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Hello Reader 👋

Summer holidays are already a distant memory.

In the last 7 days alone, I delivered 4 full-day workshops.
And judging by the calendar, September and October won’t slow down either.

But writing this newsletter is still my favorite moment of the week.
And today’s topic is one I wish I had read 10 years ago, when I first stepped into a B2B environment and thought, “How hard can it be?”

Turns out, very.

Let’s talk about how to be a great FP&A leader in B2B.

With examples, with nuance, with what they don’t write in the job description.

📌 Bonus at the end: A YouTube video I recorded together with Nicolas Boucher, Leader of the AI Finance Club on how to use AI for storytelling.

So take a coffee, sit down and read FP&A Stories just like 23k other readers.

This week in FP&A Stories

📈 How to Be a Great FP&A Leader in a B2B Environment

There are many articles about being a great finance business partner.

But few talk about the context... and context is everything.

Because B2B is a different animal, especially in services where I spent most of my career.

Here’s what I learned after working across telco, consulting, logistics, SaaS, and energy.

And what I wish someone had told me earlier.

1️⃣ It’s a market of exceptions

No two clients have the same conditions.

They all negotiated a different price, volume constraint, payment terms,...in a word, a different contract

That means your averages are lying to you.

When I joined a telco B2B unit, I tried to analyze the average revenue per user.

Until Sales told me: “We have 147 enterprise clients, and each one negotiates a different deal”

→ Master client-level analysis
→ Build pricing libraries
→ Track what was promised

2️⃣ Forecasting is a binary game

You either win the deal or you don’t.

That’s why trend-based forecasting will fail you.

A €1M uplift isn’t “5% growth” but it’s one client saying yes.

I once had to revise a full-year forecast in Q4 because a major deal fell through 48 hours before signature.

→ Stay close to Sales
→ Monitor pipeline health
→ Use scenario planning like it’s your daily gym

Easy to say and in my experience, it's not like Sales teams are the best at documenting their pipelines consciously

3️⃣ Pricing power rarely belongs to you

In B2C, we set the price and the market responds.
In B2B, the client sets the tone and then we negotiate.

And the biggest mistake I made was assuming that Sales were giving too many discounts to make the sale.

You can make analysis and compare to the "catalogue" price but the second the contract is signed or the RfP is on the table, there is no "catalogue" price anymore.

→ Know when to advise, and when to step back
→ Support the narrative — don’t try to dictate it
→ Understand which trade-offs are acceptable

4️⃣ Margin killers hide in your workforce

In service industries, your people are your cost base.

And non-chargeable time is your biggest enemy.

One quarter, we were hitting all topline targets…
…until I looked into the utilisation rate of a new project team.

Turns out, we had ramped up headcount before demand was secured.

→ Track chargeability at team level.
→ Align delivery planning with pipeline conversion.
→ Make friends with HR. You’ll need them.

5️⃣ Strategy happens in the CRM

In B2B, everything flows from the client relationship:
– Forecasts
– Margin
– Capacity
– Timing

So if you’re not in the CRM, you’re blind.

As a finance leader, I started reviewing CRM updates weekly (to be honest, not myself but in a weekly check with my business partners).

That gave me early signals and helped me challenge unrealistic assumptions before they hit the forecast.

→ Ask for access to the CRM
→ Map opportunity-to-cash with Finance touchpoints
→ Build habits to review and ask it to be updated (for this last, you'll need clear leader ship support)

6️⃣ Commercial acumen beats technical perfection

You can know all your formulas, but if you don’t understand how deals are made, you’ll never gain influence.

The typical problems arrived at the beginning of the year: indexation time.

Theoretically, it was easy: it was part of most contracts.

In practice, each indexation was a risk of offering the customer to the competition.

Commercial people knew that, I didn't...

→ Spend time in commercial meetings
→ Read client contracts
→ Learn how decisions are made (shadow a meeting with a low risk customer)

7️⃣ B2B Finance ≠ “reporting team”

If you want a seat at the table, stop showing up only at closing.

Some of the best insights I shared came from mid-month check-ins with account teams.

This is when they need you...so when you'll need them, they'll be ready.

→ Don’t wait for deadlines to show your value.
→ Be the person they call before the Excel.
→ Think like a partner.

🤖 New YouTube video – AI for Storytelling in Finance

This summer, I recorded a full session with Nicolas Boucher and the AI Finance Club.

​

Inside, I show real prompts and workflows to:
– Build the outline of your deck
– Get answers from your slides
– Prepare backup content
– Rehearse your delivery with AI
– Craft better transitions

It’s how I actually use AI to prepare exec-level presentations.

Take a look ...

...and send it to someone who’s still skeptical 😉

📦 Reminder: Get the Financial Storytelling Starter Pack

Last week, I shared with you a real starter pack for storytelling

In these 7 lessons that actually work as a mini-course, you’ll see how much easier it gets to prepare and deliver your message.

You'll learn from the basics of financial storytelling to handling tough questions in meetings.

Here’s how it works: once you sign up, you’ll get one short lesson in your mailbox every day for a week. Watch it, apply it, and move on to the next.

If you haven't got access to it, do it: it’s free of charge.

Share it with anyone who could benefit: your friends, your colleagues, your CFO, even your family if they’re in finance.

The more people use these tools, the better our profession becomes.

Here’s where to get it: https://www.thefinancecircle.com/starterpack​

I can't wait to hear what you think once you try it!

That's a wrap for this week

See you next week!​