A business case your champion can take to the CFO, with every figure from their side
When a deal waits on a CFO you haven’t met, the business case usually goes up without you, carried by your champion. It stands the best chance when every figure in it came from someone on the buyer’s side. Below: what goes in it, and the questions that get each figure from the buyer before you write a line.
Updated
What goes in a business case for the CFO?
Usually the problem and what it costs them now, the measure they’d judge the fix by, and what waiting costs them, each in figures someone on their side gave you. Your price goes against those. A CFO will probably ask where each figure came from before asking what it adds up to.
Should I put an ROI number in it?
Only if their finance team built it or checked it. A return you calculated is your number, and it’s likely the first line a CFO questions. Put their figures in, mark any estimate as an estimate with whose it is, and leave the arithmetic to them.
How do I help my champion present it without me in the room?
Keep it short enough to say out loud, with the source next to every figure. Then ask your champion what the CFO is most likely to push back on, and fix that line before the meeting, not after it.
What do I ask before I write it?
Ask until the problem has their number on it, the number connects to money they would actually move, and the date has a cost if it passes. The rows below are the questions that get each one, in the buyer’s words, so the case your champion carries is theirs.
Once you have their figure, how to write the cost of standing still: putting a number on the cost of doing nothing.
Identify Pain
The problem, with their number on it
quantified
“How many hours a week does the workaround take, and whose hours are they?”
Builds the number from the workaround you already found, in units they can check.
quantified
“If nothing changed for another year, what does that cost you?”
Asks the customer to do the arithmetic, so the number is theirs rather than yours.
Metrics
A figure finance will stand behind
quantified
“What is that number today, roughly, what does it need to be, and where do those figures come from?”
Gets a baseline, a target and their source in one answer. An estimate is fine here, as long as you know whose it is.
quantified
“Who owns that number today — is it yours, or does it live with finance?”
Separates a figure your champion estimated from one the business already stands behind.
tied to value
“If you took that figure to your CFO tomorrow, what is the first thing they would push back on?”
Surfaces the weakness in the business case while there is still time to fix it.
tied to value
“If that number moved the way you expect, what would you stop spending on, or start doing?”
Connects the figure to money the business would actually move, which is the chain finance checks.
Compelling Event
What waiting costs them
consequenced
“What happens on your side if that date passes?”
Tests whether the event has a consequence, which is what separates a deadline from a wish.
consequenced
“Who else is affected if it slips?”
Finds the people whose deadline this also is — often the fastest route to an economic buyer.
SalesWolf doesn’t write a business case or compute a return.
The First Meeting Deck drafts “What standing still costs them” and “How they'd measure it” from the pain and figures on the deal. Check every figure against what the buyer said before your champion carries it.
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