The Importance of Predicting and Influencing in FP&A
Show Notes
Welcome to a special episode of Financial Modeler’s Corner! Today, we're thrilled to bring you an exciting Podswap from FP&A Tomorrow. Stay tuned for an engaging conversation with Carl Seidman that you won't want to miss. Here are the show notes from our previous episode.
Welcome to FP&A Tomorrow, where we discuss financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects, with your host Paul Barnhurst.
In today’s episode, Paul engages in a conversation with Carl Seidman to discuss why mastering presentation skills, and understanding the needs of the audience is crucial for excelling in your FP&A career.
Carl is a premier FP&A and Fractional CFO expert, providing financial advisory and leadership development services to top companies including Deloitte, Verizon, and Walmart. Carl is known for his impactful training programs and advisory work that drive success in financial planning and analysis.
Key takeaways from this week's episode include: :
Here is a concise summary of the key points from the discussion:
In FP&A, the ability to distill complex information into a concise, impactful message is paramount. It's not about how much you know, but what you can communicate effectively.
The ability to distill complex information into a concise, impactful message is paramount. It's not about how much you know, but what you can communicate effectively.
FP&A isn't just about numbers, it's about storytelling with data, painting a vivid picture of the financial landscape that guides strategic decisions and drives organizational success
Anticipating potential disruptions or changes in the business environment is a fundamental aspect of FP&A. By identifying risks and developing strategies to mitigate them, FP&A professionals can help the organization stay ahead and adapt effectively.
Quotes:
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode about FP&A mastery:
"You're not going to go to a nice restaurant and pay a lot of money for a delicious dish, and then have it be delivered in a greasy brown paper bag. Right. So the deliverable matters a whole lot. It can actually significantly dismiss the credibility or value of everything that came up before at that point in time."-Carl Seidman
"I think that Great FP&A looks like a team of people who are equipped, from a technical standpoint, to be able to execute the kinds of requests that are being asked of them."-Carl Seidman
“The demands in business, the increasingly fast-moving environment, competition, the risks of getting some of this planning wrong are pushing the need of FP&A to be a whole lot more proactive, a lot more agile, a lot more well rounded and thinking instead of just being about financial planning and reporting."-Carl Seidman
Follow Carl:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlseidman
Website - https://seidmanfinancial.co
For CPE credit please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, and answer a few questions. For AFP FPAC certification answer the questions and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
In today’s episode:
[01:25] Carl introduction;
[02:42] Changing FP&A trend over the next five years:
[10:00] Carl’s background:
[12:05] Carl’s passion for presenting and communication
[15:44] Favorite voice Carl can impersonate?
[20:42] Becoming better speakers and why presentation matters
[33:44] How you can be better at influencing
[40:44] Most important skills for FP&A professionals
[45:00] Carl’s LinkedIn learning course
[47:15] Rapid Fire
[51:35] Carl’s book recommendation
[55:51] Parting words
Full Show Transcript
Host: Paul Barnhurs: Excited to bring you a special episode on Financial Modelers Corner. This is an episode from another podcast that we think you'll enjoy. This is from Carl Seidman. Carl is a world renowned expert and sought after speaker. He works in FP&A, and he shares keynote speeches and his talks regularly with others. He's even given one titled The First Retirement, which is a TEDx talk where he talks about his adventure going around the world and taking a year off. He is a master communicator and this is an episode you'll want to listen to. I'm a big believer that every financial modeling professional should learn to communicate, that it's important to know how to command that room and tell the story behind your model. Even though the focus of this interview was FP&A. I think many of the lessons will apply and that you will learn a lot from this episode, so I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. And if you enjoy it, go ahead and subscribe to FP&A tomorrow. Thanks!
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Welcome to FP&A Tomorrow, a brand new podcast where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka The FP&A Guy, and I will be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. Every week we are joined by thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. I'm thrilled this week to be welcomed by Carl Seidman. Carl, welcome to the show.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Thanks for having me, Paul.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Excited to have you. So we give a little bit of background about our guest, Carl. Carl joins us from just outside Chicago. He's the founder of Seidman Financial, and he has a degree in finance. And he also did a master's in managerial accounting. So I want to start with the question before we get into your background, in your mind, what does great FP&A look like?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I think that great FP&A looks like a team of people who are equipped, from a technical standpoint, to be able to execute the kinds of requests that are being asked of them. They have the ability to anticipate where the company is going and where questions may arise. And then in addition to having the accounting or financial background, they have enough awareness and familiarity with the operations of the company so that they can ultimately dive down deep into those individual functions of marketing and operations and sales and HR, and be able to lend a analytical mind and critical thinking perspective to the people who are in those groups.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Thank you. I appreciate that answer. Which leads me to my next question. You know, do you see FP&A with all the changes in technology and everything? Do you see a changing over the next five years? Like how do you see the role changing?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Absolutely. I think that ten years ago, while there was FP&A, I don't think that ten years ago, FP&A looks a whole lot like what it does today, where we are today and where I think we're going tomorrow and into the future is, again, people who are not just doers or finance people, but who really come from a much more well-rounded acumen in business awareness. This means that people are going to be thinking more like what I sometimes refer to as junior CFOs, rather than being sole doers in the finance or accounting function. And as such, it means that people are going to have to get greater exposure and awareness to other parts of the business beyond just what they're focusing on. And then as it relates to technology, I think, you know, Paul, given your background and your history in recent years, is there is so much technology coming out and, enablement, that was just not possible in years past. So while a lot of people in FP&A in years past may have been rooted in more spreadsheet focused analytical work and even planning as well. I think that there's a whole lot more technology that is going to mature, evolve, and enable FP&A teams to be able to do their work in ways that they never were able to in years past.