Succeeding in Sales We've taught the 5 Driver Business model to hundreds of companies for years to help employees break down what every company is thinking about. Now, we're teaching it through the lens of sales. These are crucial ideas to understand if you want to be successful in the sales world. Business Acumen: The 5 Drivers At the core of developing business acumen is this fundamental mental model called the five drivers. Those five drivers are cash, profit, assets, growth, and people. People are in the center of this model. Business Acumen: Sales Edition This is a mental model that executives use to determine their strategy, priorities, and choices and can help you as an employee understand the financial implications of those choices. All of the drivers are interdependent of one another. For example, if a business has to make a decision on what to do with its cash, does it invest and make an acquisition that expands its growth driver? Or does it invest in assets that allow it to expand its product portfolio and manufacturing capacity? These five drivers are also really important as a mental model for sales teams. If you want to understand your customers' world, priorities, challenges, and industry, you first need to know how this five-driver model looks and acts differently for them than it might be for you. Because as you start to understand their business, you can position your products and solutions better to what they are most focused on. If you're going to go and sell to a customer where growth is #1 — driving top-line, driving market share, getting new products to market, expanding geographically — then your products and solutions have got to better align to that narrative. However, if they're really focusing on profitability, and driving what we call operating leverage on the P&L, driving more and more cost efficiencies, then your products and solutions are going to have to be talked through a very different lens. Knowing which of those is more important to them is really vital to be a better business partner. You need to be able to speak to how your products and solutions fit with the core of their business. If you knew nothing more than what was the trend of their revenue growth, and what was the trend of their profit growth, then you've got a pretty good sense of what's likely happening in that business. For example, if they're driving revenues but not driving profits, that's a great sign of market share and differentiation and competitive advantage they have in their markets and they're gaining more and more customers. The problem is those sales and revenues are not translating to the bottom line. Meaning their costs are growing at a faster rate than sales. They're likely going to be a little more cost-sensitive because their costs have been going up faster than sales. Now flip that around. If you go in and you're going to go sell to a customer and their profits are growing but their sales are not, what does that mean? If their revenues are flat but their profits are up, their costs have been going down over time. The challenge is, they're not growing the top line. They're not winning market share, they're not winning versus their competition. They're managing their costs well, but they really need you to better align your products and solution to help them drive more of their top line by getting into new markets and customers. Get a demo of our business acumen training for sales: Business Acumen: Adapting your Sales Approach by Industry When you adapt your sales approach to what your customers are dealing with and thinking about, that is a great demonstration of having good business acumen. Let's do a quick dive into how these five drivers may look and act differently in different industries. If you're going to sell into big retail firms, like the Walmarts and Krogers and Targets of the world, their issue is that they typically don't carry a lot of cash because most of their cash is tied up in inventory and physical assets. Their margins tend to be pretty thin because they don't have a lot of pricing power, and they don't have a lot of cash because the cash is typically tied up in their inventory. Also, they really need more and more return on their assets and faster and faster inventory turns to help them grow and generate enough cash flow for them. Now that's retail. Now let's take a whole other view of this, let's think about pharmaceutical companies, right? They tend to carry a lot of cash, their margins are really high, but they don't have a lot of fixed assets. They have a lot more intangible assets. Patents, licenses, and trademarks. Now they carry a lot of cash because they have to invest in years of product development and research. When they finally get a product to market, they need to make sure they price well above their costs. If you think about the five-driver model in different industries, you'll just see that it starts to shape and morph in different ways. Knowing how this five-driver model applies to your biggest customer is a vital first step in having great business acumen. Business Acumen: Adapting Your Sales Approach by Stage Once we've understood the five drivers and how those five drivers might change and adapt by industry, I think it also may be important to understand how these five drivers change by business stage. The life cycle of a business. Initially, it's about trying to get a product to market, getting the right people, and having enough cash to fund innovation. As you get to a later stage, it's about operating efficiency, standardization, generating goods, and stable cash flow that then allows you to fund new products expand, innovate, and grow. Understanding what stage your customers are in better allows you to then position your solutions in a language that they care most about. Business Acumen: Knowing Your Customer If you're selling to customers who are large and publicly traded and may have their financials available publicly, the first thing we'd suggest you do is to go to their investor relations page or any news that's highlighting their executives' latest messaging and financial metrics. You'll get a sense of how often they're talking about growth as opposed to how often they're talking about their profit margins or profit trends. They may be talking a lot about their products and new product development. Maybe they'll speak on assets the most. Use the five-driver model as a lens to understand the messages that their executives are sharing. Next is their financial statements. If you could only look at their income statement (also known as the P&L) and see if their revenues are growing and how that relates to their profits. Ideally, their CEO is seeing revenues growing and profits growing faster, but if they're not that means they're dealing with some kind of challenge that you can help them with. And now if they're not a publicly traded company, what do you do then? You may want to go look at their competitors and get a sense of what's happening in the industry. That's a way to at least understand your customer a bit better. Being able to use these tools and learn the art of communicating their priorities helps you really understand what the other side of the table cares about. Once you master this art, you'll be better able to position your products and solutions to their business strategy needs. We invite you into this journey of building your business acumen. Get our best-selling book, Seeing the Big Picture: ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on LinkedIn @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #sales #salesstraining #salessuccess #financialstrategy #financialacumen #credibility #succeed #success #relationships

