Speaker 1: 0:23

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOpscom, powered by all the MoPros out there. I am your host, mike Hartman, joined today by Mr Rizzo.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Hey, I made it back.

Speaker 1: 0:36

It's been so busy, I'm sorry, so we're recording this late September 24, so that's like what? Five weeks to Moxapalooza 2024? Is that about right?

Speaker 2: 0:47

Yep five weeks, Whewopsapalooza 2024. Is that?

Speaker 1: 0:49

about. Right, yep, five weeks, right. It's like it's right around the corner. All right, yeah. Well, I am particularly excited about this conversation today, and our longtime listeners will not be surprised about why I'm so giddy about it, because today's guest and topic is going to be one that is near and dear to my heart. So joining us today to talk about drumroll, finance and community too, is Nick Arako. Nick, you're going to have to correct me if I pronounce that wrong because I forgot to ask you.

Speaker 1: 1:22

You got it, man, you're good, all right, nick is CEO, founder and chairman of the board of the CFO Alliance and CEO of Achieve Next, nick is a recovering attorney, just like my spouse, who has spent much of his career in sales and business development, working with professionals attorneys, accountants, finance professionals, et cetera. Finance provides finance executives with access to a vetted peer advisory network in a safe environment where they can debate, discuss and dissect the top issues and opportunities, keeping them up at night while building meaningful relationships, which should sound familiar to all the people who are part of the MarketingOpscom community. So, nick, thank you for joining us today. Thanks for being okay with me trying to pronounce your name right.

Speaker 3: 2:06

You got it and thank you for giving me the opportunity to connect with you and your audience.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Yeah, this is a.

Speaker 2: 2:13

this is the event that I couldn't, or sorry, this is the discussion that I couldn't pull together for by no fault of anyone here other than everybody being busy, but I was. I was really hoping to get a CMO CFO panel this year, and and so we're going to. We're going to, you know, nick, you and I talked about that.

Speaker 3: 2:35

It gives us a reach and a horizon to look out on.

Speaker 2: 2:41

That's right, right. This'll be the preamble to 2025.

Speaker 1: 2:46

There we go For sure. Well, that'll be fun. I would definitely be down for that. I would even be happy to facilitate it, Mike. So I'll just throw my hat in the ring for that.

Speaker 2: 2:56

Let's make that happen. I like it.

Speaker 1: 2:58

All right, all right. So, as I mentioned right, long-time listeners shouldn't be surprised that I'm a big proponent of everyone who has any kind of aspirations to move up in business, but especially ops professionals, to know the basics of finance. So before we, but before we get into that, like Nick, if you could share a little bit about the CFO Alliance and the origin story, about how it came about and kind of where you, what you, what you do with that?

Speaker 3: 3:27

Well, I think the story will resonate with your marketing ops, professionals and leaders and the community you've built in that so many of us, especially finance leaders, get treated like spectators everywhere they go. Come sit, listen, come be sit and I will present to you one way dialogue. Oh, you're not social anyway, so you probably just want to sit on your hands and not have a voice and not debate, discuss, dissect, go deeper, call timeout, shift, move. Tell me what's on my mind, tell me what matters to me, talk about my goals, passions and struggles as an individual, as a team leader, as an enterprise leader. Does all that sound familiar? Well, for finance leaders, there really was no place for them to go, where dialogue and a safe environment, online and offline, would become the catalyst for them to connect and build great relationships with their peers. And let's think about why that matters.

Speaker 3: 4:29

First and foremost, we're all human beings. We're selfish by nature. All of us are thinking about career, value, performance, compensation, I'm doing good, what does better, faster, smarter. Look like yeah. A third of our community fast forward. Today is always leaning in to be like I know there's something else. Another third lean in because of the topics and issues that we bring to light. Why is that important? Because we don't come up with them. The community does. We're constantly benchmarking, surveying, saying what and analyzing the data we capture from about 9,000 finance leaders from across North America.

Speaker 3: 5:09

And imagine, with that size, you have nonprofits, you have for-profits, you have privately held, you have investor-backed, you've got publicly traded, but the core tie that binds is that they are finance leaders that believe that they have a great opportunity to have impact across, deep throughout the enterprise, externally and the like, and their contributions of both challenge validation, data and analysis.

