Ernie Humphrey:
All right, a treasure walks into a bar. Now, so we’re going to have a lot of slides so you can have the slides afterwards, I wanted to give you a lot of content that you can review afterwards. So this is a session near and dear to my heart is Treasury up the up and down the Office of the CFO technology is really changing, right, our value proposition. So there’s an opportunity for us to take more ownership of our career. And part of that really is the soft skills. And we’ve never been taught that right? How do you lead? How do you collaborate? And then how do you network? So we’ll touch on some things, your professional brand, so fast and furious, as always, again, please, you’ll get the slides I have much more content and charger, webinars.com, I have like probably three hours of content on all these things together. Career dimensions, your brand, how do you get the skills that you need? How do you develop your professional network, we’ll dive into that. And too bad. Not very many people want to do that because you people will be making more money than them. Alright. So career dimensions. And so this is for me, I always think that I wish I would have had this session when I was in Treasury A long time ago, it doesn’t matter if you’re writing now or you’re a treasurer. A lot of what people are looking for, I do a little recruiting on the side. And people want leaders, they don’t want the skills, they want the leadership, they want the collaboration. So in my mind what you need to succeed as your professional brand, you’re on all the time, you have a brand in your department. in your office, you have a brand when you’re walking around this conference, right? What’s my brand? No, it’s not obnoxious? Well, it kinda is. And so I tell younger students and things you hate your brand is on if you’re in class and at work, you need to build your network, right? Who are the people that you want to know? Who are the people that you need to know? Right? And that’s how you need to approach it. So we’ll talk about skill set, that I’ve seen some tools to assess your skills. We’ll talk about how to get an engaged network, and then I’m going to give you Dr. Phil, it’s going to be longer than 18 minutes. Sorry, you invited me. All right. So the right mindset. So this is just for me in communicating, and know what you know. So don’t be afraid to toot your horn. I toot my horn all the time, toot, toot, right? There’s a balance, fine line between being confident and being arrogant. confidence, knowing what you know, and not getting over your skis. As most people, if you know me, you’ll know that if I don’t know something, I’m going to admit it, right. But if I know it, I’m going to tell you all about it. And I’m going to act like I own it because I do. That’s the way you succeed. You need to invest in knowing your colleagues, I think we’ve had a shift, which is nice. In human capital, a person is not an asset. Everyone is not replaceable. Everybody matters. Invest in knowing your colleagues, but probably harder, let them get to know you make a personal connection, you’ll find that that works if your workplace tells you not to do that. Leave. Sorry, I shouldn’t say that. But it’s true. I mean, you need to invest in that, right? communicate what you know, more importantly, communicate what you need to know, let people know that you’re interested. So let’s say you’re in Treasury, and you don’t AP and AR don’t report up to you go there with them and have a conversation say, Hey, I just saw this webinar, what’s all this automation? What are you guys doing? Right? So my thing is, here’s what you want to look at? Can you control it? I love to control AP and AR, can you influence it? Right? So you want to get at least to influencing it, because it’s a cash conversion cycle, right? In my mind, AP and AR should report up through Treasury, period. That’s what we do, right? So we need to actively collaborate. So here’s your professional brand. You’re the foundation, I think people hear the word and they’re like, Oh, it’s too complicated. It’s not complicated, but it’s like an investment. It’s like your 401k, you have to invest in it. So someone might go to my LinkedIn profile and say, Wow, this guy has all these connections, look at all this stuff. And I’m just like, that took 10 years to get there. I mean, it was a lot of work. So it’s not like overnight, I all of a sudden, discovered how to network and get people to follow me and figure out how to offer content versus blowing my horn, without things that are viable, because I’m good at that. So you didn’t know a professional value proposition is called elevator pitch. It’s not that hard. People make it too complicated. So I’ll go on that. Yeah, look at your skill set. For me in this digital world, your LinkedIn profiles, your resume, everyone can see it. I’m connected and second degree from over 5 million people. And that’s not a lie. So that’s 500 million people that can see my resume. So my deal is, your professional brand needs work, unless you’re getting calls for job opportunities. If you’re not, you can try harder.
Alright, too much information here. I’ll let you guys live this. You need to craft a strong resume. I hate resumes. I hate hate hate hate. So my friend Mike Richards, who’s the Treasury recruitment company, he’s got some tips. So I’m not going to go over this just if you want to, you should look at your resume, as painful as that might be, Of course, I have an alternative resume haha. But my friend told me when I was going to get kicked out of all the job sites and I am glad I really care. Yeah. So this is Mike and more of an attachment. But this to me, is what makes so I borrowed this from someone on LinkedIn, this gentleman told me, I’ve interviewed Google and Facebook and probably the top 10 companies in the world, my resume has never gotten kicked out. I’ve gotten a call every time someone might try that. So it’s more about what you do as a person, right? Your photo, right? I was gonna put my prom photo on there. But someone told me not to do that. Your experience what matters? Right?
What about your work life balance? What do you do? That’s interesting. share that, right? What makes you tick? What are your activities? How about this?
