FINANCE FOR NON-FINANCIALS

For many years of my career, I have been working in finance. I understood how the numbers were added up, how all the analysis was done that gave others headaches. It turns out that I was diving deep into finance. By opening a company that deals with transferring knowledge, helping companies to fulfill their potential, dealing with stable growth through their strategies, I came across with the term I named my company by - many enigmas. Enigmas of owners, directors of companies related to finances.

At that time, I came across a quote from Mr. Alan Greenspan, the longtime chairman of the US Federal Reserve: "The number one problem of today's generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy."

Through years of work, this thesis has only been confirmed. Over the years, you have had a brilliant idea, everything in your life has led you towards founding an entrepreneurial venture, i.e. a company, you are your own "boss". The capital was raised, the company was opened and everything is wonderful. However, we come to the first difficulties. Incomes are growing, but there is a lack of money. Profits are "wobbly", and comments from various sources tell you that something is wrong. Or maybe it is not?

Here we come to one undeniable fact - data is at hand. However, they need to be understood, put into a usable format and easily read.

I went through various situations - people who delved into it, studied, people whose good and unique entrepreneurial idea simply carried them through growth. But, in order to realize its full potential, it is necessary to understand that unpopular "back-office" part. That slightly less appealing part about putting the structure together, putting the foundations together so that your story just grows and develops steadily.

And I'm not saying that out of some whim. On one occasion, a client asked me to create a "tailor made" education for her system. However, what I have learned through the years of work is that every story is separate, every story is special, so I decided to make a unique approach to its business. Instead of dry formulas, additions, subtractions, we came to the point that clients need to understand that financial part, that is, get financial literacy in a simple way - step by step. In the first grade, my child did not start with equations, but with simple operations and is slowly building his story. Just as a child goes through simpler tasks and grows to bigger and more complicated ones, every company goes through similar stages.

That's why, dear owners, managers, directors - I won't call you non-financiers. To me, you are daring entrepreneurs who have decided to take matters into their own hands and move the universe into new, unexplored areas.

We approach your understanding of a part of the financial universe through several steps:

1. We talk to you. Why? Well, very simply, to get an understanding of your company, your ideas, your strategies, but also the goals of where you see your business in a few years, in which direction you want to go
   
   
2. We record the financial picture of your business over the years in order to get much needed inputs about why you called us to help you in the first place
   
   
3. We record the market, the competition that is constantly "breathing down your neck" in order to get much-needed information about understanding your environment
   
   
4. We talk with your employees, but also with other potential stakeholders or, if you really want, shareholders in the business. Whether it's about partners - business, marriage, whether it's about employees, accounting
   
   
5. We create a unique education for you based on your "live" examples and guide you through the process of understanding figures, understanding and connecting reports, we give you an insight into the basics that are really crucial for your everyday business life
   
   
6. Follow-up – a very, very important item. After we have done everything, educated ourselves, we do a follow-up with you, but also with other stakeholders of your venture, to see when you are ready for a new, more detailed level of the fun game called financial literacy.

As one of my clients said: you should do education for us, who do not understand it, because you understand us. You understand that years of education in finance cannot be captured in a few seminars, in a few hours, but that you gradually build our knowledge.

Therefore, we reduce the enigmas you have about understanding finances to easy-to-understand reading, and we build your story for you and with you towards those heights that you could not even imagine at the very start.

Why did I start from this topic? It is simple, actually. Finance is fun, you just need to know where to start and how to stack the dice so that the whole tower does not collapse. That is why you have us, Enigma Consulting, to guide you and build the story together.

Marin Horvatić • 9/5/2024