Speaker 3: 5:39

Dialogue and relationships can drive top line, bottom line and shareholder value in a measurable way, or value in a measurable way. So what we've done is create an efficient and effective way for them to connect with each other and build those relationships through facilitated ah the keyword makes Michael's face light up facilitated exchange. So yes, we will make sure that we create a framework, because you bring an issue to light within a finance community and don't frame it, you're either going to hear crickets a la nothing or chaos, and, as you know, we as financiers, we don't like that. So we brought structure to it, but we've created an efficient and effective way for this community to really tap into and use it to make them the best human beings and leaders they are.

Speaker 2: 6:29

I'm learning so much from Nick and you hear so much of the same language in our community too. Efficient and effective. We talk about that all the time, the connections and I got to sit in on one of the CFO Alliance breakfasts that were hosted here in the Orange County chapter just a handful of months ago and I sat quietly. I did a social post about it. I felt like the little ninja in the room that was trying to not be seen for a while, but by the end I said to the audience I think, if you recall, nick, I built up enough courage to speak to all these finance leaders to say everything you said is all the same stuff we say.

Speaker 2: 7:11

And the problems you're facing are all the same problems that we're facing and I encourage them to connect with their marketing operations and revenue operations professionals, because so much of the challenges that they were faced with were the same challenges that we're tackling in our community every single day and again. That was why I aspired to have that session this year at Mopsapalooza. That's okay, we're going to drive forward on it and we're going to keep driving for alignment between these groups that traditionally feel like, to your point, kind of a one-way conversation, asking for budget, being told no, or being asked for why, or being asked to justify, and like let's just get ahead of that, like let's avoid that type of conversation.

Speaker 1: 7:54

That's right, that's what that's like. This is the thing like the CFO or the head of finance job is to ask those questions and that's, I think, where people get offended, like. That's why I keep saying like, the more you know how to have that kind of conversation, the more you're going to get yeses than no's. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:19

You know it's so interesting. There's a reputation and brand issue for anybody in accounting and finance that's just not going to marry towards the current and future career paths of individuals who aspire and readily embrace numbers and formulas and data and analysis, having critical conversations, that relationships are secondary to the numbers that they struggle with creating supporting narratives for their decision making. And what I've saw, now see and hope to see in the future, is that these accounting and finance leaders can take these skills and, ultimately, because their career paths now are not linear ladders that they climb, they can end up in places like marketing, operations and revenue and sales and the CEO seat, because they recognize that they can learn from and pull the best of an approach that embodies all that drives those respective areas, plus anchors on the principles and foundations of finance.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting that you talk about how their career paths are not linear, because that is a continual topic that we have when we have guests on who've sort of found their way into marketing ops right. Almost none of them planned on it. Yeah, I think it's becoming less and less true with junior people, but certainly most people I know sort of stumbled into it. They either can't, and it's not even consistent how they stumbled into it. Some of them started out in marketing and they were the person who knew how to run the technology right. They could manage Salesforce, they could manage an email platform, or they came from a technical background, or they just like I needed to get a job and someone took a chance on me and you know otherwise, I was doing music right, production, yeah, and those are all literally examples of people we've talked to.

Speaker 3: 11:29

Those are all real-life examples, yeah, Michael I do want to draw the draw, the contrast, though. Think about it. Have you ever met anybody who is currently in a finance leadership role who ended up there? It's the exact opposite, which is creating the this, this reputation that you only can do one thing if you're in finance, and the penultimate is the CFO position, and you can either be a CF yes, or a CF no. That's about it. It's like the exact opposite stress level, because in marketing offices wow, we all ended up here. Isn't this amazing? And in finance, it's like I got here and I'm not sure I want to be here, because they've been stuck here Right within these walls that they put me in. And so there's. We have to recognize that we've got an increasing population of finance leaders that are punching through those walls because they have a real desire, aspiration and interest in what all of you do. So I think that's there's a difference.

