From Journalist to CFO with Dan Fletcher, CFO at Planful

Speaker A: Foreign. Thanks for joining us today. Uh, as a little just gift of our appreciation for you joining us, I've got a little gift, little icebreaker to start with. And let me. Before you get into these, let me lead into what they are. The first is the best piece of advice in accounting that got me through all my years. If I just kept that in my mind, I think it can maybe even help you on a sweatshirt. Uh, and then a documentary about the most famous, uh, accountant ever in my mind. And then my family's greatest contribution to society to date, which is my grandfather's book. So feel free to get into those and open them up.

Speaker B: Love a good multi stage gift.

Speaker A: Show us what.

Speaker B: We'll see if I can juggle them.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, no, go ahead.

Speaker B: All right, so we've got number one here. This is the best piece of advice.

Speaker A: Yeah. You live by it. It'll get you all the way to cfo. Right.

Speaker B: Debits on the left, credits on the right. Okay. I like that. Very simple T accounts.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, it's always good to break out the T account.

Speaker B: Okay. And I will wear that. Is that a large?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a large. I hope I got that. That's the size. Oh, there we go. We do our research.

Speaker B: All right. Number two was at the documentary. The documentary for the kids out there. This is a DVD

Speaker A: of Ben Affleck's the Accountant.

Speaker B: This one I've seen.

Speaker A: Oh, you have?

Speaker B: And it's incredible.

Speaker A: It is, isn't it?

Speaker B: Very compelling. Very kind of driven.

Speaker A: Exactly what accountants do, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, some of us.

Speaker A: True to life.

Speaker B: Okay. And then this one.

Speaker A: This one's actually, uh, you know, not a gag. That's my grandfather's book. Uh, World War II memoir. Best, uh, contribution to society. And my humble opinion that my family's made, uh, if you ever get around to reading it, I hope you enjoy it.

Speaker B: Well, very cool. So I've seen this series, the Pacific.

Speaker A: Yeah. So Sledgehammer is my grandfather.

Speaker B: Very cool.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: You're surprising me with all this. This is very much not scripted.

Speaker A: No, not at all.

Speaker B: Okay, now I have to think of you differently. Scion of a great military hero.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. The book's wonderful.

Speaker B: I appreciate it.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Awesome, dude.

Speaker A: So let's, uh, we'll jump into the meat of it now. The actual podcast. So thanks, uh, for humoring me with the gifts there. Um, but, you know, you're here on the next cfo, uh, because you're our planful cfo, so it fits. But I heard that at One point, you were a journalism major. Can you walk me through if that's true, how you went from that to just a little bit of your career path and how you ended up the CFO of a technology company that sells to CFOs.

Speaker B: Certainly. So that rumor is true. I went to the University of Missouri on a journalism scholarship. And I think it holds true to my personal personality that I'm just a curious guy who loves to learn about the world, loves to understand how things work, and do believe that getting truth into the hands of, of, uh, the public or your stakeholders, so to speak. You probably see where I'm going with that.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: Is a powerful thing.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: And I think journalism gets bad name now in our polarized environment. But that was the intent when I, when I majored in journalism. Um, but I did along the way and was always interested in business. Did pick up some good advice that finance and business in general is a very good fit for me. And the rest was history. Um, in terms of how I meandered my way, or let's not use the word meander, uh, intentionally found my way into the CFO seat. Well, one, when you're educated in finance, and two, when you love understanding how things work, it's just a really super fit. Right. The CFO role is fundamentally about understanding business opportunities and, and helping resource the business so that they can go take those opportunities.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Um, and that's what led me to the CFO seat.

Speaker A: That's awesome.

Speaker B: Long winding story from journalism to the cfo.

Speaker A: That's what we're looking for, uh, for those people that may not be in finance today and are thinking about going into that path. That's great to hear. Um, and building off of that, you know, you said you got some advice along the way, and I'm sure there was a lot of steps and stages along that way. Were there any mentors or really influential people that helped you make that turn or just along in your career at all and what that relationship meant to you or how it maybe impacted you?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I would say my, my business mentor was my father. He was a marketing professional and really loved what he did. If you've ever seen the super bowl rings, uh, Jostens is the company that makes. Okay, maybe for the broader audience. A lot of the high school yearbooks and caps and gowns are made by this company. So kind of a bread and butter American business.