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think it's amazing how technology is enabling, and I think there's a lot of other great things you said there. As I used to say, ten, 20 years ago, it was more for financial planning and reporting than the analysis. Right. And today that analysis is really big, and I think we're moving more and more towards going to be a lot more strategic, commercial driven business partnering. We've seen that shift and I think technology will accelerate it.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah, I agree with that fully, and I like the FP&R acronym that you use is I think, at least in my experience in years past, as it was budgeting and forecasting and analysis for sure. But a lot of it was also very backwards looking. And I think that the demands in business, the increasingly fast-moving environment, competition, the risks of getting some of this planning wrong are pushing the need of FP&A to be a whole lot more proactive, a lot more agile, a lot more well-rounded and thinking instead of just being about financial planning and reporting.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, 100% agree. You definitely can't get away with just being in your spreadsheet anymore. At least if you want to hit any level of leadership.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Absolutely.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah. I mean you could get away with it some analyst roles. But beyond that I just it doesn't work anymore.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah. And I think to your point, Paul, is that certainly as people start getting to a leadership role and I look at, you know, where my work is today and where it's been the last few years, I'm not doing a whole lot of rolling up my sleeves and doing the hands-on work. I'm thinking a lot more strategically, a lot of it more about communication and partnership and relationships, and strategy of where the company is going and how we can enable that, and so as such, I think that that's going to start reaching younger people more quickly than I think it did in history. Whereas I think that historically a lot of people could have been in that rolling up your sleeves work for five, eight, ten years and they would have. Been a very strong go-to professional, whereas I think that the expectation to be a little bit more high level in your thinking, a little bit better of an understanding of the surrounding business and functions, is going to start hitting people a little bit earlier in their careers.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I would agree with that. That need to be commercial and strategic driven is happening at a younger and younger age, especially if you're joining small companies where you're wearing multiple hats and you have to really understand the three statements, the cash flow, a lot of things that you may not have to deal with if you're joining a big, huge global company, right? You may have very small niche where it may not be as quick that you need to really be able to think at that higher level. Yeah.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I think that's a really interesting point that you raised, Paul, in that, you know, sometimes people will come to me and say, well, if I learn a certain set of skills, I know FP&A at any company that I would need to go into. And I always make this distinction, as you just pointed out, that FP&A at a small company looks completely different than FP&A does at a large corporation and in the middle at a mid-market company, you're kind of going to straddle a little bit of the two. At a small business, FP&A might not exist at all, but when that first FP&A hire comes in, they might be doing everything almost like the CFO would be in the absence of perhaps a formal CFO title. Whereas when you go into a larger corporation, you may have somebody who's working on a very, very specific line item within one financial statement within the PNL. And that's what they've been doing for 15 years. So having that awareness of business context and commercial contexts, I think is very important. And it also looks very different depending on what size company you're in.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Totally agree. And I'll add one more thing and then we'll, give you an opportunity to tell us a little bit about yourself, your background before we get too far in. But as you were saying that, I couldn't help think. But one time I saw someone put on LinkedIn the number one skill FP&A professionals need is how to build a three statement model. And I respond with haven't built one in my career. Yeah, this is a year or two ago, and I'd like I was arguing, I think I know FP&A pretty well, and it's because he had worked with all startups. I had worked with companies like American Express and global companies where, you're not going to build a three statement and try to roll that up across all your businesses and departments.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah, similar to your point, I worked with a fortune 500 their entire FP&A team, and I made that question or I asked that question, I said, how many of you here do 3-Statement Modeling? And there was one person in the entire collective of probably over 30 people who does a 3-statement model, nobody else. But also on the flip side, you might say, oh, well, there's certain software like Power BI or RStudio or SQL. You need to know these things. You talk to one person and that's their job. That's what they do. But you talk to the person sitting next to them or an EPA person across the road. They don't touch that software at all. And so it's a very broad as well as extremely deep profession and domain. And having one set of skills at one company may be irrelevant at another.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, I agree with you. Like you said, SQL one company may use it all the time or one role another role. You may never use it. So why don't we give you an opportunity to just give our audience a little bit about yourself, your background, how you, uh, ended up getting into FP&A and what you're doing today.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Sure. So today, a lot of my work Sidemen Financial focuses on FP&A advisory FP&A Learning and Development FP&A masterminds, as well as fractional CFO work. So what does that look like? Oftentimes, companies will have a director of FP&A, or they'll have a CFO and they'll say, well, I'm just not really sure how to execute this initiative that we're embarking upon. I don't want to hire a full-time person. I don't want to bring in an expensive consulting firm. They'll bring me in and I will help supplement some of what that team is doing. In addition, usually, my philosophy in this regard is I will do some of the heavy lifting, but my modus and my objective for a lot of these companies is to help equip their people to be able to take on these kinds of initiatives, to own it and move it forward. So while I might go into a $200 million company and help build them a process, maybe even build them a data flow or a data model, ultimately what I want to do is to exit that relationship, hand that off to one of their FP&A people and have them run with that work file. In addition, on the learning and development front, what I had learned many years ago is that a lot of the companies I was working with, that people weren't getting a formal education in school. There is no real FP&A in MBA programs in terms of certifications. They teach a handful of skills, but they weren't really getting the hands-on applicable skills and experience that they needed in the specific business cases that they were facing. And so I continued to build out and deliver these kinds of learning and education programs in order to help those FP&A teams be able to upskill, increase their competence and confidence. And then as it relates to fractional CFO work and fractional CFO masterminds, I'm essentially working with small live groups of people who are wanting to either build out their own advisory practice or build out their own fractional CFO practice and teach them the kind of skills and structure that they need to be able to do that.