This is Making Better Decisions. I’m your host, Ryan Sullivan. Decisions are where rubber meets the road for organizations. Each week, we’ll be learning from people who are on the front lines of turning raw data into better outcomes for their organizations. This show is sponsored by Canopy Analytic, helping companies make better decisions using data.
Ryan: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Making Better Decisions podcast. Today, we have a special guest with us who brings a wealth of experience in financial planning and analysis. With over 10 years of FP& A experience, he’s learned how business performance can be vastly improved through the use of data.
He also has a focus in international business as well as finance, having studied in Beijing and picked up Mandarin, currently serving as a analysis manager at PrecisionAQ. Welcome to the show, William Bett.
Will: Oh, it’s really a pleasure to be here and I appreciate the [00:01:00] flattering introduction, maybe bordering on exaggeration, but yes,
Ryan: Welcome to the gas station. We’re going to gas you up here.
Will: Always welcome. A
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, we want to make everybody feel good. So we start everybody with the same question and I want to hit you with it. What is the one thing you wish more people knew about using data to make better decisions?
Will: lot of different directions, but I think the piece that I try to emphasize is that it’s important for everyone and it should be approachable for everyone, meaning that you don’t need to be a data scientist or some sort of data expert to be able to use data. Especially if it’s already been formatted for you.
I don’t expect you to be able to write SQL queries or, you know, create Power BI dashboards, but understanding the context, being able to translate that data into [00:02:00] actionable insights in order to help you make those strategic business decisions that you actually mentioned. So,
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. I, I think I’ve mentioned this a couple of times in other podcast conversations. And obviously I’m biased being a data guy, but I feel like it’s gotten to the point a little bit where it’s almost like a computer, right? Like way back in the day, there were people who were like, Oh, I don’t really do technology.
You know, I’m like a pen and paper type of person. And
it’s like, well, you know, surprise, surprise. You don’t hear of a lot of people like, you know what I mean? If someone is going to be capable of using technology. They’re going to start outstripping people that can’t. And it’s kind of the same thing.
People that use data, it’s not like a separate skill. Like sure. Some of the things that you mentioned, some of the more complicated things, some of the more enterprise level things, sure. You want someone with a special skillset for that, but the idea that, you know, we’re making decisions purely on like [00:03:00] gut feel, lightly informed by experience.
It’s like, you know, those, those decisions will probably get surpassed by someone. that can get information quickly and make a database decision. Now, one of the things that I am most excited to talk with you about is about FP& A. So we actually both come from FP& A. In fact, the same FP& A department. That’s how we know each other.
And
for me, BI, business intelligence, analytics, and reporting, that type of thing. And FP& A are, you know, siblings or cousins, like very, very closely related. However, I think that there are a couple of key differences. So First off, I think BI tends to be populated with a lot of kind of tech types and FP& [00:04:00] A tends to be populated with mostly finance and business types.
Now, obviously there’s, you know, like I’m splitting hairs here. Like everybody in FP& A has You know, skill set. And most people in BI have some business jobs, but I think that there’s a little bit of a difference in perspective on FP& A that tilts it more towards business outcomes that I think is really good.
I think everyone in BI and analytics can take a little lesson from that. I tend to be very focused on the business goals and trying to help to meet those, but there’s also one humongous difference that people may, you know, Not be aware of and that is the actual like input of information and rendering Like business opinions as a part of the reporting process, which is almost non existent on the BI side of the house with [00:05:00] FP& A is like, okay, well, here’s our forecast that, you know, was put into some system and here it is on a graph.
BI says, okay, good, done. FP& A may say, Oh, well, you know, at our last board meeting, they talked about making X, Y, or Z strategic changes. So we need to edit for that. Or we’re going to build five or six different scenarios to look at different scenario analysis, things like that. Talk to me a little bit about your perspective on the difference between FP& A and BI and what types of things are unique on the FP& A side.
Will: Yeah, I think you really nailed it. Um, I think of BI as more people who understand what’s going on under the hood. I have a real tech, you know, expertise for the technical side of things. And maybe that’s just what they love doing. They love kind of building a data architecture, whatever else goes into it.
FP& A, I find it enjoyable because I like solving puzzles. I mean that like really in every sense of the word, whether it’s an [00:06:00] actual puzzle or how does this, how does this all fit together or how do those forecasts make sense and why do they not make sense? And so for FP& A specifically, I find that. You’re constantly sort of tinkering and testing what you put together for forecasts, or why does the budget make sense, or why does it not make sense? And that’s, I think, what keeps me interested the most. You know, there’s always going to be the, the kind of, uh, not rote memorization, but the stuff that you do on a regular basis that is, um, part of the job.
