Epiode 41: When Finance and Sales Align, Profit Accelerates. Tony Misura sits down with April Murray, Fractional CFO, to explore a powerful truth

speaker-1 (00:46)
Thank you for joining Hire Smarter with Tony Misura, where we help industry leaders make better hiring decisions while helping professionals create better career opportunities. Financial case, business case, something our organization has been very passionate about is we try to help leaders and professionals through any type of recruiting project. The basic fundamentals of that are

exactly how do we define winning and and you know, what is the financial and also cultural impact that we’re looking to make through the leadership that’s provided in the individual we place with your organization. So the question comes like how well do you understand how your actions and decisions tie out to the P &L? How well does your team understand how their actions and decisions tie out to the P &L? The financial acumen is all about the ability to keep score and we’ve always said that any general manager or president

that’s excellent from a turnaround perspective meaning they’re taking organizations that are unprofitable in the red, moving them to profitability in very quick times like you know three months, six months, twelve months type speed. We’ve always said that these individuals just have this innate ability to really understand the financial dynamics and how it relates to the you know every day, every hour, every minute operational aspects of the business. So teaching that to individuals and teaching that to broader teams has been a dream that I’ve had.

Since I’ve been recruiting 20 years ago, I’m super excited that now we can offer this. So if you think about it really simply, the financials is just really how you keep score and who’s going to play any game, any sport without a game clock or a scoreboard. That’s just that’s that’s foolish, right? So every career professional, every company leader defines winning by what the scoreboard is, what the company profits are. And of course, there’s the values and the culture that define how those achievements are gained that are important, too. But

But it all starts with a scoreboard. We are super excited to present April Murray, who’s joined the Missouri Group team and is leading our fractional CFO offering. The whole objective is here is to help CFOs and also all professionals increase their financial acumen and impact that they bring to the business performance of their companies. Please take a look at the webinars that she’s putting together. It’s the first Thursday of every month at 12 o’clock central time. And then, you know, it’s through the webinars.

that the teaching is and also she’s engaging in direct financial projects, leadership projects with our client companies with great success. So the first, this is the first podcast we have with April, super excited. The topic is the profit accelerator when finance and sales teams join forces.

Welcome to hire smarter than Tony was there. I’m super excited. This is our first podcast with the one and only April Murray. April Murray previously was with the LP organization and CFO of Integra has now joined the Missouri group team to offer her fractional CFO services April welcome.

speaker-0 (03:52)
Hey Tony, thanks for having me today. This is great.

speaker-1 (03:56)
super excited to be taking this journey with April. So collectively as a business model, Missouri Group is really focused on the business case for all of our customers. And really that comes down to having a lot of work and training and constantly drilling the team on the financial basis, the financial analysis of our client companies and basically how the talent that we can bring to them is going to improve their business and how they keep score, which is typically the balance sheet and the P &L.

And so for us to form a relationship with April just further accentuates our financial knowledge. I know enough to be dangerous and collectively to create her offerings to our client groups that all need stronger CFO financial thinking and analysis is just something that really excites us. April, just a fractional CFO. What does that mean to you?

speaker-0 (04:47)
So being a fractional CFO is for helping companies that maybe don’t have the budget for a full-time CFO to come in and help build a higher level finance acumen in their business within their leaders or within their accounting teams. It’s coming in matching up the strategy that they have and looking at their financials and identifying what things can be done to help them.

along that path and maybe go a little faster than they thought they could.

speaker-1 (05:17)
That’s

kind of, I mean, that’s really what a coach does or a consultant does, right? Is organizations are going to get there on their own. It’s just that you might create a situation where they can get there in the next 30 days versus the next 100 or next year. Right? So that’s the, that’s the true exciting element of bringing those best practices in your background.

speaker-0 (05:36)
I think

I’ll add, Tony, is that I think it’s important to recognize that don’t get caught up in the title so much as, you know, it could be also I’ve seen it work well with like me partnering with another CFO to come in and compliment or maybe cover something that I have more experience, especially like in building products or construction, come in and partner side by with our finance leader is another thing that I’ve seen work well.