What are things you need to work on? We saw that, wouldn’t you be intrigued? If you’re a hiring manager? Like I’ve never seen that for? That’s pretty interesting. And then your Rainmaker proof. What are you most proud of? Give me the three things or four things you’re most proud of? Right there. That’s it. And when people say, I have a job, I have a job, I have a job, my goal, my LinkedIn profile, you’re not interviewing me. I mean, come on, make an effort, right? I’m a valuable commodity as Stephanie, she knows. So your value proposition, your elevator pitch, it’s not rocket science, you can do it in five minutes or less. And I only have 18 minutes I’m gonna do in three seconds. This is mine. So here it is. Keep it simple. Here’s how you can do it. What good things your current or previous bosses would say about you. For me, more than you would think. What good things would your current previous colleagues have to say about you? What good things that people work for you, or used to work for you say about you. And then what good things, what your connections and HighRadius, say about me, they would say I’m fabulous, unparalleled speaker, partner. But those are the things you need to think about. If you’re lucky, you have a lot of recommendations, and I’m very fortunate on LinkedIn so I can pull things out. So here’s my pillars, my elevator pitch, I’m a human being 24/7., I have no business, which I’m invested in is excessive all around me, I bother HighRadius all the time, because I want to deliver more value to them. They might not like what I say, but I’m always doing that. I’m always trying to give more than I get. And people around me work. I want to elevate them and you elevate people around you, they elevate you, obviously passionate, really dedicated, and I love to learn. And I anticipate what needs to be done and I do it. The release doesn’t have to tell me to do something for other webinars already done. So think a little bit ahead. So for me, here’s my elevator pitch. My elevator pitch is to impact the career success of charging professionals. That’s it,help people own their career. That’s it. It’s not hard, but what’s behind that, all those things. And I would venture any of you that know me will look at those and say, Yep, yep, yep. And so really your I tell people your elevator pitch is who you are, all the time, how you communicate yourself, look at your resume. Is that your elevator pitch your LinkedIn profile? Is that your elevator pitch? So can I talk to you for three minutes and get what you’re about, right? And so it’s different for every person, some people won’t respond. It takes courage to put yourself out there as being authentic, what’s your value proposition, but it’s about where you want to work, right? If you’re authentic in the way you want things to be, you’re going to get connected with the right culture. If you’re not connected with the right culture, that’s another topic. Figure out how to leave. Do what you love. Here is one LinkedIn profile, I won’t go through that. A few things. As you probably common sense, your photo right, you’re popular, make sure you have some connections. This is my favorite section of my resume. I get compliments about this all the time. And my mom did not write this. This is me if I had to pay someone $1 million. To put what I’m about this would be it. Very rarely do I meet people who maintain a high level of business professionalism with this terrific degree of personality, humor and genuine kindness. That’s me. So if you have something like that, share it. I want people to read that because if they respond to that, I want to be around you. If not, hey, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. I have like a 40% like rate so I’m good with that. You have your interest hooks, you have your banner, your photo, you can use little emoji, like little emojis in your thing. When I started putting emojis in there, I took them off. I got so many views. And then when you’re building your profile, borrow from people, go and look at what people do and borrow it. basket you know, you should always be looking at this. And these are I’m just going on my profile. So I’m going to fast flip my activity, your ban your brand strength, you know, again, 19,000 followers, that’s pretty good in my area. That was not that was extremely painful. But it pays off every day. Experience skills. I hate those skills things. Bah. But you all gave me a star so I thought I’d say it’s cool. People were telling me like they were endorsing me for like rocket science, and driving with my knees and doing heart surgery. I’m like, dude, I can’t do that. And first of all, I don’t even know you. I’m glad you think I’m so awesome. You know, because they’re trying to play the tit for tat. Don’t do that. Here’s the most important section of your LinkedIn profile. No one ever, ever, ever says us recommendations. How many have you gotten? How many have you given? You need one? For someone you worked for? Someone you worked with? Someone that worked for you, and someone that you work with as a business partner. That’s the cat’s meow. And that’s where your value proposition comes from. Alright,
Building it, how do you build your brand’s LinkedIn, Steffi, mine is points for King, and you record this and send it to him. Alright, you speak at live events like this, attend live events when we came with COVID speak on webinars, if you’re a treasury person, you can get I can help you get to speak on a webinar in five minutes. They need your they want your knowledge, you have knowledge, anything and treasure your finance, you are a good speaker, you just don’t know yet. And to speak on podcasts that builds your brand.