But then there’s the more interesting piece for me, and I think for a lot of people, is how does this all make sense, or does it make sense? And how do we become, when you use more jargon, but value added to the organization, right? I feel a lot of people see FB& A and even VI as just a cost center for a company. Um, And I [00:07:00] think that perception is slowly changing, depending upon where you work and what you do exactly. But I think for FB& A, it’s really about helping people make sense of the data, telling that story. Yeah. You know, using those scenarios to say, Hey, this is where we could be on the low end. This is kind of that soft landing in the middle. And this is our optimistic picture for the next three months, six months, 12 months, whatever time period you want to look at. And so I think those things are really critical, um, in order for you to be successful, it’s like, how do you, how do you take that, um, dashboard that maybe someone in BI built and tinker with it and use it as a tool to, you know, gain more insight and relay that.
I think that’s the last piece of it that a lot of people maybe don’t necessarily have time for. Unfortunately, I think a lot of times people get kind of rushed through the month end process or the year end process or budget or wherever it might be and they really feel like [00:08:00] they’re missing out on that really critical piece of FP& A.
Ryan: Yeah. I, uh, I love the storytelling aspect of that. Cause it’s, um, you know, a word that gets used a lot, you know, borderline thrown around. Um, you know, I really think that it just comes down to, can I make the right decision? Or some kind of, like, spectrum, like, over a trade off of decisions. Can I make that crystal clear?
So, presumably, the information that we need should exist, or we can go out and get it. Once we have that, like, ideally, there’s either One right decision or like a spectrum of decisions depending on what you want to optimize for. And if I can clearly communicate that to someone else where they don’t just see like a bar chart and make their own inferences where like they clearly understand, [00:09:00] like this is the information that I need in order to accurately make the decision that is best for the organization.
Um, you know, to me, that’s the story that we want to tell. Now, obviously most of our audience are kind of decision maker and up level, so talking, you know, super nitty gritty about, you know, Hey, here’s how this function works, right? That’s typically not, you know, our shtick. But one of the things that I think is, again, very interesting, like when we contrast BI with FP& A is around what types of tools get used and why.
And my general take is that it mirrors a lot like what tools we use are just tools that we use to achieve our function, right? It’s like, you know, building some pie in the sky architecture. [00:10:00] What’s the value, right? If I can’t. Say that’s a problem in BI and data engineering and analytics, like kind of most of what my world is right now.
Like it’s a lot of like going and grabbing data, connecting the data, shaping the data, building some sort of model, getting visualizations built on top of that and allowing people access to like different levels of, you know, kind of different layers of, you know, rawness of the data so that they can do their stuff.
In FP& A. My experience was there are A lot of very diverse demands placed on an FP& A team. So the CFO may wheel in and ask a question and now it’s like, okay, well, in this situation, I have to know the source systems, go to those source systems, pull the information, do that whole process that I just talked about.
We do in BI, but then there also may be something like, Hey, a different type of question comes in and you already have the model for that [00:11:00] built. You know, maybe by yourselves or by someone on an analytics function. So then you have to know that stuff and how to access it and how to interact with it. And then there’s that other portion that I mentioned, which is like the, the model y type imbuing business logic and then like making business kind of like opinion decision calls with the data.
And for me, those first two, like, They’re like good, powerful enterprise tools. They allow for centralization and source control, all these fancy things. That imbue and like type information into a report and see how it changes the scenario analysis stuff, in my personal opinion, is still kind of very firmly in the domain of Excel.
And what I’ve found is that you kind of get like one of two things that happens. Either you go the like modern, cool, new tech for the whole thing. Or you go [00:12:00] with, uh, we do Excel and we’re super hardcore at Excel and we don’t even need to touch our mouse. It’s all keyboard shortcuts. You know, look at us.
Will: the ruler tapping your knuckles.
Ryan: Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, when you’re required to understand so much horizontally, both from a business and from a tech perspective, how do you pick the right tool for the right job for a given situation? And how is it even possible to get and stay upscaled and all that stuff?
Will: Yeah, man, this is uh, I think it requires a real personality type and someone who is always eager to learn. You know, I’ve worked across Excel, have pretty heavily, I’ve worked with Tableau and MicroStrategy and now Infor and, you know, I would never have the depth of a technical expert, but [00:13:00] I still have to be able to understand how these work and how they fit together.
And like you said, uh, The purpose is for each, so maybe during month end reporting, I’m using our ERP to get the, you know, source of truth for the financials, but then I have someone come in with an ad hoc request, and that’s going to go in Excel because it’s just easier for me to build a model that says these are the inputs, these are the expected outputs. are your potential scenarios. Um, and so it’s, it’s, man, some days are great where you’re like, okay, I know exactly what I need to do. And then something new comes in and you’re like, has anyone done this? And so I think 1 of the things that I’ve enjoyed. In my current role has been the development of like a center of FNA Center of Excellence, right?