speaker-1 (06:07)
So specifically your background and how much you really got into the details coming up to the organization at Louisiana Pacific, larger organization, and then rising up to the financial director for the entire organization. And then going to the CFO of Integra, it just allows you some really incredible best practices and really sharp strategic initiatives that you’ve taken on in that career long. But also along the way, you’ve always had amazing empathy for individuals.

at the every level within the organization. Like, can you share a little about that? I just think it’s a rare competency that you have of relating to individuals and having empathy for their roles and also kind of how their position is really key to the financials of organization.

speaker-0 (06:56)
Thank you Tony, that’s so kind. I would say that it’s primarily that I grew up in the factory. You know, I started right as a cost accountant right out of college and I knew that to really understand how the cost impacted the operations, I had to understand all of the components, everything end to end. And so that meant spending a lot of time with people in the factory. I used to schedule myself in the factory an hour a day.

just to see what I can learn. And I learned that that was very helpful to know how to talk the way they do on the floor. The best time in the world to talk to a plant manager or a superintendent, whatever is to walk the floor or walk the site with them instead of just being in a Zoom meeting or come in my office kind of thing. So I think that’s been helpful. And I think it’s always

Good to like things I learned about being in Lean Six Sigma is you spend a lot of time. Bringing people together so that you can brainstorm effectively, and so it’s amazing how you can really learn like there another person’s perspective of a process. It just really helps you learn all the components around that, and so I think that’s what’s really helped me as a finance person to be successful in partnering with people.

is to really listen to what they have to say about what do they think success looks like? What do they feel like the biggest levers are to make this process work better?

speaker-1 (08:34)
I’m sorry, ⁓ I should have included this in your your your lead up. But yes, you are a black belt Six Sigma ⁓ certified professional and and it’s that it’s with that mindset in that in that kind of approach and tone that I think really powers your curiosity and how you drive that through the organizations and relationships and just kind of everyone that you meet. ⁓ Is that is that accurate?

speaker-0 (08:58)
Yeah,

yeah, well, I mean like you could just go into a like I have a whole little book over here on your Lean Six Sigma Pocket Tool. I mean those are just the way that I work. You you ask why five times at least you know you get people together and map out a process and you look at how do you gain efficiency and and that can apply to anything. It could be in the manufacturing process. It could be in an administrative process. It could be in your forecast process. All of those things have.

components that can be optimized. And so I think that’s what’s real exciting about using those tools just every day.

speaker-1 (09:36)
There’s another real core element in your development that I find really unique and super cool. And frankly, after decades of placing executive professionals in the building products industry, one of the things that we’ve learned is that anyone that comes from a family where they have an entrepreneurial or small business that their parents own and family operates, their ability to relate to people and to be really effective in a business sense,

comes with this just an amazing level of ⁓ sincerity and empathy, but really understanding how their actions and work ethic ties out to the financial performance of the business. What was your family business, Abril?

speaker-0 (10:22)
Thank you. This is so cool. ⁓ My family had a restaurant in a little small town and you know I grew up working at the restaurant from age probably eight from you know cleaning off tables you know running things back and forth and ⁓ one of the things that my grandfather taught me would be the morning. I’m a morning person so

I always volunteered to go and help in the mornings. And so he told me that you should always greet people and say good morning. And I was like, okay, you know, I’m like eight. But he said to me, the powerful part is that I remember is that he told me that you might be the only person that speaks to that person that day. And that was the value of the customer. And just really learned at a very young age that

you know today’s term voice of the customer is important and I learned that at a very young age and it’s just stuck with me that through life that’s how you should view things is that you have an opportunity to impact someone else and you should make sure you take advantage of that.

speaker-1 (11:30)
That’s

what a golden jewel, right? I mean, if there is one thing you could really pass on, right? From a legacy family, you know, character, you know, like, wow, grandfather’s a pretty special guy. That’s cool. That’s awesome. Really fortunate.

