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February 18, 2014 By Samuel Dergel 2 Comments

25 Quotes from Guide to CFO Success

A number of my followers are excited about the release of my upcoming book, Guide to CFO Success: Leadership Strategies for Corporate Financial Professionals in the United States and Canada on March 31, 2014. (Available in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2014)

While you may have to wait a little longer to get your copy of the book, I extracted quotes from the book I thought might wet your appetite.

If you find you find these quotes relevant and interesting, you can let others know about the book by:

Sharing the Slideshare presentation on social media
Sharing your favorite quote on social media
Recommending the book to someone who would appreciate reading it.

Stay tuned for further updates, including speaking engagements and book signings.

Thank you for your continued support,

Samuel

25 Quotes from Guide to CFO Success from Samuel Dergel

December 19, 2013 By Samuel Dergel 5 Comments

Samuel’s 2013 Recap + Top Ten Blogs of 2013

2013 was an interesting year for the Chief Financial Officer. I find it fascinating that the office of the CFO continues to receive more attention from the general business press, vendors trying to make inroads in to the C-suite, and from CFOs themselves that are turning to social media to get feedback on issues where they used to feel lonely. I believe that 2014 will continue on these trends, and I have a feeling that there will be a major trend change in 2014 for CFOs (Stay tuned).

2013 was a very interesting year for me. The highlight of my year was putting together my upcoming book, Guide to CFO Success. It was truly a yearlong process. I started putting the proposal together at the beginning of the year, which led to getting my book deal signed with Wiley. I then created and developed my CFO Advisory Group for my book. These 87 CFOs answered a weekly survey over 14 weeks and gave me (and you) input and anecdotes to support CFO success. I found the writing of the book one of the most challenging professional projects I have ever faced, and can say (after the fact) that it was an amazing personal growth experience. As December and 2013 wraps up, the book is in final production.

Click here to get your own holiday card from Samuel!

With Guide to CFO Success taking up a big portion of my time, I was not able to write as many new blog posts in 2013. Many of my top blogs viewed this year were written in previous years. The power of Google drives people who are interested in these topics. The topics and information in some of these popular blogs have been further developed in my upcoming book because of the interest in these CFO subjects. Stay tuned for new blog postings in 2014.

2013 was a very busy year for CFO Moves, my weekly blog covering CFO hires and unhires in the USA, Canada and the UK. I continue to be impressed by the feedback I get from the people following these blogs, and am grateful that people appreciate the work that goes in to preparing them every week.

2014 looks to be shaping up to be a wonderful year for me and my CFOs. The book will be coming out in March. I am scheduled to present at the AICPA CFO Conference in May. I had some very interesting end of year conversations relating to my upcoming book, and as these things develop, I will certainly keep you in the loop.

Wishing you and your family the very best for the holidays, and a prosperous and successful 2014!

Samuel’s Top 10 Blog of 2013

10) Podcast: Becoming a world-class CFO and Finance team: What it takes, why now, and who’s made it?

9) Why do CFOs Leave?

7) Road Map to Successful CFO Relationships

6) Different companies need different CFOs

5) Negotiating your CFO Employment Contract

4) CFOs: When interviewing for your next role, make sure you have one of these

3) Presentation Links: The Road to CFO

2) CFOs: Do you want to become a Controller? This CFO did just that.

1) The First 90 Days of a New CFO

If you’d like to see previous year’s top blogs, click here and here.

Do you have any topics that you would like addressed in 2014? Let me know by sending me a message on LinkedIn or commenting below!

Samuel

May 21, 2013 By Samuel Dergel 3 Comments

CFOs: When interviewing for your next role, make sure you have one of these

Yes, having a resume is important. So is a LinkedIn profile. I’ve blogged previously about whether a CFO needs a resume, or a LinkedIn Profile is enough.

But this is not what I’m recommending today.

I recently spoke with a CFO who is in process of interviewing for his next Chief Financial Officer role, and he was asked if he had Video of his presentations.

Yes, the CEO wanted to know how good a presenter he was, and wanted to see him in action.

Do you have videos of presentations you’ve made as CFO?

If you don’t, I recommend arranging to get your next presentations recorded.
If you do have video, and you think you could do a better job at presenting, consider getting presentation coaching.

Your next CFO role might depend on it.

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December 20, 2012 By Samuel Dergel 2 Comments

Top 12 Samuel’s CFO Blogs of 2012

2013 2012 sure has been an interesting year.

And I’m looking forward to 2013! I’m looking forward to:

Working with my clients at Stanton Chase and providing them with excellent service and value in retained executive search.