Speaker A: And that's who he was with.

Speaker B: That's who he was with.

Speaker A: Okay, cool.

Speaker B: And. And he very much supported me Going into journalism.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Good father, you know, recognized the passion, but always reminded me that a business degree is never a bad thing to have.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: It underwrites. He helped me understand that every industry, no matter whether it's creating music or, uh, being a painter or manufacturing yachts, it's all business. At the end of the day, beyond the passion project, it's all business. And he made me understand that about media as well, and industry. And then, um, the specific story about why I pivoted was this is, uh, probably aging myself here, but there was a website called the Daily Beast and that broke onto the scene right when I was in my sophomore year. Uh, everyone around the journalism school was talking about the disruption and will, will newspapers all go out of business? Will you be able to monetize them online? No one knew.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: And you, uh, know, maybe the risk averse CFO side of me said I need to go for something I know will be here in 20 years. And of course, ah, all the naysayers are wrong. Media is doing all right after all.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Nice.

Speaker B: So that's the specific pivot.

Speaker A: That's a great story. Uh, and you know, your dad must have been a great man for many reasons, but he's in marketing, and we love marketing people here. So on the next cfo. So that's a great story. Um, you know, pivoting from that into now. You know, we've established how you got to be cfo. Uh, you're really tasked with ensuring the financial success of, uh, planful and conveying those numbers to everyone. You've got to work very closely with our CEO. Grant. Uh, can you talk a little bit about what that dynamic's like, how you, uh, collaborate together and really work together to achieve that success that our organization needs.

Speaker B: You know, I was just talking about this the other day, um, how sometimes CFOs are balancing a lot of different stakeholders.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Um, and, you know, one is the board, another is your investors, um, and your own team and other teams in the business who rely on you for budgeting and insights. But your number one stakeholder is without a doubt your CEO. And so that informs the thrust of the relationship is that your CEO is your boss and your number one stakeholder. And so your job is ultimately to make she or he's successful and therefore the business successful. And I think that should never get lost in kind of the day to day of what a CFO is trying to do. Um, but beyond that, specifically Grant and I, I don't know if he's around the office Today. And here's the city. He might blush, but, you know, he's a mentor.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Very successful entrepreneur, has run big businesses, and so I've learned a ton from him.

Speaker A: That's awesome.

Speaker B: And, you know, I look at it as my job, as I said, to set him up for success. And how I do that is spend a lot of time looking for information that he will find helpful in, you know, forming initiatives, you know, probably that we're really leaning in in Europe.

Speaker A: Um, sure.

Speaker B: You know, that's the product of a series of surfacing data in front of him. Help him understand the opportunity or maybe more validating his understanding of the opportunity.

Speaker A: Yeah. Nice. That's great to hear. Um, in building on that, you know, Grant, as I understand it and I've seen, is pretty comfortable with numbers and what's presented to him. Have you ever worked with a CEO previously to Dan, that maybe wasn't as comfortable, that you had to massage that a little bit more with, or maybe just fill us in on any CEO relationship? And you don't have to get into the specifics of who it was, but how that relationship went and maybe how you had to navigate that a little differently than Grant?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So I've worked with three types of CEOs, and Grant comes from a bit of a finance background, which explains a lot about ability and comfort with numbers. But I've also worked with sort of the engineering or the technical CEO paradigm, and then also the marketing or sales, uh, paradigm. And so different challenges and opportunities within that dynamic. I think, you know, Grant, um, is very quickly, uh, are able to very quickly process financial insights and actually advise on how we might present them differently. And so there's actually a feedback loop there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, with the other two paradigms, at least with the individuals I worked with, it was a lot more about, um, storytelling, trying to translate to their language. And I think that's an underrated toolkit of a cfo, is the ability to. It just boils down to communication. You're a marketing.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that gets to another question and point that I have, and I think you kind of led to it. But just to wrap it up, you know, it's kind of a given the hard skills that finance and accounting professionals are expected to have. Right. But as they kind of step up and take those next steps in their career, what are the soft skills that you really think, uh, help lend them to get to that more strategic level, that CFO level? Maybe that director of finance before cfo?