speaker-0 (11:47)
The other side of that is like how did like I love it if somebody were to say, you know what April Murray always says good morning and she always is interested in how I am and she’s not just saying it for the heck of it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that’s what I want to be known for. yeah, finance just happens to be the side gig to that.

speaker-1 (12:07)
Yeah,

well, someone, yeah, someone, someone made a living about, you know, talking about how important it is to, you know, people remember, remember how you make them feel. Right. And that’s what’s super powerful. Lex and so for our first podcast ⁓ might have been a little tight casting involved here, but we decided the topic would be the greatest profit accelerator is when finance and sales teams join forces. And so

pretty clearly as to who takes on what role more naturally in their career path. But we thought this would be a really great opportunity for us to share with organizations and our broader customer and client base. Kind of what some of the fundamentals are around building a really great synergy between the finance and sales organization. I guess we’re going to kind of start with maybe what are some of the healthy or unhealthy tensions that exist

within these teams ⁓ and within these personality types. April, any thoughts?

speaker-0 (13:10)
I know sometimes it’s, you know, very if your finance very rigid and you’re very focused on month in close and meeting deadlines for other reports and things, you know, those are very important deadlines. But then you also have, you know, a time constraint, but you have to take time to listen and hear what other people have to say. I know I used to.

to tell my teams in the past that we really, I mean, if people want to know that we’re in the middle of month in close, okay, that we shouldn’t lead our conversation with that. You shouldn’t say, ⁓ I’m in month in close. Even though that is happening, you got to get in a path of being approachable and be more willing to take those conversations when things are really busy because it is going to be

Potentially, especially with sales, it’s your revenue and that’s the lifeblood of most companies.

speaker-1 (14:15)
You know, just sorry, I’m just a simple recruiter, but looking looking at the world and organizations and teams and individuals and people that break it down from a psychological profile perspective, there’s introverts and there’s extroverts. And generally speaking, there’s way more introverts on the finance side of of the aisle and way more extroverts on the sales side. Right. And before you send emails and tell me that you’re the opposite, I get it. But from a generalization perspective.

that that certainly holds true. And there’s just some tendencies from those different personality types. ⁓

speaker-0 (14:53)
I would say I’m a recovering introvert.

speaker-1 (14:56)
Yeah, right?

speaker-0 (14:58)
So I have to work on it. I know it’s important to have more of those characteristics to be more of an extrovert. I still have tendencies back to being introverted, like being guarded and, you know, making sure, you know, dealing with ambiguities, a challenge, those types of things. But just like everything, it’s someone said this the other day to me that I really like is like, that’s a muscle that

I wanted to work on and and and. You know, and I did. I really purposely worked on how do I get better at talking to people that aren’t like me, and I think that’s really important, and especially with folks that don’t come to the table with, you know, knowing what FASBs and gap are. That’s you not.

speaker-1 (15:48)
There are some there are some muscles that we’re just born with innately and we’ve developed and honed them ever since we’ve been in kindergarten all the way through. And there are some that you know, we’re just just haven’t been developed, right? There’s no such thing as great. They’re just simply as trained and untrained and from a sales perspective. Hey, yeah, we take more risk. Certainly right way more comfortable from a risk perspective because and frankly you kind of want that in a sales role. don’t right?

And they’re going to be more aggressive and typically higher energy type personality types that really kind of put it out there and try to generate new business development opportunities in an organization. But there’s nothing that said that, you know, nothing that says you can’t learn a little math along the way and making certain that you’re keeping score the right way. Right. Or creating a safe environment for your finance team and understanding that Roger Gareous ⁓

untimely type behavior is not going to be received well by the sales team or by the finance team.

speaker-0 (16:56)
Well, I think it’s good to just in general be curious about each other and what’s important to finance. Like ask that question. Like be your salesperson and say, what is important? Like, you know, here’s what I think is important. That’s always nice. Instead of just saying, what do you think is important? Say, in this situation, I believe that, you know, price is super important.

