Financeheads Blog

This is a true two way relationship! FinanceHeads provides me with a vital network of like-minded professionals who are willing and able to discuss issues and crucially they are raising my marketing efforts, an area of my business that has been too single tracked. In the other direction I have been asked for help with solving a graphing challenge – only partially successful on my part, what happened to the functionality of Excel 2003??!!

 FinanceHeads offers a network of people who all understand and empathise with the nature of interim FD work. I look forward to contributing to this excellent venture.

I believe that the rationale behind FinanceHeads is very good, and that the recognition of the name and brand will grow rapidly, allowing increased opportunity for members of FinanceHeads to grow their own businesses.

In addition the knowledge of there being other experienced and like minded professionals around whom you can turn to for ad hoc advice or to bounce ideas off is a valuable resource to the members.

There is also the opportunity for business referrals, which I can personally vouch for having already been referred a client from another Finance Heads member.

Any professional working alone knows that they don’t know everything and can’t be ill. These are only two of the challenges that FinanceHeads seeks to address.

We have all recognised that we aren’t offering engineering services however a Finance Director can still be required to draw on a wide range of skills – buying and selling companies, securing funding for sources with very different requirements, staff management, detailed financial modelling/planning and so on. Our clients have an equally diverse set of requirements and most of the time we are able to meet them. But it is wonderful to know a pool of quality individuals that I can turn to when I hit one of the gaps in my knowledge – my clients can continue to get the quality of service they deserve (rather than just being left high and dry) and I can expand my knowledge.

Many of the services we provide are not time critical but this isn’t always the case and we do need to be able to take a break at least once every 10 years or so (or when our bodies decide to be ill!). Even more challenging are the peaks and troughs we face (those 3 buses that come along at once!). Having access to a pool of resource, that can be relied on to meet our own professional standards, suddenly gives us the sort of flexibility that larger organisations have – how liberating!

Lastly, for the moment,  having a ‘brand’ that has a wider geographic spread and recognition than any one individual can have gives us the ability to develop relationships and serve clients that would otherwise be out of our reach.

All of these are the realities that FinanceHeads is starting to deliver. As the membership grows the benefits will grow and we can all gain from the benefits of collaboration.

The idea behind Finance Heads to bring together committed individuals behind a common name, which, with time, will become recognised as a source of talented and dedicated business people who have “been there and done it”,  which should begin to open those doors and give clients that much needed comfort

 The intention of Finance Heads is not for it to make serious profits from sizable signing on fees together with a percentage of members’ billings, it is to help members grow their business and stay independent, whilst educating SMEs of their existence and of the range of services available from trustworthy professionals.  New members will only be asked for a modest joining fee to cover set up costs, and thereafter a relatively small annual fee to cover ongoing administration, but more importantly the promotion of the FinanceHeads name across the country.

With periodic meetings and seminars planned by the company, members should get to know like-minded people with whom they can share ideas or seek opinions, without recriminations. And by becoming a member in the early stages you will be able to influence exactly how we develop the delivery of these benefits.

Should workload prevent the acceptance of a new assignment, one member can refer such work onto another in the knowledge that their own reputation will not be tarnished by it, and that a modest introduction commission could also be earned. You may even want to consider bringing in another member to fill a particular skills gap you have when helping service a particular client.

As we have given birth to this new organisation we have developed key relationships and we look forward to extending this to the wider community of independent finance professionals.