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Hello Reader 👋

Have you ever felt that, no matter what you do, people doubt your work and question every single assumption you bring?

Being right in Finance isn’t enough.

You can have the best insights, the cleanest reports, and the most accurate numbers.

But if nobody trusts you, your influence is zero.

And in FP&A or Finance Business Partnering, influence is everything.

This is what we're going to tackle today 👇

So take a coffee, sit down and read FP&A Stories just like 22k other readers

This week in FP&A Stories

📕 How to Build Credibility in Finance (Without Sounding Like a Know-It-All)

How do you build credibility?

Not just as a “finance person,” but as someone the business actually listens to?

Just take a second and think: do I really want to listen to someone who considers he/she's right because they base themselves on figures?

Most of the time, you'll think "yes" but most probably, in a real situation, you'll be blocked by the behaviour.

And it's the same for your partners: they need to trust you before considering you're a credible partner.

But how do you that?

1️⃣ Know Your Stuff (Obviously), But Prove It Through Action

Yes, credibility starts with expertise. If you don’t know your numbers, your industry, or your business, good luck getting anyone to listen.

But knowledge alone doesn’t build trust. How you use it does!

📌 Example: I once had a CMO challenge the revenues forecast because it seemed a linear price trend, which he didn't believe. Instead of defending it with a textbook answer, I walked him through the logic, showing the underlying drivers behind it.

That moment changed the relationship. Not because I “proved them wrong,” but because I showed my process transparently.

✅ What to do:

• Know your numbers, but more importantly, know what they mean for the business
• Show your reasoning, not just your conclusions
• When you don’t know something, say so, then go find the answer

2️⃣ Show Up When It Matters, Not Just When Things Go Wrong

Nobody trusts the finance person who only appears when there’s a problem.

Credibility is built long before the tough conversations happen. It’s earned in the day-to-day, when decisions are still forming, not just when the numbers are locked.

📌 Example: The typical example in my career had to do with business cases. The general way of working was to intervene as Finance when it was ready and audit the assumptions. To earn trust (and also because I liked it), I worked on the business cases from the start: building the model, gathering historical drivers and propose assumptions.

✅ What to do:

• Be in the room early, before decisions are finalized
• Offer solutions and concrete help
• Be a partner, not just the inspector

3️⃣ Deliver Value (i.e. Insights)

Credibility comes from being useful.
Not just accurate. Not just knowledgeable. Useful.

That means your reports, presentations, and insights need to do one thing.
Help people make better decisions.

📌 Example: In my latest assignment as a fractional FP&A, I cut the budget presentation from 1 full-day, presenting all assumptions, to a 2 hours sessions in which we tackled the ones that needed a real decision/discussion.

Suddenly, the leadership team stopped reviewing numbers and started discussing actions. That’s value.

✅ What to do:

• Focus on what matters, not everything you could possibly say
• Give clear recommendations, options, showing you know the activity
• Ask yourself: “If I weren’t here to explain this, would it still be useful?”

4️⃣ Deliver Value (i.e. Insights)

Nothing kills credibility faster than deflecting blame.

If you mess up a number, own it. If a forecast is off, explain why. People don’t expect perfection. They expect honesty.

📌 Example: I am ashamed of it but earlier in my career, I made a huge mistake in my budget (basically, I used an average YoY growth in price while there was a price increase in H2) leading to a half-year of negative gap.

Fortunately enough, second half was the other way around but admitting it and showing your partners how you solve this increases the credibility.

✅ What to do:

• Admit mistakes quickly. Fix them even faster
• Be transparent about what you know and what you don’t
• Build a reputation for integrity

🏃‍➡️ Want to Go Further in FP&A and Business Partnering?

Knowing the numbers is one thing.

Making people listen and act on them is another.

If you want to step up your impact in Finance, here’s how:

📌 The Financial Storytelling Program: Your message is only as strong as how you deliver it. In this course, you’ll learn how to structure financial insights, craft a clear narrative, and make sure decision-makers actually take action.

📌 PowerPoint Guide for Finance – A great analysis can be ruined by bad slides. This guide gives you a no-nonsense method to create slides that are clear, structured, and focused on decision-making—without the usual design fluff.

If you want to go beyond reporting and start influencing, these will help.

That's a wrap for this week

See you next week!​