July 16, 2025

Financial Transparency to Build A Strong, Educated Team with Vince Torchia

17 minutes

In this episode, we dive into why financial transparency isn't just good leadership—it's essential for building a strong, educated team. From using scoreboards and company-wide “State of the Union” meetings to walking through the Penny Exercise, Vince breaks down exactly where every dollar goes in your business. Tune in to learn how sharing the numbers empowers your team and drives smarter decisions across the board.

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00:00 - Start
00:31 - The Importance of Financial Transparency and Literacy
01:32 - Tools for Financial Transparency
04:39 - Monthly Team Communication
06:31 - The Penny Exercise
16:13 - Key Takeaways

Show Notes

Public dashboards drive transparency: Display real-time performance metrics on monitors visible to all team members. When everyone can see job performance, hours, and revenue data, they naturally connect dots and improve performance. "The scoreboard is just out there. The teams can see the numbers, they can interact with them... Whether they know English, whether they know Spanish... they can look at numbers and tie dots together freely."

Monthly state of the union meetings: Gather the entire organization monthly to discuss company performance, goals, and future direction. Make it bilingual and inclusive so everyone gets the same message. "Think of it as our monthly state of the Union. We update the organization in totality... Are we ahead on goals? Are we behind on goals?"

The penny exercise teaches financial literacy: Use a $1 job (100 pennies) to visually demonstrate how revenue flows through direct costs, overhead, and profit. This makes complex financials accessible to everyone. "We sold a $1 job. We got a hundred pennies for it... How many pennies are we taking off the table right away just to cover the expenses of that job specifically?"

Financial transparency is cultural, not financial: Don't avoid sharing numbers because you're worried about the data - fix the culture or improve the systems that create better data. "These are not financial conversations. These are cultural conversations... we don't have a finance problem, we have a culture problem."

Direct costs vs. overhead education: Help teams understand that some costs are tied directly to jobs (labor, materials) while others exist regardless of sales volume (rent, insurance, salaries). "We have what overhead... those expenses that we have at the organization are going to be there whether we sell a job or not."

Visual learning works across barriers: Numbers and visual displays communicate effectively regardless of education level or language barriers. "Whether they didn't graduate high school or they have a PhD, they can look at numbers and tie dots together freely."

Margin compression awareness: When teams understand how small increases in costs or overhead dramatically impact profits, they become more cost-conscious and efficiency-focused. "What happens if all of a sudden it takes us 52 cents to do a job? Uh oh. Now our margins got squeezed from 10 to eight pennies."

Profit allocation reality: The remaining profit after direct costs and overhead must cover taxes, reinvestment, debt service, and owner distributions - not just go to the owner's pocket. "We don't just put the 10 cents in our pocket and go home. What if we have some other debt that we want to pay down?"

Team rallying around shared understanding: When everyone understands the financial reality, the whole organization can work together toward improvement rather than operating in silos. "The whole team can rally around how we either keep making 12 or how we go from two to four to six to eight... over the next four years."

Systematic approach to financial education: Combine daily visibility (dashboards), monthly communication (meetings), and periodic deep-dives (penny exercise) for comprehensive financial literacy. "Get your scoreboards out... Take time every month at a State of the Union... take time to do the penny exercise with your team."

Resources:

Virtual Sales Bootcamp

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips

The Grow Group

Grunder Landscaping

Marty Grunder LinkedIn

Stihl

...more