Speaker 1: 12:37

Yeah, I mean it's funny because I'm thinking about one finance partner I worked with in particular at a pretty large organization, so he's one of many, but I think this reputation and I also worked at public accounting consulting firms early in my career reputation and I also worked at public accounting consulting firms early in my career, and so I know, I know, I know plenty of people in those worlds who knew how to have a good time right and who were curious, um, and wanted to understand stuff, even even if they didn't right away.

Speaker 1: 13:03

And so like I, you know, that's why I I'm a big fan of like if I get a finance person who's just curious, like, wants to understand where I'm coming from, and can, at the same time, give me like here's why you're going to get pushback when you ask for this budget, for this project that you're passionate about, because it's not going to fly in most places. Just saying I just I know it's going to work right. You have to have some substance behind that. Now, it may be based on some assumptions, some loose things, but you have to have a reasonable case that says this is why putting this dollar towards this is going to be better than putting a dollar towards something else that you may have no idea what it is. So the more you have that ability to tell that story and maybe that's the overlap where CFOs or finance leaders can learn from marketers is storytelling.

Speaker 3: 13:56

You stole my thunder. I'll tell you as I travel across North America to bring finance leaders together to talk about year-to-date 2024 performance and, more importantly, shift attention to 2025 budgeting and planning. One of the key takeaways that has resonated with several groups of finance leaders we've brought together for this discussion is that, first of all, relationships matter, so they are ensuring that they and their teams, in a realistic manner, measure the strength of relationship with the various functional leaders and teams before they enter that process. Think about it this way Imagine a CFO who says my relationship with the CEO on a scale of one to five five being strongest, one being weakest is a five, but my relationship with marketing ops is a two. That changes the way that they should engage in this process, and so, first of all, the relationship pieces become critically important. Second, I will tell you supporting narratives are key.

Speaker 3: 15:00

The finance leaders that are gathering are saying budgets are more than just numbers. We need narrative to support them, and marketing ops can teach us how to do that well. To support them, and marketing ops can teach us how to do that well. With tools like Power BI and otherwise, we can make the numbers sing, resonate and stick with people that don't want to see an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of formulas behind it. So we're seeing a leaning in opportunity. I think together we can bring finance and marketing ops together because I can tell you the interest is real on the finance side even though they don't make that that apparent to their marketing ops colleagues, who are probably more emotional, more transparent, more willing to give.

Speaker 3: 15:45

I can, I can attest collectively the desires there.

Speaker 2: 15:49

Yeah, yeah. The natural state of a marketing operations professionals to like at least from what we've observed, um is just to be helpful, right. Uh, and so it's. It's curiosity and to be helpful, right. You come to them with a problem and they're problem solvers. They're trying to figure it out. And if the problem in finance is, we need to make the numbers sing and we need to understand how our go-to-market tech stack is performing or in ways in which we could better understand the entirety of the go-to-market funnel. They have a lens to be able to access the way that data moves through, effectively, the entire system, and we're starting to see companies out there in the market come to market to try to talk to these two audiences and I'm watching from this high level, 10,000 foot view as they struggle to figure out from the traditional business side of things, who their actual ICP is Is it the marketing person or is it the finance person? But their goal is to try to effectively solve this gap that's happening.

Speaker 3: 16:54

I'm curious Go ahead, Nick. No, you go ahead.

Speaker 2: 16:58

I was just going to say it's budgeting season. Yes, we are right in the middle of it. I'm curious, what does a finance leader like to see? Is it about modeling? Is it about trying to look out, you know, 18 to 24 months, like what are they looking for in budgeting season? Are they just trying? Are they now trying to drive alignment top down or bottom up, like what are you seeing right now?

Speaker 3: 17:33

So you mentioned a key skill or trait that, both in marketing, ops and finance, we and the leaders in those seats today need to ensure that they themselves and the teams that they have and the talent they hire have at the center of their own DNA, and that is active listening, intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, two-way dialogue.

Speaker 1: 18:05

So I'll quote one of my members so all I'm going to say is that sounds like the same list I'd give for the best salespeople, just throwing that out there.

