In today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to Tom Seegmiller; he is the VP of Financial Planning Analysis for Vena Solution. Most companies tend to have a centralized finance function which means finance rules up within the finance organization as opposed to sitting within the business with business owners or think of general managers or functional owners.
Episode Highlights:
- 01.06: Tom acts as a financial business partner or planner for the companies that he has worked for.
- 01.54: When Jason talks about corporate financial planning, he is basically talking about how the corporation fits into your life and the monetization of it, how the cash flows come out of it, and essentially how it impacts your personal life.
- 03.31 Jason says the programs that basically came up around the country and around the world that were there to support business very much required a lot of data, information, and calculation.
- 04.05: Tom explains, what happened in COVID is, many businesses that were likely coasting along or operating just fine pre-pandemic ended up in survival mode.
- 04.41: Tom has typically focused on creating forecasts or budgets within the organization to try to lay out how and when things are going to happen in this budget or forecast that we ultimately create is really just a financial articulation of a whole series of operational items that we aim to truly understand and then translate into financial results.
- 06.20: Jason says you start up a business typically to do something not to do accounting and planning strategy. To be successful, you really have to master or at least get the right people to master and listen to their advice.
- 06.52: COVID 19 gave people an opportunity to actually exit the pandemic in a much, much stronger place as an organization. Tom suggests improving operational mechanisms if people choose to do so, and we have talked a little bit about this in advance, but great opportunity to ultimately drive Businesses forward, should you continue to operate in an enhanced fashion.
- 07.50 While talking about owner-managed business Tom says, “Through writing down your plans and focusing on understanding the operations, not just yourself, but driving it into your organization you do naturally build a bit of succession plan.”
- 09.12: Tom focuses on understanding what people do, and he takes a genuine interest in understanding their business. What makes some tech what they are excited about? Risks and opportunities? What sort of challenges they faced in the past where they could use extra help and support?
- 09.35: Early conversations are usually predicated around truly understanding the operations of the business from them.
- 10.55 Jason remarks in a job company own you, but owning a business, you own the company, and if you are gone, the company continues on, and that is something that most people have a hard time getting too.
- 12.30: Tom says you can’t give exactly what somebody is looking for, but you have to make sure there are still some wins in it for them so that they want to come back to the table the next time you look to engage.
- 13.14: Tom says data is a unique concept because there tend to be many issues with it.
- 14.52: Nobody would come to me if they needed surgery, go to a surgeon. You have other professionals who deal in data every day and can help you distill it into a consumable fashion, says Tom.
- 15.01: Talking about the resignation letter Tom inquires - how do you distill back what the impact is on different levels of attrition within the business? Is it going to ultimately cost you more because salaries are higher in the market due to inflation compared to your current headcount? What do you do to try to retain those folks? Could you run a strategy in which you pay more in order to reduce attrition and ultimately not end up going down a path of paying more or higher market-based salaries? It can take different forms depending on the need or the outing you’re undertaking with the business.
- 18.01: People love excel, live and die by it, and then it is a source software in the market.
- 19.07: Jason says no matter how many times spreadsheets are engineered and protected all but a couple of single cells that are highlighted, people still find ways to do things with those cells.
- 19.43: If it is structured and engineered properly, the feedback you should be receiving is that business owners own their own budget.
- 21.07: When you think about any business that has that kind of structure in place, talk about designing the absolute worst incentive system imaginable, says Jason.
- 22.41 Tom: Sometimes the world changes, sometimes there is a need to adapt and change, but the whole spirit is we should be running a business that’s firing on all cylinders, not stuck to some plan that happens to be 9,10 twelve months old. That was built at a time before we had the information we have today.
- 23.01: The intent is to be constantly agile, change and adapt as appropriate, make sure your business is driving in the right direction, and align with your stated strategy.
3 Key Points:
- Jason asks Tom to talk about the importance of how COVID-19 basically brought financial planning to life for many people and why it’s just so important not to put this off.
- When you think about the operational perspective, the obstacles within the corporation are finite resources, so cash is a finite resource.
- In the next couple of years, we’re going to see all kinds of software that plugs into your accounting software and other packages. This gives you this giant data framework that’s user-friendly and hopefully no more difficult to use than social media.
Tweetable Quotes:
- “Personal finances mean anything having to do with the city, corporate reorganizations, tax policy, distributions.” – Jason
- “It is an old saying about never letting an opportunity or crisis go away.” – Jason
- “An organization really is only valuable, shouldn’t operate as an organization, and part of that means it’s not contingent on just one person.” – Tom
- “When you go through budgeting cycle, everybody wants more than it is available.”- Tom
Resources Mentioned
Transcript
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
