​

Hello Reader 👋

In the last weeks, we've seen how to

• build credibility without sounding like a know-it-all
• analyse your stakeholders to truly understand them
• negotiate to create a win-win situation

That's good, but where is the finance part in all of this?

Because unless you want to become a psychologist, you'll have to mix that personal approach with data.

Learning how to influence with numbers without giving the impression that you're right (even if you are) is the most difficult thing I learned in my career.

But I'm making it easy for you today 👇

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

This week in FP&A Stories

🧠 Influencing in Finance: Be More Than Right

You can’t argue with facts.
Or more correctly said, you can't convince with them.

Most people will think and decide based on their feelings and use data to justify their decisions.

If data and science could easily convince, the whole world would be a different place than it is today.

But we all know that’s not the case.

The real skill is knowing how to use data to influence decisions. And since we are ethical people, it will be done objectively to drive the recommendations towards a good place

1️⃣ Numbers Don’t Speak for Themselves

It's just your starting point. You have your observations (basically, actuals vs something) and you found the root cause.

That's good but as long as it doesn't hurt the person you'll say that to, it won't change their lives.

They need to understand why it matters.

📌 Example: in my first years in FP&A, I was used to only report our YTD variances, which in the beginning of the year don't mean much.

But when I started extrapolating the risk until year-end, it started to make an impact.

Why? Because when you speak of an annual impact, it matters in the sense that your stakeholders will relate to their targets...and their bonuses.

What to do:

• Go to the root cause of your variances: it generally hides the driver that they follow up closely and matter to them
• Extrapolate on a full year basis risk: the amount is bigger and can be compared to their annual target

2️⃣ Use the Right Level of Detail

The base: you have a lot of data and the more the better.

But the problem will be to find the recipe that will taste to the CFO on the one hand, and to a Sales Director on the other.

They don't have the same tastes or needs.

Deal with the complexity that corresponds to each of your stakeholders.

📌 Example: It's pretty classic, but I had a CFO who needed a lot of details, basically because she was reassured to understand the model behind (and to challenge it, of course). But the next one, for the same company, was a totally different person: more business drivers-driven and less into the models.

What to do:

• A position doesn't mean much in terms of influence, you'll have to deal with their personality.
• It will sometimes mean "hiding" something (or better said, selecting what you communicate. It's not cheating to help people focus on what matters when you're an ethical pro.

3️⃣ Let Them Think It Was Their Idea

The importance of influencing is also in the mindset: if you accept to play the second parts and let people appropriate the ideas, you'll get much better results.

That's why, when you drop the insights and get to the recommendation part, it's important to present them as options that you only quantified for the sake of ease.

That way, it's not Finance that brought the idea but your stakeholders who made the decision, thanks to your calculations.

📌 Example: When I started as a Strategy Manager, I was full of motivations to bring that "Business Partner" mindset to the table and proposed, for my first draft of 3YP, "solutions" to improve the final result.

You can imagine, the reception was pretty cold, not to say frozen.

After the meeting, I discussed with the Director and he offered me a great advice: present options with quantifications and you'll get the Yes.

With sensitivities and multiples options (some I knew wouldn't be kept), my internal clients were more open to add these to the plan.

What to do:

• Don't come with answers but with options, all having a quantification
• Make sure you use an appropriate wording to get the understanding that you, as Finance, don't decide but only serve these as a help

4️⃣ You Don't Need Proof

It seems stupid but it kills your influence when you absolutely want to keep track of everything that's said.

It's even more annoying when you want the whole world to know about what you did.

Sometimes, a discussion is enough to convince someone but if you send e-mails all the time with 100 people in cc, don't expect people to trust you and be influenced by your work.

📌 Example: I've never been an e-mail person but I understood that when a colleague of mine kept sending e-mails for every little thing that was said and copied the whole department.

I already found that annoying but when I knew some people in the business didn't want to work with him because of that behaviour, I knew that his influence was dead somehow.

What to do:

• Make sure to make a distinction between a recap (good) and evidence (not good)
• Allow some discussion time with your business partners without recording and/or people in cc

5️⃣ Be a Yes Person

I know it's pretty trendy to say "Learn to say NO"!

But nothing kills your influence more than being a NO person.

That's a balance to find between accepting everything (bad) and rejecting everything (bad too).

Learn to detect quick wins (that won't take you much time but have a good impact) or major wins (time-expensive but big returns in terms of relationship)

📌 Example: I was the Excel guru in my company and most of the time, spending 5 minutes on a problem that could take your stakeholders 45 minutes can help you build an influence better than a good analysis.

What to do:

• Detect your strengths and use them as a way to help your stakeholders
• Learn to calculate the return in time spent/time saved
• If it helps, use "not yet" instead of "no": that way you can delay an action (as long as you indeed come back with something)

🏃‍➡️ 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.

See what they think about it

​

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

That's a wrap for this week

See you next week!​