If something's getting in front of the CFO or someone on their team, if
it doesn't speak to the business issues at the revenue cost risk level, you've
got some work to do. You're listening to the Audible Ready Podcast, the
show that helps you and your teams sell more faster. We'll feature sales leaders
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repeatable revenue growth. Presented by the team at Force Management, a leader in
B to B sales effectiveness. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome to
the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel klep Miller. Today we're going to
talk about making your case to the CFO, selling to the chief financial officer
the finance office. Some of us may be in a situation where we are
finding ourselves having to make that investment case to this type of role more and
more, and perhaps when the budgets weren't as tight, we never had to
do this. So Brian Lasher is going to join me today to break this
down and talk through some things to think about when you're meeting with finance.
Hi. Brian, Hello, Rachel, Hello, Hello, great topic today,
So let's just start. Brian with scrutiny on spending, we are likely
more aware of the influence of CFO has on our opportunities. Some may say
we should have been there all the time, but regardless, let's start with
this persona and the key things we need to remember about what they care about.
Okay, so finance one on one, right, everybody knows that the
CFO and the people that work in that part of the organization, or we
should know. You know, these folks care about the overall financial health of
the organization. That is what they're chartered with. It's cash flow, it's
financial planning. The CFO themselves or the persons sitting in a sea like that
is typically going to be a strategic advisor to the CEO and the board.
So I think we've got to remind ourselves just of you know, put ourselves
in that headspace for a minute. It because our thing, our proposal,
our recommendation for this organization that we're working with, is one of a million
things that's on this person or this group's desk, and many of those things
that are on their desk probably have a higher consequential value to the organization.
That's just the reality. Now, with that in mind, I think you
have to assume, and let's talk about this collectively, whether it's the CFO
or the rest of the organization. Right, Like, we're not just talking
about one person. We could be talking about multiple people, right, depending
on the size and the complexity of an organization. But I'll continue to use
it in the singular. Rate this person, you have to assume that they're
going to spend probably less time, not more, on whatever we are putting
in front of them for consideration, right unless that thing that we're about to
put in front of them meets some sort of threshold of strategic value or importance
to the business. So I think that's first quest she got to ask yourself,
Hey, is what I'm about to put in front of this person of
strategic value or compare to all the other things that they're thinking about. I
mean, imagine selling to one of the big three automakers right now, right
Like, whatever you're selling, it's probably down the list, right So if
it doesn't meet that threshold of strategic value, there's still a good chance it's
getting in front of them, So it better jump off the page pretty quickly.
Like the things that they care about, which I know we're going to
talk about if it does meet that level of strategic value, because for some
deals we are strategically high high, high level important, well then it better
not just jump off the page, but it better stand up to some pretty
rigorous review, right. And in either case, if it doesn't attach to
revenue cost or strategic business risk, then your proposal is probably going to end
up in the wrong pile because the threshold has come way down on what's coming
across their desk in terms of spend. I've validated this with every CFO and
CEO that I've talked to in the last twelve months. They're all looking at
smaller spends than they used to, and they're looking at them with a much
more rigorous point of view. So I think that's a good starting point.
Come on, Mike, Yeah, correct, that's the nuts symbol of this
persona, and we're calling this persona the CFO. It might beat somebody with
a different title in your organization lower if you're selling to large organizations. But
we talk frequently about aligning your value and differentiation to the required capabilities for your
buyer as it relates to various buyer personas. So we've talked about implementation we
talk about the economic buyer, we talked about the technical buyer. All important,
right, getting to that collective. Yes, that concept, but it's
also something you need to consider for the CFO. And you kind of mentioned
there when we're talking about the PERSONA. Talk about this level setting that you
did on this PERSONA. Let's talk about that and how you're coaching reps right
now to pull that point of view together in their deals as it relates to
value differentiation required capabilities all that. Yeah, great point. So well,
in my mind, it does go back to what we were just mentioning,
right, the CFO in this case, they care about the most effective and
efficient use of resources, right, which includes time, people, and money.
