YOUR BUSINESS: James Watson

If you saw the 1996 movie “Jerry Maguire”, starring Tom Cruise as and Cuba Gooding Jr., you remember the scene in which Gooding repeatedly shouts into the phone,

“Show me the money!”

The phrase went on to define the movie, and to become a prominent mantra in pop culture and business. That was 1996. In 2009, that phrase is being shouted by every financial decision maker as he or she considers investing in your company’s product or service.

If you’ve been around the sales profession for any length of time, you should understand the importance of “showing the money”; presenting your offering as a bona-fide financial investment; how buying and using your solution will enable your client to increase revenue, decrease costs, or save time. We call this a Value Analysis, a Business Case, or an ROI Presentation.

While the ROI has always been an important part of the selling process, it takes on greater importance when budgets are tight. Decision makers today are more focused on avoiding risk, and demand a faster, more definite return for every dollar they spend. As sales professionals, we must respond to this elevated risk aversion by “showing them the money” in our presentations.

There are several things that you can do to highlight the financial value that your solutions bring to your clients:

Make it measurable. Peter Drucker said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Break down the value of your offering into measurable benefits. Demonstrate productivity gains by estimating the times saved through using your product; how much it will cut costs or reduce overhead, and how much it will increase revenue, or profit margins.

Make it relevant. Know your prospect’s business. This means understanding their business processes well enough to articulate exactly where and how your solution fits in. It also means knowing your prospect’s current metrics. That is, how many hours, days or weeks are spent on a certain process; how many people are involved. Understand the cost of those processes to your client. Know their current sales volumes and levels of profitability. Getting these numbers may require you to ask more questions early on in the sales process, which requires you to plan your sales calls in advance – the things you should be doing anyway, right?!

Make it visible. Document the ROI. Create a clear and compelling picture that demonstrates exactly how your solution will bring measurable value to your client’s business, and deliver it to your client during the

sales process. Don’t leave it up to the prospect to assume the ROI; show them exactly how it happens.

Make sure that your prospect can connect the dots on their own, so that when they present your proposal to a higher authority, they’ll be as convincing as you are.

Make it timely. Present ROI earlier in the sales process. Don’t wait until you deliver that final proposal to present ROI; instead, make it a topic of conversation earlier. The sooner you start presenting the ROI you intend to deliver, the sooner your prospect will associate your company with real value.

Selling well in today’s economy means placing a higher emphasis on the value that you create for your customers. So make sure that you and your sales people are doing it right and doing it consistently.

No prospect will tell you, “You had me at ‘Hello’.” But if you can demonstrate your value in clear, measurable terms as part of your presentation, you should see greater success. Challenging market conditions present an opportunity to refine our skills and get better at what we do. Start by showing your prospects the money, in every presentation.