How Business Acumen Contributes to the Success Of Your Oil and Gas Company The oil and gas industry is powerful and complex, with many different players. There are large multinational, independent, and even national oil companies. With so many factors to consider, it's hard to stay relevant in pricing, initiatives, and L&D efforts. Business acumen can be the gateway point to growing and expanding your company in the oil and gas space. Did you know that the top 5 oil producers in the world as of 2022 are the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada, and China? This highlights the importance of business acumen to be able to understand the global energy market. These countries hold significant sway in the oil industry, and changes in their production levels can have a profound impact on the price and availability of oil worldwide. At the start of the Russia and Ukrainian war, Russia greatly limited the amount of oil they were willing to distribute. This shifted the market and increased the price as demand became extremely high. By staying informed of these key players, businesses can make informed decisions that take into account shifts in the market, allowing them to remain competitive and adjust their strategies accordingly. Furthermore, having a clear understanding of the major players in the oil industry can open up opportunities for businesses to form partnerships and collaborations that can lead to further growth and success. Oil and Gas Business Cycle Get a Demo of our Business Acumen Training: How to know if your company is business acumen savvy: Business acumen is the ability to understand and make sound business decisions. For the oil and gas industry specifically, this means it is crucial to have a strong understanding of the market, the competition, the various risks that could come to fruition, and the many opportunities that the industry presents. Companies with strong business acumen can make strategic decisions that allow them to navigate the challenges of the industry and capitalize on opportunities. For an oil and gas company, here are a few ways this could be improved: Identify and invest in new technologies that improve operations and reduce costs Identifying and investing in new resources or markets (like renewable energy sources or international markets) which can provide new growth opportunities Effectively managing risks (ie. diversifying business operations or hedging against potential price fluctuations) Get our best-selling book, Seeing the Big Picture: Business Acumen within ExxonMobil: XTO Energy was a leading independent natural gas producer in the United States, with a focus on unconventional natural gas resources such as shale gas. At the time, natural gas prices were at a low point and the industry was facing increasing competition from renewable energy sources. Despite the current downturn, ExxonMobil, XTO Energy's competitor at the time, recognized the long-term potential of natural gas as a cleaner and more sustainable energy source and saw the acquisition of XTO Energy as a way to strengthen its position in the natural gas market. The acquisition was a bold move, as it was one of the largest in the industry at the time, valued at $41 billion. However, it paid off as the company was able to increase its natural gas production by 25% and increased its proven natural gas reserves by more than 50%. This acquisition helped ExxonMobil to become one of the largest and most diversified natural gas producers in the US, and — with the increasing demand for natural gas — helped them to remain competitive in the long-term. This is how ExxonMobil's business acumen helped them to make strategic decisions that have led to long-term success. How to succeed in Oil and Gas: Companies in the oil and gas industry that possess business acumen are better positioned to navigate the challenges of the industry and capitalize on opportunities, which can lead to long-term growth and profitability. In addition, with an increasing focus on sustainable energy solutions, business acumen will become more important to adapt and thrive in the industry. In summary, the oil and gas industry is a complex and dynamic sector that is essential for the global economy, providing energy to power homes, businesses, and transportation. Business acumen is the ability to understand and make sound business decisions and is critical for success in this industry. Companies that possess it are better positioned to navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities, which leads to long-term growth and profitability. Oil and Gas Supply Chain Continue Your Learning with Applying Business Acumen: Download the course overview for our Applying Business Acumen Course ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on LinkedIn @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #strategicagility #financial #financialstrategy #financialacumen #financialliteracy #oilandgas #oilindustry #gasindustry #oilandgassuccess

Why does Business Acumen help me understand Gross and Operating Margin? Simple business terms such as gross margin and operating margin are very often confused. We often get asked to define them and relate it to a work setting. Here we have one of our very own Senior Financial Consultant's to explain it to us. Here is the transcript: Test your Business Acumen with this Quick quiz: Gross Margin: If I'm owning an income statement maybe for the first time, there are really two parts that I really should key in on. The first one is gross margin. Now gross margin takes your revenue, whatever we're earning from our customers, subtracting the cost of producing our product or service. Gross margin is how much money we're making on our products and services. That's the first step, right? If we're not making any money on our products or services, do we really want to be in this business? Is it worth it? Or is there another more strategic reason why we're doing this? Is this a lot —loss leader for example. But we've got to understand what's happening with that top third of the P&L with gross margin. Is this business really worth it? How does Business Acumen influence gross margin? And the other reason why gross margin is so important is because it pays for everything else. I like to get paid, you like to get paid, we like sales commissions we like all that other stuff that we get to do. We like to invest in culture and into employees and things of that nature. Well, we have to be gross margin positive. We have to be making money on our products and services to be able to pay for all that stuff. Operating Margin: Which brings us to operating margin. After gross margin we're going to subtract all of our operating expenses, our selling general administrative expenses, maybe we've got some research and development. That all comes out of our gross margin. So, we subtract those operating expenses or OPEX from our gross margin and we get what's called operating income. Now operating margin is the percentage of revenue left over after we subtract not just cost of production, but also all of those support costs that we just talked about. How does Business Acumen influence operating margin? Now why is that important? Well again, if we're not making money on our operations is this really worth it? We know we're going to have some taxes, if we've got debt, we're going to have to pay interest. We might also have some other non-operating stuff that we just got to take care of. So, do we make money in our operations? That’s what our operating margin tells us. Now when you're looking at a P&L I think of the P&L as the statement of knowing what the heck we're doing. And two really really important and really good measures of knowing whether we know what we're doing is gross margin. Do we make money on our products? And operating margin - do we make money on our core operation? Business Acumen in action: So, the other day my 12 year old son asked if he could start a shoe reselling business. He wants to buy Jordans and sell them. I said great let's do it. Well, he obviously needs the money, so I'm thinking 'hey let's think about if this is a good business decision.' He said he wants to buy Jordans for $250 and sell them for 350 bucks. That's great! You know what if we sell Jordans for $350 and we bought them at $250, we're making a hundred dollar’s worth of margin. $100 worth of gross profit. We're making money on the product. That's great! However, there are other costs that we have to think about. There are packaging costs, perhaps there are shipping costs, and there are other costs that we just need to be aware of that support the selling of the Jordans. Now if we take that hundred dollars worth of gross margin or gross profit and subtract all of the other support costs, we get what's called operating income. Operating margin is another word for it. You can look at it from both of these gross and operating as a percentage of sales or in a dollar amount. And we should look at both. How much money are we making on those Jordans? And after we subtract all the support costs, how much money are we making then? So gross profit and operating profit - two key measures that we've got to understand to understand the performance of our company. Frequently Used Financial Acronyms: For some of us...finance is complicated. If you don't specialize in finance (or...maybe even if you do...) it can sometimes feel like talking about different financial components is like speaking a different language — especially when you're having a conversation with your manager and she hits you with an acronym or financial abbreviation like "CAPEX." In our line of work, we commonly discover that communicators and hearers are not speaking at the same level. We know, that when you're dealing with a business, the possibility that team members aren't fully understanding each other can be scary. But don't worry - we're here to help bridge the gap. ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on LinkedIn @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #financetraining #businesstraining #financialstrategy #financialacumen #businesssuccess #grossmargin #operatingmargin #definitions

Why Developing Business Acumen is Essential for Food and Beverage Leaders Developing business and financial acumen is essential for food and beverage leaders to navigate the challenges facing the industry today. Leaders who lack the necessary business and financial knowledge may struggle to make informed decisions and respond to the dynamic industry landscape. Challenges Facing the Food and Beverage Industry The food and beverage industry is facing a range of challenges, from supply chain disruptions and rising input costs to stricter food regulations and sustainability concerns. To succeed in this environment, leaders must possess a deep understanding of their business operations, the industry, and the financial landscape in which they operate. The Importance of Business Acumen in Responding to Industry Challenges As Kevin Cope notes in his book Seeing the Big Picture: Business Acumen to Build Your Credibility, Career, and Company, "Leaders who develop strong financial acumen are better able to understand and leverage the impact of external trends and marketplace dynamics on their company’s strategic initiatives and make more informed decisions that benefit their organization and stakeholders." The Role of Business Acumen in Achieving Operational Efficiency and Sustainable Growth For example, leaders with strong business and financial acumen are better equipped to identify opportunities to reduce costs, avoid errors, and leverage economic price adjustments. They can also develop innovative solutions to address sustainability concerns, such as reducing food waste and developing environmentally friendly packaging. A Food and Beverage Executive's Perspective As the CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi, once said, "Leadership is hard to define and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader." Developing business and financial acumen is an important aspect of great leadership, especially in the food and beverage industry. Leaders who possess this skill set are better positioned to make sound business decisions and inspire their teams to achieve shared goals. They can leverage their knowledge to identify new opportunities for growth, respond to challenges, and make informed decisions that benefit their organization and stakeholders. The Benefits of Business Acumen Training Business acumen training can help food and beverage leaders develop the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed in today's rapidly evolving industry. By providing a comprehensive understanding of business operations, industry trends, and financial management, such training can equip leaders with the tools they need to make informed decisions and drive growth in their organizations. Developing Business Acumen Ultimately, developing business and financial acumen is a crucial step for food and beverage leaders who want to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving industry. Leaders who possess this skill set are better equipped to make bold and informed business decisions, which can ultimately lead to increased profitability, improved operational efficiency, and sustained growth. Acumen Learning Partners with a Top 10 Global Food and Beverage Company to Develop Business Acumen This company has an executive initiative to move from a financial focus emphasizing cost reduction and percentage margins to a new strategy focusing on volume-driven profitable growth. Further, the company is moving from a centralized matrix organization to a new structure that emphasizes clear accountability and a local first approach. Acumen Learning's business acumen course was customized to help Market Leaders implement these strategic shifts. Download the case study below: Earnings Call Breakdown: Get an earnings call breakdown of a well-known Food manufacturing company! General Mills is prominent in their industry. Continue your education by watching this free video: ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on LinkedIn @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #GAAP #IFRS #leadershipdevelopment #financetraining #businesstraining #financialstrategy #financialacumen #businesssuccess

A Top 10 Medical Device Company Turned to Acumen Learning for Customized Business Acumen Courses for their Engineers Press Release OREM, Utah – February 7, 2023 Download the Business Acumen Press Release: News Facts: A top 10 medical device company turned to Acumen Learning for customized business acumen courses for their engineers. The company wanted their engineers to understand how their position moves the company financially. Though they were fantastic in their positions, they needed to recognize how their role impacts the organization and contributes to the overall goals of the company. Acumen Learning conducted a virtual course that helped engineers better understand their role within the big picture of the organization and enhanced their comprehension of financial statements. Engineers built comradery and business acumen skills through critical conversations, applied those skills to real-life situations taking place within the organization, and developed a plan of action to positively contribute to the bottom line. As a result, the course scored highest for meeting graduates' expectations and for being applicable back on the job. Acumen Learning is proud to work with half of the 10 largest medical device companies in the world. Supporting Quotes: “Good overview of the important metrics that drive business decisions. I like the strong connection to our actual business metrics.” “Really good to get this overview. I never felt competent in this area, but now I have some hope.” “Outstanding. A great reminder of how to effectively use and evaluate our company Earnings calls along with our Annual Reports and financial statements. A great dive into CPAGP Cash, Profit, Assets, Growth and People.” “I think the best part of my job is watching the concepts officially click,” said Acumen Learning facilitator Brad Winegar. “This company happened to be focusing on an engineering group with little familiarity and background to the business side of their company. Complex business topics can be hard to grasp, but watching them gradually understand the pieces, having that ‘a-ha moment’ is so rewarding.” About Acumen Learning Founded in 2002, Acumen Learning's highly customized business acumen and sales training programs have helped organizations develop employees who are more engaged, efficient, and effective in their work. To further support its mission, Acumen Learning published, Seeing the Big Picture – Business Acumen to Build Your Credibility, Career, and Company, in 2012 which quickly became a #1 Wall Street Journal and a New York Times bestseller. More than 20 years later, Acumen Learning has been trusted by more than 200 organizations on six continents to help employees understand how their company makes money, and to take real steps towards improving that process.

