What happens when you take your friendly neighbourhood finance professional away from their quarterly forecasts & drop them into the wild world of…Youtube??

In the inaugural “Hit the Deck”, we’ll explore 2 very different scenarios:

• presenting financials to your company’s CEO

• creating a Youtube video explaining a football club’s finances to its rabid fans

Which leaves you more in a cold sweat?

While these scenarios are worlds apart, both require a similar skill set and, in this issue, we’ll walk through the first steps of a systematic process to structure and deliver any financial presentation with maximum impact - whether it's to your Board or a vocal online audience.

Welcome to “Hit the Deck”, a newsletter where every week, we explore how to structure, analyse & present financial information to your business in a way that is

• ACCESSIBLE, &

• ACTIONABLE

Why you should skip this newsletter

• I’ve never worked in a startup

• I’ve never delivered an 8-figure exit

• currently no 6 pack abs

Reasons to give it a whirl:

• Over a decade in FP&A in large global companies (NBCUniversal, Warner, ITV)

• Over 100,000 views for “Numbers Behind the Net”, a YouTube channel breaking down football club finances for fans

But don't just take my word for it - check out these cherry-picked comments:

“Thank you for putting this out in relative layman’s terms. Provided a comprehensive overview”

“You’ve provided much greater visibility & control of this area”

“All you need is a better mic and a webcam” 👀 

Two of these are from YouTube; one is from a listed group CFO. I’ll let you guess which is which…

In this week’s “Key Takeaway”, we’ll work through 2 of the first stages of our 9 step-process that can boost the impact of any finance presentation - both in the DEFINE phase.

Before we even open PowerPoint, it's essential to orient your presentation around two critical elements:

• PURPOSE - defining your audience & desired outcome

• HOOK - defining your “key takeaway”

In this issue, we’ll explore how these elements shift when presenting to senior leaders in your company vs. creating a YouTube video for a broader audience. We'll go into the dirty details of the Distil and Deliver phases in future issues, but this will get you started.

As an FP&A pro, building and presenting financial decks is a cornerstone of the role.

Translating numbers into insights strengthens both your trust & credibility within the organization.

In a previous role, I was jetted in to support a large division during the annual Budget firefight. However, the local team already had firm control of the numbers and the slide deck. Unsure of my remit, I asked the FD what exactly they wanted me to work on.

“We need someone who can structure the presentation in a way that doesn’t confuse & overwhelm the Senior Leadership team”.

Despite doing all the heavy lifting, the team’s inability to define, distil and deliver the key messages of the budget presentation kept them out of the room when finance & business leaders made the key decisions for the year ahead.

So - how do we make sure we stay within the tent?

PURPOSE

So where do we start, when all we have is a wide remit and a blank Powerpoint slide?

Over the years, I have learnt the clearer the purpose of the presentation has been defined before you start drafting, the better.

To begin, clearly identify the following:

• Audience (who am I presenting to?)

• Outcome (what ACTION do I want them to take?)

The goal is for the presentation to enable the audience to take the required action.

Defining your audience will allow you to adjust the style of delivery to make it more accessible:

• Are they detail-oriented or big-picture thinkers?

• Do they prefer tables, charts, or text?

• What are their pet peeves in presentations?

Defining your outcome will guide the level of information required. Example outcomes include:

• sign-off/approval

• increasing awareness

• promoting discussion on a topic

• agreeing next steps of a project

Let’s now dive into our 2 scenarios:

CEO

When presenting to CEOs or senior leaders, the goal is often to get a decision on a critical business issue, such as:

• approving a division’s budget

• ‘go/’no-go’ decision on a new service launch

• signing off on a customer renewal

In each of these examples, the CEO thumbs up is what we’re after.

Your job is to provide enough context and detail to INFORM their decision-making process - quickly and clearly.

YOUTUBE

On YouTube, it’s same game, different pitch.

When I create a video about the financial history of Rangers Football Club, I have a wider and less-defined audience:

• Rangers fans keen to dive into state of their club specifically

• Wider football fans with an interest in financial aspects of the game

Here, my goal is to ENGAGE this audience rather than inform decision-making.

The audience needs to understand the story, regardless of their financial literacy.

The outcome is to encourage them to:

• click the thumbnail

• watch the entire video

• engage favourably (like, subscribe, comment, watch another video)

These are very different to that of the CEO - therefore, my presentations are different.

If the Rangers board commissioned me to do a similar project based on the same set of financials - my presentation would again change.

