Bonus Episode 11: Professional Certification

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Hi, this is Stephen McLain of the finance leader podcast. And this is bonus episode number 11. I hope you're having a great week. Did you know that on Wednesday, October 14, it was national dessert day. This is the type of national day I can truly support and who comes up with all these national days? I'm not really sure some are great, some are strange. Some are very thought provoking. And some of the national days will really challenge your thinking framework. Now those are the ones that I really love. Because to really grow and develop, we must change our thinking especially about ourselves, how we view ourselves, and how we view the world greatness in mind, and in character, and in leadership doesn't appear suddenly from nothing. We must continually work on ourselves and improve every day, I'm encouraging you to live a life of learning and growing. This week, I'm sharing an encore episode from Season number two, which is episode number 13.

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about earning a professional certification. Earning a certification adds great value to your professional Foundation, and can boost your earnings and career potential. In the episode I discuss a few finance and accounting certifications you can consider pursuing. I am working on bringing season number four to you, which will debut on November 10. Please continue to grow and develop and assure your team members are to please enjoy this encore episode. Thank you.

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Today we are talking about earning a professional certification or license because it'll boost your career and your earnings potential.

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A certification should be a central part of your professional foundation to showcase your expertise, and dedication to delivering the best advice and work ethic to your organization. I encourage you to add earning a certification to your individual development plan this year.

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Please enjoy the episode.

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Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host Stephen McLain. And this is the podcast with developing leaders in finance and accounting. This is episode number 13. And we're gonna be talking about certifications and licenses. And we're going to be talking a lot about your professional development. I believe that we all need to be continually growing and improving. I don't know the source of this quote, but it really talks to what I believe about your professional development, and I quote, Be not afraid of growing slowly be afraid only of standing still. I believe that you need to build your professional credibility and expertise. And through a professional license and certification, you'll be able to do that. And this is why you should be earning one a certification gives you credibility for being a professional and an expert in your field. During this episode, I will be talking about certifications that you can earn and also mentioned the organizations that sponsor them.

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But I want to put out as a disclaimer that I have no affiliation with any of them, other than my membership in the American Society of military comptroller's. And if any of that changes in the future, I'll update the episode description.

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Alright, let's talk about earning a professional certification or a license. And I'm going to go through a few reasons why you need to add this to your IDP this year. I believe that a certification license is a key part of your professional development, especially for someone who works in finance and accounting. And I just believe that it just gives you more credibility, and it showcases what you know in your field. And I believe that it's a critical part of your overall professional portfolio, which of course includes your college degree, your advanced degree, your experience, your skills and abilities, your knowledge and also your mindset. So I recommend that you add a certification or a license to that so that it rounds out your professional portfolio.

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Throughout this episode, I'll probably be using certification most of the time instead of just license as we all know that some of these are actually licenses that are issued by the state, but I'll probably just stick to the word certification. The second thing I want to mention is that it is difficult to earn a certification and so that sets you apart from your peers if they don't earn one. I want to encourage everyone working in a leadership position to recognize how difficult it is to earn a certification and why it matters to get this done, and why it brings credibility to you. Most of the certification bodies usually require some years of experience in the area that you want to be certified. It also requires a study of doctrine and the law pertaining to the area of study that you have chosen, and sometimes the certification body requires a professional No who is currently working in that area of expertise to review and acknowledge your experience and that just gives you further credibility. The sponsoring organization is a recognized body of experts, and they sponsor the certification and also the follow on training. So when you go through a certification process, this recognize body of experts are saying that you have earned the certification, you have the right number of years of experience, you have the skills and you have the knowledge to carry on and hold that certification. And that gives you credibility. And sometimes the government body has to issue you a license to operate within that certification. For example, a Certified Public Accountant has to take the state exam. In order to be certified. You also have to do continuing education to maintain the certification that ensures that you are staying on top of the most current changes that helps you provide the best advice and for you to be able to continue your duties in the area that you're working in for your organization. And when you are a member of the certification body, it ensures that you know the latest knowledge and changes to your certification area. So you stay current on what's going on in your field so that you can continue to provide the best advice. Another reason why earning a certification is very important because we're seeing more and more jobs that are requiring a certification or they at least listed as a as a preference and you're going to see a lot of the accounting, managerial and senior leader jobs require or at least prefer you to have your CPA, I continue to recommend to everyone that I get a chance to talk with you know, add a certification to your resume, go ahead and get it done, complete the requirements and it just boosts your potential and even if they were looking for a CPA sometimes if you have another certification that may help you get the position anyway even if you don't have your CPA having a certification has shown that it will boost your earnings and also boost your career. There are numerous studies available that shows earning the certification does boost your earnings and boost your potential. I believe that the earning of any certification will boost your career and boost your potential for certain positions within the organization. It proves that you are dedicated to becoming an expert in your field. Okay, just want to give you a few final thoughts. And as you move from individual contributor to manager and through the middle ranks, I still believe that having a professional certification will boost your credibility and show that you're dedicated to providing the very best work the very best advice, the very best ideas to the organization that you can pull from that body of knowledge that you've studied. It's a lot of work, but it's definitely worth it in the end. And definitely here to convince you that you need to add this into your goals today. Next, I want to take you through a few certifications that you can earn and also mentioned some certification bodies that you can look at to apply to to get the certification. So of course we all know the Certified Public Accountant is the one that will definitely set you apart. And of course is often required and it's highly sought after your earnings and potential will grow higher than the others if you get a chance to earn it. If you have the time and the resources and be able to get this done in your career, then definitely highly recommend earning that coveted CPA and it's gonna require a lot of work but definitely worth it. In the end.