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Thank you for that overview and make sense. You know, so what I want to spend most of the rest of our time on is talking a little bit about presenting and communication, because as long as I've known you, I know that's been a passion of yours. So how did that passion come about? You know, wanting to present and, you know, having a real passion for making sure you can communicate with, uh, other professionals.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I don't know that it was all that intentional. I think some of this just became an organic evolution of my life and my career. What I sometimes have shared with people when I was a young kid, when I was in middle school, my school had something called forensic speaking, which doesn't exist in a whole lot of schools, but essentially what it is competitive public speaking and debate. It's modeled after, the way that the Greeks did it in public squares long time ago. And my topic that I just really resonated with was storytelling and not business storytelling was actually children's storytelling. So I was responsible for taking a children's story, interpreting it in my own way, creating characters, creating accents, creating voices, and essentially talking to myself. But as these various characters and at an early age, I started to find an enjoyment of storytelling and captivating audiences and bringing in laughter and bringing in seriousness, but stitching it all together in ways that are purposeful and meaningful now as it relates to business. Early on in my career, I started at PwC. my area of focus was in advisory services. I was never really a public accountant on the audit side or on the tax side, but ultimately I was working in advisory and specifically within the context of litigation for intellectual property.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: And a lot of what goes on in litigation is trying to convince a jury or a judge or the other side or a client of why you're right and why the other side is wrong. So not dissimilar from what I was doing when I was a kid. A lot of it comes down to influence and credibility and building rapport and trying to convince other people why your analysis is the right one to believe. And so I think that as it relates to consulting or as it relates to turnaround restructuring, which is where I went thereafter, and then as it relates to FP&A, where I went thereafter, a lot of this comes down to effective communication and influence of why the analysis, why the plan, why the risks, why the data that you are so intimately familiar with, why it matters, and why it doesn't just matter to ourselves, but why it matters to you. Why it matters to an audience, why it matters to somebody who might not seemingly be related or touching the finances, why it matters to them, and why they should care. A lot of that comes through not just telling, but illustrating, weaving the story together, and making it resonate with them.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I appreciate that answer, and I'll make sure not to debate you, but I might ask you for a kid's story. You never know.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah, don't get me started on that. I can create a lot of really interesting voices and characters from all different sorts of personalities. I don't do that in my real business life, but sometimes just to loosen things up a little bit in the audience. Sometimes we'll bring in a little bit of fun in storytelling.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Do you have a favorite voice you can impersonate?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I haven't done one in a long time, but I had won an award when I was in high school, again, storytelling in forensics. I had taken a kind of off-beat, I think it was called Fractured Fairy Tales, written by a gentleman named A.J. Jacobs, who I think is a fairly well-known, satirist and humorist. And he was kind of a distorted version of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale. And I had turned Rumpelstiltskin into this very eccentric fashion designer from the United Kingdom. And if I remember, it was like, hello. hello, darling, I hear that you can spin straw. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to help you spin straw into gold. And then she says, well, I can turn straw into gold. And he's like, well, I'm going to teach you. And so we end up going back and forth between Rumpelstiltskin teaching her how to spin straw into gold and how she's coming back.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Fine. Thank you for giving us that. I enjoyed it, I don't know that I'll ever use that in a presentation, but it's fun to listen to. So kind of get back to presentation skills. It's obvious you've invested a lot of time in speaking, whether it be the debate storytelling. I know you've done improv comedy. How much time do you think you've kind of maybe spent over your career polishing and working on becoming a better communicator and presenter?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I don't know if I could put a number on it. and again, I don't know that so much of it was intentional. It wasn't like, oh, I'm not a good speaker. I want to become a good speaker. Part of it was just, I enjoy the art of communication. I enjoy what the spoken word can do both as it relates to informing people and educating people, but also on the humor side, Also on the resonance, and on the emotional connection side. Words are power. Spoken word connects people. So as it relates to the amount of time that I've put in, I mean, I did improv comedy in Chicago at Second City for, I think a year. Every single week for a year. And then I went up to Improv Olympic, which is another theater in Chicago. I did that for about a year and a half every single week. I did Toastmasters and those who are listening, Toastmasters, essentially a not-for-profit public speaking club for people who want to put in the reps and get experience. I did that for many years. I was a member of probably a half dozen clubs, some of those just social and some of them very professional of people just like me who were bringing in their deliverables to their companies and saying, I want to practice in front of these people who don't know my company, who don't know my work. But these are driven, high-potential people. I want to be able to practice in a safe space. I had done a TEDX talk many years ago. I took my TEDX talk to this club to run it in front of the club, and I said, everybody rip it apart. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you don't like. I've got thick enough skin. I want your perspectives and getting their perspectives. Not just a great job. Wonderful. I have no improvements for you. They gave me a lot of different perspectives to be able to say this is what they're seeing, that I'm not contemplating. Do I want to take their advice? Do I want to dismiss their advice? It gives multiple dimensions of public speaking in ways that we can't necessarily get from ourselves or by watching ourselves on video.
