February 17, 2025 • 13 mins
Master business finance for free with 100+ video lessons—no gimmicks, no hooks, just valuable knowledge: https://www.byfiq.com/
What does it really take to lead the financial strategy of a billion-dollar company?
Steve Coughran reveals the three biggest lessons he learned as CFO—insights that every business leader needs to know. From simplifying financials to uncovering hidden risks on the balance sheet, these takeaways can help you drive massive value.
But the most important lesson? It’s not what you think. Tune in now to find out.
Disclaimer:
BYFIQ, LLC is a wholly owned entity of Coltivar Group, LLC. The views expressed here are those of the individual Coltivar Group, LLC (“Coltivar”) personnel quoted and are not the views of Coltivar or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, Coltivar has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendations. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. Please see https://www.byfiq.com/terms-and-privacy-policy for additional important information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Going back.
I wish I would have got up more.
I wish I would have canceled afew more meetings and just
walked around on the floor andinteracted more with my team.
It's not like I didn't do that,I just didn't do it enough.
This is BYFIQ.
Wealth and success come fromunderstanding how finance works
in business, and together we'llexplore the most important
topics to 10x your financialresults.
(00:21):
My hope is that we can worktogether soon.
Please share and enjoy.
To 10X your financial results.
My hope is that we can worktogether soon.
Please share and enjoy.
About seven years ago, I had anincredible opportunity to become
a CFO of a billion dollar50-year-old company, and today I
want to share with you thethree things that I learned from
this experience.
So, to set the stage, thecompany was competing in the
construction and renewableenergy space, meaning they were
(00:44):
building commercial andindustrial buildings and also
constructing massive utilityscale solar projects out in the
middle of the desert, and when Isay massive, I mean just the
scale of these projects wasphenomenal.
In fact, one of the jobs wewere building out in Australia
had over 1 million solar panels.
They're just huge, right, andyou just drive down rows and
(01:08):
rows and rows of solar panels,and it's pretty cool to be there
on site and see these buildingsbeing constructed, because it's
like wow, we're actually makinga difference and we're building
infrastructure that willsupport communities, families
and just the overall worldabroad.
So it was a really fulfillingjob and also I had the pleasure
(01:30):
of working with some very smartand capable individuals and it
was such an amazing time to getto know these wonderful people,
and my life is definitelyblessed from this experience.
So let me share with you thethree things that I learned from
this opportunity.
Number one the my mantra cominginto this position, because I
realized very early on that wehad a lot of complexity,
(02:10):
especially in the accountingdepartment.
In fact, we had thousands andthousands of chart of accounts
and that made our reporting veryburdensome and very delayed.
In fact, when I started, ourfinancials were so far behind we
were lagging about three orfour months.
It was crazy.
So the first thing that we hadto do to fix this problem was
(02:32):
just to simplify across thedepartment, and that's the first
thing that I want to share withyou is, when it comes to
accounting and finance, it's allabout making things simple, and
really that's my mission.
That's what I do at Boostingyour Financial IQ with the free
financial pro program that I'veprovided for all of you.
So if you're not in the program, be sure to check that out.
(02:53):
It's absolutely free.
But my whole goal is just tomake finance simple, right,
simple, easy to understand,because if you don't understand
the story behind the numbers,then what's the point of all of
it?
Right?
So what I had to do is we hadto eliminate a ton of chart of
accounts that existed.
We were tracking things at sucha micro level that we were
(03:14):
getting lost in the weeds.
So we just simplified things,we rolled it up, we consolidated
our reporting and we made itvery, very easy for our
executive vice presidents, whoare running these different
profit centers, to understand.
I wanted all the reporting tobe on one sheet so they could
see their numbers and then theycould go take action that month,
(03:35):
that period, that week, thatday, whatever it was, in order
to drive change.
So this is a great opportunityfor you to take a step back and
to look at your own company andask yourself is there
unnecessary complexity in thesystem when it comes to
innovation?
Oftentimes we think that inorder to innovate, we have to do
(03:56):
more.
In fact, I think, when it comesto innovation, it's all about
doing less.
It's all about simplifying.
I think it was Leonardo daVinci who said simplicity is the
ultimate sophistication, and Ithink that is so true.
