Selling to CFOs: A no-nonsense guide

The B2B selling has changed. CFOs are increasingly more involved in business purchasing decisions. According to the recent Positive Momentum survey, almost 90% of CFOs regularly interact with salespeople and various buying negotiations require their direct involvement.

Yet, the same research shows that CFOs are not impressed by the way B2B salespeople engage with them. In fact, they reported that more than a quarter CFOs said that salespeople are fluent in ROI language, and only 7% of salespeople do their homework. The most shocking number revealed that only 93% of CFOs felt that salespeople only sometimes or rarely understand financial language.

It is extremely important that your sales team members understand the metrics that matter to CFOs, are able to demonstrate value, understand the specific business context and relate their pitch to CFOs strategies. To get your pitch right, it doesn’t mean that you need to hold a degree in accounting, but you will need to get some basics down.

Download the Selling to CFOs: A no-nonsense guide by Completing the form below:

James Davis and Mat Lowery, Partners at Positive Momentum, have dived into this topic and co-authored a paper. Download this short paper and find out essential tips straight from CFOs which in your proposal will show your relevance when pitching.

James has broad experience from being an operator who has built, bought and sold numerous businesses and the financial knowledge gained from being private equity backed CFO. He is very passionate about growing businesses and especially enjoys supporting and mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

”The CFO’s focus is to deliver value. Salespeople can help them by demonstrating an ROI which either increases sales, reduces costs or improves efficiency.” – James Davis, Positive Momentum partner

Over the last 25 years, Mat Lowery has helped hundreds of executives, leadership teams and organizations across different sectors to enhance their impact and deliver positive, profitable and sustainable results. Most recently, he was EMEA Director of Leadership, Learning & Talent at Adobe.

”When you think about CFOs and their use of the metrics that matter, think about the stories that they are wanting to tell and how you can help them tell their stories better to their audience. They don’t expect you to be experts in their sector or company, but they do expect you to be curious and offer a point of view.” – Mat Lowery, Positive Momentum partner