Speaker B: Yeah, we. I mean, we could do a whole podcast.

Speaker A: Sure, sure.

Speaker B: On this. And it could really get into psychology. And I'll try to, I'll try to boil it down to practical advice, um, and speak through my own experience.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: When I came up in finance and accounting, a lot of finance people, you know, you start to get, you know, you're kind of swagger by the time you're in your early 30s, you got some success behind you, some money in the bank account, and you start to sort of, um, eat your own dog food. Like, really, really believe in your ability to get things done. And that can produce at times, as you pivot into leadership roles, it can produce these moments where you're telling people, you're telling them what they need to do. And I think the biggest soft skill a CFO can learn is to effectively communicate again, to bring people along with you. Yeah. And I'm not talking about always getting your way, but finding a way to build consensus behind an idea and, um, not just be slapping people in the face with the numbers and saying, come on, dummy.

Speaker A: Right, yeah.

Speaker B: Like, you spend this money.

Speaker A: Sure, sure.

Speaker B: Um, so, so really building followership, um, building consensus. I think that's really a powerful, uh, skill in a CFO toolkit.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And just to build on that in my own experience, I transferred from accounting to finance. And I think one of the things that really helped me was that communication ability. When, uh, I got to that point of being able to convey to people, you know, you may not like it, but you understand it. And where we're going, um, and not just getting pushback on this isn't my budget or these aren't my numbers. And having that communication skill really does go a long way. I think that's a great point. Um, moving into your leadership style with your own team. You have a planful, uh, you know, we all live in a digital age now. We're all fully remote. What steps and focus do you take that even in the face of that, with your team being remote, Even when people come in from time to time to the office, do you ensure that your team feels that team bond and personal connection so that when the times get tough or you really need to lock down, that, that teamwork is established and that team bond is.

Speaker B: Yeah, this is funny. Funnily coincidental. So I was just talking to one of our sales leaders in our little kitchen cantina area, and we were talking about how he had his team in the office this week, and, and we were talking about the pros of that and what it does for the team And I said, you know, Rob, I've really found that it's hard to be a jerk to someone who you've met a few times.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It humanizes people.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: And so that is not accomplished. I think the jury's in on this. It is not accomplished as well. Over zoom, a wonderful tool. That it is. Or teams. And so building that in person, baseline trust, reading, body language, sitting here, you and I are having a much better conversation than we would. Over zoom.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so I really do believe firmly in that in person, uh, connection. And so whatever resources you have to be able to pull the team together, even if you're a remote company, I think it's well worth it. Um, my team and I went down to San Diego and had a good mix of work and pleasure just, uh, two months ago.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: So I think that's number one is fostering those real human connections, which just leads to trust.

Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker B: I.

Speaker A: Even if I'm on a slack message with someone back and forth, if I go two or three messages back and forth with someone and it's continuing, I'll get on a huddle. And I know we talked. It's not as great as in person like we are today, but I think just being face to face and being able to talk it out sometimes even helps, uh, you know, humanize it. Like you said, you can't be a jerk to someone that, you know you can, but it's harder for sure. So. Yeah. Um, that's awesome. Uh, moving on. Kind of still in that team mode, but people you look to hire to really fill excellence on your team. You know, finance and accounting, there's a lot of hard skills, uh, understanding financials, journal entries gap, everything else. But technology's really integrated more and more into every aspect of business. And your team, are there any certain levels of technological skills or a standard place you like your hires to be and that you kind of expect? And any advice, whether it's someone just getting into finance or maybe an old dog that's wanting to not get put out to pasture as quickly on what they should focus on and maintaining those technological skills and keeping up to date as things really advance.

Speaker B: Well, it's. You know, I've mentioned this a few times. It's sort of a dirty little secret that a huge portion of a. Of a finance and accounting job in the year 2024 is, like, almost it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or at a minimum, some sort of computer science. Right. And. And we were, we were laughing. A group of finance professionals and I. That, that really, it would be interesting to see go back to all the top business schools now and understand if they're meeting the mark in terms of training. You go to school for the technical finance and accounting and maybe get a little bit of Excel or VBA or BI on the way. But you know, the day to day job to much more robust around tech. I mean any given finance professional uses a minimum of three tools. Oh yeah, a minimum of three tools I would say. And that's excluding spreadsheets. Right. And so you know, to your question, now I'm finally getting around to your question. Um, I think you have to invest behind it, right? You have to invest in the training, you have to carve out the time to help people be successful on the technology. And then you also have to understand roles. And so some folks are almost data scientists level like they're working on extracting from a database surfacing in a BI tool where they might have to do some scripting. And that's one flavor. And then you've got others who are more skewed toward the business side.