Why?

My audience has changed, and my outcome has changed.

My task would be to glean what problem the board are looking to solve, and from that tailor the financials to best INFORM those thought processes.

This is not to say the choice is binary - all presentations should aim to be engaging & informative. But defining your audience & your desired outcome from the get-go arms you to choose what to include…

…(and more importantly, what NOT to include)…

…in your slides down the line.

HOOK

Now we’ve defined our audience & outcome, it’s time to zoom in tight…

What is the one key message our audience should takeaway from this presentation… what’s our hook?

YOUTUBE

In content creation, the hook is crucial. Your thumbnail and title must capture attention in a sea of competing content.

No matter how superb your video is - no click, no view.

The work to attract viewers begins before a word has been uttered…the combination of title & thumbnail are tasked with doing the hard work.

In this world, you are competing with any other video the algorithm deems noteworthy …Real Life Squid Game, the History of Dance, Man Getting Hit with Football…it’s hard for a financial review of AFC Bournemouth to break through.

We’ll dive down deeper into how to retain viewer’s attention throughout in next week’s DISTIL phase, but what’s certain, the more work done upfront to sculpt, discard and re-mould a captivating concept to attract viewers will save many hours of re-working down the line

So does any of this translate into your company?

CEO

Fortunately within FP&A, senior leaders are primed to find & address critical business issues.

Though, I would pay to see a CEO walk down the hallway to their office, passing a line of employees each holding a large thumbnail placard of whatever crisis their part of the business is facing… the executive having to pick their poison for their next meeting.

So whilst we may not need to hook their attention in the same way initially, we do need to clarify & focus in on the “hook” of the presentation… what is they key thing they should take away?

In 2-3 sentences, what is the business issue and the action you propose they & the business take?? This mini-exec summary gives you a clear, concise understanding of the situation before you dive into the details.

Take an example of a property move I worked on :

A few years ago I took over financial support for a major office move. I hadn’t been party to the months of boardroom discussion of how, when & where the move should happen, and all previous finance partners had now made their exit…

Within 48 hours, I had the following invite drop into my inbox:

• Direct from office of CEO

• Recurring monthly invite

• Subject: Property move review

• First meeting: 48 hours time

The sweats broke. I was still wrapping my head around the numbers in the business case and hadn’t even met one of the 2 project leads.

We frantically got together that day to cobble together a plan on what to present, and it wasn’t pretty: a Franken-deck of slides - an executive summary would have amounted to:

• The project is on schedule but £1m over budget for a variety of reasons

Not what the CEO wanted to see….

They had been burnt with a previous move, costs spiralling past approved budgets. Now they wanted their finger on the pulse, and they didn’t like the health of the patient. The meeting was tense.

After that, the team re-grouped - we would get a second chance to show we were on top of things, we wouldn’t get a 3rd…

The property & tech project leads were working flat out to bring things in line and work within approved budgets - it was for me to bring that out in the meeting.

The next 30 days, the team were much more in sync. They armed with me with the backstory on why costs were increasing (a number of changes in scope had been greenlight by the CEO, including a new deli and extra offices) and I worked with them to brainstorm how we could get total budget spend back in line in spite of this.

The next meeting, having developed & refined our thinking as a group beforehand, we sat down with the following update for the CEO. Our update was as follows:

• Our current forecast show an overspend of £1m, but we have a number of levers to mitigate this

• The overspend is driven by CEO-approved changes in scope (deli, extra offices) but there are likely savings in our dilapidations negotiation (<£1.5m) and we can reduce Floor 3 customisations (£0.6m)

• We recommend confirming the dilapidations terms before beginning Floor 3, and re-reviewing scope of work in next month’s meetings

_{*financial numbers altered for confidentiality}

We can distil this down further to ONE KEY TAKEAWAY (or hook)

• We believe the dilapidations negotiation will save enough to offset the overspend

This clarity allowed us to present a more coherent plan, and the CEO approved. The move finished under budget.

Defining and refining your hook isn't easy. It requires significant upfront effort to align your team and clarify your message.

But the payoff is clear: the blueprint for a well-structured presentation that resonates with your audience.

Next week, we’ll dive deeper into the Distil phase and dig into the weeds of structure, story & visuals!

What did you think of this week’s Hit the Deck?

 💩 or 🥂 _{(there’s alliteration if you look hard enough)}

Let us know your thoughts in the comments!