Speaker 3: 18:13

Yeah, you're right, you're probably right, michael, but this is where it's all coming together. Right, because it used to be. All the data and performance metrics were sitting in a silo and now it's all readily available and, depending on your complexity of tech stack, it's also not necessarily driven by one central source of truth. So marketing may have their numbers, finance may have others. They've been forced now to say wait a minute. If the human factor is going to be involved here in interpreting, analyzing and making decisions, we have to get better at turning on our minds and our ears and our hearts. Before we open our mouths, and when we do, in both substance and form, we need to meet people where they are.

Speaker 3: 18:58

I teased you a bit with the idea of the Excel spreadsheet version control formulas locked. Imagine what impression that makes to someone in marketing ops when they get a file embedded that says view only or pdf or otherwise. It's a do not touch moment and it sets off a reaction and response that's human by nature. When you have someone in marketing ops who's driven by passion and performance and what if and what could be? Finance is learning that and we're helping to steer them towards.

Speaker 3: 19:35

Listen, bring in the key performance data that you have confidence in. That's proven to be a key driver for performance top line, bottom line, shareholder value. But engage in dialogue and present that information in a way where it meets them where they are and start, instead of telling them things, start by asking two questions before you tell them anything. In fact, what we've suggested is that one day a week they start every conversation via screen, in person, via Slack or otherwise, by asking that person two questions before they tell them anything. We want to turn on that switch because we think it's going to lend itself to better, more robust dialogue between finance and these other functional leaders.

Speaker 1: 20:34

What are those two questions? Did I?

Speaker 3: 20:36

miss that, no, no. Well, there is no magic to the two questions, it's just the idea of starting by asking them two questions.

Speaker 1: 20:44

So I'm going to tell you oh, okay.

Speaker 3: 20:47

On a Friday. My first question is personal what are your plans this weekend and what do you have left before you get out of here, Right? So it's more the idea of let me start by getting your mind and heart and mouth going before I start coming at you.

Speaker 1: 21:03

Gotcha. No, I mean, you use a phrase that I like to use. I use a lot. I'm doing some work, doing change management, and I'm constantly repeating the like meet people where they are right. No, totally, because I'm working with teams that are frustrated with um, some change management not going the way they as smoothly as they expect it. And I said, part of this is because you're expecting, like you're in a, you're so knowledgeable about what's going on, what you want to do, that you're you're not seeing it from that other person's perspective and you need to understand that. And I think you're right, like asking good questions, right and listening, whether it's personal or professional, because I agree with you like both matter these days, especially that it's a great way of learning that.

Speaker 3: 21:47

Yeah, and I think, look, I also want to emphasize there's been a mass embrace of considering, trying and then adopting tools to meet people where they are, as it relates to using data as a catalyst for discussion. There's an increase in data visualization is now a way of life for finance leaders. It's always been the way of life for marketing ops leaders. Finance is getting there, my friends, and they're trying to meet you where you are so that when you see it, it speaks to you. So this budgeting season we're seeing a mass adoption of tools like Power BI and others. It's on the rise and it's all meant so that they can better communicate financial data to, typically to individuals or teams that are non-financially driven let's not call them. They're certainly competent. There's certainly degrees of confidence as it relates to embracing and analyzing finance information when you're a non-finance professional. So they're not inferring you don't know anything. Instead, they're saying I'm going to make this easy, I'm going to deliver it to you in a way that you most likely will want to receive it.

Speaker 2: 23:33

Yeah, it's so interesting. I really what struck me just a moment ago was that sort of gut check you gave with if I send you a PDF or a view only doc, you know, problem in terms of alignment, right and, and you're at least in the category of RevOps and marketing ops. Because here we are, we're, we're data manipulators and we're trying to make sure we give you the information that you're looking for. Which brings me back to this like the literal buck stops with finance, yeah and so, um, I think you know one of the things we talk a lot about, nick, is beginning with the end in mind, right, so everything for for your tech stack, the investments you want to make, the markets you want to make the markets you want to enter all of that stuff.

Speaker 2: 24:12

Really, if you in marketing operations or revenue operations, whatever role you have today and you're listening to this episode if you're not asking, how does finance want to see the outcomes at the end of the day, how does the business recognize revenue at the end of the day? At the end of the day, how does the business recognize revenue At the end of the day? Your taxonomy, your naming convention, the way that you categorize profitability and revenue streams in a business. If you don't understand how those things happen at the executive level or just at a bare minimum, how finance recognizes the taxonomy of that, then you're out of alignment. Yeah, and the literal buck stops there, right? So ask the question, right?

