This week, I had a webinar announcement caught my eye from ISA and Mark Gilham. It reminded me of how valuable basic finance training was when I first got started in my career at Crescent Electric Supply Company. All the sales and marketing type newbies had to attend a new manager training finance session that was in-depth, that was led by our CEO – Jim Etheredge (he was previously the company’s longtime CFO).
I can’t recall exactly what the training was titled, but we jokingly referred to it as “Distribution Finance Training for Sales and Marketing Dummies.”
It was looking back in the top 5 training days I have ever had. It was very helpful to a new person coming into distribution. We learned how to read a Balance sheet, Cash vs Accrual accounting, Budgeting top-down and bottom-up, the importance of properly coding an invoice, and much more.
It was one of the best workshops I have attended and was influential to helping be a better partner to the Finance team over my career. B2B Industrial Distribution is a tight net profit business, and making sure you have strong financial diligence is crucial.
So, I picked up the phone and called Mark Gilham (Mark is an accomplished CFO and Finance leader with Enable) to find out more about his workshop and webinar…and I asked him this question…
Why are so many Industrial Channel Companies led by former CFO’s?
Mark had some great answers to share on why Finance rules in Distribution – Tight margin business, large cash inflows and outflows (which makes payment terms and float important), inventory carrying costs, Warehouse owned and/or leased, Delivery vehicles, tight EBITDA percentages, significant SG&A to service end customers properly, and much more.
I believe for emerging and new leaders, financial fluency is a powerful career accelerator. I also believe that this type of training is great for all non-finance that channel leaders need to have as refresher training. (Which is why I am going to attend the ISA Fall workshop as refresher training)
If you want to learn more, I would recommend that you attend the ISA webinar that Mark is leading on September 23rd. Or register to get access to the recording to watch on your schedule.
Mark and the ISA team are going to reveal the financial insights every leader should know, including why finance is the language of leadership, and how it shapes the way your boss thinks.
This session is a preview of the ISA Fall Summit workshop designed to help non-financial leaders turn financial understanding into leadership impact.
In the webinar you’ll learn:
- What budgets and forecasts really reveal, and how to read the story behind the numbers
- How finance roles connect, and how that improves cross-functional collaboration
- Why finance builds trust and why stakeholder confidence is everything
- What finance teaches us about tech change and why system updates hit finance hardest
- How financial controls unlock operational flexibility
You can register below as an Industrial Supply Member in the link below.
Finance Lessons for Future Leaders – Think Like a CFO – Industrial Supply Association
As always, we appreciate your comments and support.
Leave a Reply