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When I close out the episode I'm going to share a few numbers with you on the earnings potential of a CPA. Next one I want to talk about is the certified management accountant and the Institute of Management Accountants offers this as a certification. And for all the organizations that I'm going to mention today, I'll add a link into the show notes that you can download for auditing, you can earn the certified internal auditor certification and the Institute of internal auditors provides that certification. If you're working in Treasury, you can earn the certified Treasury professional certification and that is offered by the Association for financial professionals. If you want to earn a financial modeling certification, you can work on the financial modeling and valuation analyst certification and that's offered by the corporate finance Institute. If you are working in military or the government, I'll go ahead and briefly mention a few certifications that you can earn and work on that's what I did. I earned the certified defense financial manager certification which is sponsored by the American Society of military comptroller's. The Department of Defense has its own finance certification program. So if you ever worked for them, you can work on that and get that completed. And if you're a government civilian, you can earn the certified government financial manager certification and that is sponsored by the Association of Government accountants. So for an easy one today, I recommend that you add earning a certification or license into your individual development plan. If you don't currently have one, if you lead a team and share you're talking with your team members also about earning a certification.

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Alright, in this episode, I talked about the importance of earning and professional certification. And it's just great to have on your resume. So I'm encouraging you to get this done. I want to share with you a few numbers I found from several different sources, but I want to talk about a few numbers that the Journal of Accountancy has published and this is very specific to the certified public accountant and the average salary in the US for CPA is$119,000. The new CPAs average about $66,000 and CPAs with at least 20 years of experience are averaging $152,000 per year. On our recent survey, CPAs have shown to be an averaging around 5% annual salary increases for the last several years. There are of course, very many different variables when it goes into these averages. But we do know that earning your CPA will more than pay for itself with additional salary and also greater promotion opportunities.

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So I just want to course encourage you to earn that professional certification and get it added to your resume. And it will just continue to provide that credibility to the organization that you're working with. I want to give you a final editorial thought a few weeks ago, I shared a few bonus episodes, and I discussed how businesses should become more recession proof. I believe that if we're going to build strong, sustainable companies in the future, we need to shift our focus back to the balance sheet.

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Because this is where we really show the financial health of our companies. The balance sheet reveals how long your company can withstand a major economic downturn. Now, I want you to think about that. And then please let me know your own thoughts. Again, I believe that we need to start shifting our focus back to the balance sheet instead of just a profit and loss statement so that we can build sustainable companies, companies that have a stronger financial health who can withstand economic downturns and are more able to withstand any kind of shocks to the system. We want to build strong, sustainable long term companies.

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Next episode, I'm going to be talking about developing a purpose and a vision for your team. Have you ever showed up to the office and wondered why you were there other than for a paycheck? Well, we'll get into that. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader podcast, I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership. I hope you enjoyed the show. You can get this episode. Wherever you find podcasts. Please join our community on Facebook, the finance leader podcast Facebook group, this will be our community to grow within the finance and accounting profession. Until next time, you can check out more resources at Stephen McLain calm and sign up for my updates so you don't miss an episode of the show. And now go lead your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you

Bonus Episode 11: Professional Certification

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