Category: Financial Leadership

Make Money Grow on Trees

Let’s go back to when you were a child. You looked up at a tree and thought… If money is made from paper and paper comes from tress, surely, I can make money grow from trees! Or maybe, you asked your parents for something extraordinarily expensive and they responded with “money doesn’t grow on trees”.

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Become a Trusted Advisor to your CEO

Summer is quickly transitioning to fall as the weather gets cooler and millions of Americans get ready for football season. Fantasy teams are drafted. Lucky jerseys are dusted off. Schedules are cleared for Monday night football. The action is enticing and our minds focus on all the excitement outside of work. But many neglect to

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The CFO Guide to Your CEO

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a guide for everything we do? A guide for marriage? A parenting guide? A guide to dealing with difficult times?  Or maybe a CFO guide to understanding your CEO? Typically, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) come from an operational or sales background. Naturally, Chief Financial Officers (CFO) do not

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Productivity of an Accounting Department

Most people (especially those outside the finance side of the business) see the financial function as a cost center. Although an accounting department does not generate any revenue, it has the potential to dramatically improve profitability. Think about this: you should be able to convert 1-2% of sales into profits if the department was more

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Status Quo in Business Movement

Have you ever treaded water for lengthy period of time? At first, it’s easy to maintain that movement; but at some point, your muscles start cramping and treading the water becomes more difficult. Everyone knows you can only tread water for so long before you either move or sink. So, when we look at our

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Selling Your Business

Companies are constantly being bought and sold; so regardless of what position you are in or what industry you service, selling your business is one of those topics you need to know about. It’s a common misconception that the financial persons are overhead, are not valuable, and simply just count the numbers. But over the

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Irrational Exuberance & My Calculator

When I first started my career, I had a business partner. As an entrepreneur, I would come up with all of these great ideas and run them past my partner. Every time I had a new idea, he’d bring out his 10-key calculator and say “Okay, walk me through it.” He wanted me to run

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New Graduates: What Employers Are Looking For

Last week, we discussed the importance of having creativity in the workplace. Watching my Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship students walk across the stage was a bittersweet moment. However, I remembered something important. Most of those students will be fine because they have what potential employers are looking for. 2017’s Highest-Demanded Jobs I’m sure there are a lot of highly-demanded

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Creatives in the Workplace: Are you the Machine or the Inventor?

Here in Texas, graduation is approaching. It makes you wonder… How do those potential candidates stand out in a crowd if thousands of them are competing for the same job position? Believe it or not, you were in that same situation once. If you identify with the older generation, how did you land the job you

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Don’t get caught swimming naked!

Has anyone ever warned you, “don’t get caught swimming naked”? It may sound strange, but it’s a reference to Warren Buffet’s famous quote “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked”. As a financial leader, it is your responsibility to know when the tide is going out so that you can prepare not to

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Don’t put all your eggs into one basket!

Easter was just this past weekend. One of the common traditions of Easter is an Easter Egg Hunt where plastic eggs with candy (or if you’re lucky, money) are hidden for the kids to find and put in their Easter Basket. When I was a boy, I was greedy and piled too many eggs into

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Taking Credit Cards for Business: Good or Bad?

People, myself included, are generally more hesitant with taking credit cards for business on anything major… and I don’t blame them! There’s typically a 2% charge on sales. However, if you use your credit cards the correct way, it may be worth considering. To save you time and risk, here’s a few things that we learned from using

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