Business Financial Intelligence: A mindset and skillset few people have and all organizations need.

By Paul Butler

What your CFO absolutely needs you to know...

This clear and concise book will help you better understand the universal language of business and will demystify the financial terminology and concepts that are used to measure an organization's performance.

Do you want to go to the highe

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scholars Gate Publishing
• Release date: Sep 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736371817

Paul Butler

Paul Butler is the author of several critically acclaimed novels including Cupids, Hero, 1892, NaGeira, Easton’s Gold, Easton, and Stoker’s Shadow. His work has appeared on the judges’ lists for Canada Reads, the Relit Longlist for three consecutive years, and he was a winner in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Awards four times between 2003 and 2008 at which time he retired from the competition to be literary representative, and then chair, of the Arts and Letters Committee. A graduate of Norman Jewison’s Canadian Film Centre, Butler has written for the Globe and Mail, The Beaver, Books in Canada, Atlantic Books Today, and Canadian Geographic, and has also contributed to CBC Radio, local and national. He lives in St. John’s.

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A mindset and skillset few people have and all organizations need.

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What your CFO absolutely needs you to know...

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This clear and concise book will help you better understand the universal language of business and will demystify the financial terminology and concepts that are used to measure an organization’s performance.

Do you want to go to the highest high of your organization? Would you like to enhance your business acumen so any employer in any industry in any part of the world can see your value? If so, this book is a must-read and, more importantly, a must-do.

A recovering accountant, Paul serves as your guide—breaking the complexity of business down into simple, memorable, and often humorous steps.

Can you imagine an organization where everyone working in the business is working as if they owned the business? Imagine what that would do to that company’s income, expenses, assets, and liabilities.

That’s called having an intrapreneurial spirit. That’s called business financial intelligence—a mindset and skillset few people have and all organizations need.

ISBN: 978-1-7363718-1-7

Published by:

Scholars Gate Publishing

27433 Tourney Road, Suite 120

Valencia, CA 91355

Printed in the United States of America

Paperback book ISBN: 978-1-7363718-0-0

Hardback book ISBN: 978-1-7363718-3-1

E-book ISBN: 978-1-7363718-1-7

Audio book ISBN: 978-1-7363718-2-4

Editing by Amy Leskowski and Samuel Kelly

Book design by Joshua Fleck

Audio book produced by Koren Young

Copyright © 2021 Paul Butler

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part or in any form.

About the Author

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Paul Austin Butler

CGMA, CIMA

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Paul Butler is a chartered global management accountant (CGMA) and a chartered management accountant (CIMA). Originally from England, he worked for Hilton International Hotels and Marriott International as a regional finance director and first came to the United States as the director of marketing and financial services for Hilton Honors when Hilton’s worldwide headquarters was in Beverly Hills, California.

In 2006, Paul started Newleaf Training and Development—a staff-training and leadership-development company that serves clients across the United States and around the world.

A teacher at heart, Paul also serves as a faculty member within the business department of the Master’s University in Santa Clarita, California. He lives in Valencia, California, and has been married to his wife, Gaynor, since 1994. They have two adult children.

ABOUT

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Newleaf Training and Development delivers seminars, keynotes, coaching, and online solutions to help people and organizations better manage themselves, lead others, and build business financial intelligence.

Newleaf’s clients include Caltech, Chubb Insurance, Citrix, Hilton Grand Vacations, Lockheed Martin, McGraw Hill, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Pepperdine University.

Newleaf Training and Development is headquartered in Valencia, California. Visit newleaftd.com for further details on their training and development services as well as contact information for other Newleaf office locations.

Why I Wrote This Book

I wrote this book mainly with employees in mind, although much of it can be applied to the working world of an entrepreneur. In fact, from an entrepreneurial perspective, one of the main reasons most small businesses fail within their first five years is not a lack of ideas but a lack of business financial intelligence.

Based on their technical competence alone, employees can make only so much of a contribution to their organizations and get only so far in their careers.

Over and above their technical areas of expertise, employees need to be good at managing themselves. Self-management comes in the form of self-control, time management, a positive attitude, good interpersonal skills, and a spirit to serve both internal and external customers superbly. Employees who are good at managing themselves are likely to be promoted to lead others.

Two things stick in my mind that my father said to me about business. The first is Get rid of the mullet! I protested, trying to explain it was business in the front, party in the back. But I accepted his wise words, and the mullet went. The second thing is A person will never be good at influencing others until they can manage themselves. Isn’t that essentially what leadership is—managing self and influencing others?

But is there anything else? Even if we’re exemplary at managing self and exceptional at influencing others, can we make an even-greater contribution as employees? The answer is yes, and that’s why I wrote this book.

Business financial intelligence is a mindset and skillset few people have and all organizations need. It doesn’t matter whether the company is privately held or publicly traded, whether it’s an educational institution, a government entity, or a nonprofit. Every organization needs to ensure that its income is higher than its expenses and that its assets are larger than its liabilities, or it won’t be doing business for long. Remember, all organizations are in business, as they’re providing products or services in exchange for money, which is the definition of commerce.

Employees operate systems, processes, and procedures—they help deliver products and services to customers and, in doing so, directly impact the income, expenses, assets, and liabilities of their organizations. If the income is greater than the expenses, the employees are helping create profits for the organization, which helps the business continue. If the assets are greater than the liabilities, the employees are improving the equity of the organization, which helps attract and retain investors.

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Can you imagine an organization where everyone working