IndianaShep

Director of Sales and Marketing

ROI Worksheets

Hey Savages, happy Wednesday

I am working through developing some client onboarding materials and I would love to hear any examples y'all have for ROI formulas. I know many of you are in SaaS, I am not, but the theories could be distilled regardless of industry so I would welcome feedback across industries.

1) How do you get people to reliably share actual costs (I think a lot of people are not clear on this). Disclaimer: I know if you have a champion, danced proper disco, etc. that is a no-brainer. I am talking beyond that.

2) Do you have a one-pager that lets them plug numbers in on their own, or do you share it verbally/in an email/something else?

3) Where has this failed catastrophically?

4) What is the effectiveness of this, do you think?

Thanks,

👑 Sales Strategy

🔍 Discovery

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TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

for #2. i have used a google sheet that lets them punch in their own numbers. its mostly helpful if we get a chance to walk through it before or after so there are no issues.

3) when the ROI is TOO high, it never works. if the ROI calculator shows you will get a 300% return no one will believe this.

Also if you are accounting for any sort of "time Savings" that can be hard. if your system makes an existing team more efficient, it can be hard to tell someone they will be saving all these dollars because of time saving, when in reality, the company pays the employees the same.

4) I have never had an ROI calculator be a deal breaker. but maybe its just my industry. BUT it can be a good way to visualize all the different areas your solution will help improve.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

REAL solid points here.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

About about clients of similar size if you have those numbers?

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Its not that people won't share actual costs - many times they simply don't know. You will probably have to come in and help them make educated guesses as to their actual costs.

IndianaShep

Politicker

Director of Sales and Marketing

This is what I was weirdly getting at, and the underlying question of the utility of this collateral that I am trying to create. Maybe it will work sometimes, maybe it won't. But, I would like to to at least try it for a while and measure its effect.

IndianaShep

Politicker

Director of Sales and Marketing

(IDK why it is in italics, but it won't edit out. So here we are.)

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

That was your narrator voice.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I've seen this where aggregate numbers from existing customers (used anonymously) have been used as the input values to showcase potential ROI so that you have something to share.

It can incentivize your customer to try and get you their numbers to build their internal business case, so you can swap out their numbers for the ones you used as the example. I wouldn't leave a spreadsheet with the customer so that they don't try to input their own values and either do it wrong OR come up with an answer that isn't beneficial to you, but if there's a way to leave behind a PDF or slide with no formulas, that can also be compelling.

IndianaShep

Politicker

Director of Sales and Marketing

My narrator voice is Ron Howard

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Morgan Freeman or David Attenborough here, depending on the situation.

GTMLeader

Good Citizen

GTM Leader

"I am working through developing some client onboarding materials" Is this for customers who have already signed an agreement, or are you creating an ROI to use during the sales process?

IndianaShep

Politicker

Director of Sales and Marketing

Good question, I stated it weirdly. It is still in the sales process. No agreement signed yet.

GTMLeader

Good Citizen

GTM Leader

Thanks for the clarification.

I've worked with ROI's for many, many years, so hopefully, I can help.

1) Sharing actual costs - Not sure where in the sales process you plan on presenting the ROI, but might it be possible to request that info before you need it for the ROI? Certainly, paint the picture that it will be used for the ROI. If they cannot provide, as previously mentioned, using numbers from a like-sized client or industry standards to provide a "ballpark" ROI. Then when they see what you are providing in the "ballpark" ROI, they might dig a bit deeper to provide actuals.

2) Provide a one-pager - I do mine in Excel. I review it during the proposal. Part of my follow-up directly after the proposal is to include the spreadsheet. All the calculations are hidden and locked, but their input section allows them to run different modeling scenarios.

3) Catastrophic Failure - Depending on the numbers some people don't believe ROI numbers. More on that later. Again, as previously identified, any direct labor savings can be difficult. Before I moved to medical software, I worked in hospital admin and reported to a CFO. The very first ROI I did for him, when we got the labor savings, he asked what my plan was for the labor $$'s savings - laying people off, not filling open positions, etc. Ever since then, unless there is a direct and identifiable path for labor reduction, I leave it out. Overtime is a different story if your solution will reduce OT.

4) Effectiveness - Mainly very effective. I include a net cash flow analysis, based on the expected savings so they can see when they are cash flow positive. If you are confident in your offering and the ROI, do an XX-day ROI review. After the solution is live, revisit the ROI with the customer after XX days. This is what was said during the sales process and now here is reality xx days into using it. This will give you a referral for life, if the actuals are at, or exceed, the ROI.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

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IndianaShep

ROI Worksheets

13 comments

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