So we have a smaller
group across the organization with varying levels of experience and abilities, right? So [00:14:00] that’s been extremely helpful to say, hey, have any of you seen this? Whether it’s here or elsewhere, how would you approach the problem? And I think oftentimes people feel like they need to solve things by themselves, or that if they don’t think
of it themselves, then, uh, why am I here?
Right? Like, why do they need me? But, um, I think that’s actually a real sign of maturity. And I think I would go back. You mentioned we worked together a long time ago. Uh, and that was like, you know, I think the stereotypical, like, imposter syndrome. Like, if I don’t know this, like, uh, I’m not going to be found out.
I think. As you grow in your career, it becomes really, really important for you to raise your hand sooner than later.
Ryan: Hmm.
Will: you know, part of that can simply be like, I don’t understand how this tool works. Um, how am I thinking about this? Is it, am I on track or not? Um, it’s all these things, you know, when you talk about that, the different tools and how do you use them, I think that’s a big part of FP& A is, being efficient with your time and resources and how do you get to the [00:15:00] answer, um, as efficiently as possible.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, that, um, That piece of the puzzle, you’re right, took me some time to learn. I think especially, I still lean really heavily on the fact that I kind of started on the business side of the house and I enjoy understanding, um, you know, economics and business management theory and all those things.
I try to keep those skills really sharp and I am still a believer that everything we do on the tech side of the house is to try to further the business’s goals. But I definitely took. A very technical route to get there. Um, you know, and that kind of continues to today being a technical consultant. You know, most of the times people aren’t bringing me in to say, like, can you have a look at our balance sheet?
Like, you know, they’re bringing me in to be like, yo, go build this thing. I don’t know how to build.
Will: Right.
Ryan: And I think, especially on the tech side of the house, you know, I also experienced that imposter syndrome, but it’s also like, you know, as a [00:16:00] technical expert, someone’s kind of paying you to know what to do, or at least figure it out really, really fast and efficiently.
And I think what you touched on is exactly how I feel about it. Even on, you know, kind of a more tech parallel is just, I don’t have to know everything, but I have to be transparent about what I know and what I don’t know. And I have to have both the appetite and the ability to learn things fast when they’re appropriate for me to be the one to learn.
Will: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s a big, a big responsibility in FP& A is saying, I don’t know, but I can get the answer. Um, that not only applies for if someone asks you, you know, a business question, but how can we do this? You know, within FP& A, how can we build these reports? How can we do this? And so, Being able to understand that and I think putting the two sides together, right?
Like I, again, I don’t want to be seen as a, you know, a taskmaster or someone who’s got, you know, the [00:17:00] stick, um, on the people who are out, out generating revenue, but you know, I want to be a partner. And I know that again, like I keep these, these business jargon kind of makes me cringe a little bit, but it’s true.
Like I, I don’t, I don’t need to be your friend, but I need to help you get to where. You need to go because ultimately that’s, that’s my job, right? I want to be able to help us understand how, how we can grow this business, how we can optimize our resources, to, mitigate the downside, right?
There’s always a business cycle, um, regardless of industry. And so sometimes, uh, everything looks great and it’s not really any different than, you know, if you play any sports and you’re winning all the time and like, Oh, this is so easy. This is so easy. You know, you don’t, you don’t look, you don’t think about the downside.
You don’t look, think about these different things that can go wrong necessarily. Um, and that’s the other part of it too, is like, it’s, it’s, it’s easy when things are working and you’re not having any issues [00:18:00] getting your, your forecast or other goals. But how do you, how do you adjust when you’re not? And how do you help the business adjust?
And I think that’s been, you know, the last year or two for a lot of people in FP& A is how do you, how do you, How do you kind of, you know, get as soft a landing as you can, um, for the business?
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that really, no matter where you are, In the cycle, I think there may be, there’s definitely like a little bit less stress on the upswing. Right. Cause it’s just like, well, how well are we going to do? Right. As opposed to like minimizing how bad we’re going to do that feels a lot worse.
Will: Yeah. yeah, It’s very str I mean, it’s very
stressful. Like I, not to go into too much detail, but, you know, it’s, it’s really stressful because you’re going to be making decisions about people’s future employment. And what does that mean for them? And, you know, that’s, that’s part of the business [00:19:00] too, right?