The Best Interview Tips Business Acumen: Interview Takeaways We have 3 pieces of advice to help you succeed in your interviews: understand their business, present yourself authentically, and come in with an elevated resume. With that, you'll be just the sort of person an employer is hoping to sit across from. Business Acumen: Knowledge of the Business You should be familiar with everything there is to know about the company you’re interviewing with. Before you sit down in that interview chair, you need to know the company's visions and goals, what exactly it does and sells, and your role within it. When you have a good grasp on these things, you’re able to articulate why they should hire you. Not only will you be able to impress the executives with your research and knowledge about their organization, but you’ll be able to adequately explain the benefit you will bring to their business. Business Acumen: Authenticity Of course, everyone wants to come prepared and put themselves in the best light during an interview, but written responses can be a major turnoff. Employers are not looking for memorized answers. They want your genuine thoughts and reactions, your attitude, and your thinking process. Don’t be afraid to pause and reflect on any of their questions and consider the best answer. Employers are looking for how you’ll fit into their organization and what your natural thinking and execution processes are. They want a real person to have a conversation with. Business Acumen: Resume Have a quantifiable resume. Your previous job description is helpful, and the degree in which you graduated, but what really matters is the impact you were able to make in your previous role. Were you able to grow a metric by 5%? Were you growing a team by 10 people? Did you cut costs? These are all detailed descriptions that tell HOW you were able to work, not just where you worked. Put time and effort into the projects you were able to accomplish and assist in. Think about the ways that you made an impact and contributed to the development of the company. Share those on your resume. Being great at interviews is a skill. Utilize business acumen with these tangible tips. Gloat on your accomplishments, give honest answers, make some friends, and win that job! You’ll wow your interviewers and win that job or promotion. This is the perfect time to showcase yourself. 5 Business Acumen Interview Questions You Should Be Asking While it may be hard to gain a comprehensive understanding of an applicant’s business acumen, here are 5 questions that will give you an idea about how much they “get” business. And if you are a job seeker, you may want to know the answer to these questions as well. Continue your Learning: Download the course overview for our Building Business Acumen Course: ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on LinkedIn @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #strategicagility #financial #financialstrategy #financialacumen #financialliteracy #jobinterview #interviewtips

Build Your Business Acumen In our book, Seeing the Big Picture, we have a list of six extremely practical ideas to encourage and support your development and application of business acumen. We firmly believe business acumen is not a one-time ordeal or list item you can check off. It is a continual journey of growth and learning. 1. Commit the Time to Study and Research Set aside time for regular study and research. Your days are already full, and crowded with professional and personal activities. Nevertheless, carve out the time to advance your credibility, your career, and your company. How much time do you spend watching television? Could you chat with coworkers less and read industry information more? Could you use your lunchtime more productively? An hour of research even once a week will have a great payoff. Whether you can spend an hour a week or a half-hour daily, set aside time for study and preparation regularly. Then put it to use. The Resources section in the back of our book, Seeing the Big Picture, offers a host of opportunities to learn more about business in general and your industry specifically. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter or access other resources. You should also devote time to learning how your company is organized and operates: its organization and internal structure, who the key officers are, your primary products and services, your present and future goals. Understand the important priorities, values, and strategies of your CEO, division head, and direct supervisor. Do you know how your company is doing financially or what its financial goals are? Go deeper than the big picture of your company and explore the financials of each division or department if you can. How are the 5 Key Drivers being prioritized throughout your organization? You can learn this by reading: the annual report; e-mail and other communications from your boss; company press releases; materials on the company website; quarterly Form 10-Q filings and annual 10-K filings; and other resources about your company, including interviews of your senior leadership in all media. Ask your supervisor how to access additional internal operating data if it isn't readily available. Also, if you are an employee of a public company, listen to your CEO's quarterly conference calls with Wall Street analysts. This quarterly call provides a current report on your company's operations and financial performance and your CEO's priorities and future plans. If you miss the actual call, an archived recording will likely be found on your company's website in the investor relations section. You should also know who your three to four most important competitors are and learn their basic financial data, strategies, products and services, and strengths and weaknesses. Read their annual reports, their Websites, and information about them in the media. Finally, learn what is happening in the external environment that might affect your company. Read or listen to financial, economic, and business news from websites and print and broadcast media, including books, magazines, the Wall Street Journal, and the business section of any large metropolitan daily paper. As Harold S. Geneen, once CEO of ITT and father of the international conglomerate, once said, "When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings." 2. Talk with Key Company Managers Build relationships with key leaders and managers at your company. Start with your boss or supervisor. Talk regularly with peers or teammates in different departments who have specific expertise. Ask questions that reveal your own research. Share your helpful insights in return. Talk with your boss or supervisor about the big picture of your organization and how your team or department, and you personally, can have a more significant impact. Learn the key measures and "dashboard metrics" that your boss and your company's senior management are focused on. Discuss with your supervisor how you can better achieve these targets so you know how your team and job function fit in. Setting up these discussions need not be complicated or overly formal; meet people for lunch, or set brief appointments in their offices. Let your reasons be known: you want to become more knowledgeable in order to make more effective contributions. Build relationships! 