Now, specifically for the CFO, it's the money, right, it's
the cash. Like they typically will count on other leaders in the organization to
determine whether or not this thing that they're thinking about doing, whether or not
that they have the resources available and the time to get it done right and
that those are a good investment. But it's the finance organization that's often going
to have a heavy voice in whether or not this is the most effective and
efficient use of some of their cash. Right. So with that in mind.
Here's the coaching, your recommendations, your proposal, whatever it is you're
about to put in front of someone. You've got to help the CFO easily
answer the file questions. There's three questions. The first question is kind of
two parts, right. The first question is for the CFO, why would
we do this project now for the business right or set a different way?
What are the tangible business outcomes? Right? The problems that we're going to
solve and avoid and the outcomes achieved. That's for the business. That's the
first question. The second question is, well, how long is it going
to take us to achieve those outcomes? Because there's a payback period associated with
how long is it going to take to solve the problem or to stop the
bleeding or to ensure there isn't any other bleeding? And how long is it
going to take to get to those potential outcomes for the business. And then,
last, but not least, and maybe most important, like it's the
thing that often will push something over the edge, is well, how sure
are we that we can actually achieve these outcomes? So your ability to give
them the answers to those three questions upfront is really really critical because those three
questions are what CFO are asking themselves consciously or subconsciously. And again I mentioned
this earlier. I have been validating this for the last twelve fourteen months since
we've seen the economy shift right and the macro that everybody's dealing with. So
my question is to a seller from a coaching perspective, is what are you
doing to help the CFO and their team? Often people that we will have
less access to, but their team will have more access to. Right,
I'm typically dealing with people below the CFO. Most of us are not getting
a lot of access to the pafos. That's the reality of the world.
So what are we doing to help the cfo's team answer those questions so that
when they get in front of the CFO, they're much more ready for the
conversation. Let's make this clear for those of people listening. Are we saying
change the business conversation for the CFO? We're nuancing it? What are what
are we doing here? Yeah? I don't necessarily think that you have to
change it, but I like your word nuance right, But you have the
nuances right, So I think it does have to be very direct and pointed
to those three questions that we just asked. CFOs don't have a lot of
time. Look, there are only two outcomes if you don't do this well.
Whether you're the one in front of the CFO, or other people are
getting in front of the CFO, or other people in the customers organization are
going to the CFO on our behalf, there are only two outcomes. I
guarantee that there are only two outcomes when we take this recommendation, this proposal,
whatever it is, to the CFO. If we can't answer these questions,
one or two things is going to happen. The downside option is that
your deal dies right the CFO or somebody just kills it because they can't answer
these questions and they don't have the time or the patients to deal with it.
They got a big pile of really critical stuff they got to deal with.
That's the worst case scenario. The best case scenario, when the CFO
can't easily answer these questions for themselves with what's in front of them or who's
ever presenting it, is that they send their team off on some sort of
fishing expedition or hunting mission to go get the answers to a bunch of questions
and now think about what that does. That creates a brand new set of
meetings and actions, et cetera, which typically at best loves deals down and
time kills deals. Yep. Right, So I think that's I love your
word nuance. But it all goes back to that initial comment. If something's
getting in front of the CFO or someone on their team, if it doesn't
speak to the business issues at the revenue cost risk level, if it doesn't
speak to the what's it going to solve for? How fast is it going
to solve it? And how sure are we that we can get to those
outcomes? You've got some work to do. Yes, So you mentioned Brian
that we're not always going to have access to the CFO. Right, It's
not like they're sitting there with an open calendar invite. And let's dig into
that a little bit. Do we really push to get access? Are we
focusing our attention on equipping others they are champion to help make that case?
