I remember the first time someone told me they were gonna present a business case.
It sounded pretty cool, so I asked him to show me the slides. He flipped to ROI slide:
"3722% ROI"
Nice man. Take my credit card now.
Most business cases created by sellers are absolute BS.
You actually can do more hurt than harm when you try to quantify the pain if your quantification is filled with massively inflated numbers, if you try to quantify things that shouldn't be quantified, or if you create assumptions in isolation without champion buy-in.
So we're walking through how to build a non-BS business case in 3 core slides today (full business case slide deck is here):
- The Problems + Solutions
- The Quantifiable Impact
- The Unquantifiable Impact
Let's roll.
(PS: I'll do another noozy on when / how you setup the business case in the sales cycle, but this will focus on the business case itself. For now, know that this usually happens after your champion is bought in and you're presenting to power and/or a CFO.)
Slide 1: The Problems + Solutions
Before you pull out your calculator, you have to recap the top 3-4 qualitative business drivers that you can turn into quantitative business impact.
For example, when I was selling compensation software, HR professionals would always complain about how employees didn't understand their stock options.
That's the problem they care about, but it's not a quantifiable one.
So I'd start there, then try to get them to think about how many employees left due to compensation, which lets me cite a metric like compensation-related attrition.
Once you have both, you simply stitch them together in your recap bullets:
- Employees only fixate on salary which has led to higher compensation-related attrition.
- Recruiters struggle to sell the upside of equity which has led to lower offer acceptance rates.
- HR and managers are spending hours in merit cycles which leads to time wasted across the company.
See the format? Problem you care about + impact your CFO cares about.
From there, round it out by explaining how you solve each problem, either on the same slide or a separate slide (whatever makes the picture most clear).
Slide 2: The Quantifiable Impact
Now that you have the drivers, it's time to quantify them.
But if you present numbers blindly, you'll not only be wrong, but your champion won't be able to stand by them when a CFO applies pressure.
This is why it's critical to co-create the business case with your champion.
It's your job to build the math equation. It's their job to give you the assumptions.
For example, if I'm trying to quantify compensation related attrition, I may lay out the following equation for my champion:
Employees Left Due to Compensation: ________
* Average Employee Salary: ________
* Cost to Re-Hire: $20,000
* Productivity Loss: 3 Months (25% of Salary)
* % Reduction via Pave (Case Study): 15%
= Total Savings From Comp Related Attrition: ________
Notice, the assumptions that I'm filling out above are the market-based assumptions. Because I can't expect them to know the average cost to replace an employee, the productivity loss, and the % reduction in attrition that Pave can bring.
But they need to tell me their attrition numbers, average salary, and if they believe they can actually reduce comp related attrition by 5% to complete the equation.
Setup a 1-hour meeting with your champion to hash this out together. Align on the 3-4 biggest drivers, quantify them line-by-line, and really make your champion think.
Slide 3: The Unquantifiable Impact
The reality is that you can't quantify everything your product brings (and you shouldn't).
My goal is to build enough quantifiable impact, then say "and here's everything else we can't even put a number behind."
Continuing the Pave example, that would include things like:
- The risk of compensation mistakes and compensation inequities
- The constant questions and confusion from employees to HR and finance
- The employee dissatisfaction of a manager doesn't know how comp works
The previous slide got them buying logically. This slide gets them buying emotionally.
I like to roll these up together in one big executive recap slide as pictured above. Let the numbers stand on their own with the nitty gritty equation, then strip out the details and say "but wait... there's more!"
The Rest
So, is the business case really... only 3 slides? Usually not.
The full deck should include anything else they'll need to take action or provide context for an executive. Here's what that often looked like for me:
- Agenda
- The Problems + Solutions [1]
- Product Overview
- Quantifiable Impact [2]
- Qualitative Impact [3]
- Pricing
- Implementation (Project Team & Timelines)
- Case Study (To support the business case)
- Security & InfoSec One Pager
- Appendix: Key Product Slides (Only what's relevant)
But do not water down your deck so much that you distract from the 3 core slides. Most business case decks are flooded with unnecessary feature slides, nascar slides, and case studies that distract from what matters most: the problems and how much they cost.
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That's a wrap folks! And as a special treat for this noozy, you can download the full business case slide deck template right here -- it's a very simple starting point, so make sure you customize it for your sales motion.