Ryan: absolutely. I mean, I think that a lot of
the brass tacks of business. It’s hard, you know, business is hard, right? That’s really what it comes down to, you know, business is hard. Um, although I, I liked what you talked about a moment ago, as far as kind of trying to combat some of that imposter syndrome and trying to get better outcomes around the center of excellence, I was wondering.
If you could share some of your experience with that, I’ve worked with a lot of clients that they, they know that this is valuable. They know that getting their smart people, their experienced people as resources for one another and on a regular cadence of talking about what everybody’s working on and making sure that to the degree it’s possible, they’re swimming in the same direction.
Like this, you hear this idea and everyone’s like, good idea. We like this idea. Let’s do this idea. However, I think that execution is has been something that I’ve seen organizations struggle with. Like it’s usually pretty [00:20:00] easy to make some identification of like, these are the people who are the correct blend of competent and experienced.
I think what’s harder than is how do we set up a framework where it doesn’t just become like a fluffy name or like another pointless meeting on. Some of your most valuable people’s calendar. So talk to me a little bit about the value gen side of a center of excellence and where you’ve had success and what may be some of the challenges of that.
Will: Yeah, I, I don’t want to make it seem like it’s a simple or easy thing to do, right? For a lot of people, um, it’s very difficult to execute and it can be for a variety of reasons. It could simply be because the personalities don’t fit, uh, amongst your, your teammates, your co workers, um, it can be the tools aren’t really good fit.
And maybe, you know, in some cases the different business units aren’t, um, aren’t similar [00:21:00] enough. So not really, I’m like, how do I, how do I translate what I do? For this business unit, this business unit, it doesn’t even make sense. You can even look at it the same way. So these are some of the growing pains cause some of the struggles that we’re currently going through.
And, and I think for, for us, we found a lot of value, um, with regular check ins. And they don’t need to be particularly long. I think, like you said, a lot of people are very, very busy or they just get meeting fatigue, right? Like it’s just, could this have been an email, right? Like, or whatever. Um, and so I think for us, we’ve, we’ve had a lot of success. Um, aligning some of the business units, some standardization, um, some more efficiencies for reporting and resource use, but there’s still a lot more to go. And I think that’s also how you have to look at it. It’s never really, there’s never really a finish line. You know, business is going to change the, the, [00:22:00] the external environment’s going to change.
The internal environments are going to change. And so you’re just kind of continuously adapting. And sometimes that’s at a relatively slow pace. And other times it’s, you’re like, your hair is on fire because you’re trying to, you know, uh, respond to requests from people. at the top who really don’t have even less time than you do,
Ryan: Yeah.
Will: results right away.
So it’s a difficult balance. I don’t, I don’t want to pretend like it’s been easy or that it is easy, but I think it’s worth the effort over time.
Ryan: Yeah. I’ve had similar experiences. It’s, it’s one of those things where, which I get, I, you know, I was going to say like, this is a specific class, but this, this is generally applicable to everything. But like, you know, what you put into something is what you get out of something. So it, it doesn’t,
If I’m going to buy in, buy in. And if I’m not, [00:23:00] right. So like the organization either decides, Hey, we’re going to. Do like a center of excellence isn’t one thing that’s just like a name, right? So it’s kind of like, well, what am I trying to get out of this center of excellence and then build that and only that.
And if we want to add something to it, then we add something to it. Yeah. Cause for different organizations. I’ve kind of seen a lot of different pieces of that puzzle. Like,
I think that one thing generally that’s valuable is having some sort of kind of like communication network, whether that’s, you know, a Slack channel or an email group or something where these people can just like, like you said, kind of throw something out to the brain trust and see if anybody’s seen that, Hey, do you know where this is?
Do you have experience with that? It’s just a lot quicker than other methods of communication. I think it’s also. Super valuable when we have kind of cross team projects. So let’s say, you know, you’re doing a major budget [00:24:00] overhaul based on a sales reorg. Okay. Well, whoever is in the center of excellence in sales, and then whoever’s in the center of excellence in FP& A, let’s have those two people run the project.
Like that’s a great way of collaborating from a cross team perspective. I think the rest really depends very heavily on the organization. So. For example, in like BI analytics, data engineering, all that stuff there, I would say one of the many major problems that get run into is, you know, different people making different versions of the truth.
So like having some sort of kind of like logical ownership structure and like this person signs off on the numbers for each business unit, like you mentioned, I think that’s another really good use, but another company that has like completely centralized analytics. May find no value in that. They’re like, well, we already have the team that does that.
Um, so that’s, that’s really interesting. Talk to me a little [00:25:00] bit about data culture. Particularly from the FP& A side, when I hear lots of people in my space talk about data culture, that’s kind of code for like finding really smart technical people and then somehow teaching them to talk business.