So that was lesson number onewas just to make everything very
simple, and that can be reallytough, and it reminds me of
(04:18):
something that I read once thatmade me chuckle, and it said
look, I'm sorry I sent you sucha long email.
If I had more time it wouldhave been shorter.
Which means that when it comesto simplicity, it's actually
really hard, like when you gointo an Apple store it's just so
simple, right.
All the complexity is removed,and that is true artistic
(04:41):
brilliance.
It's really hard to make thingssimple because when we start
making a reporting simple, whenwe start looking at the numbers
and we're trying to make thingssimple, there's always these
caveats or nuances, right, whichthen introduces more complexity
, because we say, okay, let'skeep reporting very simple,
we're going to just reportrevenue, cost of goods sold, et
(05:01):
cetera, et cetera.
And then somebody says, well,is there any way we could break
out revenue?
And it's like, okay, now we addfour more lines to the
financial reporting and thenit's okay, well, this revenue
line item is there any way wecould dissect that even further?
And then, next thing, you know,the reports become very
convoluted and very complicatedto understand.
So just keep things simple.
And I'm not just talking aboutfinance, I'm talking across the
(05:23):
board and even personally in mylife.
During this time, I had toremove a lot of complexity
because I was so busy, I was soslammed and I was tasked with
turning around a billion dollarcompany and therefore I had to
stay laser focused, whichrequired me to just simplify and
remove any complexity in mypersonal life as well.
(05:43):
Oftentimes we are drowning intasks, right.
We're just so burdened withtasks and with information,
especially with AI and all thechannels that constantly push
information our way.
I mean, we have our phones, wehave text messages, we have
voicemails, we have emails, wehave Slack, we have WhatsApp, we
(06:09):
have AI, we have meetings.
We have all this stuff comingat us in all different ways, and
if we don't find ways tosimplify the information coming
our way or just to simplifyprocesses, we're going to drown,
right?
So that's the first thing thatI did.
Number two this may sound alittle weird, but it's have a
clean balance sheet.
So let me explain here what Imean.
When it comes to the demonsright, the monsters of a company
(06:34):
you know where they live.
They live on the balance sheetbecause the income statement is
so much more straightforward.
You have revenue, your costs,and you have your profit and
loss, and a lot of timesbusinesses will look at their
income statement.
In fact, they'll build a budgetor a forecast around the income
statement.
So the income statement gets alot of attention, but guess what
(06:54):
?
The balance sheet gets ignored.
And don't even get me startedon the statement of cash flows,
because that is the child thatis neglected in most companies,
right?
People don't even pay attentionto the statement of cash flows,
but we'll get into that later.
But the balance sheet is reallywhere these demons hide,
because there are things thatexist in working capital right,
(07:16):
the difference between yourcurrent assets and current
liabilities that if you don'tpay attention to, they can
definitely harm the business interrible ways.
So when I came into the company,I focused in on the balance
sheet and I got it cleaned up,and there were massive reversals
and things that we had to do inorder to clean up the balances.
So everything ticked and tied,and this was painful because
(07:40):
there were things that weresitting on the balance sheet for
so long for example, inprepaids and in cruels and in
other parts of the business andwhen they got cleaned up, they
created reversals on thefinancial statements which made
the losses look even worse.
Okay, so the balance sheet isvery important and it's
important to keep it clean,because when you take the income
(08:02):
statement and the balance sheetand you combine them together,
guess what?
They make the statement of cashflows.
So that was lesson.
Number two is make sure youhave a very clean balance sheet,
because if your incomestatement and your balance sheet
ticks and ties, guess what youcould then create a statement of
cash flows off of those.
And the statement of cash flowsis really important because
(08:23):
it'll tell you how much freecash flow your business has, and
you know me, I love free cashflow because it's all about cash
flow, baby.
All right.
Number three the third thingthat I learned in you know what
part of this.
To be honest, I didn't evenlearn this until after the fact
and I wish I could go back andchange a few things here.
But principle number three isget up and talk to people.
(08:48):
Right, I'm talking to myselfhere.
I should be holding up a mirrorright now when I say this third
point here.
I was so busy as a CFO.
I mean, my meetings werestacked, one after the next.
I'd go into the office and I'dgo in there early.