Staying close to CFOs in my network, and continuing to add value to their businesses and careers.

Continuing my blogging, both here and at CFO Moves. I find it humbling that I have people that are not only interested in what I have to say, but have signed up to ensure they don’t miss any of it.

Working on my book for CFOs. Stay tuned!

It is customary as the year turns to a close to look back at the previous year.

Blogging is great, but sometimes people can miss out on some very valuable insights or content. So, to make sure you didn’t miss what other people thought was worth reading, I would like to share 12 of my most popular CFO Blogs in 2012.

12) Negotiating your CFO Employment Contract

11) 5 Steps to Building your Finance Dream Team (and 3 tips on how to get it done)

10) The Value of “Thank You”

9) 5 Reasons why Talent Development is a Challenge for CFOs

8) Road Map to Successful CFO Relationships

6) The First 90 Days of a New CFO

5) 1 key difference between your LinkedIn Profile and Resume

4) Dear CEO & Board: You can’t afford to hire the wrong CFO.

3) Investor Relations for the New CFO – 6 Steps for IR Success

2) 4 Reasons you should use an Executive Search Firm when hiring your CFO

And the most popular of Samuel’s CFO Blogs for 2012 is:

1) How a Recruiter sees a Candidate (You may not like the analogy)

If you like these blogs and want to ensure you don’t miss any of them, please click on the SIGN ME UP! button on the right.

Happy Holidays and all the best for an amazing 2013!

Samuel

November 30, 2012 By Samuel Dergel 1 Comment

Advice to Drive-by LinkedIners

I visit LinkedIn every workday (and some weekend days). It is a tool that I use to keep informed of the activity of people in my network.

I find that there are 3 types of LinkedIn users.

Active users. These people have regular activity on LinkedIn, are most visible, and continue to try to get the most value out of the tool to increase the value received from and given to their network.

Comment: As an Active LinkedIn user, I have an affinity for others that see the value in LinkedIn.

Drive-by users. These people only visit LinkedIn when they are looking for a job. They have lots of activity when job-hunting, and next to zero activity when they are comfortable in their role. Generally, these people are not networkers by nature, and consider LinkedIn similar to a job board circa year 2002 with some additional bells and whistles.

Comment: For the Drive-by crowd, I feel badly that they are not able to get the most out of LinkedIn. Generally it is not in their nature to network, so they are not able to get solid value out of LinkedIn. But it is nice to see them every few years. I can always tell when someone is looking for their next job, even if they haven’t told their current employer.

One-timers. These people have visited once, filled out a profile, and have 100 unread LinkedIn messages. They most probably were told that they need to be on LinkedIn, so they are. The value they get from LinkedIn is less than zero, because opportunities cannot find them and they lose out. People think they have the same job and title they did in 2005, when in fact they are much more valuable today. Or are they?

Comment: Non-users don’t get LinkedIn, but maybe they don’t need to, so I don’t feel badly for them.

If you’re a Drive-by LinkedIner, focus on making networking and LinkedIn part of your professional routine. Otherwise you’ll find yourself re-building your network connections every few years. Know that if you give to your network when you don’t need them, your network will work much harder for you when you do need them.

What kind of LinkedIner are you?

November 15, 2012 By Samuel Dergel 3 Comments

LinkedIn vs. Resume – The discussion continues

CFO Coach Cindy Kraft blogged CFOs and LinkedIn, the Evolution. The blog discusses the story of a recruitment firm that would only be focusing on working with CFOs that have a LinkedIn Profile.

My readers will know that I am a big proponent of LinkedIn for CFOs (or any other executive). You can read my previous blogs on the subject:

1 key difference between your LinkedIn Profile and Resume; and
Does a CFO Need a Résumé?

While I am a fan of LinkedIn for CFOs, I think that people that are looking to hire CFOs (search firms included) that focus solely on LinkedIn are missing a large pool of talent.

Today, it is easier than ever to find talent using LinkedIn. This makes companies and some recruiters (retained and contingency firms) take shortcuts to find talent.

Is LinkedIn a great place to find talent?

Absolutely.

Is it the only place to find talent?

Absolutely not. (Read: When hiring a CFO, is LinkedIn the place to look? )

Finding talent is easy. Finding the best talent to meet the needs of a company is not. Securing that talent is even harder. Ensuring that the talent is hired, stays and delivers multiples of the value of the cost spent on hiring and compensating that talent is why a company decides to work with a quality executive search firm in the first place.

What lessons can CFOs (or other executives) learn from this?

Executives that are not actively searching for their next opportunity beware: You want to be hired by a company that understands the value of executive search and is willing to retain a quality search firm to not only find you, but secure you and keep you for the long term.

