A CFO’s Guide to Financial Data Storytelling 📖

The ability to transform raw complex financial data into a compelling narrative has become a critical skill for finance professionals. 

Mastering the art of finance data storytelling enables CFOs and other professionals to distill complex information into strategic insights, driving pivotal boardroom decisions and shaping business strategy.

Akash Kapoor, CFO at ColdBlock Technologies, explores the transformative power of financial storytelling and delves into how mastering this critical skill can revolutionize organizational decision-making and propel finance professionals to new heights in their careers. 

As new technologies provide access to swaths of data, it’s more important than ever to have a finance department that can interpret data and turn numbers into clear business narratives. Keep reading to learn more about how financial professionals can break down data silos and guide strategic decisions through compelling, data-driven narratives.

Tailor Presentations to Your Audience

When planning for a presentation that requires data storytelling, two elements should be top of mind — presenting accurate data and knowing your audience. 

Sharing the correct data with stakeholders ensures the team has a solid foundation. But before presenting these critical data points, it’s imperative to have a strong grasp on who your audience is so you can tailor your presentation to your stakeholders.

Successfully tailoring your presentation to your stakeholders hinges on understanding your audience’s wants, needs and what they need to contribute on their end to be successful. 

When tailoring your next financial presentation, consider the following:

1. Put yourself in the audience’s shoes — ask yourself what stakeholders really need to know and how they’ll best be able to understand it. Then, focus on discussing key points in a way that speaks to your audience.

2. Anticipate questions stakeholders may ask on the back end — get familiar with stakeholders’ most pressing questions and concerns, then make sure to tackle them upfront.

3. Plan to give a high-level overview — Cover the most important points as quickly and concisely as possible while still being thorough. Make sure to leave room to dive into finer details after the presentation if necessary. 

Keep Your Audience Engaged

A presentation tailored to your stakeholders is most effective when the audience is engaged. 

When presenting information that can seem stale, it’s important to find ways to keep it fresh and engaging.

Try using these tips to keep your audience’s attention and get them involved:

Tip #1: Keep it brief. Don’t overload your audience with too much information at once. Aim to keep text on presentation slides clear and concise, and consider setting a time limit of five minutes or less for each slide. 

Tip #2: Make your presentation visually engaging. Find something that will catch your audience’s eye, whether that’s including a relevant graphic or adding extra color to important text. 

Tip #3: Solicit stakeholder feedback. Make your audience feel like the whole presentation is about them by finding ways to ask for feedback when you’re presenting.

Tip #4: Be honest. Focus on telling stakeholders exactly what they need to know in a transparent way. They’ll sense this transparency and be more ready and willing to hear what you have to say. 

Ready to up your presentation game by learning how to deliver effective, tailored financial updates to key stakeholders? Akash shares his insights on this week’s episode of The CFO Show, available wherever you typically listen.

In case you missed it…

As businesses increasingly prioritize customer-centric strategies, collaboration between finance and CCO becomes essential in aligning financial objectives with customer experience goals. The CFO Show’s last guest, April Oman, is the Chief Customer Officer at Resilinc, where she champions customer success on the leadership team. She talks about how CFOs and CCOs can align financial strategies with customer-centric initiatives to drive innovation, improve operational efficiency, and foster sustainable growth.

What’s next…

Finance leaders today have to build ultra-efficient teams. How can CFOs strike the perfect balance between productivity and efficiency to drive optimal results? The CFO Show’s next guest, Brian Krause, CFO at Community First Solutions,  is an expert in maximizing productivity without sacrificing efficiency. He shares great insights into how to leverage technology and streamline processes to build lean, agile finance teams. Tune in to unravel the secrets to maximizing productivity without sacrificing efficiency and empowering CFOs to thrive in their roles and lead their organizations to new heights of success.