Speaker 3: 24:55

There's no such thing. How do we recognize revenue? There's no such thing as a stupid question to ask anybody in accounting and finance. Because, look, most CFOs will tell you we found individuals on marketing ops teams buried down in the earliest stages of their careers, who invested in better understanding of the principles and foundations of accounting and finance, whose understanding is far superior than the C or title, that they have a basic understanding of how the business makes money or doesn't. So on the one hand, they're like listen, when we find someone in marketing ops, hey, we want to work with them because, oh, my gosh, this is so refreshing, my gosh, this is so refreshing.

Speaker 3: 25:53

The second is that the talent on the accounting and finance teams an increasing number of them want to use their experience in accounting and finance as a gateway to potentially taking that into other areas. And finance and accounting leaders are getting smart enough to recognize that. If I start to embed my talent in places like marketing ops, in HR, in technology and in sales, we're going to have better performing functions because they came out of finance. So why not become a gateway or hub for talent or bring that capability and waterfall?

Speaker 1: 26:28

Yeah. So I have asserted many times on this podcast in other places I've linked in wherever that I think it's really important for people to to learn basics of finance. Um, and I think we've talked about, like am I do it's I'm gonna guess that you're gonna agree with this but like am I, am I? Do you believe that I'm on the right track here, that it's a valuable skill for people to have if they don't already have it?

Speaker 3: 26:54

So I think it's so powerful, having raised three amazing children who all have analytical and numbers-driven minds, who are in all different areas of career and life now, but never forgot the principles and foundations of finance, and I've watched them excel based upon their and accelerate their growth and performance by investing and leaning in to. What does a balance sheet look like? What does an income statement look like? What's the difference between revenue and sales?

Speaker 1: 27:27

Yeah, like revenue recognition versus the sales. Yeah, got it. I'm with you. So what I love about it?

Speaker 3: 27:35

maybe this is the good thing, guys. Maybe because accounting and finance have such a brand and reputation issue right now that there's only a linear ladder career path, that the that the walls are so thick but the space is so thin that you don't want to go there. It's forcing accounting and finance to say wait a minute. Why don't we instead become an open door and gateway to teach and develop others and deploy that and maybe accounting someday, years from now, becomes a core competency and skill for anybody who gets involved in any part of the business, from sales, marketing, hr and otherwise.

Speaker 1: 28:17

That's the whole. I could not agree more.

Speaker 2: 28:21

Yeah, I'm on the same track. I mean it didn't take much fun for me as the CEO of MarketingOpscom to go from a very tech-proficient sort months to a fractional CFO sort of team to completely refactor and understand like what is it that we're working on here, right? Like what do we want to be when we grow up and how do we continue to sustain and push forward on the aspirations that we have as a community and as a business entity? And I'll tell you, working with the CFO team and categorizing the ways in which we recognize revenue, how we do that, what those revenue streams are, it's really painted a very clear picture for our executive team on how we need to create a more sustainable organization to achieve the goals that we want to achieve. And that all came from those exercises with the finance team, right. And it's going to completely transform the way in which we set up our tech stack right and try to adhere to the data standards that finance wants to see as the revenue comes in. And just to be really clear for the audience, what I mean I mean I'm going to get like really nerdy for a second for you. What I mean is, when you decide to become a member of marketingopscom.

Speaker 2: 30:05

There is a transaction that is passed through Stripe. There is a transaction that is passed through Stripe, right, if I don't know, if I don't have metadata sent to our bookkeeping system on what you just purchased, we literally have no idea what that money was for, right? Like we don't know. Oh, did somebody like buy our marketing ops playbook template? Like it wasn't translating to how did we grow or support this organization today? So we had to figure out how to write an integration from one system to the other to pass that right information over so the finance team could recognize that revenue in the right way in the right category and say how are we performing? Right? That's what we're talking about when revenue teams, marketing ops, rev ops, et cetera, and finance can come together and they say here's the problem we have to solve.