What's worked well when you don't have the direct line. I hear you saying
a lot of things about if I were to sum it up, click message
as it relates to what's important to that and making sure that message is clear
so it can travel. But what's worked well, when you're equipping a champion,
you don't have access to the CFO to make that case. Well,
I'm glad you brought this up. I think it's important that we're just honest
with ourselves. CFOs are not sitting at their desks anxiously with waiting our phone
costs. Right, everybody knows it. Nobody wants to say it, but
everybody knows it. So I think we have got to learn about how the
organizations we work with make decisions, how the CFO and other executives run buying
decisions, and where in their organizations do people typically have formal authority and where
and who has informal authority. I think this is a really important skill set
for a seller, and this is one of the big reasons why, because
we're not always going to get access to everybody, especially the higher up in
the organization. Right. And by the way, I think developing the leveragy
champions is a great strategy, but that too, in and of itself,
is also difficult. Right. I think you've got to be willing to listen
to others like coaches. Right, I think you've got to be willing to
think about triangulating the truth. I meet with multiple people, I have similar
conversations, so I can look for common data points and start to realize that,
oh, Rachel, this person she really understands and gets it, and
what she says lines up with but this person over here, there's something going
on. I get different answers, like I can get back in a room
and really think about how these puzzle pieces go together. I do think,
however, that maybe the most important skills set I was just starting to poke
at this a second ago. I think there's something that you know, I'm
pretty passionate about that is really critical here. It's this idea of having a
solid point of view of buying cycles that you are involved in and the key
players, because knowing who's going to be a part of the conversation because of
your other experiences in the marketplace that you serve one makes it easier to educate
the people you're in front of and lay a path to access to others that
most sellers don't normally get. Because most sellers are asking the question throughout the
buying cycle, especially early on as they meet people, Hey, what's your
decision process? And they're asking you that question to people who probably don't really
know what it is. They might know some part of it, but they
don't know the whole thing. I mean, think about it like whatever I
do for a living, whatever I represent, whatever I sell, I'm in
that conversation all day every day. The person I happen to be in front
of right now is in that conversation for a very short period of time.
They don't buy every day, they don't buy our stuff every day, et
cetera, et cetera. So being able to go on the offense with a
point of view from the moment you enter and help people identify who's important and
who's going to have a voice, whether or not I ever get access to
those people are not well actually start to give me a chance of getting more
access to the host people. Right. So, at a minimum, this
point of view helps you educate who you're in front of. That Hey,
I understand Rachel, that you are one of many. Obviously I'm going to
honor that, but I also know that there's value and you and I getting
to those other people to understand their point of view. But the second thing
does is it helps you message why access to those other people and their point
of view should matter to you. It's funny I when I coach people and
then we talk about this, they talk about it. Yeah, I got
to get I'm working with someone named Rachel, and I got to get to
Rachel's boss, Grant, and I'll say, Okay, explain to me how
you're going to ask for that, and they always do this. They give
me this, Well, Rachel, you need to let me meet with Grant
so that I can. And when they've done, I say, well,
who is that? Ask all about was about the seller? And my response
to that is, well, why wouldn't that ask me about why Rachel should
take you to Grant? What's in it for her and what's in it for
Grant and seeing you their value is not about you, It's about what am
I giving to you? Right? And then third, but maybe most importantly,
especially in this situation, when we're not often the one who's getting the
access to the CFO or the people in that part of the organization, it
helps these people that I do have access to more effectively message when I'm not
in the room. So yes, we can talk about using executives on your
team to help you get access to executives on the customer's team and all of
those other grand ideas. I think that's really good. All of that,
it's all good. Or I think as a seller for the things that you
can do and the things that you can control, this knowledge and this well
thought out point of view on who the other players in the customers organization are
and why their points of view matter is your best chance to either getting to
people who were higher up like the CFO, or at least ensuring that when
people get there on your behalf, they're in a much better position to message
in a way that the CFO cares about. That's some great points in that
segment that you just did, Brian. I think those are really important points
for us to remember. Those of you are listening can't see, but Brian
is shaking his fists in happy advancing. One other topic I wanted to bring
up. When you make your case right, how does it matter to that
matters them? Right? It's not about you, It's about them and their
outcomes. And it reminds me of the recent episode we did with Tim Cato.
