This is the coffee chat I have with new hires on Day 1. It’s the best advice I’ve collected from some very smart people and used myself.And now I want to share it with you. I hope it brings you value. (1) Be Useful Quickly; (2) Solve Problems (Don’t Create Solutions); (3) Start With The Micro; (4) 1-on-1 Strategy; (5) The 3 Buckets

1. This is the coffee chat I have
with new hires on Day 1
1
Finance At Amazon
By Charles Kunken

2. charleskunken.com
Hey there peeps, so this is my spiel.
It’s the best advice I’ve collected from
some very smart people and used myself.
And now I want to share it with you. I
hope it brings you value.
2
Hey whatsup, here’s some of my
background, in a nutshell:
Finance at Amazon since 2014
(Finance Leadership Program)
MBA New York University, 2014
BS Cornell University, 2005
½ of Goodbaby.band
Writer. Rider.
New Yorker.
Artist.
Cover Image (Patrick Ewing, 33): landofbasketball.com Cover Image (Chris Childs, 1): Getty Images, Al Bello
Charlie
charlie@charleskunken.com

3. charleskunken.com 3
This only took me
like 5 or 6 tries.
Ready?

4. charleskunken.com
Let’s Go
1. Be Useful Quickly
2. Solve Problems (Don’t
Create Solutions)
3. Start With The Micro
4. 1-on-1 Strategy
5. The 3 Buckets
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Image (John Starks, 3; Anthony Mason, 14; Doc Rivers, 25, Patrick Ewing, 33; Charles
Oakley 34): Photo By Al Tielemans
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5. Be Useful Quickly
Your First Priority
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Your first goal is not to solve
world hunger.
It’s to actually help someone
with something right away.
Reputation. Communicate
through action that your
presence immediately adds
value.
Do this by…
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7. charleskunken.com
Finding a very small issue to
start with…
That you know you can help
solve within a couple of days…
and do that.
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Image: (Allan Houston, 20)
NBAE/Getty, Ron Turenne 2 3 4 51

9. Solve Problems
Don’t Create Solutions
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10. 10
“What would be the most
valuable thing I can do for
you right now?”
Ask your customers, be it
your supervisor, your
business team, other
finance teams, etc.
Work on the problems they
say they are actually
experiencing.
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Don’t spend months trying
to guess solutions on your
own without feedback.
Just ask them what’s
important.
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Image: (Larry Johnson, 2)
New York Daily News 2 3 4 51

13. Start With The Micro
Thinking Big Requires Knowing The Small.
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14. charleskunken.com
I include this as a warning not to start
by thinking big at the outset.
As an analyst your value lies in
knowing the minutiae of your space.
Learn every single detail of your
deliverables.
Every input, table, cell, row, column,
formula, attribute, data source, etc.
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15. charleskunken.com
Knowing how all the puzzle pieces fit
together will be your foundation
from which you will be able to think
big better than anybody else.
If you try starting from the macro…
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Image: (Jeff Van Gundy, Suit)
G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
…it could end up
looking like this.
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17. charleskunken.com 17Image: flickr.com/photos/lordv/
“Before you design
waterslides you must
understand how the urinals
flush.”
-Not A Chinese Proverb

18. 1-on-1 Meetings
A Strategy For Coffee Chats
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I have 2 simple tips for meeting with
people.
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1. Start Right Away
Begin having conversations with
people immediately so you can start
learning their needs. Don’t wait
months.
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2. Ask Everybody The Same Thing
You will see very quickly which issues
are personal vs. systematic problems.
“What keeps you up at night? What is
our biggest opportunity? How can
finance help?”
These are a few examples.
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I have 2 simple tips for meeting with
people.

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Image: (John Starts, 3; Anthony Mason, 14)
Getty Images
And Lastly…
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The Three Buckets
A Closing Thought
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If you begin feeling
information overwhelm just
know that everything is
going to fall into one of
these three buckets.
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1. The Data
How to get it, how
to know it’s right.
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2. The People
Who does what.
3. The Economics
How does the business
work.
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Image: (Charlie Ward, 21)
Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images
Like a mental filing cabinet.
I don’t know if that’s helpful,
I just find it comforting.
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And That’s Day 1 Hey, thanks for reading!
If even one thing in here proved
useful to you, or made you slightly
nostalgic for the mid-90’s Knicks
then it’s served it’s purpose and I’m
happy.
Here are some other
ways I’ll try and help…

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1. You can get a video of this
presentation here at Finance GuyTV.
3. This is where all the ideas start.
See how mindset and creativity can
help you think differently at work.
2. Or the audio version on our podcast.
This should be up very soon in the
usual places where podcasts are found.
(show description here).
Blog | Subscribe

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charlie@charleskunken.com
And if you have any questions at all you can always hit me up. I’d love
to hear from you.

29. charleskunken.com
About This Slideshare
I grew up on Long Island where I shot a lot of hoops.
The mid-90’s Knicks were a significant portion of my upbringing.
And so I honor them here.
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Image: This my hood where I am still the all time buckets leader. On both hoops.
Although no one was watching for most of it.
20190820