Speaker 2: 30:58

Okay, great, I know how to do that. I understand how this technology works. I'm going to pass the data to the right systems and I'll get you that information, or at least I'll get it to the right people who can go set that up Right. So just to be like very, very clear about, like one example that we just recently experienced, about that alignment and that intersection and the value that that can bring to a team. Uh, hopefully that that helps sort of paint a picture for everybody. Nick, I want to ask you another question. Yeah, sorry, I have all these questions. Go ahead. What like, maybe for the listeners who haven't had a chance to interact with finance teams or any of this stuff, can you just break down a couple of the core roles that you would traditionally see on a finance team and who they might be best suited to speak with when you think about sort of their role, right? So I just did sort of tea in my head.

Speaker 2: 31:50

I think about bookkeepers, I think about AP, I think about AR, I think about the FP&A sort of group. Right, like, what are all those groups doing and what do we want to talk to them about? Or are some a little bit more closely aligned than others? Like, what's your sort?

Speaker 3: 32:08

drive that I think it all begins and ends with the definition of CFO either driven by a board, investors and or challenger, validated and accepted by the CEO. So I can tell you, when I get a phone call from a CEO who wants to pick my brain about, help me assess whether or not we've stood up a best performing A player, accounting and finance organization, the first thing I want to do is better understand the business, first of all, the objectives from a performance standpoint, but then I want to dig into their definition of what chief financial officer means. Is this the steward or is this the record keeper? Is this the auditor? Is this the treasurer? Is it the operations oriented finance executive or finance oriented ops executive, or none of the above? So, first off, I need a definition.

Speaker 3: 33:11

When we started the CFO Alliance community over a dozen years ago, 95% of our members grew up in accounting, which means they had an accounting background and a degree. Many of them had grown up in public accounting or were certified management accountants and had invested in the functions of traditional accounting, if inside a company, it was APAR, cash management, accountant, assistant controller, accountant assistant controller, controller and then ultimately CFO Fast forward. 55% of our members grew up in accounting, which means 45% did not. They grew up in finance, operations or other areas. All 100% say we can't do our jobs to the greatest of our ability without a strong, qualified accounting function. So we're not going to masquerade as accountants when we're not, because it'll backfire. So on the accounting side, you still have your clerical, your AP, your AR and the like. You still have your accountant, your assistant controller and controller. They're very process oriented. So my advice for you anybody interacting with that team is understand their cycles, understand when they are receiving information, have a deadline to quote, close the books, report out to the CEO, c-suite leaders, investors and board and just be sensitive to the fact that they're probably under stress and less responsive, because success for their evaluation of their performance is based upon time to close and accuracy.

Speaker 3: 34:55

That's about. Those are the top two. So build relationships because they're in the numbers, but recognize they're dealing with a constant, 12-month rolling series of constraints on their time and schedules. Sitting next to them, you mentioned FP&A, financial planning and analysis the catch-all for the intellectually curious, the catch-all for the individuals that are data-driven and comfortable even low-coding to make technology and data sync and sing the home for the active listeners and the critical thinkers. Build relationships with anybody who has a title or sits in the area of FP&A, because they desire to understand you so that they could better understand and do their jobs to support decision-making through data and analysis. In fact, an increasing number of CFO Alliance members are bringing their FP&A team members to our community to represent, learn, do and accelerate their career paths, because they're a dynamic group of people. Build great relationships with anybody in your organization that has FP&A responsibility, title or skill. So that's my take the two go together. You want to build relationships with both, but I'd be doubling down on anybody in FP&A.

Speaker 1: 36:37

Can I play it back for you a little bit? Because, as you were talking about it, I knew, like, first off, I think a lot of our listeners may not realize the difference between accounting and finance, right, I think they probably think of them as the same. I think that's a distinction that they should understand. Managed a budget, marketing ops, like the planning strategy. You know the the part about you know getting getting approval for, for budget, etc. Etc. That's the fpna side of it to me. And then the day-to-day like processing of invoices and things like that, to make sure that your things are hitting the books when they're supposed to. Yet, like that's going to be your accounting side, whatever it's called, and you need both to be on your side. Now that I think about it, right, you do.