You're calling on multiple options and branding those as it relates to the outcomes.
You're trying to drive for them the outcomes they're trying to achieve. Using
these right, can be really effective in your negotiations. But I'm seeing also
how they can really benefit you with the CFO. Yeah. So, first
of all, I just have to give a plug for this. If you
haven't listened to that podcast, that strongly suggests you do, because I think
Tim's point of view that he has helped our firm develop on negotiation and the
power of multiple options when done in a way that is customer focused, is
really some amazingly great content that is so far past the simple word negotiation.
It is so it's so good, so valuable. But in the case of
a CFAIL, if I and the people I do have access to can develop
two or three options, all of which would be really good positive outcomes for
the customer, I mean, who doesn't like choices? Right? And So
now what I'm doing is I am helping my customer team make the cfo's decision
that much easier because now one of two things are likely to happen. The
CFO is potentially likely to look at two or three options and say to the
team, oh, you've actually thought through this at multiple levels. Right,
we could go for the whole thing right now, and here's the outcomes and
the value that that creates for us. Or we could do some sort of
crawl walk run approach. I'm just doing this in the moment, right,
and here's the business value for us short term versus long term. So now
the CFO is thinking, oh, this group has done their homework. That's
the first thing, and a may choose one of those options and or allow
the team to more readily choose. Right, A lot of things happen.
You're not putting the CFO in a box of this is what we should do.
This is the one thing. This is our only option. Right.
The second thing, and I think this is something else to remember, is
when a CFO sees two or three options, the other thing that could potentially
start to happen is they may not choose one of them, but they may
start to say to the team, well, you know, it's interesting.
I like a lot of the stuff in option two, but there's a couple
of things over here an option one that I think we would want to have
if we get option two. Is there a way to do that? So
now the CFO is actively engaged in helping craft a solution out of those two
options, that makes the most sense in their mind. So I think your
tie back to that episode, Rachel is spot on. It's really well thought
out, and I would highly recommend people go back to that if they haven't
heard it because there's so much in there. Thank you, Brian, and
I'll make sure to link it in the show notes. Check that episode out
everyone. And it also goes to, as you said, the clarity of
message. Right, the CFO doesn't have enough time they want to see and
often the multiple options, although you should be kind of positioning them throughout your
negotiation process, as Tim would say, but the CFO might be looking at
them later and on in the process and you want to make sure that it's
really clear for them. Any final thoughts on this topic as we wrap up,
Brian, I think I would say, as I always like to say,
be realistic in your expectation to the access. So if that's true,
and we're going to be honest with ourselves and know that the higher up we
go on an organization, typically the amount of access we're going to get is
less right and fewer times, we have to be really ready so that when
we do get that access or someone tries to get us that access or has
to go there on our behalf. We can meet that person, in this
case the CFO where they live. And as I like to say, when
that piece of paper, hard copy or digital is in front of a CFO
representing our recommendations and our solutions, here's my ultimate question. Does that document,
by itself, with no one else in the room, have the ability
to jump off the page, grab the CFO by the shoulders and give them
a little bit of a shake and say, hey, CFO, you can't
afford to not do this right now. This is a really smart investment for
organization to solve for the following problems, to avoid additional issues, and most
importantly, drive for the following outcomes in a timeframe and in a way that
is sure. Just be honest with yourself. If it can't do that,
you got some work to do. That's my take. Here we go.
Thank you Brian Walsh, thank you Rachel. All right, be sure to
check out the show notes for some additional resources on all the topics. Brian
mention, and thank you for listening to the Audible Ready Sales podcast. At
Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into elite teams. Our proven
methodologies deliver programs that build company alignment and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your
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