Supporting you to believe in yourself

There’s much more to working with an FD than learning the way around a spreadsheet. With the right FD by your side, you’ll gain the confidence and knowledge that boosts your belief in your organisation, your team and – most importantly – yourself.

Bringing an FD into your business is usually something you’ll decide to do when you have targets in mind for growth and want to know how to achieve them. At this stage, you’ll recognise you’ll benefit from the experience of someone who knows their way around numbers and can give you systems training, strategic guidance and scenario predictions as your company changes and develops.
Yet with the right person on hand, the role of an FD is not just to provide the practical financial advice you need. I believe FD support should go beyond managing and reviewing your figures, and should also develop the self-belief that’s vital for both your organisation and your wellbeing to thrive.

Helping you succeed by building your confidence

For me, client success is so much more than demonstrating a target and giving you a plan to reach it. Naturally, that’s a huge part of an FD role. Yet the biggest source of that success comes from you and the belief that you can, and deserve to, realise your ambitions.

Finances can be challenging and they’re often fraught with worry. If you’ve had money difficulties, it can be tough to feel that you’re capable of achieving goals that are linked to your financial forecasts. That’s one way I strongly connect my personal values and my FD role by helping my clients to succeed by believing in themselves. Some of that belief comes from arming you with the knowledge you need to make decisions, based on clear facts and objective outcomes. Yet it also comes from giving you the confidence you need that you have a plan in place, the peace of mind of financial understanding and someone guiding you to reach your targets.

Supporting your staff by encouraging behaviours

I’m lucky that many of my clients bring me on board long term, not only to support them at CEO level but to help their team to understand the business’ finances and their role in the company’s success. It’s something I love, as it’s a way I feel I can both educate and support staff by giving them that self-belief that drives them towards success.

I know from my time as a managing director in industry that your team have huge potential to develop their skills and career prospects within in your business. Yet it’s through building self-belief that this confidence and potential grows. I dislike critical management approaches: I don’t think they work to get the best out of people. Instead, I love to support teams through learning and education, showing them how systems and processes work and encouraging the behaviours I want to see more of. It builds the confidence in your team that improves resilience and success.

Collaborating with others by strengthening knowledge

Creating unnecessary competition is one easy way to diminish our confidence and self-worth. Instead, I really feel that working together with others is how we grow both our skills and self-belief, which is why supporting others in the same industry by sharing my knowledge and experiences matters so much to me.

I spend a lot of time connecting with other accountants, particularly CIMA Members in Practice. CIMA is a hugely important space for me to be part of. It’s somewhere I gain and share knowledge, business support and friendship as well as a place where I’m able to help those who want to specialise in FD work. I don’t feel I should ever keep my knowledge to myself. Instead, I know that sharing what I’ve learnt can help others to grow their confidence, personal values and self-belief.

In a challenging world, showing kindness, sharing skills and believing in others is so important. For me, an FD is a hand-holding role, where you’ll not only be shown predicted scenarios but supported to achieve them by building the self-belief that you can – and should – achieve your goals.
An FD can give you the knowledge and confidence to believe in yourself and your organisation. I’d love to listen to your thoughts and ideas and help you to achieve success.

Get In Touch
More Blogs