But, For you, it’s kind of the total opposite being on, you know, a little bit of the other side of the equation. So what does data culture mean to FP& A and what have some of your successes and difficulties been trying to build that?
Will: I wish I had a whiteboard behind me because you would see that FNA generally sits at the very end of the data stream, right? Maybe there’s someone on the intake, And someone else, and maybe you’re, let’s say, sixth or seventh in line, cool data. And so it really becomes, um, garbage in, garbage out. And I think that’s such a, It’s sad, but true.
I think a lot of times, uh, people in FP& A like, ah, yes, [00:26:00] simply because I took this out of ERP or I exported to Excel, this is all clean data and I can go ahead and use it and get to the, the proposed solutions that I’m looking for and, and it’s rarely, if ever, like, I think the, the challenge for a lot of people is cleaning the data, like you talked about, making sure that what we have is as accurate as it can be. And just as a short example, I think one of the toughest pieces for us over the last year or so has been pushing back on how Salesforce data is used and that the integrity of the data, um, being able to have historical records for all the stuff that’s in there, because oftentimes you were finding that stuff was being changed and there was no like process. [00:27:00] And so then you’d have to make sense of what happened. You really couldn’t. I mean, I couldn’t, I felt like I was just making stuff up sometimes, but, uh, data culture for us is really being able to say, we know this is true because it’s all coming from the same place. We know what this means because we have the definitions for each of these pieces of it. And we’re able to translate that to the people who are ultimately going to be receiving it, right? And I think that’s, that’s a challenge. It’s a, it’s a real challenge because again, like people can be. in a hurry or people can be, um, maybe just inexperienced or, you know, don’t care, whatever it is. Um, and so having the, the, the culture in place to make sure that the checks are in place, to make sure that the information is accurate and making sure we get it done in a, in a timely, in a timely fashion.
Does that [00:28:00] kind of hit on the, hit on the highlights or is there something else that
you were thinking about?
Ryan: no, absolutely. I think
another thing that I’d be interested to know, and this is kind of related to data culture. is around people. So when you’re either kind of like evaluating people on a team or, you know, interviewing or hiring somebody in FP& A, how important really is, you know, data or tech skills? I mean, and obviously like, you know, the right answer on the data podcast is super, but you know, I think.
Obviously, we talked about it, you guys have a very broad set of skills, most of which are really on the business side. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, how important are like the hard data skills and you know, the data mentality for people on an FP& A team.
Will: Yeah, um, people come in with a wide [00:29:00] variety of experiences and abilities. Um, and so I think that’s more of a, it’s a, it’s a culture fit, right? I think why I don’t have to be best friends with the person, but, uh, I want to somewhat enjoy working with them and having like a base understanding, but it also goes back to what. We’ve talked about already, which is just like a curiosity or like a tinkerer’s mentality, right? I think that’s a big, big piece of what makes people successful in FP& A because you’re going to have a wide variety of tools and you’re just not going to have time to be, you know, I can play, play around in BI, but I’m not going to be building, um, as, Elaborative dashboards as developers or someone else.
Right. It’s just not, it’s not what I do. Um, and so I think having like a basic grasp of tools, having an interest in learning more is, is really helpful. And I think just being open to listening, right. I, I, [00:30:00] uh, you know, pick on myself again. Aside from being an imposter, I think a lot of, for a lot of people, it’s hard to hear criticism, um, even if it’s constructive, right?
Not like, oh, you’re a terrible person, but like, this would be better, right? Like, you know, it’s something personal. It’s just like, hey, man, like, I know you can do this. Spend a little more time. If you need help, I’m here to help you, and we can work on this, and it’ll make your life much easier in the long run, right?
Like, you don’t need to suffer through this every month, you know, if it’s a regular reporting piece. You don’t need to suffer through it. Uh, you know, kind of brute forcing your way through this stuff. Like we can work together to make this, uh, more efficient or just easier to do. Um, and so I think just really the mentality is a big piece of it.
Technical skills, great. Yes. But like we’ve talked about, a lot of it comes down to how do you, how do you tell the story? Why do I, why should I care? Like if I’m, you know, if [00:31:00] I’m, A C level or executive level making decisions for the, you know, for the whole organization, like, why should I care? I mean, whatever you use some fancy new tool.
It doesn’t matter. Um, right. It matters what, what you’re trying to tell me.
Ryan: you were just talking, you mentioned You know, kind of those, those regular reports that get done in FP& A. And for, for those that don’t know or come from FP& A, I would largely categorize the work that you do to be kind of in 2 fairly separate camps. Like, 1 is whether it’s weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, like, these kind of budgeting cycles, forecasting cycles, annual or quarterly financial reporting cycles.