August 16, 2012 By Samuel Dergel 11 Comments

How a Recruiter sees a Candidate (You may not like the analogy)

I thoroughly enjoyed a posting this week by my friend Bruce Powell from IQ Partners in Toronto titled What To Say (And NOT To Say) When A Headhunter Calls. He gave excellent and practical tips that can be very helpful to people that are either actively looking for their next opportunity, or open to hearing about another opportunity that could be career changing.

The post was nice to read because I’ve heard many of the “Don’t Say’s” as well as the “Do Say’s” in recent weeks. After reading the blog, I posted a comment on Bruce’s Posting on LinkedIn and went about my day.

Some of the other comments that followed disturbed me and got me thinking…

Many people do not understand recruitment.

By this I mean the business of Recruitment.

Recruitment is a business unlike most others. The closest similar business is Real Estate, an agency business where the seller pays a fee. In Recruitment, the buyer (Employer) pays a fee. This means that the Recruiter has a fiduciary business relationship with the Employer.

For more information about the business of recruitment, you can read this Wikipedia posting, or this very useful guide from the Association of Executive Search Consultants.

The unfortunate thing is that many people who have dealt with Recruiters as candidates feel that they do not get serviced properly by them. Complaints of phone calls unreturned, lack of information updates on the opportunity they were called about, and not getting full and timely information that will be beneficial to them are complaints that can be heard over and over again.

And in many cases, these complaints have merit.

Excellent Recruiters like Bruce (and myself), try really hard to build solid relationships with candidates and provide them with the best service possible. However, even Excellent Recruiters have room to improve in this regard (I’m talking about myself here, not Bruce). Excellent Recruiters understand that they need to continually work to improve their relationships with their candidates.

But remember…

Recruitment is a SALES business, and the EMPLOYER is the CUSTOMER.

So if the employer is the customer, what is the individual candidate?

You may not like the analogy, but all you are is INVENTORY.

Not only are you inventory, you are like inventory that is on consignment.

Recruitment is the only business in the world where the ‘product’ decides

Which customer they want to go to, if any
What they want to get paid
How long they will stay at the customer
If they will start work at the customer

So, as a candidate, how do you move beyond being seen as only INVENTORY?

Following Bruce’s “Do Say’s” is a good start.

Can you share examples of how you add value to your relationships with Recruiters?

1 key difference between your LinkedIn Profile and Resume

I have written about whether a CFO (or any executive) needs a Resume in addition to their LinkedIn Profile. I made the point that a resume isn’t always necessary. My friend Cindy Kraft disagreed with me. We can both be right at the same time, can’t we?

While LinkedIn Profiles are great for building personal brand and getting attention when looking (or not looking) for a job, there is one key difference between the LI Profile and your resume.

Your resume – needs to be updated when looking (actively or passively) for your next role.

Your LinkedIn Profile – MUST always be up to date.

Why MUST your LinkedIn Profile always be up to date?

I will give you insight into something that annoys your favorite Executive Search consultant.

Companies hire my firm (Stanton Chase International) to help them hire the most appropriate executive. When working on a mandate, I use LinkedIn (in addition to other tools and methods) to do research on the people that I would like to speak with to see if they are a potential fit for my client.

Do you know what happens when I’m looking for someone who could be interesting for my search, yet they are no longer working for the company they say they are working for on LinkedIn?

They miss an opportunity.

Do you want to make sure you are found when people have an opportunity for you?

Keep your LinkedIn Profile up to date.

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June 20, 2012 By Samuel Dergel 16 Comments

The Value of “Thank You”

Most parents drill their children to say “thank you” when receiving something from someone. People that meet children judge their parents favorably when the children are polite and say “thank you”.

There is a good chance as a child your parents ‘strongly suggested’ you write Thank You Cards for birthday and other gifts received from relatives and family friends.

In today’s age of instant communications, is saying “Thank You” a lost art?

People say “Thank You” all the time. “ty” is the new “Thank You”. However a text message or email or LinkedIn message is easy, and has less impact. How you say Thank You is important. Taking effort to communicate your thanks is much more effective than saying these two words in passing.

When you want to make a difference and want to be remembered, go out of your way when saying thank you. This applies in a job interview context as well as networking. The cost of a card and a postage stamp is minimal compared to the return you receive on being remembered and staying top of mind.

Stand out from your peers. Buy a set of cards and stamps and keep them on your desk. Use them liberally. Write notes with meaning and value in your own handwriting. I guarantee an excellent return on investment.

When was the last time you sent a Thank You Card?

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