And then people found out thatI'd go in there early.
They'd see my car in theparking lot or my light on in
(09:09):
the corner office and they wouldcome up and say, hey, steve, do
you have a few minutes?
And of course I didn't want toturn them away, but then that
started interrupting my earlymorning time and therefore I
just found myself in meetingsall day long, which is good,
it's important, right.
But here's the thing Getting upand just walking around and
(09:30):
talking to people would havemade a bigger difference in my
leadership style.
Our chairman his name is Jay.
I love Jay, he's such a greatman and he taught me so much
about being an incredible leader.
What he would do is he wouldwalk through the halls and I'd
hear him come in.
He'd be whistling, he'd be allhappy, walking up and down the
(09:51):
halls.
He'd be saying, hey, goodmorning, how are you doing,
stacy, how are you, bill?
Right, he'd be calling out thenames of the people across the
company, asking about them,asking about their weekend,
asking about their kidsfollowing up on their dog right,
asking them about theirvacations, and he just really
cared about people and thisuplifted the people Just, even
(10:13):
if it was a one secondinteraction or just a tap on the
shoulder or hey, let's poundsome knuckles, right.
Whatever it was, he just did agreat job of booing up people
and lifting their spirits and Ijust really love that about Jay
and his whole style of leading.
Also, I had these informallunches with the president of
(10:36):
the office in which I wasworking.
His name was Jack and we wouldwalk over and have some Mexican
food quite frequently throughoutthe week because I just love
Mexican food.
And these informal impromptumeetings were excellent because
we were able to talk about themost pressing things happening
in the business and get alignedfrom a strategy and finance
(10:56):
perspective, and also we wereable to build trust with each
other and that reallystrengthened our relationship.
And the reason why thesemeetings were so important is
because at the top of theorganization you have to be
aligned right.
Ceos and CFOs have to bealigned with each other, because
strategy plus finance, plusoperations, equals value
(11:17):
creation.
So, going back, I wish I wouldhave got up more.
I wish I would have canceled afew more meetings and just
walked around on the floor andinteracted more with my team.
It's not like I didn't do that,I just didn't do it enough.
So those were the three thingsthat I learned from my
experience as a CFO and, like Isaid, it was such an incredible
(11:38):
opportunity.
It was a heavy burden, right,because I had this fiduciary
responsibility to drive value inthe organization, because so
many lives depended on it.
But I wouldn't trade it foranything.
All right, that's all I havefor you.
I hope you have an incredibleweek and, until next episode,
take care of yourself.
Cheers.
Going back.
I wish I would have got up more.
I wish I would have canceled afew more meetings and just
walked around on the floor andinteracted more with my team.
It's not like I didn't do that,I just didn't do it enough.
This is BYFIQ.
Wealth and success come fromunderstanding how finance works
in business, and together we'llexplore the most important
topics to 10x your financialresults.
(00:21):
My hope is that we can worktogether soon.
Please share and enjoy.
To 10X your financial results.
My hope is that we can worktogether soon.
Please share and enjoy.
About seven years ago, I had anincredible opportunity to become
a CFO of a billion dollar50-year-old company, and today I
want to share with you thethree things that I learned from
this experience.
So, to set the stage, thecompany was competing in the
construction and renewableenergy space, meaning they were
(00:44):
building commercial andindustrial buildings and also
constructing massive utilityscale solar projects out in the
middle of the desert, and when Isay massive, I mean just the
scale of these projects wasphenomenal.
In fact, one of the jobs wewere building out in Australia
had over 1 million solar panels.
They're just huge, right, andyou just drive down rows and
(01:08):
rows and rows of solar panels,and it's pretty cool to be there
on site and see these buildingsbeing constructed, because it's
like wow, we're actually makinga difference and we're building
infrastructure that willsupport communities, families
and just the overall worldabroad.
So it was a really fulfillingjob and also I had the pleasure
(01:30):
of working with some very smartand capable individuals and it
was such an amazing time to getto know these wonderful people,
and my life is definitelyblessed from this experience.
So let me share with you thethree things that I learned from
this opportunity.
Number one the my mantra cominginto this position, because I
realized very early on that wehad a lot of complexity,
(02:10):
especially in the accountingdepartment.