But I understand that the impacts are X, Y, Z. And then ask your finance partner, is, how does that, how does that translate to you? And you know, and then vice versa, the same thing. Finance should be saying, you know, well, why do you need this other skew? Like, tell me more about that. Like learn how to say, that’s one thing I’ve practiced a lot is how to ask a question without coming across that I already think I know the answer. So you say, okay.

Well, that sounds really cool. It sounds like that’s important to your to the customer. Tell me how you see that fit in altogether instead of just saying that doesn’t work. We’re not going to do it.

speaker-1 (18:06)
So I think a good lead in to kind of our outline here is going to be for anyone that’s looking to move beyond believing that finance always says no, and they’re the anti sales department and sales is only about the top line. ⁓ Those those adages are true with many individuals and with many teams and organizations. But if you’re looking to grow and evolve beyond that and bring your teams together, continue to listen in and hopefully we’ll give you some great, some, some, some great, great tips.

April, help us like from a financial literacy perspective, what do you think the key financial areas are that a sales professional should focus on?

speaker-0 (18:47)
I think they should understand in their business what their target gross profit is and how the different things that come into that impact that. So they understand what their levers are. And do they know the kind of like the low side, upside of things, like talk about it in terms of like, don’t try to be on a pinpoint, but be more, hey, this is the low side of this. Our margin’s gonna be a little bit tight there.

So those would be situations to understand and have that conversation about like we’re trying to overall reach a certain gross profit. How does this fit into the entire portfolio? You know, what’s the impact and and then also like. You know, that’s that component. So gross margin. Also, like just your accounts receivable. So we got it. We can’t get out of this conversation without talking about cash.

But setting up, know, hey, is this a good customer? Are they going to pay? you know, are they, you know, is there what kind of risk level is there? And have that conversation around that. And then the other another component around cash is, you know, your inventory and SKUs. What’s this going to require? How many different factories is this going to have to be made at? Can it all be, you know, can their whole portfolio be made at one factory, for instance?

You know those all those things are components to be considered. And then of course, you know the one thing I know sales folks care about their bonus. How does that all fit in and what? How is how do you set up a successful structure for your bonus that ties back to the strategy? Not just a volume bonus. Maybe it’s. Multiple things. It’s gross margin and bone and volume so.

speaker-1 (20:41)
Or new account acquisition, right? Or right training and mentoring and developing of the sales professionals, right? Like we can talk to a number of things that are you had a funny comment when when we talked about how so many organizations are kind of locked into this 24 % gross margin or 26 % gross margin number and just kind of fixated that this is what it is. This is what it should be. And what was your comment?

speaker-0 (21:06)
Why? Why isn’t it 30? Is that the funny one you’re thinking of?

speaker-1 (21:12)
No, it’s not. No. I’m thinking about your, your, your, commissioner raise or compensation.

speaker-0 (21:20)
Okay, well, I guess what the different context in my mind on that one is, know, lots of times, you know, there’s a desire to have a higher bonus, but if you’re not willing to go up on price, then why would we go up on bonus?

speaker-1 (21:37)
There that’s what it was. I’m sorry. I didn’t didn’t set that up. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. You don’t want to raise your price. Well, perfect. Then we’re not going to raise your bonus either. Right. I mean, that’s right. And I think it’s really key from a matrix perspective, all organizations design those incentives. So if you have escalating incentives around your escalating gross margin, you’re you’re supporting the behavior that you want. If they’re fixed, might be an easy opportunity for you to to to change your comp structure to get your team.

moving in the right direction that you’re looking for. Skew rationalization. Tell me about that. What does that even mean?

speaker-0 (22:12)
So inventory is based. You’ve invested ⁓ cash, whether that becomes, you know, your all the different things that go into making a product. Now you’ve got this on your balance sheet and until you turn that into revenue, then you’ve tied up your cash. So if something’s not moving regularly.

