Anybody attend today's Pclub.io (2/23) Sell to the CFO Webinar?

Hey peeps,

I try stay in the loop with some of what Chris Orlob and Pclub put out. Today they were running a webinar interviewing the CFO's of Invoca, Drift, and Gong focused on selling to CFO's this year.

I didn't realize it was today and I was wondering if anyone in the war room actually sat through it. If so I'd be interested in your notes or what you learned.

I feel like these are often fluff, but he has put out some solid content in the past.

Edit 1: Got a link now (thank you @Bobbybuttbuddy) and I'll post my notes once I listen.

Edit 2: Thanks to the collective power of the war room, I was able to watch the recording. Here are my notes and thoughts.

This is not my opinions but it's takeaways from the webinar. I do not claim to have come up with any of this myself.

NOTES

The lay of the land: What’s going on in the CFO’s world (and mind) right now?

1. CFO Value Drivers: What are CFO’s willing to spend money on today?
2. Working With Champions: The internal Workings of champions ‘selling’ when I am not there.
3. Building a CFO-worthy business case : How we build a business case that gets CFO’s to say YES!
4. Ensuring “value realization”: How to ‘ease the fear’ of poor adoption, shelf ware, and not realizing value from sp
5. Closing and Negotiating: Closing to make it easy to do business (at the prices you want)
6. Key Mistakes to avoid: Top mistakes most sales people selling to CFO’s make

What leading economic indicators do you personally follow that help you understand when to pump the brakes or hit the gas?

What is rep productivity and quota attainment? going down?

Is it taking longer to convert pipeline?

How is customer churn? If going up this is a sign to spend less.

How long is it taking us to close deals?

Is it TRULY timely or us or is it nice to have?

There are four value categories that get CFO’s attention:

1. Cost Reduction without sacrificing too much
2. Maximize productivity - get more from the same spend
3. Grow Revenue Efficiently - without it being a ‘fuzzy stretch’
4. Mitigate Risk - Compliance and Regulatory

For the most part, CFO’s don’t want to talk to salespeople. I have to empower my champion to sell on my behalf.

Accountability around projects is huge! Is there a longterm vision to this. I need to be willing to be held accountable as a seller, and have a specific implementation plan. I should also have a specific Mutual Action plan that shows a CFO: here’s what you will be spending, and here’s your ROI, but overall here is how we’re going to extract the value and ensure this will not become shelf ware to you.

BUSINESS CASE

Business cases should include how much it costs us and what’s the Return?

Is there revenue lift? BC’s in risk management or regulatory are a bit harder to quantify. Cost savings or revenue maximization are pretty straight forward, subject to 2 caveats.

Sometimes those ROI’s are a LONG way off. If it takes 2-3 years to get there, it’s more risk for them.

Are there measures we can show over time that they can track it is still moving in the ROI.

Keep it simple, make sure it’s realistic (maybe put a range on the ROI and don’t just have a round number).

Again, we need to coach our champions.

Business case tests:

CFO might ask your champion: you’re pitching me this ROI, are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?

Did the champion write the business case? Or did the seller? It’s much better if the champion does.