In fact, we had thousands andthousands of chart of accounts
and that made our reporting veryburdensome and very delayed.
In fact, when I started, ourfinancials were so far behind we
were lagging about three orfour months.
It was crazy.
So the first thing that we hadto do to fix this problem was
(02:32):
just to simplify across thedepartment, and that's the first
thing that I want to share withyou is, when it comes to
accounting and finance, it's allabout making things simple, and
really that's my mission.
That's what I do at Boostingyour Financial IQ with the free
financial pro program that I'veprovided for all of you.
So if you're not in the program, be sure to check that out.
(02:53):
It's absolutely free.
But my whole goal is just tomake finance simple, right,
simple, easy to understand,because if you don't understand
the story behind the numbers,then what's the point of all of
it?
Right?
So what I had to do is we hadto eliminate a ton of chart of
accounts that existed.
We were tracking things at sucha micro level that we were
(03:14):
getting lost in the weeds.
So we just simplified things,we rolled it up, we consolidated
our reporting and we made itvery, very easy for our
executive vice presidents, whoare running these different
profit centers, to understand.
I wanted all the reporting tobe on one sheet so they could
see their numbers and then theycould go take action that month,
(03:35):
that period, that week, thatday, whatever it was, in order
to drive change.
So this is a great opportunityfor you to take a step back and
to look at your own company andask yourself is there
unnecessary complexity in thesystem when it comes to
innovation?
Oftentimes we think that inorder to innovate, we have to do
(03:56):
more.
In fact, I think, when it comesto innovation, it's all about
doing less.
It's all about simplifying.
I think it was Leonardo daVinci who said simplicity is the
ultimate sophistication, and Ithink that is so true.
So that was lesson number onewas just to make everything very
simple, and that can be reallytough, and it reminds me of
(04:18):
something that I read once thatmade me chuckle, and it said
look, I'm sorry I sent you sucha long email.
If I had more time it wouldhave been shorter.
Which means that when it comesto simplicity, it's actually
really hard, like when you gointo an Apple store it's just so
simple, right.
All the complexity is removed,and that is true artistic
(04:41):
brilliance.
It's really hard to make thingssimple because when we start
making a reporting simple, whenwe start looking at the numbers
and we're trying to make thingssimple, there's always these
caveats or nuances, right, whichthen introduces more complexity
, because we say, okay, let'skeep reporting very simple,
we're going to just reportrevenue, cost of goods sold, et
(05:01):
cetera, et cetera.
And then somebody says, well,is there any way we could break
out revenue?
And it's like, okay, now we addfour more lines to the
financial reporting and thenit's okay, well, this revenue
line item is there any way wecould dissect that even further?
And then, next thing, you know,the reports become very
convoluted and very complicatedto understand.
So just keep things simple.
And I'm not just talking aboutfinance, I'm talking across the
(05:23):
board and even personally in mylife.
During this time, I had toremove a lot of complexity
because I was so busy, I was soslammed and I was tasked with
turning around a billion dollarcompany and therefore I had to
stay laser focused, whichrequired me to just simplify and
remove any complexity in mypersonal life as well.
(05:43):
Oftentimes we are drowning intasks, right.
We're just so burdened withtasks and with information,
especially with AI and all thechannels that constantly push
information our way.
I mean, we have our phones, wehave text messages, we have
voicemails, we have emails, wehave Slack, we have WhatsApp, we
(06:09):
have AI, we have meetings.
We have all this stuff comingat us in all different ways, and
if we don't find ways tosimplify the information coming
our way or just to simplifyprocesses, we're going to drown,
right?
So that's the first thing thatI did.
Number two this may sound alittle weird, but it's have a
clean balance sheet.
So let me explain here what Imean.
When it comes to the demonsright, the monsters of a company
(06:34):
you know where they live.
They live on the balance sheetbecause the income statement is
so much more straightforward.
You have revenue, your costs,and you have your profit and
loss, and a lot of timesbusinesses will look at their
income statement.
In fact, they'll build a budgetor a forecast around the income
statement.
So the income statement gets alot of attention, but guess what
(06:54):
?
The balance sheet gets ignored.
And don't even get me startedon the statement of cash flows,
because that is the child thatis neglected in most companies,
right?
