My 2025 plans for FP

This newsletter will look at Forecasting Performance’s past (2024) and near future (2025). And I have a few big ideas for next year that I need your help building.

If that’s interesting to you, keep reading!

(next week I’ll give my honest take on AI in FP&A…)

2024 Highlights

For those of you who don’t know, I (Brett) personally write and create all the content you see on LinkedIn and this newsletter.

And I’ve been doing it for the last 2 years [almost] every day/week.

Here’s a few high-level stats of my LinkedIn and newsletter:

I’m sharing these stats because 1) I want to celebrate it and 2) I see Forecasting Performance as co-owned by me and you.

• If it’s helpful, then it’ll get attention and grow

• If not, then it won’t

And by the looks of it, I’d say it’s going quite well… thank you!

2024 was a year of continuing to do what’s working (LI and newsletter) while experimenting with turning FP into a self-sustaining business.

What I mean by this is you saw me launch a number of things as I tested 1) what you wanted from this brand and 2) what I wanted to help you accomplish:

• Multiple course waitlists that didn’t go anywhere due to lack of demand (not mad about it, just a fact of business)

• 1:1 and group coaching that was awesome but just not sustainable for me with a full-time job and young family

• My free tool, the FP&A Mastery Assessment so you can see how your FP&A function stacks up against best practices (great response from this!)

• A bunch of other stuff I’m not remembering

Honestly, most of this ended up being a list of ‘failed’ experiments. I’m glad I tried because now I know, but the goal is to create a system that works and I don’t think I’m there yet.

Which leads us to…

2025 Intentions

Next year is all about clarity and focus with a bit of experimentation with partnership.

Clarity in the sense that I’m going to be building the Forecasting Performance brand into the single best place for FP&A insights for finance leaders.

This is slightly different than before - up to now I’ve sort of written about whatever I want. Which ranged from how to prove causation in business results to team management tips.

2025+ will be specifically focused on helping high-performing FP&A teams transform and modernize their operation (more on that in the next section).

I’ve already written the book on People and Process. So 2025 will focus more on experimenting with FP&A software and technology.

I want to help FP&A leaders understand not only how they can transform their function with people and process (in a grassroots way) but also layer on tech to accelerate that transformation.

I’ll do most of this through partnerships by tapping into you all and finding people passionate about building the next best thing in FP&A (keep reading if that’s interesting to you).

I’ll follow a 99% and 1% strategy.

99% will be free (or very cheap) for finance practitioners with 1% being expensive stuff for businesses and senior finance leaders.

Here’s what the 99% will look like:

• Redesigned website [in the works] with free guides, articles, newsletters, and other content to be a 1-stop-shop for learning best practices (check it out here, but will continue being a work in process for the next 3 months).

• An FP&A software tool database [for sure happening!] with key features and highlights to help you make buying decisions and learn more about tools you could implement.

• A podcast called The Business of Finance [if I have capacity] as an entertaining and insightful interview show exploring the intersection of finance and business. I’d interview successful finance consultants, fractional CFOs, and software founders so you can learn from their insights and better understand where the finance industry is moving.

• A personal YouTube channel [probably happening] with video versions of the podcast as well as miscellaneous insightful updates on whatever I’m learning about building a modern finance team.

Why am I making [almost] everything free? Well, as an FP&A professional myself I’m allergic to spending money on anything career related.

Plus, there just isn’t a lot of transparency in the finance industry. Which leads the industry to be pretty difficult to understand for people who want to make a good career.

I want to fix that.

And since I’m making this brand for a version of myself, I get to make that decision 🙂 

And the 1% strategy…

I’m not totally sure yet what this will look like - and I’ll need your help!

I have 2 ideas and I think both could work:

1. FP&A Transformation Advisory service for finance leaders who want help taking the next step in modernizing their finance operation (join the waitlist if you’re interested in these services)

2. FP&A Software Tools with AI - I’ll consider working with a developer to build software that can be used by you to do cool FP&A things with AI embedded (reply to this email and let me know what you want me to build, I’m looking for ideas!)

More to come on both of these as we get into 2025.

In summary:

Thank you for supporting this brand!

It literally exists to serve you, so please let me know if I can do anything to help you or if you have any cool ideas that I can leverage.

If you have experience in finance transformation or building software and want to help me build it, reply and let me know!

Thanks for everyone who’s reached out recently to thank me for writing the newsletter. I read every email and appreciate a quick “thanks” more than you know 🙂 

Feel free to drop me a quick review here. It’s the only thing I have to show people how much you like the newsletter and brand.

love.forecastingperformance.com 

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