3. Be Proactive — Contribute and Follow Through Whenever an assignment or opportunity for action results from your study, discussions, or meetings, follow through and do it. Report back in a timely way to the appropriate parties. When realistic or appropriate, put your comments and questions into succinct, meaningful, and timely e-mails or memos addressed to appropriate personnel. However, don't overwhelm people with a flood of ideas or recommendations. Be targeted in your approach. Draw up a brief written action list concerning any or all of the 5 Key Drivers. Link your actions to results that "move the needle" in areas important to your boss and senior management and that support the key measures they have identified. Identify in writing how your actions impact the drivers. Give a copy to your boss or supervisor and discuss. 4. Attend Industry Meetings and Make Outside Contacts If your company provides any occasion for you to attend industry conferences or major customer meetings, take the opportunity. Network with those you meet there. Read the literature available. Grow your own database of contacts. Keep in touch with them over time, as possible. Gain your own direct sources of helpful industry, economic, or business information. Stay in communication with those you meet. 5. Find a Mentor Ask a coworker — maybe a peer or senior manager — to work with and mentor you. Your partner should be someone to whom you can make a commitment regarding your business acumen action plan and to whom you can be accountable. That person may want to further his or her own knowledge, and you can help and support each other. Being a mentor to someone else will help you both. Above all, be accountable to yourself in your assignment to see your company's big picture and continue developing your business acumen. Get a demo for Business Acumen Training: 6. Influence Management To influence senior management, you must follow all of the above recommendations as you prepare yourself to present an idea or opportunity. Then, when asking a leader to consider seriously your views of recommendations, follow these four important suggestions — principles that have worked for thousands of employees across many industries and types of companies: Listen to understand: Listen first. Your sole purpose in listening? To understand where the individual or management team is coming from, to get what's important to them. In every meeting, listen carefully for opportunities to ask insightful questions and learn even more. If you deeply understand their point of view, their needs and priorities, it will first influence you. Then you'll be better equipped to influence them. Present their case and needs to them: Once you have listened deeply, make a "my understanding of your needs and objectives" summary before making your own proposals. Once managers know that you really do understand their perspective, they will be more open to listening to your analysis and proposals. You'll have built greater trust. Speak their language: Once you've established mutual understanding, connect your analysis and recommendations to their strategic goals, concerns, and needs. Link your message to what's important to them, in financial language they understand. Demonstrate the impact of your proposal or analysis on those drivers important to them. Remember that every department or function has differing priorities. Use ROI analysis: Ultimately, every business decision boils down to determining how best to use cash for maximum return on investment. Make a convincing case for a favorable ROI through your recommendation. Get our best-selling book, Seeing the Big Picture: Learn how to Build Business Acumen on your Team! Head to our website for more in-depth information regarding any of these topics. ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on LinkedIn @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #buildingbusinessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddvelopment #leadershipdevelopment #financetraining #businesstraining #financialstrategy #financialacumen #businesssuccess #5drivers

One of the Largest Food Processing Companies Saw Results When Implementing a Customized Business Acumen Course Designed by Acumen Learning Press Release OREM, Utah – January 6, 2023 Download the Business Acumen Press Release: News Facts: Acumen Learning has joined forces with one of the top 4 largest food processing companies in the world to customize business acumen courses for their leaders and executives. A top priority for the year was to grow their leaders internally, advance their business acumen skills, and prepare their directors for the next level of leadership. Through the customization and planning process, the team identified found three major leadership skills that needed focus: analytical and strategic thinking, industry understanding, and financial literacy. To address these priorities, the company brought in Acumen Learning to enhance the team’s skills and prepare them for new leadership opportunities. Because of the success of the program for senior leaders, the company now uses the Building Business Acumen program for junior and midlevel managers. Acumen Learning created a customized version of its Building Business Acumen course that is specific to this company and industry. Through facilitated learning, peer discussions, and group activities, the teams were able to learn different skill sets and apply them to their role. The business acumen course exceeded the executive's expectations. After being surveyed ‘I will be more effective in my role as a result of taking this course’ the teams scored a 4.8/5. This proves that their skills were enhanced, and their priorities were met. Acumen Learning has now partnered with three of the world's four largest food processing companies to initiate business acumen growth through customized courses. Supporting Quotes: “This class far exceeded my expectations. The consultant was extremely knowledgeable and energized. This course was huge for my career. I’m excited to take it back to my teams. Thank you for the passion!” “The energy and knowledge of the instructor was evident. Being able to break the financial concepts down into a basic format and present them at a high level in two days is remarkable. Well done!” “I really enjoyed it and wish everybody in the company could have the same training.” “This course was great. The presentation method and content was perfectly targeted toward our group and baseline knowledge of business acumen. I will be recommending this workshop to my management team.” “Their initial drive of developing executive leaders internally was a great business strategy,” said Brent Barclay, Chief Operations Officer and Senior Financial Consultant at Acumen Learning. “It’s a smart business move to develop all of your executives and the success shows in their revenue numbers.” About Acumen Learning Founded in 2002, Acumen Learning's highly customized business acumen and sales training programs have helped organizations develop employees who are more engaged, efficient, and effective in their work. To further support its mission, Acumen Learning published, Seeing the Big Picture – Business Acumen to Build Your Credibility, Career, and Company, in 2012 which quickly became a #1 Wall Street Journal and a New York Times bestseller. More than 20 years later, Acumen Learning has been trusted by more than 200 organizations on six continents to help employees understand how their company makes money, and to take real steps towards improving that process.