Speaker 3: 37:26

Michael, an easier way. If you want to know who has a handle on, quote your current standings year to date, talk to accounting. If you want to set ambitious growth goals, engage the broader organization in owning their agendas. Growth goals engage the broader organization in owning their agendas. And you know, and brainstorm a bit on what could be versus what is, sit down with FP&A.

Speaker 1: 37:58

Totally. Yeah, that makes sense. So I think that's a good distinction. So kind of I mean that makes sense, so I think that's a good distinction. So, um, kind of I mean this is, may you've kind of touched on this a little bit, I think, but um, maybe just to tie it, put a bow on it a little bit is like so if, if I we've now convinced, if we've now convinced some of our listeners who are in marketing ops, revenue ops, that it's, it's a it'll be beneficial for them to build relationships with their finance teams. You know, know, let's assume they've never really done that before and maybe it's because their CMO has shielded them or whatever, right, but let's say they want to move forward. That. What do you think? The way that? Some practical tips they could have to begin that process of getting to know them? They?

Speaker 3: 38:43

could have to begin that process of getting to know them. So first off, they should use the ask, ask tell model too when engaging anybody. So I would suggest, if they're going to sit down with anybody in accounting or finance, start by asking them a couple of questions, break the ice and get them talking. The second piece is you need to understand that most accounting and finance leaders naturally are wired differently in their brains. The facts, the figures and the numbers dominate. What's the goal is where they get stuck. The second key area that are driver or motivation for them is how. They're people that are process oriented. So if you're going to talk to them about something, set very clearly here's the number, here's the issue, here's the opportunity, here's the risk, here's the investment and frame the fact, figure, number that we're going to anchor on and then focus on how and here's how I'd like to go there. Here's how.

Speaker 3: 39:40

Here's where the tension happens. Marketing ops are how does it feel? And I want to understand the impact of it from a people standpoint and a reaction standpoint. And marketing ops is always saying what have we not considered? If you think about the two areas of natural preference where accounting and finance leaders are coming from facts and figures and documented process versus tell me what I'm not seeing and tell me how it feels. You see the natural tension. Recognize that and meet them where they are. So I suggest you be very deliberate with okay. I want to talk to you about X. Whatever that X is, and stick to that X. Come prepared to explain if X is an ask, x is a risk, x is a brainstorm. Be ready to get into process and how, if we say yes, if we say no, if we agree, and then you can layer in your favorite. Huh, as we're going through this, this I'm thinking we didn't see this which naturally comes to marketing ops and ha, this is going to be awesome. Do you feel the passion?

Speaker 1: 40:53

yeah it's interesting. Uh, the first thing that came into my mind when you, when you were saying that, ask, ask, ask tell, was, uh, the stepovey you know seven habits thing of seek first to understand than to be understood. Right, that's like. So that's another, another great way of saying it, mike. I don't know if I have one last question for Nick before we wrap up, but do you have anything else you want to cover?

Speaker 2: 41:19

No, because I have a tendency to take us down rabbit holes. So we're going to do that in 2025. No, because I have a tendency to take us down rabbit holes.

Speaker 3: 41:26

We're going to do that in 2025, right.

Speaker 1: 41:28

We are going to do that in 2025, 100% For sure, for sure.

Speaker 2: 41:31

Please ask.

Speaker 1: 41:32

Okay, so the last thing I guess I would ask is again kind of in the mindset of let's hope we've shifted some minds here, who are now interested in learning about finance and maybe accounting too. Right, do you have any suggestions for those folks who are listening, who are interested in pursuing that knowledge, to go like resources that are available, I love to say like is there free resources, but like anything that you think would make sense.

Speaker 3: 41:59

Yeah, I mean first and foremost and Mike and I, mike Rizzo and I have talked about this we want to create connection and collaboration and exchange amongst our two communities and we're going to find a way to do that efficiently and effectively. So you get the best of kind of what's on the minds and hearts of finance leaders and how does that align with what's on the minds and hearts of marketing ops leaders, and we can physically create connection and relationship individually and collectively between the two worlds. So, first and foremost, we'll put on display through the CFO Alliance a whole host of tools and resources and part of the community they can access and gain some better understanding of. I will tell you that, finally, the educators and stewards behind the profession now make those readily available through the CFO Alliance. It's for non-finance and accounting professionals and through modality that means I can do it in 20 minutes or snippets of five minutes or an hour long on my device or in person or whatever. So we're trying to bring that gateway and so we hope the CFO Alliance can be a source for this community.