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Yeah, so I'm hearing a couple of things in there, obviously a lot of different organizations you were part of. Whether it be the Toastmasters clubs, whether it be, the improv comedy. And then the second is getting feedback from others beyond your own. How important do you think that is for, you know, professionals to become better speakers, to get that feedback from outside of just watching your recording or turning on the new rehearse feature in PowerPoint or whatever it might be. Right?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I think it's imperative and I think a couple of years ago, I was speaking with a friend of mine who owns and runs a not-for-profit, and he said Carl, I think we went out to lunch or we were no, I think we were just talking over Zoom, perhaps. And he said Carl, I was just on vacation. I think he was on his honeymoon, on a beach vacation, and he was speaking with a gentleman that he had met on the beach. And it didn't come to fruition that this gentleman was a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. And what my friend had said is, he said, Carl, I know that this guy is as smart as it gets. I know this guy's got as much experience as it can possibly as somebody can get. But what really stuck out to me about him and other people who are in positions of leadership is just how effective they are at communication and how good they are at communication, and how they're able to resonate with other humans. And I didn't really think about it actively, maybe up until that point. But I completely agree with him is that oftentimes when I encounter people who are influential, who I respect, who are highly credible, certainly from a financial perspective, you got to make sure that what you're doing is buttoned up and it's authoritative, but it's often the people who you're going to listen to, who you're going to believe, who you want to partner with, who are the ones who are the best and most effective communicators.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: And so if somebody says, well, I'm getting passed over for opportunities or I'm not getting the kinds of promotion that I would expect. While I think that the table stakes are the technical skills and being able to get the performance done, I often think that getting from manager to director, director to leadership comes down to influence, and influence comes down to credibility rapport, being likable, having connections, building relationships, being able to simplify your message not just for the people who are immediately in your circle, but the people who are outside of your circle, who don't speak your language. And sometimes for FP&A and finance people, it takes like saying the word dumbing down, but it takes cleaning up and simplifying and clarity of our message to be able to make those kinds of connections elsewhere.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great point. And you know, I've mentioned this a number of times in the past for me, I struggle to get from that manager to director role. And one of those areas was communication being too detailed in the presentations and not being able to bring it up and really having an appreciation for influence and the nuances in the story. It's like, well, hey, I've done all the analysis. This is a good idea. Everybody should just accept it because I presented it and you could laugh at that, knowing that's not how the real world works, right? Yeah. Sometimes you don't realize that it took quite a while to understand that, and so gave me a real appreciation for the influencing side. I've always been fairly decent in presenting. I've done a lot of it and enjoy doing it, but it was really that influencing and the relationship and those other things that increase the credibility beyond just the presentation.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: For sure and I want to ask something else in. I actually want to ask you a question, Paul is, I think that it is easy to think, well, this will just come about as I get experience. But back to your original question was how do you get there? Do you get feedback from other people? Do you practice, how do you build that kind of awareness? And I think that where some of this comes from is I mean, maybe it's, hey, I'm not getting the opportunities that I want. Why am I not getting those opportunities? And somebody coming and saying, well, you got to build your communication skills. But also I think that it's starting early and saying this is a lifelong journey. There is no finish line, but the further I get, the better it's going to be for me and everybody else around me. And so despite the experience that I have in presenting and speaking, I always want to get somebody else's feedback. I want to say, look, I want you to pay specific attention to what I'm doing here. Does this make sense to you, and how do you think I could do this differently? I have that kind of humility to be able to say, look, I'm good, but I'm not perfect, and there's always going to be a place for me to learn, and I want to bring somebody else in who's maybe never seen this before, or is thinking about it from a very different perspective that helps illuminate those kinds of gaps in what I'm delivering. The question I wanted to ask you, Paul, is when you were manager and saying, getting up to a director level, and you'd said, a lot of this comes down to communication. What were some of the tangible steps that you were either told to take or that you became aware of taking to help you say, this is what I need to do to be better at communication.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: So a few things I'll share a couple experiences. The first, when I was a manager, I had one boss that was super detailed and he loved me. And then he got displaced, went through a round of re-engineering, and all of a sudden I had a different boss and she didn't really like me. Thought it was way too detailed. And that's what the prior boss wanted. And it was a really hard transition for me. And there was another director. He's like, Paul, you got to bring it up more high level. You're really good at what you do. You know you're analysis, but they don't want all the details. And he would literally direct message me when I was presenting and say, bring it back up, bring it back up. And we had a agreement that, whenever I'm presenting, you think I'm going too detailed? You tell me. And he would do that. So that was the start of figuring out how to get it more high level. And then one experience that really stuck out to me, I thought I'd be considered for a director role. I wasn't at the time. The general manager didn't want me as a director, and I kind of been acting as it, and I'd come to find out why. I was talking to him one day, and he looked at me, Paul, and he goes, I'm going to tell you something. He goes, I want you to learn the bluff principle. And at first I was like, what in the world are you talking about? And he goes, bottom line up front. Just get to the point. Like then you can add all the detail you want. And it was very clear in his voice, I'll never read it but your detailed. So you'll want to put it in there. And I kind of, you know, I was trying not to laugh, but the way he said it and that that really was another defining moment for me of recognizing the importance of knowing your audience and thinking about what they need to see versus trying to tell them everything you know. I'm like smart and you'll see it if I give you the details. Yeah. And it's doing the opposite. It's really hurting you in many cases.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah. And I think that's really interesting. And I fully agree with you from, from that story. And I think it's particularly difficult for finance and accounting and technical and detail-oriented people to do that because they say, well, I just spent the last two months going through this. There's so much I need to share with you. And as I if you were to put it on one page, what would need to go on that page like, well, I can't put it on one page because there's so much that you need to know. It's like we can go into the rest of it, but what do I or what does the audience need to know right now at the bottom line, what's most important for them to know in a short amount of time? And what I also challenge and I coach people to think about is I say, look, I want you to build a one-hour-long presentation, but then I want you to think about how to give it eight minutes. So it makes you think about the full context of everything that you've done, and to be able to put together the thread of a deliverable, but then say, I'm only going to give you eight minutes to be able to do this, you've got to be real clear, real efficient, real concise. What do I need to know in a short amount of time? And again, it's not we're not going to go into the rest, but I need you to be extremely concise at the very beginning. And the last point that I'll just share here is, again, from the perspective of finance and technical people, oftentimes we want to prove or convince or show all this wonderful analytical work that we've done, but by condensing it into eight minutes, we lose that zest around. I did all of this work that I'm super proud of. I actually believe that you can bring greater value through presenting in a concise, clear, and efficient way. Bringing that value in that way versus unloading on somebody with an unnecessary amount of detail.