Sales Misses the Mark Forester created a study a few years ago where they discovered that eight out of 10 executive buyers say sales meetings are a waste of time. In fact, where sales reps graded their own meeting preparedness as a "B," C-suite buyers rated them as an "F"! And executives' complaints came down really to one issue: salespeople don't know their businesses. Executives often complained about simple stuff like, "I'm publicly traded. They should know my business. Why are they coming and asking me what my business is?" Or they'll say, "What's my biggest challenge? A lot of that is out in the public arena. They can find that information. What I need is I need somebody who can come in, understand my business as well as I or as close as well as I can, and then help me see how their products or service can drive towards it." And that's what business acumen allows us to do. Become a Business Expert that Sells It helps a salesperson move from a sales expert — or product or service expert — to a business expert who happens to sell. Acumen Learning is not a methodology company, we're not teaching sales methodology, we're not teaching sales platforms or technology. We're taking sales leaders who understand their products very well and help them understand the business of the companies they're selling into. So they can go to their customer, understand their business, and articulate how a partnership with their company will drive their customer's success. That's the differentiator. Once they understand their customers, they can help provide solutions that move the needle on what the organization is doing. Get a FREE Executive Overview of Sales: Business Acumen Training Makes a Difference Companies spend millions — if not billions — of dollars training their salespeople. In fact, many organizations will have a lot more money available for the sales organization because in the end, if they can sell more, it drives their top line and drives greater revenue, sales, etc. for the organization. Naturally, there are all sorts of training out there around sales. Training on methodology, training around tools like CRMs, and others that help track their customers. But I would say Acumen Learning is really focused on helping employees understand their customers better and answer the question: How do I really get to know what they're focused on? Being great at business acumen takes more than a one-time event — it's a skill that must be continually built. For example, earnings calls are an excellent tool for staying up-to-date on company strategy. Our clients love that every quarter we come back to do earnings call debriefs to reassess the strategic focus of their customers. We look at what clients are talking about, what they're driving towards, and then gain the expertise to say, "let me tell you how my product or how my service will get to increase profitability. Let me show you how it will reduce your cost." What Your Executives Want you to Know: When you get sold something as a business leader, it can feel very transactional. People call you up saying, "Hey I want to tell you about my latest and greatest software application or my latest and greatest training solution." In the end, the real question for those that are being sold to is, "How are you going to help me be more successful? How are you going to help me solve the problems I'm dealing with? How do you help me drive results?" If you can articulate that case, that's when you go from an "F" to an "A". No longer are you a sales individual, you're a trusted partner. You're part of your client's team. I think that's really what continued training around how to understand your customers does. How Business Acumen Impacts Sales: Just think of the last couple of years between the pandemic, supply chain issues, war, all these things that impact what we can do as a business. Boy, if you can understand your customers and how they're struggling and then provide them with solutions, that's the holy grail of sales training. How to Win Sales with Business Acumen: We love passionate and enthusiastic salespeople! But we've all been on a call when the salesperson is so amped to share their products or services, that they forget to really focus on your company's needs. Sometimes, when we’re embedded in our product, we jump right in and have to explain all the great things about it — what it can do, how it is beneficial — without actually knowing the needs and struggles of our customers. And I really don’t blame you! You sell great things! However, I think that is the number one problem that salespeople run into and business acumen help solve. ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on Linkedin @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #businessacumentraining #salesprocess #salessuccess #sales #trust#buildingtrust #partner

FAQ related to Business Acumen Why don't we teach a generic course? Study after study suggests that employees who understand how their company makes money and who know how they personally contribute to that money-making process are more engaged, more efficient, and more effective. And that's what developing good business acumen is all about. ​ To pull this off, and to really see a return on your investment, business acumen training has to be customized to the strategy and metrics that are important to your CEO and to a participant’s specific role and responsibilities. ​ Our blended approach of Socratic discussion, intuitive models, and hands-on activities that make business and finance training interesting, relevant, immediately actionable, and dare we say, fun, is what makes the training successful. What is the customization process like? We've developed a purposeful and efficient approach to customizing business and finance courses – measured in weeks not months. We take our existing award-winning teaching methodologies and proprietary models and tools and combine them with what we already know about your industry and what we learn about your organization through our customization process. This modular approach allows you to pick and choose different areas of focus. During your customization process, we'll jointly decide which activities and tools will help participants best meet your learning requirements. Task 1: Uncovering Your Business Strategy Task 2: Designing Your Business Acumen Training Task 3: Delivering Your Business Acumen Course Do we cater to audiences of all career stages? When we began this endeavor over a decade ago, it was to meet a severe need to develop business acumen among rank and file front line employees… so we thought. ​ We learned quickly that business acumen is a gap for most professionals including people in senior leadership positions. Even so called "numbers people" who can read a financial statement have a hard time connecting those numbers to the projects, decisions, departments, external factors, and innovations that are the real story behind the numbers. So while we conduct a lot of frontline courses, we teach just as much business acumen training to senior leaders and finance groups. How does Business acumen training help