Speaker A: Sure, right.

Speaker B: They might be a senior jail accountant who has to be very good in the ERP and in planful and in a couple other tools, but not, you know, scripting. And so, um, I think also what I'm trying to say there is realistic expectations, clear definition.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great to hear. And staying on that kind of tech streak. Um, you had a great series of posts that I saw on LinkedIn about what technology are you using, what tech are you using? I think you went through operations, legal, maybe finance as well. Um, and there's a couple questions I have about that. First, was there a overarching technology that kind of hit all of those and was a unifying factor in those posts that you noticed after doing all three of them?

Speaker B: That's interesting because, you know, the, the reason I bucketed them into, you know, finance and accounting and in legal and kind of deal desk and ops is is they kind of each have their own specific set of tools. And I didn't want to, I wanted to speak to one audience at a time that would resonate with the advice I was trying to offer. Trying to offer, but I don't know, I mean a through line you see a lot of getting your CRM right, which touches a lot of groups, getting your ERP or your GL right, which touches a lot of groups. Um, and then beyond that I think we're still in a fractured tech system where you've got a lot of point solutions and Platforms that radiate somewhat outward, but no kind of, you know, one platform for the entire business.

Speaker A: Sure. No one platform to rule them all.

Speaker B: No. One little token.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. That's not a little. Throw my little flavor in there. You see my background now. Um, and so following up on that, is there a piece of tech that you can't live without right now? Both maybe business and personal?

Speaker B: Oh, that's, that's, that's a great one. Um, well, on the personal side, I mean I really, really do use chat GPT all the time on my personal.

Speaker A: I didn't.

Speaker B: In my personal life.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Now could I live without it? Yes, I should. You know, Uber would be tough. Doordash would be tough. But that's all consumer stuff, right. I think maybe more interesting to our audience. Uh, let's see. I mean some of these I shouted out in, in that tech series on LinkedIn that I posted. But some tools, um, just are, are extremely pleasing in the sense that they really do set out to do what they say they will accomplish. Yeah, they do it. Well, they do it, um, you know, effectively. They do it at cost. Effectively. Sure. And um, you know, I've, I've mentioned, you know, gapify, which is an accruals tool. Accruals, expense accruals and controls and, and PO compliance and all of that is a really good one. Um, that just meets the mark, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, absolutely.

Speaker B: You know, we, I don't know if Grant mentioned it, but Notion has been really good.

Speaker A: That was going to be my mention, but I saw Grant's posted on that as well. But I love Notion on that.

Speaker B: Um, and just to throw one more in there, in my receivables team, this is my ar, um, uses, ah, a collections tool called Sorio. Again, it does the job it sets out to do. Right.

Speaker A: That's what you want.

Speaker B: That's always the best result. Uh, with tech.

Speaker A: Awesome. And building off that tech topic, uh, we've kind of found ourselves on the hot topic of the moment. Everyone's talking about it. You see it on every billboard from SFO, uh, into the office. Is AI amongst the CFOs that you've talked to your peers? What's the temperature? How are they feeling about AI? We're in a software company so it seems like we're a little more adept and receptive to taking on that new technology. Uh, but what's your feeling about out in the world Amongst every CFO or the pool of CFOs, what's your impression?