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: 100% agree. And I'll give one more example. So this was probably five years ago. I had spent six months working on this project. We had to change a commission structure. We were losing a big customer, and we were trying to maintain some of the smaller customers under this big structure. And so we put together this whole commission plan, and I'd run it by the VP of sales, I'd run it by the general manager, my boss, who was the regional CFO, the person who oversaw that program. Everybody was aligned. And I went in to present to our global CFO, and I hadn't put a lot of time into the presentation. I will freely admit that. And we get about five, maybe ten minutes in. And he looks at me and the other guys in the is on the call. He's like, this is a terrible idea. Why would I do this? I didn't even know what to say. It's kind of taken aback because I wasn't expecting that. And he calls in the general manager. He rings them up and says, you know, get on, get on this video call. And the general manager talks for about five minutes and he signs off on the agreement. And I'm just sitting there going, what in the world just happened? I still remember asking my boss, I go, what happened there? And his exact words were your analysis was brilliant, your presentation lacked. And that was the reminder that no matter how much time we've spent if we don't put the time into that particular presentation, we can fall short. It doesn't matter if we're a great communicator or we've mastered certain things. You got to be credible in the moment, not the other ten times.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Right. And what's perhaps ironic about that is 98% of the work was done upfront on the analysis and on the data, and only 2% of the work is being spent on the presentation. But the analogy I sometimes use is you're not going to go to a nice restaurant and pay a lot of money for a delicious dish, and then have it be delivered in a greasy brown paper bag. Right. So the deliverable matters a whole lot. It can actually significantly dismiss the credibility or value of everything that came up before that point in time.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, I mean, I would even argue if the analysis is good but not great, but the presentation is outstanding, it will generally be received better than great analysis with an okay presentation.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Maybe unfair, but that's probably true.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, exactly. Maybe on fair. But I'm sure there's a lot of ideas that have been accepted because the presentation, the ability to communicate and convince people was outstanding, even if the idea was less than outstanding. We'll just say that. That's right.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I would say that that's like an infomercial where you say, wow, that's really a great product. You buy it and you say, wow, that product turned out not to be what I thought it was going to be, but the message was wonderful.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I'm laughing. I'm thinking of the infomercials I've seen growing up. I'm thinking back to the Ross Perot infomercials when he ran for president. I remember watching those at night with his flip chart and thinking, this is a good presentation. He knows what he's talking about.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah, I agree with your point is, I think that you can put some window dressing on it, sell something that might not be so good, but the delivery can often sell.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: A word from our sponsor. Let's address the elephant in the room. Bad data. Any investment made on top of a rotten foundation is money down the drain. The Analyst Intelligence Platform, or AIP, is a data transformation notebook where users write their tasks and the system does the work for them. Clean data is so critical for decision-making. The daydream for the BI tool for operators gives customers a discount for using AIP. Warning! Using this product may lead to a sudden acquisition of a corner office. Prolonged use may result in being seen as indispensable to the company's success. Learn more at analystintelligence.com. Yeah, so you're kind of talking to that. There's two kind of follow up questions I want to ask. The first is in your mind if someone wants to get better at not necessarily presenting or communication, but the influencing side to be better, to influence things, where would you recommend they start?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: It's a great question. I think that one of the most important mindsets to have in influence is to stop thinking about yourself and to stop thinking about your ego, and stop thinking about what you think is going to be so great, and instead start thinking more about other people. Sometimes I need to catch myself even in the delivery of my programs of favoring from my perspective, content, content, content, education, all of this good meaty stuff that I think people should take away from. But ultimately, I need to put myself in their shoes and say, if I were them and I were to be successful in my role, how do I need to receive this information? How do I need to develop? How does my cognition in the way that my learning and my brain thinks? How do I need Carl’s flow to help facilitate that? And so back to your question is, where do I think people can start? I think a lot of it needs to start with mindset around what's important to people who are not you. And when you start to think about that, it changes the perspective of the way that you deliver. But I'm going to take that a step further and say, don't just think about what's important to other people. Actually ask them. So, Paul, if I'm working with you and I say, well, this is Paul's style, Paul, he's a very detail-oriented guy, but he also doesn't have a whole lot of patience for the full story. He wants to know this upfront, I might say. All right, well, that's what I know about Paul's style. But, Paul, I want to spend ten minutes with you just so I can make sure that when I present this to you and the rest of the FP&A team, that this hits home, and then this is a grand slam instead of a strikeout.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: What does that need to look like? And so I can sit down with you, Paul, and say, well, based upon what I know about you, this is what I'm thinking, but I want to hear it from you. What's going to be the best way to do this? In addition, I think that mastery of the medium is very important. So mastery of the room, mastery of the software, whether you're presenting in keynote or PowerPoint or putting it on a piece of paper. So there is the strategy of how do you present to your audience what's the medium that you use? And then also recognizing that not everything comes down to this climax of the presentation. Oftentimes it's the flow of information from meetings and phone calls and Zoom calls up until the presentation, which may just be a simple meeting talking about something. And then what does the supplementary information need to look like? Do I put it into a one-pager? Do I put it into visuals? Do I put it into a report? Does the data need to go into an appendix? What are the to-do's afterwards? So I don't want anybody to think that effective communication comes down to platform skills of getting into a presentation, delivering audibly. It's how do you think about who you're delivering to, how do you need to tee it up? How do you manage the flow of information, and how do you make it cognitively something that is very influential?
