Who is Romesh?
Romesh is a Portfolio FD with a great track record in growing start ups, scale ups and high growth organisations.
Key Takeaways
1. Don't be afraid to contact and leverage external expertise. You don't necessarily have to spend money. Iinitially, you don't lose anything, by having a chat with a few people who have experience in that area, you know, you're not committing to anything
2. What do business leaders not do too well that an FD can help them with - running out of cash is the biggest risk in SME forecasting well, and giving it the appropriate priority can help mitigate this as well as driving sales and profit
3. Poor forecasts can lead to constantly trailing behind set targets, which can lead the team to start running out of steam, - a real shame
Valuable Free Resource or Action
Romesh offers a free chat which may go a long way to sort out your issues. See his website on www.thefdconsultant.com
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Transcript
Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)
Stuart Webb 0:42
Hi and welcome back to it's not rocket science five questions over coffee on here today joined by Ramesh who is I guess the CEO of the FD consultant. I know this is a fast growing organisation Ramesh, I'm really pleased to get you on to talk about this subject because this is an important topic that I'm sure a lot of small businesses don't think nearly enough about. And so I'm sure we're gonna have a really brilliant conversation. Ramesh, welcome to It's not rocket science. Five questions over coffee, although today mine is a slightly warm cup of lemon scented. So that's, that's a bit of a cheat. What about yourself?
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 1:22
Thank you very much to Yeah, well, I've got I've got my got my hot drink here. Thank you very much for that introduction. Yes. So hi, everyone. I'm Ramesh. I've been a full time FD for many years. Over 12 years for startup and scaleup organisations, I've now set up a business called the FT consultant where basically I like to help companies grow.
Stuart Webb 1:47
Brilliant. So, Ramesh, let's start with the first of my obvious questions, which is, can you describe in a few short sentences, the problem that your clients face when, when they're working on their business? Sure, so
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 2:07
So the clients I tend to work with are growing businesses, you know, startups scale ups, they can be new entities or established entities, effectively, they're all looking for high growth. There are lots of big challenges that these kinds of businesses can face. But the biggest are probably, number one forecasting and managing cash flows. And secondly, raising investment funding.
Stuart Webb 2:35
Okay, and what are the problems that they try and solve when they're working on their own?
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 2:44
I suppose there are a lot of pitfalls that you can fall into, if you're not used to following a process, you don't have a lot of experience in that. So starting first with cash flow management and forecasting, often, you might find that the management team don't fully understand the importance of the task. So you know, when you're managing cash flows, I mean, essentially, running out of cash is the biggest risk in SME forecasting well, and giving it the appropriate priority can help mitigate this as well as driving sales and profit.
Stuart Webb 3:22
I think that's a really important problem. Isn't it wrong if people don't forecast very well, and they, you know, and I've said this on so many occasions, too many businesses, businesses don't run out of ideas, they often don't run out of clients, but they do run out of cash. And that's the thing which kills most business owners, it's not the lack of ideas, the lack of concepts, the lack of customers, it's the fact that they run out of cash, and they didn't realise that was going to happen.
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 3:49
Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. Right. And, you know, not having a forecast at all is something that we've seen, you know, or the forecasting is generally poorly executed. And you know, that that can lead to unexpected cash flow, or sales and profitability issues, you know, because something has arisen that that management hasn't foreseen. Whereas have they, you know, thought about this a bit more in advance, then they can prepare for that. You know, they, if you don't have a good forecast, it can mean setting incorrect or unrealistic targets, which will only demotivate your team if they're not achieved. So there are a lot a lot of kind of things to think about. In terms of the importance of of such a task. I think
Stuart Webb 4:38
that's a really important point. Unrealistic things are probably more difficult to cope with them than ones which are plastic but stretching, aren't they?
Unknown Speaker 4:52
Absolutely.
Stuart Webb 4:53
Something which something which you know, is realistic, but it's hard to achieve. You can strive for something which you just Look at go, I have no idea where that came from is almost always demotivating.
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 5:05
Exactly, exactly. And if you're constantly kind of trailing behind set targets, you know, and you don't feel you're going to get to them, then that I feel will kind of you know, the team can start running out of steam, which would be a real shame you know it?