your Frontline employees? How does Business acumen training help your High Potentials? How does Business acumen training help your Senior Leaders? Does everyone need business acumen? Business acumen is a foundation that's needed, but that's too often missing, in corporate curriculums. For example, without business acumen can individuals ever fully master more conventional business skills like leadership presence, negotiation, or communications? ​ Even when it comes to something seemingly unrelated like diversity training – individuals with business acumen have a better understanding of how different perspectives can help shape a successful project and ultimately a successful company. Without business acumen, it's just another HR course. ​ Developing business acumen gives your leaders a business footing on which to stand and it provides needed context and clarity on which to build additional business skills. And smart organizations are recognizing that including business acumen in their professional competency models is a real competitive advantage. How are our facilitators qualified? The talent of our facilitators is the foundation on which we build client relationships. Our people view every training engagement as their opportunity to make a measurable impact on your business. ​ Therefore, we can’t just hire people who are professional presenters – you can’t put a career presenter in front of a room of senior executives hungry for a discussion on their company’s weighted average cost of capital trends. That’s not going to work. Likewise, we can’t just hire people who are experts in the field of business and finance, because a lengthy lecture that goes over most people’s heads from some number cruncher isn’t going to work either. ​ For this reason, we invest heavily in finding and developing facilitators who are capable of teaching any professional, from any industry, about the business of their business. And they must do it in a way that is both clear enough to reach the individual contributor and yet sophisticated enough to challenge your most senior executives. ​ This is uncommon talent, that’s admittedly hard to find, but it’s essential if you’re serious about your talent management initiatives and want to achieve unprecedented results through business acumen training. What industries do we have expertise in? As a world-leading authority on business acumen training, chances are pretty high that our facilitators have either taught or conducted research on the companies you admire, compete against, and sell to. They have an unparalleled perspective into a wide range of industries which sets them apart from all other outside training vendors and internal training resources. ​ What are the main strategies for driving growth in retail? How are hospitals navigating new industry regulations? Who’s leading in the energy sector? We know the answers to these questions and more, and we’ll give your team the tools they need to become similarly sophisticated. ​ That’s why industry leaders, ranging from long-term Acumen Learning clients to organizations we’re proud to be piloting this year, have turned to our deeply experienced team to help them equip their employees with key insights to make faster, more informed, and more strategic business decisions. Business acumen training makes the difference. What sort of reinforcement tools and materials do we provide? We’ve made tools and job aids an essential part of our business acumen training programs. While there are many training vendors who give out a token job aide at the end of the day as a sort of thank you – we’ve gone beyond this. ​ Our tools have been integrated with our classroom experience – we’re modeling how to effectively use the tools to add value to the business. Breaking participants into groups, to get hands on experience using the tools with their classmates, is an ah-ha moment for attendees. They quickly realize that what they’re doing in the classroom is what they’re expected to do back on the job. And not just once or twice, but for the rest of their career. Here are a few of the tools we provide: #1 Bestseller: Seeing the Big Picture Job Aid: Navigating the Financials Job Aid: Executive Alignment Job Aid: Action Plan E-Learning Review What follow-up do we use to solidify learners’ experience? Ultimately it’s up to graduates to become more valuable and valued, but we’re going to do everything we can – as if it were up to us. Graduates will return to work speaking the universal language of business. No matter their level in the organization, they’ll have a big picture mentality and be wrestling with the inherent complexity of your business. They’ll also have a renewed appreciation for how money making is valued throughout the organization and by the stock market. They’ll be excited to share their new knowledge and to use their classroom tools on the job. Our follow-up activities are designed to tap into this energy to help ensure there’s a real change in how decisions are made and how business gets done. 7-Day, 30-Day, and Quarterly Facilitator Check-Ins Acumen in Action Series Accountability Partners Challenge: Manager Review & Debrief Challenge: Teach a Colleague Quarterly Earnings Calls Why not a game, sim, professor, or internal finance team? Instead of dumbing down your business and spending valuable time teaching people how to play a board game or sim, we teach people substantive things: a deeper understanding of how their company makes money and the skills needed to play a more meaningful role in that money-making process throughout their career. By their very nature, simulations focus learners on concepts and ideas, we want our participants to think about your business strategy. We want them to figure out how their ideas and decisions impact metrics that are important to the business. We want them to spend time thinking about how to beat the real competition, not their colleague across the room. We want them to return to work eager to help your company win in the real world. ​ If you treat your employees like they’re vital to your business – they’ll be vital to your business. If you let them know that you take their personal development seriously – they’ll take their personal development seriously. Don’t make a game out of this important initiative. The development of business acumen is too important. ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on LinkedIn @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #strategicagility #financial #financialstrategy #financialacumen #frequentlyaskedquestions #FAQ

