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Attract the Right Job or Clientele:
How to Sell to the CFO to Enjoy Business Growth
Chief financial officers (CFOs) prioritize choices that improve profit and have clear timelines. Sales teams that present outcomes, timelines, and factual numbers earn attention.
Our guest blog, ‘How to sell to the CFO to enjoy business growth, offers insights on crafting a business case that demonstrates a return on investment (ROI), mitigates risk, and fosters long-term value creation—everything a CFO needs to know.
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Sell to the CFO to Enjoy Business Growth
Image by Geralt, Pixabay
Start With the CFO’s Scoreboard
CFOs prioritize earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), free cash flow, gross margin, and risk-adjusted return on investment (ROI) or payback time. Lead with how the solution increases contribution margin, accelerates cash conversion, or reduces volatility, aligning benefits to the company’s financial plan.
Translate Benefits Into an ROI Mode
Quantify ROI and illustrate how economics move through the income statement and cash flow. Develop a straightforward model that the finance team can easily review—present base, conservative, and upside scenarios to showcase risk and sensitivity.
Include:
- A clear baseline that shows current cost, cycle time, and conversion rates
- Unit cost down, throughput up, and error rate down for each lever
- A time-to-value map that shows quick wins in the first quarter and compounding gains after
- A monthly payback calculation, plus net present value with the company’s hurdle rate
- A sensitivity table for one or two key drivers, like adoption and utilization
- A cost of delay estimate that reflects a dollar loss, the CFO can validate
Connect to What CFOs Say They Need
Policy and technology drive capital allocation. The 2025 findings reveal that 57% of CFOs are adjusting their short-term strategies due to U.S. economic policy, and 58% are investing in AI for real-time forecasting and enhanced planning.
44% of CFOs say cost discipline is “essential” to fund increased tech use over the next 12 months to reduce costs. A pitch tied to these pressures stands out because it fits the budgeting reality.
Prove Revenue Protection and Cost-Out With Specific Cases
Demonstrate value with short, verifiable applications tied to profit. For example, real-time fraud screening protects revenue, reduces chargebacks, and lowers manual review costs. Mastercard uses AI that scores transactions within milliseconds, demonstrating how advanced detection reduces loss and preserves customer approvals. Revenue integrity also controls costs by reducing false declines and supporting workload efficiency.
Treat Risk Reduction as a Measurable ROI Lever
CFOs value projects that reduce loss exposure—frame risk value by highlighting the financial impact of fraud. In 2023, consumers filed 2.6 million fraud reports with the Federal Trade Commission, and reported losses topped $10 billion. That scale demands stronger prevention and faster detection.
Mention that memory-enabled AI learns from transactions, flags unusual patterns in real time, and improves over time, helping finance teams catch fraud faster, manage risk, and protect customers and cash flow. When quantifying avoided losses, show baseline fraud rate, expected reduction, average ticket size, and approval rate increases to turn risk control into EBITDA.
Treat Churn Like a Cash Flow Problem
Customer churn changes lifetime value and cash predictability, influencing how a CFO assesses risk pricing. Differentiate between voluntary churn, when a subscriber cancels on purpose, and involuntary churn, which occurs when a payment fails or billing creates preventable friction.
Recurring billing data can mislead regarding churn. If a company loses subscribers as remaining customers upgrade their plans, it can hide a long-term, value-eroding leak. Finance wants precise instrumentation, payment retry logic, and card updater practices to prevent involuntary churn and ensure a fast payback.
Quantify Efficiency in the Language of Throughput and Capacity
AI-driven planning and forecasting enable higher-value analysis, improving pricing, inventory, and working capital decisions—outcomes that CFOs strive for.
CFOs value efficiency gains that increase output. Demonstrate that the solution eliminates manual steps, reduces cycle time, and minimizes exception handling. Tie gains to gross margin by showing less labor absorption, overtime, and rework.
Build Credibility with Measurement, Governance, and Shared Ownership
Finance leaders want clear metrics and roles. Outline data sources, controls, and how the team will measure uplift or savings in the company’s systems. Define ownership for adoption, data quality, and process change to ensure accountability. Implement quarterly checkpoints to track savings and adjust assumptions.
Remember to set expectations: CFOs value artifacts that reduce ambiguity, clarify risk, and shorten the time between approval and value. When moving a proposal into funding, finance teams often request:
- A short economic narrative that states the problem, the dollar impact, and the ask
- A finance-auditable ROI workbook with live formulas and an assumptions tab
- A sensitivity table that varies adoption and utilization
- A timeline of the first value by quarter and milestones with named owners
- A metrics map that ties system fields to key performance indicators and describes how to prevent double-counting
- A risk register with mitigations for data quality, change management, and vendor dependency
Use Policy and AI Momentum to Unlock Resilient Long-Term Value
CFOs rebalance near-term moves with multi-year bets. Finance leaders adapt short-term strategy to policy while funding AI to improve forecasting and operating leverage. Blend cost-out in year one with durable revenue protection across years two and three to match that mindset and earn a faster yes.
Tie Funding to Milestones and Liquidity
Conclude by stating the investment, expected payback period, and funding milestones. Anchor the request in the reality that most treasury teams guard cash buffers.
Safety is the top short-term investment objective for 61% of organizations, reinforcing why milestone-based funding that protects liquidity earns faster approval. Confirm how the program protects liquidity through phased rollout, shared savings, or performance-based fees. That structure demonstrates respect for capital, reduces downside risk, and signals that the team will manage the project as if it were their own.
Speak the CFO’s Language
A business case wins when it treats the CFO as a partner in value creation. Anchor the story in profit, cash, and risk, then show the path to first value with numbers that finance can verify. Align on milestones and start small in a controlled slice of the business. This approach reduces uncertainty, fosters trust with finance, and allocates capital where it matters most.
Author Bio: Devin Partida, Editor in Chief for Rehack, provides today’s guest blog. Rehack is ‘a community of engaged and curious people at all stages of their technology journey.
Conclusion: How to Sell to the CFO to Enjoy Business Growth
Each industry and job title has its unique vocabulary and communication style. Before meeting, it’s wise to research the role of a CFO to gain a general understanding of their desired outcomes. However, avoid all assumptions; the groundwork is to prioritize questions to ask upon meeting. The answers they provide will lay the groundwork for more insightful conversations for you to sell to the CFO more effectively.
For more Insights, visit Elinor’s Amazon Author Page
Communicate to Attract Interest
Believe, Become, Empower
Be A Story-Teller
Address Needs, Wants, and Desires to Earn Sales
Ongoing Learning is Vital
Sales Tips: How to Sell to the CFO to Enjoy Business Growth
1. Commit to your long-term vision for accomplishment(s).
2. Research specific professions upfront to realize a better conversation direction to take.
3. Acknowledge the communication style of those you meet and attempt to align yours while remaining authentic.
4. Ask your clientele whether they have concerns about working together while conveying willingness to address them.
5. Never underestimate anyone’s novel ideas; remember that each person and country operates differently.
6. Share favorite learning moments with peers and current clients to improve client engagement.
7. Habitually seek out new ways to improve engagement for business growth.
8. At the end of all communications, ask team members involved if they have questions to ensure clarification.
9. ‘Don’t give up – find a better way!’
10. Celebrate Success!
Today’s insights are designed to help you achieve the Smooth Sale!
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