The Big Hearted FD’s

Since blogging about my mates at the FD Centre last week I’ve been thinking a little more about how important it is to keep the relationships alive, the friendships and to keep dipping into the amazing talent pool that lies there.

One way of keeping current with people is through this blog of course. People can see why I moved on from the FD Centre, how it’s going with my new job at Tear Fund and begin to see beyond ‘the corporate me’ to ‘the other side of me’.

The seeds are sown

So I hope the seeds have been sown, professionally and relationally and I hope and pray those seeds will one day grow into something amazing. A lot of the FD’s I worked with did quite a bit of Pro-bono work, plenty who aren’t Christians like me but who share a desire to use their talent to help others in their circumstances. There’ll be plenty of opportunities for people like that to partner with Tear Fund and I have to say that I can’t wait to see that starting to happen. I think they’d welcome the chance to float some ideas around doing a few hours with Tear Fund. I know they are busy people, but I also know what they are like – big hearted and hugely talented!

Ali

Fuelled by www.Tinderblogs.com

Let's Plan to Make a Loss!

Sounds crazy but the best Financial Directors make the best losses. That’s because they plan them strategically, plan them well in advance and plan them for a reason.

Profit from Loss 

There are plenty of examples of big corporations planning to make a loss as they establish themselves in a new market. But you can bet that their Finance Director has worked out in detail how much and for how long the loss making phase will endure before the tide turns and the profits come rolling in.

It's all about profit 

Good FD’s de-risk the whole exercise by putting all the ‘what if’s’ in place and by ensuring that all of the building blocks are in position. They will have provided a very clear road map against which they will chart your progress. They’ll know that when you reach X level of turnover, with Y level of loss you are bang on target - because that’s what was planned way back when, before you even set off on your journey. They’ll also have a series of levers in place to decelerate, accelerate or alter direction and ensure that profitability is reached as planned.

Find out more about de-risking with the Thames Valley FD Centre

Ali

Fuelled by Tinderblogs.com

Time To Transform Your Business

If you read my last post on Blueberry Hill and how they found the strength to change from being risk averse in order to achieve their dreams, you’ll want to know what the secret ingredient was.

Time out

Time - that most precious commodity. Most business owners and drivers have the creative talent to take their business to the next level, but more than often they don’t have the time needed to let that creativity really breathe. To breathe like it did in the early days when great ideas built their business on the back of some hard graft. But that was then and this is now. Now all their time is spent running the business, keeping it on an even keel, fire-fighting, calling customers. Where did the creativity time slot go?

They've got the answers within themselves but they’re so wrapped up in running their business to think about anything else.

Creative thinking

Enter the commercially creative Financial Director for a few minutes. We set about facilitating ‘time outs’ where they can think creatively about their business for half a minute, half an hour or half a day. Time after time it’s fascinating to see how their old business creativity genes start kicking in and dreams start forming in front of your eyes. But then I like to make sure we act quickly and turn those half ideas into smart, solid plans for the business. From the plans come the strategies and I make sure that they’re held accountable to seeing that those strategies are executed within a set time frame. Dreams don’t get anyone anywhere – but plans do.

Now we’re talking business.

Ali

Fuelled by Tinderblogs.com

How FD's Turn Dreams Into Plans

The old misconception that a Financial Director is just an overpaid accountant is fast disappearing from the Thames Valley business world, and that’s largely due to FD’s like those at the Thames Valley FD Centre changing that misconception at grass roots level, in and amongst the local business community.

The Unique Approach 

It doesn't take long once one of our Financial Directors starts working with a business for it to experiencing the unique approach we bring. Actually there are two different types of customers. There are customers who have set up on their own having previously worked for large companies. These guys know what value an FD can bring to a business as they have seen their added value for themselves. They will take a part time FD on board at the earliest opportunity. On the other hand there’s the self-made man or woman who has never worked for a large organisation and is therefore unfamiliar with commercial finance people, or ‘bean growers’ as I like to call them. Someone like that, who has set up on their own in business and become relatively successful, doesn't realise how much a commercial FD can grow their business.

The Next Level 

The fact is that with an FD they could take themselves to the next level and become a much more successful business. In a much faster time frame.  They are able to take the carefully calculated initiatives they wouldn’t otherwise have even considered because they have all the information and with that, the confidence to take risks.

A lot of businesses get stuck in a rut and can't move beyond their current turnover and profit levels. This is often around the one or two million turnover mark but varies by business. It is the stage where to profitably grow the business; the owner needs to rely on the skills of people other than herself and needs to take decisions that may well be outside her own comfort level.

Turn Dreams Into Plans

An FD will come in and say “OK, let’s look at the whole market, let’s look at other areas you could go into, let’s look at the skills you need to take the business to that next level and let’s look at the best way of financing this growth”. You may even find yourself raising finance for the first time which can be a scary prospect but, once that’s securely in place, we can turn those dreams into plans.

Ali

Fuelled by Tinderblogs.com

An FD Spills the finance beans

Bean counters vs bean growers:
Understanding the difference can save and make your fortune.

A bean counter, or Financial Accountant looks at your company’s history and identifies what has been achieved in the past. They should give you a good analysis of where you have managed to make your money and where you have suffered losses. Bean counters focus on the number details, making sure that any figures put in front of you are 100% correct. A good bean counter can quickly spot figures that are worrying enough to signal the alarm.

Really good bean counters, those that I would like to work with, are not only on top of the numbers but call us in as soon as an alarm bell rings.

A bean grower, or Finance Director is something else entirely. The Thames Valley FD Centre is full of bean growers and they're very different creatures to bean counters. We Financial Directors are the people who look at the numbers and say “How can we use those numbers to grow your business?”  Bean growing FD’s will take the numbers and slice and dice the business so that you really understand how and where you can be getting the best bang for your buck.

We FD's analyse the numbers in different ways to identify which parts of the business are profitable and which are making a loss. We then formulate a plan to grow the business knowing that every ounce of energy is working to get the results the company is looking to achieve.

Thames Valley FD Centre bean growers will help you plan ahead, sow the seeds for the future and give your company a clear pathway into realising your business goals and financial dreams.

Come on, let’s get growing!

Ali

Fuelled by www.Tinderblogs.com

Meet My FD Dream Team

I absolutely adore my team – I just love them. Most of them are hand picked by me, and as I get such a large number of highly qualified people applying to join the Thames Valley Financial Director Centre I can afford to be very particular about who comes on board.

I want my team to reflect our customer base out there so I’ve got all sorts of different personalities, all sorts of different skills and different types of experience built into the team. I like to ensure we have manufacturing experience, legal experience, software and I.T. experience and at the same time it's my responsibility to decide which FD best fits each particular company we work with and in doing that I need to take into account the personality of the business drivers and the sector skills required.

I put a high premium on recruiting people with great personality. So there’s always a danger that I’ll keep recruiting people like myself: loud, extrovert FD’s who are all very go getting. But as I’ve come to see that not everybody wants a big personality as an FD, I’ve created a great mixture and depth of personalities. We have got some very serious guys, we’ve got some very studious guys and some very casual guys.

I have one to ones with each team member on a regular basis, I love listening to them and working with them to bring success within their own customer base. It's great to sit down with them, one to one, to develop and review the work plans they have in place for each of their clients. We run six to eight month plans for what we are going to do and what value we are going to add for each client and I just love working on their challenges with them.

Isn’t it good to know that your business too can benefit directly by working with the Thames Valley FD dream team?

Ali

fuelled by www.Tinderblogs.com