Understand the Income Statement with Business Acumen What is the P&L? The Profit and Loss statement is vital when learning about companies. Especially if you're in the sales space and want to better understand your customers, you need to be comfortable navigating the income statement. The second thing we noticed was their top-line. To find it, go to its investor relations page, and download its 10-Q. From there you'll find its consolidated statement of earnings which includes the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. While looking at Home Deport's P&L, the first thing we noticed is that their quarter ended May 1st, so that tells me that their financial year ends February 1st. This gives us a good understanding of their budget cycle. We now know that they probably finished the beginning of their year planning which you can ask about on your next sales call. Defining Business Terms: See a word that confuses you? Head to our Financial Glossary page! Sales Growth The second thing we noticed was their top-line sales growth. Home Deport grew to $38.9 billion from $37.5 billion last year. That's a growth rate of 3.7%. We also know that during their last earnings call, they had a goal of hitting $200 billion by the end of this year so we'd be curious to know if they think this is a strong Q1, if they're on pace for that goal, and if I can help them reach their goal. Their gross profit is $13.1 billion. If you divide that by their net sales or revenue of $38.9 billion, you'll find that their gross margin is 33.7%. That is much higher than the average retailer's gross margin, so we'd be curious what they think about that. Finally, their net income is $4.2 billion. Again, out of $38.9 billion in revenue, that gives a net profit margin of 10.8%. That's slightly lower than the S&P 500 average of 13%. If you wanted to help improve their bottom line, there are two levers to pull: growing sales and lowering costs. Now that we have a good understanding of where Home Depot's at, we can then ask on my sales call what lever they are focused on. What is the Business Strategy? As a salesperson, you should be curious about your client's business strategy. Know what's most important to them. That's our simple breakdown of a P&L in sixty seconds. Imagine what you could learn with a little more time and more business acumen. How to Win Sales with Business Acumen Business acumen is not a dispensable attribute. It's necessary to do your job well. And, if you want your clients to be EXCITED to talk to you, learn their metrics. Learn their business. Get business acumen. Continue your education and finish reading the article: If you'd like to talk to someone about our Business Acumen Training for Sales, Click here: ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #businessacumentraining #salesprocess #salessuccess #sales #trust #buildingtrust #HomeDepot

Getting the Tea with Business Acumen Earnings calls are the soap operas of business. If you think they're boring, you may not be understanding them. If you speak the language of finance and know some basic vocabulary, you can listen to those earnings calls, and all of a sudden it's like watching the Bachelor. It's human intrigue! It's the excitement of business watching those earnings calls. Part 1: Prepared Remarks This is how they work. Every quarter (obviously, because they're quarterly earnings calls), publicly traded companies report their financial results and answer questions from analysts. The first portion of an earnings call is usually the prepared remarks. This is when an executive — usually the CEO — gives a visionary explanation of where the company is headed. And afterward, the CFO wraps things up with a more number-heavy explanation which if you don't speak finance can be boring. That's totally fine. You may just want to listen to the CEO's section anyways. During the prepared remarks, you can tell how a company is doing by what type of metrics they report on. If they are reporting on obvious metrics like top line, revenue, bottom line, profit, gross margins, operating profits, or operating margins — basically all of the terms you're probably familiar with — they're more likely doing well. In that case, they may say, "we have increased here, we're hitting guidance here, we're doing well here." However, if everything sounds rosy but they're reporting on obscure key performance indicators like, "we were three points higher than expected in our Asian market corporate division," you know what they're doing is trying to find any good news. Anything metric that went, they want to report on. That's how you can use prepared remarks to tell how a company is doing just by listening to what type of metrics they're reporting. Part 2: Question & Answer The next section of the earnings call is the analyst Q&A. These financial analysts are familiar with this company's past earnings and will get the company's quarterly results a little bit before the call. They get the chance to quickly read their financial results, interpret them, and jump onto the call to ask their questions. What you don't know is that behind the scenes the CEO and CFO had the opportunity to move those questions around. They see them coming in and can change the order. The order is really important. Generally, they'll take the easy, lowball questions first. You know, start out with good news. Then they put the hard questions in the middle. If you start paying attention, you can almost skip to the middle of the transcript or middle of the analyst Q&A and those are the hardball questions. Then they usually try to end on a lighter note again so that it won't impact the stock market price too negatively. That's what they're hoping for anyway. What's so interesting though is it doesn't always follow that format. Getting the Most Out of an Earnings Call Get our Earnings Call Workbook for FREE: Tesla is an interesting company to follow. During one recent earnings call, Elon Musk took the hardball question right up front and used it to his advantage to hilarious effect. This is what happened. An analyst asked, "Mr. Musk, you aren't very accurate in your predictions. In the past, you've told us that [self-driving cars] would be launched a long time ago... you've been wrong a lot. Tell us why we can trust you now." Pretty hardball question! He took that as the first question. Brave! This is why people follow Elon, right? Musk replied, "I'm so glad you asked me that question. I want you to experience it for yourself. I want you actually to go to this website and try the self-driver." He totally turned it into a marketing opportunity. Seriously! He took the hardball question, answered it first, and turned it into a marketing opportunity. If these insights into the inner workings and strategies of companies aren't like watching the Bachelor, we don't know what is. If you want to be entertained, first you do need to learn a little bit of the finance vocabulary and then start jumping on those quarterly earnings calls of the companies that you work for, follow, sell into, partner with, or invest in, and be entertained! Continue your education at our next earnings call lab where we'll break down another amazing company: Listen to one of our Earnings Calls Analysis on Disney: ✅ Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more Business Acumen videos! ✅ Follow us on LinkedIn @AcumenLearning to keep up with all company updates! ✅ For more on our business acumen training visit our website! #businessacumen #businessstrategy #learninganddevelopment #stockmarket #stocks #earningscall #leadershipdevelopment #financetraining #businesstraining #financialstrategy #financialacumen #businesssuccess