All of that stuff tends to be on a regular predictable cadence, right? Like we know what our fiscal year is, we know when earnings go out, whatever the case may be. The other is basically just kind of this mishmash [00:32:00] ad hoc of unpredictable. Somebody has a question, we’re the right people to answer it. Go get an answer and do it fast and make sure that it’s super right.
Talk to me a little bit about How you balance that and around some of those spikes, right? Like I remember what it’s like, like you kind of have sure some ad hoc reports and some stuff to do, but like life is very different in the middle of a quarter versus the end of the quarter. So talk to me a little bit about balancing that.
Yeah.
Will: sort of on the edge of the knife, right? Like you talked about with the regular reporting, you kind of, you can mostly expect what you’re going to get into, uh, what the workload is going to be like. Um, but then someone drops something else on your lap, but there’s a new wrinkle this time and you have less time to do it.
And so, something that I have Continue to, to work on for myself and continue to encourage others, um, is just like, do it when you [00:33:00] have the time, not when you think you have the time. Um, that makes sense, right? Like, sometimes it’s nice to just kind of zone out for 30 minutes or take a quick walk if it’s nice outside because you’ve been staring at spreadsheets for hours, but. If you can get it done, get it done, because you know, inevitably, something’s gonna, gonna come up. And I think that’s, that’s the hardest balance, right? And then, you know, fortunately, where I am now, I don’t have too much imbalance. I think there’s times where I’ve had to maybe stay up a little bit later than I’d like, or even start early, just when it’s quiet, so that I’m not distracted by other people, or, you know, Message, Teams messages or whatever it might be.
but just giving yourself more time than you think it takes. Right. And, and I think as a recent example, just having issues with Salesforce and Pipeline and why the numbers aren’t what they’re expected to be and having to spend a lot more time in the details [00:34:00] has been, you know, the latest, the latest wrinkle.
And it’s an important one because that’s the lifeblood of the organization. As I think it is for really anyone, right? If you don’t have clients paying you, then like, how are you going to stay in business? Um, and so, you know, just being able to say, okay, now that I have to do this and I know I’m going to be doing this on a regular, semi regular basis, basis, then how do I balance it with this other stuff I already know is going on? Never ending, never ending again, just being adaptable.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. 100%. That was definitely one of the biggest takeaways from my time in FP& A. The ad hoc stuff is unplannable. That’s why we call it AdHoc.
But for the things that are plannable,
information about the future is extremely valuable and [00:35:00] knowing that I’m going to have a predictable amount of demand on a predictable date and what is involved in that process, is really, really, really valuable planning information. And so when I made the jump from FP& A into BI and then into consulting, that lesson was one that I carried with me.
And so I’ve done over the course of my consulting career, a lot of training, right? Thousands of people, like my mind boggling amount of like, travel and training and all that stuff. My biggest mantra for most of, You know, this type of person is buy five minutes of your life back at a time. So, like you mentioned, if you’re in one of those situations where you’re not in a, you know, full sprint mode and you know that you can invest an hour, but then that saves you [00:36:00] five minutes a week in perpetuity,
you know, so like for me, anything that is known and has the possibility to be improved is, and I, this word is so. Overused, but this I think is a correct application is very leveraged, right? I mean, leverage does not mean use. It means that there’s some sort of lever, there’s a force multiplier. So like that, that one hour of time.
You know, assuming that the business lasts forever. And so do I, right. Has infinite return. So for me, that was kind of the big takeaway of the balance is like, you know, if it’s ad hoc time, do your stuff. If it’s regular reporting time, you got to run the process as is. But anytime there’s that gap, like attacking that future stuff, that wave that I know is coming, you know, that, that helped that saved a lot of time.
Will: And not just time, but a ton of, save you a ton of stress. Right. I think [00:37:00] that’s the big thing. Cause you know, knowing myself, I
think that’s easy for people to get sloppy and to make silly mistakes, right? Like I, you’re in a hurry and you don’t necessarily have all the time to double check or triple check formulas or whatever it might be if you’re using Excel or just like, whoops, I clicked the wrong period on, on this dashboard or whatever, before I exported it or something.
Right. And then you’re like, you know, if I hadn’t. If I had to spend a little bit more time or had a little more time, then you can save yourself a ton of stress as well. And I think that’s, that’s what keeps people from really from burning out, right? If you have a ton of work to do and you’re constantly stressed about it, you know, you’re having, you know, nightmares or something else that is not like, I don’t have nightmares about that.