People don't even pay attentionto the statement of cash flows,
but we'll get into that later.
But the balance sheet is reallywhere these demons hide,
because there are things thatexist in working capital right,
(07:16):
the difference between yourcurrent assets and current
liabilities that if you don'tpay attention to, they can
definitely harm the business interrible ways.
So when I came into the company,I focused in on the balance
sheet and I got it cleaned up,and there were massive reversals
and things that we had to do inorder to clean up the balances.
So everything ticked and tied,and this was painful because
(07:40):
there were things that weresitting on the balance sheet for
so long for example, inprepaids and in cruels and in
other parts of the business andwhen they got cleaned up, they
created reversals on thefinancial statements which made
the losses look even worse.
Okay, so the balance sheet isvery important and it's
important to keep it clean,because when you take the income
(08:02):
statement and the balance sheetand you combine them together,
guess what?
They make the statement of cashflows.
So that was lesson.
Number two is make sure youhave a very clean balance sheet,
because if your incomestatement and your balance sheet
ticks and ties, guess what youcould then create a statement of
cash flows off of those.
And the statement of cash flowsis really important because
(08:23):
it'll tell you how much freecash flow your business has, and
you know me, I love free cashflow because it's all about cash
flow, baby.
All right.
Number three the third thingthat I learned in you know what
part of this.
To be honest, I didn't evenlearn this until after the fact
and I wish I could go back andchange a few things here.
But principle number three isget up and talk to people.
(08:48):
Right, I'm talking to myselfhere.
I should be holding up a mirrorright now when I say this third
point here.
I was so busy as a CFO.
I mean, my meetings werestacked, one after the next.
I'd go into the office and I'dgo in there early.
And then people found out thatI'd go in there early.
They'd see my car in theparking lot or my light on in
(09:09):
the corner office and they wouldcome up and say, hey, steve, do
you have a few minutes?
And of course I didn't want toturn them away, but then that
started interrupting my earlymorning time and therefore I
just found myself in meetingsall day long, which is good,
it's important, right.
But here's the thing Getting upand just walking around and
(09:30):
talking to people would havemade a bigger difference in my
leadership style.
Our chairman his name is Jay.
I love Jay, he's such a greatman and he taught me so much
about being an incredible leader.
What he would do is he wouldwalk through the halls and I'd
hear him come in.
He'd be whistling, he'd be allhappy, walking up and down the
(09:51):
halls.
He'd be saying, hey, goodmorning, how are you doing,
stacy, how are you, bill?
Right, he'd be calling out thenames of the people across the
company, asking about them,asking about their weekend,
asking about their kidsfollowing up on their dog right,
asking them about theirvacations, and he just really
cared about people and thisuplifted the people Just, even
(10:13):
if it was a one secondinteraction or just a tap on the
shoulder or hey, let's poundsome knuckles, right.
Whatever it was, he just did agreat job of booing up people
and lifting their spirits and Ijust really love that about Jay
and his whole style of leading.
Also, I had these informallunches with the president of
(10:36):
the office in which I wasworking.
His name was Jack and we wouldwalk over and have some Mexican
food quite frequently throughoutthe week because I just love
Mexican food.
And these informal impromptumeetings were excellent because
we were able to talk about themost pressing things happening
in the business and get alignedfrom a strategy and finance
(10:56):
perspective, and also we wereable to build trust with each
other and that reallystrengthened our relationship.
And the reason why thesemeetings were so important is
because at the top of theorganization you have to be
aligned right.
Ceos and CFOs have to bealigned with each other, because
strategy plus finance, plusoperations, equals value
(11:17):
creation.
So, going back, I wish I wouldhave got up more.
I wish I would have canceled afew more meetings and just
walked around on the floor andinteracted more with my team.
It's not like I didn't do that,I just didn't do it enough.
So those were the three thingsthat I learned from my
experience as a CFO and, like Isaid, it was such an incredible
(11:38):
opportunity.
It was a heavy burden, right,because I had this fiduciary
responsibility to drive value inthe organization, because so
many lives depended on it.
But I wouldn't trade it foranything.
All right, that's all I havefor you.
I hope you have an incredibleweek and, until next episode,
take care of yourself.
Cheers.
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