Win over CFOs with this sales business case (free template)

Buying committees and skeptical stakeholders have never been impressed with a 1-pager of features and benefits.

Sales leaders know this, yet they often struggle to give their teams tools that focus on what matters most to these decision-makers to win deals. 

The solution? Helping reps build sales business cases that highlight ROI and address the prospect organization's goals and pain points. 

The good news is that it’s possible to systematize how your sales team creates business cases—meaning less time spent creating presentations and more time spent building relationships with their prospects. And more time spent with the prospect only leads to more powerful stakeholder messaging.

This article will explore actionable tips for preparing, streamlining, and delivering personalized business cases at scale. From collaborating with buyer champions to leveraging engagement metrics, these best practices will ensure sales teams make persuasive arguments with each deal.

What is a sales business case? 

A business case is a sales presentation for buyer stakeholders that focuses squarely on the "what's in it for my organization" of your solution. 

The business case highlights the value and ROI that your product can bring to the prospect's company. (Save the features and benefits rundown for your product demo.)

If your B2B SaaS sales process involves multiple stakeholders, including those who will never use what you're selling, you need a business case.

Your business case will feature metrics that address:

• Time savings
• Cost savings
• Revenue gains.

But a business case isn’t all about numbers. It also uses convincing language to describe:

• A current problem facing the organization
• What the organization has tried unsuccessfully to solve the problem.

A business case also includes relevant case studies that feature a customer who had a similar problem to the prospect and who achieved remarkable ROI through using your product.

Historically, business cases were presented as slide decks or one-pager PDFs. More recently, sales teams have adopted trackable digital sales rooms to share their cases.

Regardless of format, the goal of your business case is to make decision-makers understand that purchasing your tool is a smart investment.

The ultimate buyer enablement tool 

An enthused buyer champion wants to put their best foot forward when presenting your product internally to stakeholders. The business case is your gift to them (and you!) to ensure they get decision-maker approval.

On our Grow & Tell podcast, Ben Solari, VP of Sales at Jellyfish, shared how a business case helps a buyer champion win the hearts and minds of decision-makers.

"A lot of enablement that has to go along with the sales process is around the business justification, the business case. So when we get them to the table and excited about the potential, it's our jobs to help them make the case and bring us in both from a business justification perspective."

CFO-friendly content

The business case is built to crack the toughest nut on a decision-making panel—the CFO, your economic buyer. 

The CFO has zero interest in your product's G2 ratings or intuitive interface. Instead, they are most interested in that WIFM factor. 

Hector Hernandez, Founding Head of GTM at Speakeasy, shares more insight on how to pitch your CFO:

"Assume that the CFO has no idea what this is and doesn't care what it is. Why does it matter to them? Why does it matter to the business? What is the thing that is being held up?" 

Your case will clearly explain how this purchase will align with business goals and deliver a hearty return on investment.

Customer success cheatsheet/goldmine

And speaking of good ROI, a winning business case can continue to provide value after you've won a deal. 

Be sure to share your case as part of your Sales-to-Customer Success handoff initiatives. This case will help the CSM quickly and succinctly understand their new customer's goals, success criteria, and stakeholders and provide a better onboarding experience.

When is the best time to present a business case?

Your sales reps might be rearing to show a business case at the beginning of the sales process, but that's too early. 

At this point, reps don't truly know the prospect's pain points, nor do they have the assurance that their champion embraces their solution.

Only once the following steps have been taken is it time to share your business case.

1. Product exploration: The prospect should have had ample time to explore your product before the demo. If a free trial isn't available, the prospect should have at least interacted with your content, such as webinars, white papers, or case studies.
   
2. Customer discovery: In at least one discovery session, you've captured your prospect's unique needs, challenges, and goals.
   
3. Product demo: The prospect has learned about your product's features and tangible benefits.
   
4. Clear buying intent: It takes more than the standard "Send me a proposal" to know if your prospect is interested in your product. Be confident that your prospect fully grasps how your product can solve their pain points. The prospect should also be articulate in the competitors in this space and understand how your solution ranks among them.

By presenting your business case at this juncture in the sales cycle, your team can maximize its impact and enhance its chances of helping your buyer champion influence stakeholders, and win the deal. 

What to include in a sales business case (+template) 

This section will outline a basic template you can adjust to fit different customer segments, such as industry or company size. The template includes the following key sections:

• Executive summary 
• Current challenges
• Recommendations/solutions
• Business impact/outcomes/ROI case
• Investment

While you might be tempted to include every compelling detail for decision-makers, this case should be concise, ensuring a stakeholder takes no more than five minutes to read.

🧩 Get the template: This business case template is included in Dock’s digital sales room template. Try Dock for free to access this template.

1. Executive summary

Step 1 is to lead with an engaging executive summary.

Start with a strong subheading. "Executive summary" doesn't grab the reader as much as "Executive summary: Removing obstacles to hit $25M ARR."

Then, summarize where the prospect's team or company currently is regarding size, revenue, retention rate, or productivity (or whatever metric is being tracked) and where it is forecasted within a specific timeframe.

Conclude this section by hinting at the obstacles to hitting the forecast. This will intrigue stakeholders and encourage them to continue reading.

Keep the section brief, around 150 words. You'll provide more details later in the business case.

2. Current challenges

The next section should begin with an introductory sentence summarizing the primary problem in the way of the prospect reaching their goals.

Next, focus on the top 2-3 pain points your solution can address. Use messaging that resonates with a CFO, emphasizing financial and operational pain points.

Play with the format to also grab the attention of your decision-makers. Experiment with eye-catching bullets, emojis, or columns to display the key issues.

