy FP&A Unlocked, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review. It's the best way to support The FP&A Guy and help more FP&A professionals discover the show. Remember, you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, and completing the quiz. If you need continuing education credits for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening. I'm Paul Barnhurst, the FP&A Guy, and I'll see you next time.