Then there’s a decision on how, you know, do you have too many SKUs? Are you, you know, okay? The fact that you’re carrying that cost. So we’re not going to get into math today, but there is a carrying cost that we can calculate on how long it takes you to turn inventory over. And I think that’s real important to understand that that’s the, that’s the cost of the portfolio of your factory, of your business is making sure that

You don’t have too many skews or if you do make a decision to have something on the shelf for a while that it makes sense.

speaker-1 (23:18)
Yeah, the whole concept that pile it high and make the yard bigger, make the organization larger. Hey, we just need more room for inventory because we’re to go out and sell it. And then they have that operated a four turns number just doesn’t make doesn’t make any sense. Right.

speaker-0 (23:33)
⁓

Everybody should have an extra review if anybody wants to add more warehouse space. Yeah, just in general, like you should say, hmm, yeah, we should like maybe this should be almost a board decision because board level position of decision because. You know, if you’re adding more warehouse space here, this means you’re tying up more cash.

speaker-1 (23:57)
Yeah, correct. And again, we’re not saying there’s one mull strip that’s going to fit everyone, right? If you’re commanding the margins, 45 % margins, and you decide to take your terms out to 38, 45 days, like, okay, perfect. that’s a key vulnerability to your marketplace that allows you to capture share, and you’re happy about that profit line.

Terrific, right? The more challenges, I would say that just from a sales perspective is you just want to think about what the cashflow repercussions are based upon what you’re asking for that business model to do relative to where the margins are at, what the inventory carrying costs look like or what the AR carrying costs are. And the more that you bring a level of awareness to that, I mean, you’re going to move up very quickly in the organization.

if you bring those types of ⁓ educated questions to the leadership team as you’re going through and building your business model.

speaker-0 (25:02)
I agree with you. I think the other thing I would just say for for sales. Folks to come to the table with is to share. You know more about the further they can look forward into the forecast and the demand and help with that is very helpful to your finance team so that they can get more accurate on their forecasting and scenarios. So scenarios are huge.

They’ve always been important, but especially whenever COVID came through scenarios was the new way. Like you had to have like, you know, you had the low case, the lower lower case, the middle, the high, you know, whatever, all the different scenarios. And so insights from the sales team is so important to have and have a regular conversations about that. And instead of just saying, here’s the number say, you know, what’s your

What’s the level of accuracy on that? like, do you feel like what would make it go one way or the other? So kind of like help with that.

speaker-1 (26:09)
Super important. Yeah, like like, you’re going to private equity organizations, or I guess that’s where we kind of first started adopting that old concept is what is the low case base case, you know, for the model? What is that mid case? What is that high case? Super important to be able to talk and swag numbers in that direction. Because if an individual is thinking, ⁓ it’s a, it’s a.

10 million in sales, $1 million in profit. That’s way different from 100 million and 20 million in profit ⁓ within the first year or two years, whatever it looks like, right? So to be able to roughly frame where you think that base case, mid case, high case scenario is really accelerates and brings individuals on to be able to communicate and think at that rate level. And then you can go through and adjust your risk analysis or those things that you are within your circle of trust or circle of ⁓

⁓ those things that are within your circle of control and those things that are outside from a macro perspective, right? And that’s really what that concept all brings. But remember, like, you don’t have to be a CFO to do this, salespeople, right? You just have to be curious and willing to partner and ask the right questions.

speaker-0 (27:22)
Yeah, I find that the thing, you so would say like saying about myself is. I think one thing that everybody I would say hates is meetings in and that everything has to happen in all of these meetings and forecast meetings, and I actually did a project once at LP. I can say this ⁓ that. We looked at optimizing was a lean Six Sigma project on our.

forecast process. And the number one thing that was wrong was we were spending a lot of time in meetings. And so I won’t share too much detail other than everybody. I was everybody’s hero because we were able to like reduce meetings. And so finding out ways to get information that was super important to the forecast in different ways was important to that. So that can be applied anywhere. Like why do we have to have a meeting to make a decision or to come up with a forecast?

there should be other ways to communicate with each other in a way that does the same thing.

speaker-1 (28:26)
April for finance teams, what is it that they can do to accelerate building a partnership with the sales side of the organization?

speaker-0 (28:34)
If they’ll let you hang out with them. You know, you might have to go to a couple of happy hours, you know, and you know, honestly spend time with them, be interested in what they’re doing. You know, ask questions about like who’s your favorite customer right now? Like who’s the most difficult and why? I mean, does, you can just have a conversation with them about it.