Wrap up this section with a review of what has been tried to solve these issues, including any actions taken or inaction.

3. Recommendations

Before presenting your solution, have your sales reps identify who has agreed to these recommendations at the prospect's company. This established internal vetting will impress stakeholders and positively influence their decision-making.

To increase the visual punch of this section, add photos of those who have approved of your solution.

Then, get to the heart of your champion's plan to overcome the challenges listed in the above section to reach their goals.

Explain why your solution is uniquely suited to address these challenges, unlike the attempted solutions mentioned in the "Challenges" section.

4. Business impact

The business impact section of your case is where the CFO perks up.

Start by identifying which outcomes will be tracked and ensuring they match the company’s current metrics. Here's where you demonstrate how your solution will positively impact the prospect's organization.

Next, present multiple possible outcomes. Show what might happen if the company does nothing, takes only small steps, or fully implements your solution. This gives the CFO and other decision-makers points of comparison and shows that your salesperson and buyer champion have thought through various scenarios.

Remember to add a face or two to your data. Incorporate case studies or video testimonials that would greatly impact decision-makers. These proof points will highlight the success of customers who once faced similar challenges to your prospect.

If your company uses PLG to acquire customers and the prospect's colleagues already use your tool, you have even more relevant proof points. Use that to your advantage.

Alexa Grabell of Pocus elaborates in her interview on Grow and Tell:

"Instead of going and saying, 'This is the ROI we think will happen when you implement our product,' we can say, 'Hey, we have already helped you do X, Y, and Z as proven by these 100 users on the product to date. We can help you get even more value when we upgrade you to the enterprise contract.' "

5. Investment

Decision-makers can't determine ROI without knowing how much a solution costs.

The concluding section of any business case template should briefly detail the investment in time, budget, and resources the potential customer needs to implement your solution and reach their goals.

Don't conclude the case with the financial and time costs. Again, reiterate why it's important to make such an investment.

Conclude this sentence (and the entire case) with a sentence like, "This solution is an exciting, necessary investment to achieve [Goal X]." Finish with that emotional high of solving a challenge and helping the business move forward.

Sales business case tips

How you approach building your case can significantly impact your win rate. Here are some best practices for creating persuasive business cases and simplifying your process, making it more scalable across your sales team.

1. Collaborate with your buyer champion

You must collaborate closely with your buyer champion to prevent your business case from sounding like just another sales sheet. 

This partnership will get inside the heads of decision-makers and speak their language. By getting that insider perspective, you ensure the champion will feel confident using the business case and be pleased with its results.

A 2023 Salesforce report highlights that "86% of business buyers are more likely to buy if companies understand their goals, but 59% say most sales reps don't take the time to understand them." So, begin your collaboration by discussing the company's goals until you can recite them in your sleep.

The next step is to work together to position your solution as uniquely suited to help the champion's organization achieve those goals.

Then, partner with the champion to gather data to demonstrate their organization's return on investment (ROI) if they sign up for your solution. Make sure your benefit calculations align with their key performance indicators. 

Be ready to handle objections preemptively. Your champion will have a great perspective here. Ensure the case answers the questions executives will likely ask when the champion presents it.

Collaborative tools like Dock’s digital sales rooms can facilitate this back-and-forth process, allowing you to refine the business case together asynchronously or in real time.

To further personalize your business case template, seek additional insights from other team members within the prospect's company by multithreading into the account. If your champion can introduce you, work with the finance team or colleagues who understand the CFO's priorities. Discover the language they use and incorporate it into your business case.

Ultimately, you want to finalize the case, knowing that you and your buyer are in sync on all key points, including ROI.

2. Seek colleague feedback

Encourage your sales team to ask for peer feedback on their business cases. Consider implementing sessions where in-process business cases are workshopped during team meetings or one-on-one check-ins.

This collaborative approach allows your sales reps to gain different perspectives and identify gaps or areas for improvement. Peers can offer valuable insights into the presentation's strengths and weaknesses and share tactics that have worked well for them in the past. 

3. Build efficiencies to scale your efforts

To accommodate a large or growing pipeline, you should optimize your process for creating sales business cases a scale.

While you should personalize each case based on what you’ve learned in discovery sessions and champion collaboration, the core structure of each business case shouldn’t vary drastically. Templatize as much of the process as possible to avoid starting from scratch with each prospect.

Your Product Marketing team can help with consistent messaging and selling points throughout your business case template, which will likely not change with every business case.

With Dock, your reps can build business cases from existing templates, freeing up their time for more engagement with prospects and ensuring high-quality, consistent business cases across the team.

Dock can also help you easily pull case studies that best align with your prospect's needs so you never miss a relevant case study or spend needless time searching for the perfect one.

Get our sales room template (incl. business case)

Dock's digital sales rooms make creating and presenting sales business cases easy and effective. 

The sales room keeps all important sales materials—like case studies, product demos, pricing, and security details—in one place. This prevents losing important documents and saves time that would otherwise be spent searching for needed information.

Housing a standardized business case template in the deal room allows reps to easily access commonly used talking points while allowing easy personalization for each client.

With close access to other client information in the sales room and through Salesforce and Hubspot CRM integrations, it's easy to transfer compelling metrics and information to your business case.

And, remember how timing is everything when presenting the business case? In Dock, you can hide the case until you’re ready to make the big reveal.

Once you or your champion has shared the case, use Dock’s engagement metrics to see how decision-makers interact with it. These insights help tailor follow-ups and future presentations to meet specific interests and questions, making it more likely to close deals. 

By using Dock's digital sales room, you streamline the sales process and improve your win rates.

Win more deals. Create your next business case for free with Dock.