Speaker B: I think I would characterize the Mood as cautiously optimistic.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Um, which should be no surprise for finance professionals.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know the, the uh, the kind of framework for finance professionals I often hear is they, you know, they cut through the bs.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and I think that's right. You know, finance professionals by, by mandate have to be somewhat skeptical and aware of risk management and AI introduces a lot of risks.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And a lot of risk of not um, accomplishing what it sets out to do or ah, potential risk between reality risk.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: The gap there. Um, but the optimistic. So that's the cautiously part.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: The optimistic part. I think many of them are using it in or toying around with some of the GPTs Geminis and understand the power of LLMs. Um, and the mind naturally flows to what that could do for your day to day work.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: And so I think finance professionals, some of them today, I mean planfuls Predict suite is arming hundreds of our own customers with the ability to seed forecasts which was formerly days of work in terms of rolling forward data into a new scenario down to the granular vendor level. So Predict can seed that forecast for you and that can be used as a starting point for your budget, almost a run rate base case. And so for those of the finance professionals that are actually using it today, I think they see the potential is huge. And yet we're not quite there yet. You know, we're a couple years now into the whole LLM world. And uh, you know, many folks have said, you know, that's the thing about these things is that in the short term you overestimate the impact, in the long term you underestimate the impact. And I think we're squarely in the overestimated the impact. Oh my gosh, we all still have jobs and Skynet hasn't taken over the mainframe yet. And so um, I think cautiously optimistic.

Speaker A: Sure. And to just build on that one, just a little piece Left to those CFOs that have been cautiously optimistic and so cautious that they haven't even stuck their toe in yet. Do you have any advice or acknowledgement of maybe the best way they could start to stick their toe in and wade into AI and ways to look at maybe integrating it into their systems and processes and just, you know, how it could fit in without disrupting what they're doing too much or introducing too much risk?

Speaker B: I mean I think it breaks down into the personal and professional arenas. That's where we've sort of been headed in this conversation. So my recommendation would be, you know, the LLMs, um, the chat GPTs, the Geminis, they have a free version. Sure, go try it.

Speaker A: I mean, yeah, that's no skin off

Speaker B: your back to go try it. Ask it to help you plan a trip. Ask it for a recipe. Ask it for practical advice like take a picture of a light bulb and say, which light bulb is this? And link it to me on Amazon. I need to buy a new one for the kitchen.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: So find a way to explore and build confidence in that private arena. And then in the, uh, professional arena, I would suggest going to your vendors. So you have vendors who are in place, who are already successful, like a planful or your ERP or your CRM. And almost all of those vendors who are worth their salt are introducing some AI capabilities. And most of them, I would say, are doing it very rationally. They're listening to the voice of the customer. Where do you need it most? How can it be most helpful? Where are your biggest pain points? And then introducing AI into the platform to help solve some of those. Yeah, and so I would suggest with starting where you've already been successful, um, which I believe is both less risky than going with some kind of de novo tool out there, um, and I think higher probability of overall success.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. That's great advice. Um, and I'll point out as well, you know, we had interns, and I talked about this in, um, my, uh, interview with Grant as well. But if you think that the up and coming new finance professionals aren't being taught and trained on AI in their universities and in their courses, uh, they are. So they're going to be ready to want to use it as a tool and leverage it, and they'll be probably get a little frustrated if they aren't. So I think it is very wise to start to take it on in a very sound, logical way. Um, so switching gears again, you know, in doing my research on you, outside of finding out that you were a journalism major and your hopes for Mizzou football this year, um, you know, I saw that you've worked on a lot of boards, and that's always an interesting aspect to me. Can you talk about how you got involved in maybe your first board and that avenue opened up to you, the value you see in it and what it's really done to help enhance your career, give you new insights, uh, along your journey, and if anyone's interested in that, maybe the best way to situate themselves, to have that opportunity open up to them?

Speaker B: Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think there, there are several different flavors of director. I think this is a good place to start, but sort of painting in very broad strokes. You've got directors who are appointed by the equity. So a private equity firm buys a company or invests majority control of a company, they get board seats or a VC does that, they get board seats and they want to fill it with their own people who are aligned with their vision for the growth, the value creation. And um, then there are independent directors who are brought in buy, often by the equity or just by the board, broadly, because they're an industry expert, they can open doors for the business, they can be a sage advisor to the management team. Um, and so they're two different flavors, kind of. This is really a simplification, but yeah,

Speaker A: sure, no, that's right.