Speaker 3: 43:29

Second, from that I have a little tip, and it's a habit. You went back to Covey and habits. 15 years ago I started my day by reading the Wall Street Journal, not as a stimulant for me to become so deep in the know of every single story, but because it started to connect the dots to the industries, the people, the markets that I serve and were a part of and became a catalyst for me to build this network and to make connections. There are very few sources out there now that aren't biased and I'm not at all saying the Wall Street Journal can't be questioned at times, but I know I have no relationship with WSJ. But it's the idea of I vest time, energy and effort to better understand how the influences of the ecosystem are a part of work and I begin to connect the dots with the people I know, the industries that I know and the like, and it gets me thinking about the business side of what I do. So I would suggest find something and stick to it and make it a habit is my best advice.

Speaker 1: 44:37

I love that. I used to take Fortune magazine. I stopped years ago, but it was the same kind of reason I wanted to take Fortune magazine. I stopped years ago, but it was the same kind of reason I wanted to learn. It's not something that was a part of my formal education.

Speaker 2: 44:50

Right, yeah, yeah, it's that stuff that really makes it. You are in marketing operations, revops, I mean in any job, in any job. You're in sort of the day in, day out. You're in the weeds, right, and, and if you get a chance to step out and just sort of observe the broader market and ecosystem and what people are talking about, it opens your mind to the next time you're in a room or on a zoom call or whatever and you hear somebody mention something you'll, you might hear it differently, you might actually hear it. They might actually enter your brain instead of just passing through, right, because you kind of are understanding what it is that they're now talking about. Because I guess, if you're not sort of privy to what's going on, you just you're kind of ignoring it, right, you're like you're stuck in yeah, was that even important right right, was that even right?

Speaker 3: 45:38

or? Or it becomes to check the box like okay, that's off my list of things, or came by me and it's gone, right, so that's what I'm trying to avoid.

Speaker 2: 45:49

Yeah, nick, I am really excited to hear about the educational stuff. You and I have talked before about my aspirations for more content and education in this space. Content and education in this space. The community knows that I am not shy about setting up the standards for what it means to be a certified marketing operations professional, and there is a lot more to come around that, but I can absolutely guarantee that you and I are going to be having some more conversations about all that stuff.

Speaker 3: 46:21

I view this. We're gateway to what is what can be and what will be. That will far outlive what we do day to day. That's what my hope and intention is.

Speaker 2: 46:32

Yeah, I love it. This has been awesome.

Speaker 1: 46:34

Yeah, fantastic, nick. If folks want to keep up with you what you're doing with CFO Alliance or your other sort of ventures, what's the best way they can do that Alliance?

Speaker 3: 46:43

or your other sort of ventures. What's the best way they can do that so well, our CFOAlliancecom is our website, so feel free to go there at any time. I use LinkedIn religiously to better help me understand and frame my relationships, so I and I hope when I post and I share and I comment it's it's based from representing a very broad community, so you can always connect with me on LinkedIn as well. Send me a message, send me a note. We'll schedule a time to chat and I'm more than happy. We trademark the tagline making connections that count, and that's what we do in this community. So when you connect with me, if there's anything that's on your mind or anything that I can do to help you connect and or meet and or add to your own relationships and understanding, that's what I'm here for.

Speaker 1: 47:35

Yeah, so I think we can ask all of our members, as they're getting to know their finance partners now, right, tell them about the CFO Alliance. Tell them about CFO Alliance you really should.

Speaker 2: 47:45

Yeah, you really should.

Speaker 3: 47:48

There's a culture that we share and I think if we bring the two together, it can be really powerful.

Speaker 2: 47:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 47:54

I could not agree more. I think that's a great way to put a bow on this too. So again, nick, thank you so much, mike, as always. Thank you Thanks to our listeners for continuing to support us, as always. If you have ideas for guests or topics, or are interested in being a guest, reach out to Naomi, mike or me and we will see if we can make that happen. Until next time, everyone Bye now.