Stuart Webb 5:25
What's the valuable free action or valuable free resource that you can offer the listeners now who are probably sitting there thinking? How realistic is my forecast? Is my team ever going to achieve stuff? Which am I going to run out of cash? What's What's the valuable free resource you can offer them now to get them to start thinking about some of this stuff?
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 5:47
Well, I think, um, you know, don't be afraid to contact and leverage external expertise. I mean, you don't necessarily have to spend money. You know, initially, you don't lose anything, by having a chat with a few people who have experience in that area, you know, you're not committing to anything. If you speak to an external advisor, you'll find that many of them are very happy to give you direction for free to build a relationship. You're very welcome to get in contact with us at the FT consultant. And we're really happy to help you know, we, we want to help come, you know, businesses grow, we want to help and support this space. So you know, why wouldn't we want to kind of give you as many pointers as we can, and you know, have the opportunity to build that kind of relationship.
Stuart Webb 6:35
Ramesh, it's why I love getting people like you onto this podcast, because you talk language that I talk, I am so happy to hear people talking about just offering free advice to people who are still struggling to understand the thing that I spent some time is, you know, doing things like part time strategy for people just helping them work out whether or not their business is going right direction. And it nearly always starts out the general chat over a cup of coffee or something like this, where you just say, Do you know something? I've got a few ideas, if you're interested, let's talk about them. But that doesn't cost anything, does it having a carrying a brew with somebody having a few minutes with somebody? Doesn't doesn't do anybody any harm doesn't cost anything and often sought out the problem on its own?
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 7:20
Exactly, you can certainly make significant steps in the right to actually buy sort of makes that kind of move. Absolutely.
Stuart Webb 7:28
And I know we've put your website down here below. So the FT consults got loads of really quite interesting stuff. I know, I know, because I went onto the website earlier and hadn't look at it. So there's a lot of good stuff on there as well. So rubbish, like just rubbish, just just on the, the the idea of sort of getting ideas and bringing them is there a concept or a book that's been useful to you to generate your ideas and make you aware of what you need to think about?
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 7:56
Yes, that's a really good question. I did have a good think about it. I'm kind of getting
Stuart Webb 8:02
questions from it.
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 8:06
You've done a good job. See, I can't I can't complain about that at all. No, really good. So in terms of a concept or book, I'm gonna refer to an old classic, which I found very helpful. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Yeah, I'm sure you've you've heard or seen it or even read it. What I like about it is simple messages, which are easy to understand in terms of their impact. And they're straightforward to execute. Concepts like you know, begin, you know, be proactive, begin with the end in mind, think win win. First understand, before trying to be understood, you know, in other words, be a better listener, you know, there are lots of great examples and concepts in the book. And I've used those, those quite simple concepts throughout my career, actually. And hopefully, that's helped me become, you know, more effective in terms of what I do. There's one in particular that I, I really like, and I found useful, and that was, I don't know, have you ever read this yet? Ah, I have. Yeah. Okay. So you might remember the the Circle of Influence calm? Yes. Yeah. So I, I really liked that analogy. You know, a good, proactive and effective person will only worry about things they can influence. You know, there's no, there's no point in worrying about the weather, for example, or being upset by the weather, because there's nothing you can do to change it. You just have to accept it and move on.
Stuart Webb 9:43
I know, I know what you mean, I wish that I spent some time each morning reading about sort of two general concepts. And this morning I was reading about the fact that even at the outset of the Normandy landings, the Eisenhower wrote to his wife and said said we've done everything we can we prepared. We have we have the men are as trained as they can possibly be. Now it's in the lap of the gods, because the most effective commander still recognises he doesn't have control of everything. All he could control was, have you got the right plans where the men trained? Were they as ready as they could be? He'd done everything he could. He then had to just trust that that training would carry through. You're right. Somebody who is worrying about whether he's going to waste a lot of time worrying about the weather.