And I found I find that even if it’s a five minute thing. It’s important. I mean, text them. Texting is the best with sales folks. You know, like they do not want to get on a teams call. They do not want to, you know, you know, they want to call you maybe while they’re driving between visits. Do that. Say, hey, I’m available between here and here. Call me on your drive.

Just make yourself available is probably the key word. Be approachable. And some of that just takes practice because when you’re in finance, such times you’re on a deadline and you have to be like, I got to do this over here. Hurry up. Come on. Tell me what you want to talk about.

speaker-1 (29:55)
And every organization has risk parameters, right? And I think it’s okay to talk about what those are and what those are situationally to help educate the sales side as to what is reasonable and what isn’t.

speaker-0 (30:12)
Yeah, well, I think it’s just in general, like in work. mean, like, how do you? I think you could just turn that around and say, well, you know, treat people like you want to be treated. OK, what do you want the salesperson to do? I want them to be interested in what I’ve got going on. I want them to understand and remember that I’ve got two kids or to remember that, you know, I’m, you know.

what sports teams I pull for or whatever that is. That’s just part of creating that relationship. And, you know, and I feel like I’ve learned a lot over the years from sales folks like how to, I’ll just share this cause it’s funny, but I have one in particular sales person that on a regular basis, he told me to let shit go. And that was something I really had to.

I had to practice at that because you know, I was like, you know, trying to take care of everything. And, ⁓ and so I learned that from him and, ⁓ sometimes I just laugh about it and just say, you know what? Just gotta let shit go sometimes.

speaker-1 (31:21)
Well, that’s awesome. That’s terrific. Leadership really kind of sets the sets the psychology and the tone for what types of relationships get developed within organizations. I think it really does become it. It becomes it is a choice whether it’s, you know, whether it’s a subconscious or conscious choice as to whether there’s silos in organizations or whether there’s really great synergy dynamics and and and mind share right where individuals.

feel safe to be vulnerable to where their strengths and weaknesses might be and where they can collaborate and develop higher level, higher performing organizations. mean, that’s, I don’t know, April, am I crazy? That’s what I see here. This is just a classic case of that.

speaker-0 (32:07)
I think again these are things that you’re going to always have your finance meetings, sales meetings, engineering, operations meetings because you’re talking about things that are very specific there. But there’s also an opportunity to make sure that your leadership programs are pulling those people together in the right settings. It’s an opportunity to kind of think about it. I like to think of it like in my MBA program for instance.

That was the best example of trying to get people to work on teams together that were not like each other. I remember being on a team once and there was a nurse on my team and she issues. We’re doing an MBA project and I’m like. OK, this is interesting, but it really was good to like have that different perspective from her and you know, and it was really cool how it ended up working out. And I think the same thing applies in leadership.

But you gotta make sure that you’re giving your teams opportunities to work together on things as a cross functional. You know, team and project and I think that things just happen and you know, I I think I say this a lot and I’ll say this is so all you finance people out there. If you’re listening, we have to look for feedback in different ways. We don’t get cells meetings and recognitions and trophies and.

We don’t typically have that. So you have to look in feedback for a different reason, and my favorite is that my. Operation or salesperson wants me to be in a meeting with them. That’s feedback, and so I think that’s like a really good thing to strive for that you doesn’t mean that you want to be in all. We just talked about. We don’t want to have a bunch of meetings, but for critical meetings or strategic type meetings.