Speaker B: Speaking. And, and I've been in both those roles. Right.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So my first one came through the, uh, investment firm that I was working for at the time and I was a good fit. The business was going through a huge financial transformation. I'm a finance guy and she was able to advise management, partner with management, um, roll up my sleeves and help with a few things here and there, bring in advisors that I've worked with in the past and had success with. Um, and so my mandate there was very simple. It was, you know, help the business with the problem directly in front of it. Yeah. Um, as an independent director, I was brought in more from my background in CFO tools. So I'm a longtime user of finance tools myself, going all the way back to, you know, Hyperion days and, and early days of on premise software, you know, getting on 17 years now, I think. Um, and so, you know, I've used a lot of the different tools that are now dated or, or are in play or have evolved and, and I was brought in to really help the business think about where it could fit in the ecosystem and, and, and you know, thrive relative to its peers.

Speaker A: Yeah. Did you, did you actively pursue those opportunities as an independent and market yourself or were you approached?

Speaker B: Well, in the first case. Right. I worked.

Speaker A: You worked for that. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: In, in the second case, it was much more through. And I think this is true of most independent directors. It's through industry relationships that become friendships.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, that, that maybe if they don't become friendships, they become, you know, professional relationships that you very much value. You have dinner now and then you might go golf, you might grab a coffee. Um, and those things take time. So over a couple years or, or a decade, you might, um, find resonance with someone, decide you want to work together and.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And that may be the structure.

Speaker A: Awesome. It, that, that's really great advice and just insight in general. I was always curious about that. Um, you know, building off of that, we've talked about the hard skills that the accountants and finance professionals can really stack up. Um, and then the soft skills that need to be cultivated as well. But outside of what we've already talked about, uh, is there any advice or skills or just, you know, insight that you wish you knew that you would give up and coming finance and accounting professionals that are striving to be a CFO one day.

Speaker B: Oh, gosh, there's a long list. This is the list for myself.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: You know, lessons I actually keep a literal lessons learned.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Document.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: Microsoft Onenote.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker B: It's not everything, but it's a good, ah, chunk of my learnings. But I mean if I'm just flavor of the day giving one piece of advice, it would be to take seriously understanding your own business as well as you would a house you're going to buy or an investment that you're going to make in your personal life. And what I mean by that is, you know, come in and take the time to go literally team by team and understand what matters to them, what their goals are, how those goals have changed over time, what metrics they use to measure their own success. Learn the team. Learn the dynamic between the team. Learn the dynamic from between that team and other teams and that will arm you with the ability to go through and help the business make tough decisions.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Simply, uh, put, they will understand that you understand.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What their issue is. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great advice. Um, and you know, we're coming up on budgeting season. Some people may already be in the thick of it. And I have a piece of advice, a nugget I'm going to give in here. But it can be irreverent, it can be as professional, uh, as you want. But any advice to, uh, the people out there that are in budget season, related to budget season right now that has helped you or that you like to pass on to our audience?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's two, it's a two part piece of advice.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: The first part is to understand what a budget is and the budget process is, which is it is a value creation initiative for the business. It's not a routine check the box. Oh, we've got to do this no matter what type cycle. This is an investment of time in the business that will help it be successful.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so look at it like that. And the second piece of advice is because you understand it as a value creation initiative, which is getting a huge investment of time. Plan for it. So plan for planning. Yeah, which is an annoying, cheesy kind of dad thing. But what I mean by that is be thoughtful. Now is when you start, it's August, and so if you're not already kicking off planning, you're kicking off the planning for planning. Uh, and I would suggest really detailed work plans. Socialize it with the key stakeholders. Make sure to stress test the timelines, the milestones, the tools you'll use, who will do what, and really be organized so that when you hit go, and it is almost go time now, which gets me excited as a finance professional, everything just runs smoothly.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great advice. Preparation is huge. My advice is a nugget and it's not nearly as helpful, but I think it's entertaining nonetheless. Uh, when I was a VP of finance, uh, I had a lot of budget holders that I had to work with to get their budgets in and formulate them. And oftentimes you would get maybe two budget, uh, business owners that couldn't agree on how to split a expense. And it was a back and forth. And my advice is when you run into that, schedule the meeting to figure out how to decide it at Friday at 4pm everyone's more agreeable at Friday at 4pm so that's my little nugget right there. Um, as we wrap up.

Speaker B: Hold on, I'm not gonna let you get away with that. I need that explained.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Is that because the meeting is taking place at a Friday happy hour?

