[Top Giver Series] Making Tough Financial Decisions During a Crisis with Nick Araco of AchieveNEXT

Nick Araco is the Chairman and CEO of AchieveNEXT, a company that helps introduce disruptive knowledge sharing to the c-suite, the Finance, and the HR communities in North America. Considered as one of the nation’s most prominent business, career, and life Connector, as well as the ‘Voice of the Middle Market CFO, Nick has spent over 20 years educating, inspiring, and empowering his ever-growing c-suite and professional network.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Nick Araco talks about the evolution of the CFO role 
• Nick details some of the tough decisions CFOs needed to make as a result of the  global pandemic 
• Nick discusses how it’s possible to end vendor contracts without ending relationships
• How Nick got involved with the CFO community and the people they engage with in the CFO Alliance 
• Nick shares how he gets people to open up at the CFO Alliance and which discussions they consider controversial 
• At what point should a CEO hire a CFO? 
• How to connect with CFOs in the Alliance network 
• Nick talks about his frustrations of people’s acceptance of the changes in today’s definition of success
• What Nick is most proud of with the work they’re doing in AchieveNext

In this episode…

Entrepreneurial decisions are tough calls to make. And these days, it’s even more difficult to make financial decisions because the repercussions can lead to a domino effect within your business and outside of it. This is why for Nick Araco, it’s crucial to have a support system and a network that can help you study your decisions so that you can get to the most optimal solution and get to an informed decision. And that is exactly what Nick has been up to with AchieveNEXT and his CFO Alliance Community

In this episode of INspired INsider, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Nick Araco of AchieveNEXT about CFOs and the tough decisions they have had to make during a crisis, what the CFO Alliance is all about, how they support members of their community, and why Nick now considers the path towards success as more like a lattice and not a ladder. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned on this episode

• AchieveNEXT 
• AchieveNEXT Networks
• Nick Araco on LinkedIn 
• Chris Snyder on LinkedIn

Insider Stories from Top Leaders & Entrepreneurs…

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Episode Transcript

Jeremy Weisz 0:22
Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders like the founders, you’ve heard of some you’ve never heard of. And you know, I’ve had the founder p90x Tony Horton was on and you know he’s made hundreds of millions of dollars are produced that amount in revenue and p90x. But Nick, I love hearing about the challenge stories, the tough points, the low moments and he talked about how when he was driving cross country, he put his head on the street. When he got to his destination, and to make food and rent money, and he was a street mime. That’s how he actually made money. And Julie Clark, founder of Baby Einstein grew a company to 20 million dollars of five employees. And so the Disney but I loved her talking about how she beat cancer twice and how she had to overcome a lot of, you know, hardship and challenges with that. And Nolan Bushnell founder of Atari talked about, you know, he was Steve Jobs his mentor, and Steve Jobs offered him 33% of Apple for $50,000. And why he said no, at the time, crazy stories, that many more you can go to inspired insider.com and check it out. Amazing Stories there. And this episode is brought to you by rise25, which I co founded with my business partner, john Corcoran, and we help b2b businesses connect to their dream 100 clients and referral partners. And we do that by helping them launch and run their podcasts. So it actually generates ROI. It’s been the best thing I’ve done for my business in my life because I get to connect with great people and feature their thought leadership. And for me, it’s a lot more personal than just business. It was actually you know, besides going to people’s weddings and actually going on family vacations with people. My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and his brother and him are the only people are their family to survive the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. And the words and legacy live on like, what is the podcasting? Well, the whole customization to interview with him, and he’s not alive anymore. But that interview lives on, it’s a legacy for him. And if you go on the about page on inspired Insider, you can watch the full video. I mean, it’s graphic. So I just be aware of that graphic detail, but I consider it leaving a legacy for my guests and for myself. So if you people have questions, you know, I think every business should have a podcast just like Nick thinks every CFO CEO should join his network because it’s probably the best thing they could do. And I think, you know, being around peers and sharing thoughts and collaborating is the number one thing that helps me in My business and life in general. So go to rise25.com. If you have questions go to [email protected], happy to answer any of your questions, and I’m gonna introduce today’s guest, a shout out to Chris Snyder, founder of Juhll.com and banks.com. And the Snyder show on podcast, we were talking and I’m like, what moves the needle like in businesses, what really helps. And he’s like CFOs like CFOs are running financials. They are kind of making sure that direction financially, they’re financially sound. And I’m like, I cannot believe I have not had anyone who’s expert CFO who has a network of CFOs. I look up the top, um, you know, search and your profile and person who’s an expert, Nick Araco, and, you know, watch his interview on Bloomberg and you’ll see what I’m talking about it was it was unbelievable, how he navigates and how Much expertise he has. So I’ll formally introduce Nick Araco as a co founder and CEO of AchieveNEXT, you can go to achievenext.com or achievenextnetworks.com, but he helps run the CFO Alliance in the ch. Ro Alliance. And they basically and Nick is gonna explain more. But they help basically introduced disruptive knowledge sharing to the C suite to the finance and HR communities in North America. And he’s done it for the past 20 plus years, and basically helping make connections and he serves as a voice of these communities, representing over 10,000 finance leaders and members he’s been you know, he’s appeared on Bloomberg and many others. So check out his site achievenext.com and achievenextnetworks.com, Nick, thanks for joining me.

Nick Araco 4:47
Thank you, Jeremy. It’s You

Jeremy Weisz 4:48
told me to keep that as short as possible. Like your experience I I just want to go longer. So thank

Nick Araco 4:56
you. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to connect with you and more importantly, To be provided the opportunity for us to have a chat,

Jeremy Weisz 5:02
and we’re going to talk about a lot of things and we will get into what AchieveNEXT is and some of the things that people should find out about it. But we were talking right before we hit record about difficult decisions, like right now, whenever you’re listening to this, I mean, if you’re a CFO, you’re probably like, I was born for this time, like ice in my veins, I have to make difficult decisions all the time. But right now there’s, you know, a pandemic, a crisis, and there’s always a crisis going on, not maybe as big as this one. So I don’t know you could share some of the difficult decisions you have seen some of your members that had to make and maybe you’ve had to make in this time and how you’re, you’re the leader of this communities are probably helping people navigate this.

Nick Araco 5:45
Yeah. What a great question and and how timely indeed, but at the same time, core to the DNA of the culture that we’ve created and the focus for bringing finance leaders together, what’s driving your decision making or Can I bounce off of you? What’s driving my basis for decision making? is probably talked about 24. Seven, both digitally, virtually, and when we get back to it, face to face in some way, shape or form, so, excellent question to start, you know, I will tell you I feel like when we set off on this journey, and still to this day, there are people who think that the individual who wears the title of Chief Financial Officer is not social by nature, not people driven, is mired in the numbers whereas a green eyeshade as an as the accountants one did once did it one time, work, worked behind a closed door, and were the great kind of behind the cloak behind the curtain type of person. And that’s just not the case in this day and age. You’re eliminate these

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