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I really like the first part. You said there, you know, starting with really making sure you're focusing on the intentions, the needs of the other person. Right. Kind of wanting to put yourself in their shoes, so to speak, what's in it for them versus what's in it for me, and really letting that guide the presentation so you can connect with that person because at the end of the day. The more you connect with somebody, regardless of what material you're presenting, the better chance you have of influencing them. Because people listen to people they like.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Absolutely right. And I'm sure that you I'm sure that your audience, I'm sure that all of us have gone into presentations where somebody gets in front of a room, and in the first two minutes you dismiss them because of the way that they interacted with the group, or they were unprepared or they were likable. And those first couple of minutes are paramount. But recognizing that those first two minutes don't necessarily need to be in a presentation, they can be in interaction through email the way that you are on a call. So making sure that you're intentional about how you are received credibly, analytically managing that kind of relationship and dynamic in the real or in the virtual room matters a whole lot. And I think to one of the points you raised before, Paul, is oftentimes it's, well, I'm going to do 98% of the work. I'm going to throw it into a PowerPoint. I'm going to just present the PowerPoint. And everybody's had a terrible experience in their lives where it's I'm sitting in front of this person reading the PowerPoint. They're not really managing the dynamic of the room and the presentation, and they lack the credibility, no matter how wonderfully buttoned up their analysis is.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Fully agree that last mile is so important. And investing the time, I think, as we talked about earlier, where FP&A is going in the future is more commercial, more business partnering, more strategic focused, and that means you have to have more of an ability to influence, and that involves presenting and communication and really understanding the needs of your partner. There'll still be times for the technical skills. Those aren't going to go away, but once you have a certain level, it really comes down to, for many of us, that ability to influence and communicate.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah, and I think that plays a role at every stage of a person's career in FP&A, if you're young, you've got to be able to communicate your work. But I will even go back to the conversation I had with my colleague on the beach is you're not going to see people elevate into a position of directorship or leadership if they don't possess those kinds of communication and influence skills. And so I was even doing a recording last night, and I was talking about the importance of if you're going to be moving up in your career, you need to be able to advocate for yourself and be able to present effectively to others, to be assertive, to understand what's important for other people. Because, again, I think once you start getting beyond that manager role, after five, ten years of experience, a lot more comes down to your strategic thinking, your critical thinking, your analytical thinking, and then your way of communicating that not so much rolling up your sleeves and doing a bunch of forecasting and modeling work.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: So I think we've covered quite a bit on the presentation side. Have a couple of questions, and then we're going to move into what we call a rapid-fire section. So next question I have for you. Well, we talked previously on another show you had mentioned one of the most important skills. You said it was critical for FP&A professionals is the ability to anticipate. Why is that?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: The ability to anticipate in layman's terms, is the ability to think about what's coming, the ability to think about where we need to go, but oftentimes before certain events have taken place, I. So last week I was in Canada and I was speaking with about 50 people, large manufacturing company. And one of the questions that came from this group was around pandemic or around a major disruption. He said, Karl, nobody could have anticipated a pandemic of that kind of magnitude that was going to disrupt not just the company, but the country and really the whole world. And he said, how can we anticipate something like that again? Are you doing planning for other companies and clients around something like that happening? And I said to this gentleman, I think his name was Scott. I said to Scott, I'm not helping a company forecast a pandemic or a natural disaster or something of that magnitude. But I do help companies anticipate disruption, not saying what's the likelihood of disruption, but if there was a disruption, what do we need to be able to do to intercept, to rewind, to redirect, to restructure what it is that we're currently doing? And that impacts process around planning, around forecasting that impacts decision making as it relates to procurement, that impacts implementation around technology. So going back to Scott's question of Carl, what if there's this big disruption? I say, well, if there's this big disruption, how do we plan for it? How do we reduce our risk? How do we make sure that we aren't stuck with our feet stuck in the concrete so that as we need to make the changes, we can? So anticipation, whether that's in our own personal lives or in business, is thinking, well, what could be happening? What could occur that maybe we haven't thought about? And if it does occur, how do we make sure that we're not standing flat-footed with our feet in the concrete and unable to move? That, to me, is what FP&A is all about is not just doing analytical work and saying, where is the company exposed? Where are our risks? How do we need to restructure operations so that if that happens or when that happens, we're two steps ahead of our peers?