Speaker A: No, no, no, no. So I'll give a little more insight. I worked with a lot of revenue producers and sometimes they shared costs, uh, that they couldn't agree on how to equitably split. Should it be 50, 50, 40, 60? And you get in this long email chain over an amount that really wasn't going to break their budget one way or another, but they were stuck on it and everyone's ready to start their weekend at Friday at 4pm and if you schedule a meeting to find resolution on that budget item at Friday at 4pm, I found everyone was much more willing to agree so they could get their weekend started.

Speaker B: Well, that's well explained. And you know, I think even my 3 year old understands you. You. The optimal, uh, time to ask for something is when the other party's worn out.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Speaker B: Yes. You can watch Moana. Yeah, Two emails.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great advice. So that was that. I stumbled upon that randomly and I stuck to it. It helped me out a lot. Um, so we have just a. To wrap up. Ah, are there any podcasts, music albums, books that you're listening to right now that you really love, that you'd like to share with our audience?

Speaker B: Yeah, I listen to a lot of investing news, sports podcasts. So you could pick. I mean, how many Missouri Tigers podcasts are you interested? Chicago Bears. Um, you know, I like, um, specifically, uh, how I built this. Um, I like. You know, the. The all in podcast is interesting. It's evolved over time, but the tech parts of that podcast are. Are still interesting. Um, and then their. Their friend Brad. I'm forgetting the name of the podcast now. It might be B squared is also really interesting. So we see a lot of the theme of tech and. Yeah, and the intersection of tech and investing, which is where I play.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: So that's interesting. Um, but, yeah, the rest right now are a lot of sports. We're gearing up for football season. I still hang on to my Cubs podcast even though they're not doing well this year.

Speaker A: Sorry. My Braves aren't doing too hot either this season.

Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, you guys have had the injury trouble.

Speaker A: Yeah, the injuries have been rough. Um, all right, I appreciate it to wrap up. Uh, we'll make this really quick because I know you're a busy man, but I like to do a little segment called Local Bite. Uh, I know you're from Minnesota, and I tried to research, uh, a local treat from Minnesota. Feel free to come into the frame, Jason. Appreciate the help. We got a couple of waters right here. Um, Annette told me she was familiar with this. Annette is, uh, a, ah, marketing manager and she is from Minnesota as well and told me that this is a treat for. Are you familiar?

Speaker B: It is a treat.

Speaker A: That's from Minnesota.

Speaker B: Hey, that's a good treat.

Speaker A: Okay, awesome. Well, this is what I get to eat.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Um, and what you're going to get is a. Have you ever been to Mardi Gras?

Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: Okay, so Moon Pies. Are you familiar? Okay, There you go. Uh, do you want salted caramel, chocolate, strawberry or vanilla? I know you're a healthy guy, but you gotta have a bite.

Speaker B: The salted, uh, caramel.

Speaker A: Okay. There we go. I think that's what, uh, Grant went with, too.

Speaker B: Matt, can I tell you, I thought you were gonna make me do like a one chip challenge or something some kind of spicy.

Speaker A: No, we need you to survive for your next meeting. Let's see, where's the. I know I want in here. No, That's. I think these are bananas, maybe. Oh, no, I think that that might be banana, but it's bananas, you know. Um, and I'll try one of these. This is much better than the vet. Well, I think it's gonna be much better than the Vegemite that, uh, I ate in honor of Grant yesterday. Have you had that?

Speaker B: No, no. Is that an Australian?

Speaker A: Yeah, local. Nectar of the gods. Okay, you. I've got a jar. You can taste it if you'd like.

Speaker B: So, uh, this one's a little dry. I think it's.

Speaker A: Yeah, we got your water right here. Don't, uh, don't, don't choke.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: That wouldn't be a good way to end this segment, but yeah.

Speaker B: Cheers.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah.

Speaker B: Cheers. Bon appetit.

Speaker A: Double. Double. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Much better than the Vegemite. Is it banana?

Speaker B: It is banana, but you know what? I'm into it.

Speaker A: Okay. There you go. Do you want to take a couple to take to the kids or anybody?

Speaker B: All right, yeah, I'll take some. No, you're going to have to clean the couch.

Speaker A: I'm sorry. You're the last interview of the day. Dan. Matt, I appreciate it. It was a pleasure.