It’s always feedback to me whenever my partner in any of those other silos say, hey, I got to have my finance partner here.

speaker-1 (34:12)
Yeah, and you know, so certainly this is a sales, you know, sales finance team thing, but but this holds true to for general managers and leadership operators, right for them to have a financial partner that really understands how the P and L and and and how the balance sheet ties out to, you know, the the the daily actions within their within their business function is super super critical and key. We’ve as an organization, the group is really love doing CFO type projects. And the reason why I love them is because

Yeah, you know, there’s the financial, you know, how quickly you close out the month, what the general ledger looks like, know, what are those matrix cash models and what have you, that, you know, kind of identify the general health or opportunities within the organization. But more broader, those CFO roles, it’s how strong they are as leaders, how engaged they are operationally to really move through timecard ⁓

systems that are more efficient, right? To do time studies within, you know, load building or operational elements to the business to be able to work through effectively a full sales organization’s compensation plan and what are the key steps that they should be looking at to really drive the margins and profits that you’re looking for, right? Really effective CFOs thrive and really enjoy the more COO operations kind of sense to

to their role and responsibility. That’s been my perspective. What are your thoughts?

speaker-0 (35:45)
It’s accurate, especially for your operational type CFO folks for sure that way. And I think. You know, for me I would, you know, there is kind of a shift towards the FP and a side of the CFO. So truth be told, we like doing that versus doing journal entries. We really do just saying so it’s you know if we can the more and more that we can make that.

technical side be the steady and the kind of like, yeah, we gotta do that. The more fun part of the job is doing the strategic work and the FP &A and working alongside sales. So it’s super important to be engaged with the sales organization. And there’s a book about rocket fuel, if you’ve ever heard of that where it talks about a.

You know, having a visionary and integrator, and I think that’s a common duo is the CEO CFO. Or, you know, and it can be multiple different examples, but you have a visionary and then you have an integrator that really complement each other.

speaker-1 (37:03)
Yeah, US traction definitely a great, great, great fundamental structural outline for for individuals to leave from so.

⁓ anyone that’s listening to this and taking this in from a sales leadership perspective, be able to look at what your benchmarks are within your organization, whether or not you’ve got people that are curious from a financial perspective and make sure your financial leaders are curious from an operational and sales sense and that are the right individuals that are developing the right culture that’s going to bring together the synergy and optimize the strengths of each individual and personally what they bring to the table. that’s ⁓ certainly

If you’re struggling with that and you’re looking for a stronger leadership talent pool, reach out to Missouri group. ⁓ If, as you look at your organization, you need some really excellent ⁓ CFO strategic ⁓ assistance, please reach out to April Murray. We’re excited to work with you. Thank you for joining another great episode of Hire a Smarter with Tony Missouri and the wonderful April Murray.

The best CFOs are measured really by their COO impact, meaning what level do they understand the business at the ground level from making improvements to the business from a sales and operations. Are they truly a strategic partner to the leaders of the business? APRO growing up in a family business, which is just a great foundation, a trait that we’ve found consistent with individuals that really bring that entrepreneurial flair from their position, meaning

understanding from a grassroots perspective all aspects of the business model and her family restaurant was just a great place to build some awesome foundation and expertise. Moving on from that to a 20-year career at Louisiana Pacific and then to be the CFO of Integra, an off-site manufacturing company. All that combines for a really savvy, engaging personality who’s going to be effective gaining the trust of your team at every level, regardless of the role and position, to help them reach their goals faster.

helping them be more keen with how they keep score, right? What are the financial dynamics around the impacts of their actions? A keen, financially-minded sales manager, purchasing leader, operations leaders, these professionals consistently become vice presidents and presidents very quickly, just simply because of the fact that they’re able to pull together, again, how you keep score, the financial elements to the actions of the team.

collectively bringing them together to collaborate in a more unified way towards towards you know towards that common goal. Don’t forget to sign up for April’s financial webinars again. It’s the first Thursday of every month 12 o’clock Central time look forward to seeing you there. Thank you for joining Hire a Smarter with Tony Misura.