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: As I heard you say, that big part of that is obviously since scenario management and what you're talking about and none of us could have predicted exactly what happened with Covid, but of all of us can say at some point there's going to be a black spot swan, a major disruption, okay. If there's a disruption of this type, what do I do if there's maybe a disruption over here, what do I do? And looking at some of those major disruptions, then focusing on those, that could be most likely. So if something does happen, you're prepared and know what changes to make.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: That's right. And, you know, taking even the black swan comment out of it, of saying this massive anomaly that nobody was expecting, well, what are the ramifications of it? Hit on volume, hit on sourcing, hit on timing, hit on clarity, all of these things. Well guess what Paul, you don't necessarily need to have a black swan to have a reduction in volume, a closing of sourcing a customer that got themselves in trouble, a vendor that is no longer able to service you. So those could all be caused by a whole multitude of different disruptions. And if you're thinking about the ramifications and how the business needs to adjust for it, that's anticipation.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: And the example I give is, our senior leadership had anticipated I wasn't involved in it, but I worked for American Express and I still remember the day because I told myself, I'm going to wait one more day until I sell my stock because I'm too busy today. And that was the day they publicly announced we had lost Costco. Yeah, which is the biggest client we had. And I still remember going, yeah, I just lost. It was three, $500 whatever, which at the time felt like a ton of money. And that whole anticipate they spent a lot of time anticipating, okay, what's going to happen. We can invest the money better. That was a major disruption, nothing to do with Covid or an external factor. It was an internal decision made between two companies to part ways, but had huge ramifications. And they spent a lot of time figuring out, okay, how can we better invest that money because we no longer think the deal makes sense for us?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah, and that analysis took place before that happened, before that major separation happened. So it's well, what if we were to move in a different direction? What if one of our customers decides this partnership is no longer working? What if we lose 10% of revenue? Again, that might be very specific. In your example of the Costco American Express separation. But every company can benefit by saying, well, what if this were to happen? What if that were to happen? How can we plan to limit the kind of exposure vulnerability we have if this transpires? That's something that every company can do.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Do you need to level up your FP&A game? Then join us April 23rd for the FP&A guys, best practice FP&A course. Imagine working smarter, gaining greater visibility, and becoming a top-flight FP&A Pro. During the four sessions, we will teach practical frameworks and share real-world examples that will make you a better FP&A professional. Visit thefpandaguy.com/fpa-course to learn more and become the FP&A expert your company cannot do without. They agree. So I'm going to shift gears here. I have one more question before we move into the next section. You recently released a LinkedIn learning course for FP&A professionals. Tell us a little bit about that.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: So that course is called Excel for FP&A or Financial Planning and Analysis. It's about 2.5 hours long. And given the request that I had been getting for 12 plus months, people said, you know what? There's not really any training, at least within LinkedIn learning. And then also in a lot of the larger domain within Excel, and specifically as it relates to FP&A. And so some people had said to me, you should do that. I had made some connections at LinkedIn learning and they said, yeah, you're right, there isn't anything on financial planning and analysis. Put something forward. And so I said, well, rather than put together some comprehensive FP&A training, I said, well, what's going to make the biggest amount of difference in the shortest amount of time that our techniques and tips and applications that people can start to apply tomorrow. And so I took some techniques and tips that I incorporated into my own work, and that I train companies to incorporate into their own files. And I said, why does this matter to you? Why does this matter in large companies? Why does this matter to small companies in mid-size companies? Again, going back to what we had talked about earlier is I can share some of these techniques that make no difference across company size, across industry.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Everybody can take these and implement them. So the beginning of the course talks about, you know, what is FP&A all about. Why does Excel matter? Why is Excel maybe not the right tool in every instance? What are some of the other technology that's out and how can you not get rid of Excel? But how can you actually integrate Excel with some of these other platforms? How can you bring in some more dynamic functionality to be able to save you time on the mechanics, so that you can spend a whole lot more time on the focus, on the intelligence, on the anticipation, and on the influence of your audience. So when people can master some of these more technical modeling Excel mechanical skills, it frees up the time, frees up the mind for them to be able to position themselves and to focus their energy on what matters most.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Got it. Thank you for sharing. It sounds like a great course and we'll put a link in the show notes for that. All right. So we're going to move to Rapid Fire section. And based on your last answer in our conversations, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to the first question. But we'll ask it you a Google or Excel fan?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Excel however, I have had a number of clients who are in Google Sheets, and their main motivation for doing so is just the nature of the collaborative nature of Google Sheets. And so I think that for collaboration, Google can be great, but 99 times out of 100 I'm going to prefer Excel.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: You and me both. That's probably where I'm at as well. What's your favorite Excel shortcut?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Control S
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: You've lost a few too many files over the years.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I was actually working on something yesterday. It actually was not Excel, but let's pretend that it was. I was working in a different platform. My computer just got hung up and it closed and gave me no opportunity to save anything. And so wonderfully, my PC has autosave and some backup files, and so I had to go back about ten minutes before where I was, but I had to go back and it tweaked some things and it didn't work out so well. So I love autosave. I love control S because I think we all have nightmares of something getting lost and not saved the way we wanted it to be.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, we all have those stories, especially if you're back where you saved it on floppy disks and all those type of things. The floppy disk gets correct corrupted. I had that during school one time. So yeah. Next question, are you currently using generative AI and if so, how?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yes, I am using generative AI. I use ChatGPT on probably a daily basis. I have also, over the last handful of weeks, been experimenting a lot more actively with Copilot within Microsoft 365 or Office 365. I tend to use ChatGPT for organizing my thoughts. I find it to be great for putting together outlines of what I'm trying to do, that it's not that I can't do it. It's just going to save me so much time and frustration and energy. So I use it to gather my thoughts and to put together outlines. What's also interesting, Paul, is from an FP&A perspective, I've gotten myself into some trouble in some of my files where I'm getting an error or something is not working, and while I can continue to put my own energy and efforts into it, I say, you know what? Let me just communicate it into ChatGPT. Let's say this is what I'm trying to do. This is the formula or the language I'm using. It's not working. Can you provide me with five alternatives now, where the technology is great and not so great, is this going to give you five alternatives? Four of them are probably terrible or four of them might not be correct. And so I think it's important for us as FP&A professionals to develop awareness and familiarity with the language and the tools and the techniques so that when we get those kinds of outputs, we know what's the right one to go with, and we know the four that are worthy of dismissing.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Yeah, I'm with you. I always say AI will be most beneficial to those who already have knowledge on a subject.