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 10:32
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So so that that that's that's a recommendation for me. And I'm really glad you're familiar with that as well. Something I'm reading right now, which is really interesting as well is the serendipity Mindset by Dr. Christine bush. I find this fascinating concept actually, it's, it's the art and science of creating good luck. I'm only partway through the book. Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah. It's something I I, you know, I think has some real relevance actually. Yeah, it's all about having how to create favourable opportunities, wherever you are, you know, if you take the right steps, if you recognise the right signs, you can make more good things happen. And I'm a real believer in that. So yeah, I'm enjoying that. And I do recommend that as well.
Stuart Webb 11:29
Love it. Right. This is this is a fascinating discussion, we could go on all day, but we better not because somebody somewhere will be will be wanting you to do some actual work. So final question to you is, so what's the question I should have asked you. And obviously, don't just leave us hanging with saying, you know, what's the answer to two plus two? Please give us the answer to the question as well. So what's that question? What's the answer that I really should ask you?
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 11:55
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. So, I think the question, a good question would be, how can an FD or an FD consultant help your business? Many founders and CEOs of growing businesses don't understand fully the value that an FD can bring to their business until they start working with one, many won't have the budget for a full time CFO, that consultants like us at the FT consultant are out there, and we can help. And how can we help. So we can save money, we can save money for the business. Good example of this. One of my clients I onboard is and within three or four months, having, you know, got to know them a little bit, I made some suggestions, which basically covered my costs for a full year, which they were very happy, we are very happy about, we can help produce better management information to enable the management team to make better and more informed decisions, which will drive the business forwards, we can implement good processes to help with risk management and compliance. And also effectively to service your customer needs. We can set up and recruits a good finance team if you need one. And we can manage and develop staff to deal with the volume of transactions and activity that your growing business will, will will will be experiencing. We can help you raise funds effectively, you know, put, put your company in the best position to attract investor interest and tell a story that is effective, puts your company in the spotlight and in the correct way and adds credibility to your message. If you were to utilise the services of the FT consultant, you'd have the advantage of our network. You know, we have good links and proven relationships with other good individuals and good companies in areas like recruitment, it HR, which can be really valuable to your business. There's nothing like a strong long term partnership. And that's something that we believe in. Outside of finance, an FTE can offer good critical thinking with strategy. For example, the implementation of a sustainability policy, which is something I'm doing with a client right now. Analysis of competitors, you know, identify other growth opportunities. And in my mind, really, there's nothing more effective than implementing big company best practice integrating companies, that's our specialism and we found that that's a winning combination really.
Stuart Webb 14:41
From its That's brilliant, and I was just thinking as you're doing it. You know, I've been talking to people about some of the stuff I do, which is sort of part time strategic stuff. And the value that people bring just one day, a month, one day, every so often just coming in and just pointing people in the right direction. In the management team, because that outside look that that pair of eyes coming from the outside saying, you know, I think I've spotted something over here, which you can't see because you're busy in the wood, dealing with the felling of the trees, rather than seeing the whole of the forest around you is so valuable to people because you can see some of that advantage, you can see some of those opportunities that people often miss, when you have that ability to step in, step away from the business a little bit, and then come back and say, you know, I think there's a opportunity over here. All of that stuff is incredibly valuable. Raj, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us today. Really appreciate your insights really appreciate some of what you said. I just like to remind everybody watching, if you would like to hear about some of the stuff we're doing on this on this videocast his podcast, and you'd like to get in to be able to comment and TPMS giving such valuable advice live and going onto our newsletter, subscription lists where to do it. You do that by going to https colon forward slash forward slash TCA dot FYI, forward slash subscribe, a really must ask the internet authorities to stop having to make us put all of those letters in the beginning. So for Facebook, if you go to TCA, FYI, forward slash subscribe, you can get into the newsletter list and you can get in and know about people like Ramesh giving brilliant, brilliant and valuable advice like this. Live in onto the internet. Always thank you so much for coming on to It's not rocket science, five questions on coffee. Really appreciate everything you're doing. I know, when you talk about you know, you've got a deep network. I know some of that network. I'm part of that network. So I understand the sort of value that you bring to sort of organisation. So thank you so much for spending some time ago.
Romesh Jeyaseelanayagam 16:48
Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Stuart Webb 16:52
Thank you, bye bye. Take care. Bye bye
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