Skills that matter, okay, did a survey with HighRadius, some of the skills that matter here, we saw their soft and more the tech skills, data management, data analytics, IT savvy, business partnering, so here’s the ones I think should be important, especially as you move up the corporate ladder, business partnering, relationship building passion for learning, I hate that spreadsheet software even on their yuck written communication skills. So those are just things to look at. And so these things are just, you have to take a hard look in the mirror, what skills do I have? What skills do I need? And then how do I get there, right? So there’s a tool that I’m happy to share with you, I’m not going to go through it skills wheel. My partner developed this wheel was kind of like a target. And it says there’s not a real tool out there right? To help you assess your skills, let’s be honest, I’ve never seen one. Before those I’ve never said okay, soft skills. That’s great. Well, how do I know what that means? Right? answers you should ask people, but that’s the skills wheel. Alright, here’s the I did my virtual forum, I think I use a slide like 10 times. This is your success, supporting your team over your career have a great team, this is the environment you want to deliver, or the environment you want to be in. This is based on conversations with hundreds of Treasury and finance leaders, maybe 1000s. Here’s what it is. You want to get or to have personal growth, you should expect company support personal growth, you should support the personal growth of any and all of your employees. But you have to get to know what that means for them. professional growth opportunities for professional development. I’ve done some surveys, it’s amazing to see all the opportunities, especially I was surprised, especially in the AP space, where so much I asked them, What are the professional development opportunities you have, there’s a lot more, I’d like to see more from Treasury to value in ethics. I mean, that’s a it’s kind of a personal thing. But you look for a company, you have to formalize the values, but you can just see it in the environment. You need a positive environment. And I don’t like the word toxic, because I’m toxic. Now. I’m kinda disruptive. They’re demonstrating disruptive and toxic, disruptive people make the world go round, right? What are your favorite things? I don’t know, maybe one of them’s an iPhone, right? Or something like that. So just think about what that means a good boss, Praise be vested in your employee success and make sure that they’re invested in yours. I had a great conversation with the CFO and a podcast. She used to, they have to pay to have to review their LinkedIn profile with her. And she made them own their own professional development. And that’s what I want you guys to do as well. Communication, constructive, honest, authentic. Another thing obviously, is you want to build trust, you can’t build trust unless you’re authentic. And the other thing around that is, you have to make sure that people around you aren’t afraid to fail. And don’t let yourself be in a place where you are afraid to fail. Because you’re you’ll you won’t get anywhere. You won’t get what your could be. Everybody needs to fail. We’re growing up, you got to get straight as you got to fail. You learn from failure.
Alright, professional networks. Here’s the scope right? thinking a little bit out of bounds here. Your departmental colleagues, your colleagues beyond charging and finance Five minutes left here, right? All right bank service providers, tech partners, suppliers, professional peers. So just think about the breadth of that. Some of this you’ve seen before I got the strategy. Who do you need to know? Who do you want to know? Who do you need to know? And who do you already know? Or who knows who you want to know. So you have to be strategic about it. There’s there’s heavy players at work within your department, within the FinTech world, within Treasury, like Tracy. If you’re a treasury person, I would advise you to hang out with Tracy because she has a big network and she has a good brand. So if you know Tracy, she knows who you need to know probably.
Investing in relationships, we talked about that. Here’s me stuff. He’s like, yeah, listen, listen, listen, I need to do that. That doesn’t work yet I try. Learn the professional languages of your colleagues. If you’re not an AP and AR and your Treasury, learning how they speak, learn their language, learn IT department’s language, learn earnings language, nobody knows that. But be authentic. If you are in relationships, where you can communicate broke bad news practically. and accept it proactively without judgment. Cat’s Meow, business partners think for me, I’ll take away from this, you want to rely on expectations, right? COVID hopefully taught us that. So every year when I talked to HighRadius, we align our expectations. Earning once the moon now we have to decide we can only get halfway to the moon, but the same way as it were the expect of me, because what causes a heck of a lot of problems in your life, friction and anything. Expectations are not aligned. Right? So when those expectations are or if something’s changing, let people know, right? Well, just like during COVID, would you rather know that I’m getting you’re going to get my payment in 40 days instead of 30? Or I don’t know whether I’m going to get it at all. Right? They go ghost on you. And then you got to make investment decisions and barring decisions and ethics positions, because you don’t know. All right, the strategy. Alright, too much content. But good news, you can replay I got somehow for you, which most people don’t share. Just think the breadth of what you can do social events, professional conferences, LinkedIn, AFP, professional associations, public speaking, podcasts, alumni networks. So I am on the board of the Purdue Alumni Association. That’s 700,000 people. Alright, we’re getting there. Two minutes. I got it. All right. This is Dr. Phil, make sure the cameras on for this, this will make you all weep later. So this is my mindset. So as my kids have gotten older, I thought, if I’m ever able to do a graduation speech, maybe at
HighRadius University Haiku or whatever that is, they’ll ask me to speak at commencement. Here’s my life philosophy. Live, listen, learn, fail and fall forward, and repeat. So life is about the journey. You don’t always control the journey. You do control who you share that journey with, and how you react, the obstacles in the road. And the detours control what you can learn to live with what you can’t learn. Learning is not a chore. It’s a way of life. You got to quote me if you use that one ,life, life and failure is where your most important lessons will be learned. If you never fail, and you’ve never sucked in anything, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough. Sorry, that’s true. So I borrowed some of that from Denzel Washington. Sorry, I said the word as you suck, but it’s better than the alternative. Alright, repeat. Learn, live and when you fail, fall forward every day. Success is a journey. It’s not a destination. Success is rented. You earn it every day. So I think I have what five seconds. Tremendous. Is that is all my time up? About questions? Yes, I bought this suit and you can have one and whoever is going to be on the football field. I will tackle you. So be Watch out.