Speaker3: I agree.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: All right. You get a one word answer on these. So I'm going to ask you two questions here. What is the number one technical skill for FP&A professionals to master?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Critical thinking
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: What's the number one soft or human skill?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Communication skills.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I figured that was going to be communication. All right. Now we get to know a little bit more about you. So what's a favorite hobby or passion you have?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: I love to adventure. I've been to dozens and dozens of countries around the world from South America to Southeast Asia to the northern parts of North America, to places all over Europe, a couple of places in Africa, and beyond. So love to travel. I love to adventure. I love to eat strange food that I've never encountered before, and otherwise just push myself outside of my comfort zone to see things and experience things I've never done before.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Well, I'll do some cooking for you sometime and send it to you. I can promise it will be a strange food you haven't had before. Okay?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Just make sure that it's edible.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: No promises. What is one book you could recommend to our audience?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Oh, okay. So I'm gonna answer, and then I'm gonna just expand slightly is one of my favorite reads of the last ten years has been Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It is maybe 300 to 400 pages long, but it's basically, I think the subtitle is A Brief History of Humanity or essentially of humankind. And so it explains how we got from the beginning of humanity to where we are today, and how that evolution, though intentional, a lot of it is unintentional as well. And the reason I want to say take it a step further is he came up with two additional books, there's Homo Deus, which is a Brief History of Tomorrow, which remarkably came out with a hand come came out a handful of years ago. I read it a few years after it came out. This book is a prediction of the future, and I think with one very minor exception, the entire book is very prophetic about what the author thinks is going to happen. And a lot of those things have, in fact, happened in the last of his trilogy is, I believe, I'm gonna look back there. That's something I, 21 lessons for the 21st century, which is essentially a collective of different domains of what he thinks is going to happen in the 21st century. Phenomenal reading.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Appreciate those. We'll put those in the show notes. And so last get to know you question if you could have dinner with one person alive today. Who are you going to pick?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: That's a really hard one. Does it have to be somebody famous or just anybody?
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: No, it could be anyone.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Oh my goodness, that's a really difficult question. What are some answers other people have given?
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Let's see. What did we get? I've had investment people. One wanted to sit down with Jamie Dimon.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: The other day. He. I'm trying to remember we've had a lot. We've also asked alive or dead. So on the dead side, we've had, a number of different people had one person want to sit down with Mozart. Okay. One person said their mother.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Quite a few different answers.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Yeah. I think well, on the deceased side, I would probably say Albert Einstein. Just because, he just had a reputation of obviously being extremely smart and intellectual, but also a bit disheveled and disorganized and very down to earth. and then I think just in terms of somebody who is living. I don't know, maybe somebody like a Bill gates, somebody who started something remarkable that didn't exist at the time. And then again, he has a reputation of being incredibly intellectual, but also a little bit disheveled. So I love the minds of people who are incredibly bright, moved to the beat of their own drum, but are very human and very normal. My parents actually got to meet Bill gates a number of years ago and spoke to him, and they were like, it was remarkable about what just a normal guy this this person is great.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I like that, and I've had someone mention Bill Gates before. As we wrap up here, any parting thoughts or anything you'd like to say to the audience?
Guest: Carl Seidman:: That people who have an interest in FP&A, whether they're already in it or maybe they're accounting and want to get into FP&A, or maybe they're in school and they're just trying to think about what's next. Uh, I had a email conversation with somebody not long ago, and they said, you know, how do I get into this field? How do I get successful into this? And as I answered to you earlier, Paul, is it's not this perfect pedigree of you go to school, you study certain subjects, you get a certification, and now you've got this entire buffet of options in front of you. I encourage people to think about lifelong learning and never getting to this finish line of, oh, now you're finally there. Now all these opportunities are going to open for you. Always be building, always be growing, always be learning and challenging yourself in ways that you don't know. Connect with other people. Build these relationships because in 5, 10, 15, 20 years, these skills and learnings that you've built will gel in your brain and in your body. And a lot of these relationships that maybe started with coffee or lunch or just a 30-minute discussion over Zoom, that person's going to move up in their career, you're going to move up in yours. And 15, 20 years in, you never know how those relationships are going to return and be wonderful things to have.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Thanks. Appreciate that. And we'll go ahead and put your contact information. I know LinkedIn is a way for people to reach out to you. We'll put that in the show notes along with your website. But really appreciate you joining us today and just taking a few minutes to chat. It's always a good time to chat with you, Carl. So thanks for joining.
Guest: Carl Seidman:: Always and anytime. Thanks so much for having me Paul.
Host: Paul Barnhurst:: 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 of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe.