I don’t have nightmares about dinosaurs or something, right? I don’t worry about Excel eating me. Um, you know, so that’s, that’s another big piece. And I think you really I think there’s almost like an exponential, but there’s stuff that, you know, Invest a little bit [00:38:00] of extra time and effort, and it’ll pay off, um, in perpetuity.
Ryan: I think to bring it full circle, one of the things that you mentioned earlier was essentially that you want to try. to not just be a cost center. You want to try to focus on like, where are the places where instead of just answering questions, we can surface things that someone may not have thought about.
Sometimes that just, you know, Hey, I was doing this analysis and like, this looked a little off. So I poked at it and like, it turns out we’re like paying for a bunch of stuff. We don’t have to be paying for it. Like that’s immediate bottom line impact. Like that’s the way that it started for me. But the more that I can.
both free up the time to make this a reality, but also make it an actual like goal and [00:39:00] mandate. Like, Hey, we want you all to go and look for spending inefficiencies or places where we can do X, Y, or Z to try to help move the company forward. That to me is not only way more value adding, but as the people doing it, like infinitely more interesting than just like hammering together two exports.
I would love, you know, obviously like the buying five minutes of your life back at a time is a piece of that, but I would love to get your take on, you know, maybe it’s that, maybe it’s another approach. How does FP& A move from just kind of being a cost center question, answer, which is very important and valuable into the space where on top of that, they can also surface things that weren’t asked for and actually play a role in driving the organization forward.
Will: Yeah. Uh, wow. Promoted, if I can answer this cleanly. Uh, [00:40:00] No, I, I think for some companies, it’s really identifying where you are losing money and where you can grow your money. And I think in a time like we are now, It’s really important that you focus on growing your money. I think for us, a big, big effort has been to identify clients we are already doing business with that we could do more of.
We already have an existing relationship. We don’t have to invest in trying to establish or, um, you know, even like support one to like, Hey, We already do this for you. How about we do this for you. And maybe that’s a different, uh, line of service. Maybe that’s a different type of product or something else.
And so I think really the, the value added portion is, hey, we’ve identified these five clients. They drive. [00:41:00] X percent, let’s say a majority of the revenue. What else can, what else can we do with them, right? Rather than trying to like spend all this time doing business development, not that it’s not important and that you shouldn’t always be having, um, a pipeline, but it’s, I think it’s far easier, right?
If you already have established relationships to help them grow and maybe it’s not necessarily for your business unit, but maybe for one of the other ones, and that’s, that’s still a win for the organization. Um, and so. That’s a really big focus. I think the focus on just kind of optimization of resources, like you mentioned, whether that’s, you know, billable staff, or how are we spending our money, right?
Is it, what are we getting for it? Or, you know, and that’s a big part of FP& A I think we would be familiar with is, you know, What is your variance analysis, you know, the budget or the forecast and why? And that’s really the bread and butter of FP& A is [00:42:00] like every month you’re looking at stuff and saying, That doesn’t look right.
Or why do we, or why do we forecast this number? And why is it lower or higher? You know, maybe that’s good or maybe that’s bad and being able to get into the detail. So this is what’s pausing it. This is what we can do. Um, or maybe it’s, you know, I think the joke is that it’s just timing, right? It’s just timing and we’ll balance out.
Maybe that maybe that is true. Maybe it’s just late. Um, in, in being booked or whatever, but other times, you know, it’s, uh, something that is gonna kind of blow up in your face later if you don’t handle it. So, uh, all that to say, I think FB& A is really most helpful when it’s identifying opportunities. I think it’s easy for people to say, ah, you’re just telling us one word. doing bad or not, not hitting our targets. Really. It’s about identifying opportunities. I think that applies in a lot of different areas of the business. So,
Ryan: Yeah. Well, hopefully you get. That [00:43:00] promotion you mentioned, because that I thought was really clean. That was actually really tangible, right? Talking about, you know, because you’re right, like, the variance analysis, like, against a budget or a forecast really is that key tool and getting extremely good at talking about, you know, sure.
Not just the, where do we miss the mark, but where did we succeed? How can we expand on those successes? Like, you know, All of that stuff, I think, is a really tangible way that teams are currently positioned to increase their value. So, I think that that is, um, you know, really tangible. That’s awesome. Thank you so much for that.
Will: yeah, you’re welcome.
Ryan: I, I want to change up gears and talk a little bit less about, you know, and experience and data and all that stuff. And I want to talk about, well, I love to give the listeners a chance to get to know who it is that they’re listening to. So tell me a little bit about yourself. What’s your background? What do you like to do outside of work?
You know, what, what, give people a good picture of you.
Will: Uh, yeah, so you can see some pictures behind me. Um, those [00:44:00] are from, uh, a couple of my children and I’m, it’s just fun. It’s fun for me to be able to, uh, And I talked about what I do and that goes back to puzzle solving. I had to do a presentation for one of their classes and like, how do I explain this to a four year old, right?
Like what spreadsheets? No, like Excel? No, I’m not going to talk about that. And so it’s just like, hey, like, uh, you know, I solve number puzzles and I help people make better decisions. Like, oh, that sounds like a lot of fun. I love puzzles. And so, you know, when I’m not, when I’m not grinding, um, spreadsheets and doing presentations for people within the organization, um, I love, I love coaching.
I love mentoring. And that becomes, you know, really useful in a lot of different areas of life, whether that’s my own children or, um, coaching, you know, youth sports or, Uh, you know, coaching some of the younger, younger people who maybe are just a year or two outta school, [00:45:00] and they’re like, what does fp a do?
I just thought it sounded interesting. And here I’m, and so just being able to talk through stuff with them I think is really important. I love, um, I organize a weekly, weekly pickup basketball game with a lot of other, uh, parents and community members here in Cambridge. And I just, I just love the. I love the community.
I can’t quite hoop like I used to, but I’m still still out there. I’m still out there running up
and down the court, um, and, you know, fundraising has been a big, big piece of it. I’ve been involved with a, uh, I call it a for purpose organization in Cambridge for about 15 years now that provides, um, halfway houses for adults with mental health issues.
Um, and that’s been a really Consistent thing for me in the background, like how can we help this organization evolve? How can we help them raise money? And now I’m raising money for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. There’s a five day walk run coming up in Boston at the end of September, and I’m excited to carry the boats [00:46:00] during that race and just, you know, try to enjoy, enjoy what time I have when I’m not, uh, not at work and being able to, um,
Ryan: Yeah. I love that. That, uh, that stuff is, is close to my heart as well. So love to hear. Someone else is carrying the boats. Um, if anybody loved what you had to say, has a question, wants to reach out or get into contact with you, what’s the best way to reach out?
Will: Uh, I love the bots. I love the stories about business to business sales. So LinkedIn, um, is probably the easiest place to find me. If people don’t know, I love memes. I mean, it’s just incredible. so LinkedIn, you can find me. I’m probably the only William Bett. If you’re unsure, I’m wearing a bow tie. So that’s, uh, formerly known as the bow tie, uh, assassin in one of our previous roles, just cause I think, you know, you also have to protect the business people who aren’t necessarily, [00:47:00] um, Looking out for, looking out for it.
So LinkedIn, uh, you could probably find another contact email address on there as well. Or if you’re in the area, feel free to come out Thursday night, uh, basketball. Love to hoop with you and
Ryan: That’s right.
Will: maybe help me throw one down. Yeah. Uh,
Ryan: Some, some regular alley oop action out there. I love it. All right. Well, this was. Absolutely incredible and super valuable. It was a fun opportunity to catch up and hear a little bit more about how your career has really blown up since we last worked together, which, you know, as you mentioned was, uh, almost a lifetime ago.
Um, I can’t thank you enough for coming on and sharing your time, sharing your expertise. And, you know, as you mentioned, kind of helping to coach some of the listeners and give them, you know, your side of the story. Really appreciate it.
Will: thank you. Thank you for the invitation. Um, it’s really been enjoyable and I just, uh, you know, encourage you, I think, to [00:48:00] succeed and proceed mantra. You know, learning and I apply that to, you know, people that I work with now. I said, you know, if you can’t see yourself staying here for a long period of time, hopefully you can learn some skills that will make you valuable elsewhere and just, you know, succeed and proceed, man.
That’s, that’s what it comes down to. So.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I also want to make sure to thank the audience, especially if you have made it this far. Thank you so much for listening. Please make sure that if you liked it, if you stayed this long, that you make sure to give us a, uh, you know, a like, a subscribe, uh, you know, tell a friend, give us a, a review, hopefully a good one.
All of that stuff is, is a huge help to keeping the podcast running. Will. Thank you again so much for being here. And this has been another exciting episode of the Making Better Decisions Podcast. Thanks.
Outro: That’s a wrap for today’s episode of making better decisions for show notes and more visit, making better decisions dot live [00:49:00] a special thank you to our sponsor canopy analytic canopy. Analytic is a boutique consultancy focused on business intelligence and data engineering. They help companies make better decisions using data for more information, visit canopy analytic. com. There’s a better way. Let’s find it together and make better decisions. Thank you so much for listening. We’ll catch you next week.
Sign up for our newsletter
Stay up to date with the roadmap progress, announcements and exclusive discounts feel free to sign up with your email.