I don’t quite know how to react to the feedback I’m getting on my series of selling with finance blog posts. It ranges from comments like, “Excellent, this is so critical,” & “I commend you,” to “I wouldn’t waste my time reading this irrelevant-to-sales stuff,” and “Sorry, I skipped that post because I don’t understand finance and don’t need to.” There’s not actually too much in between. Seems pretty polarized with vastly more of the latter.
Consider this. I randomly picked 25 companies with headquarters in GA and looked up the titles of their corporate officers.
- 8% have a Chief Sales Officer (2 of the 25)
- 64% have a Chief Marketing Officer (16 of the 25)
- 100% have a Chief Financial Officer (That’s 25 of 25 for math challenged)
While I wouldn’t characterize my little study as statistically valid, experience tells me that the CSO % might creep up into the double digits with a more extensive survey. The CMO number is probably about right. I’d be absolutely stunned if the CFO data changed one iota.
Given those percentages, who has the most clout? What discipline is absolutely essential to every company? Can you effectively sell without fluently speaking the lingo of the corporate officer who is most essential and has the most clout?
- Should I be frustrated that the majority of sales reps and managers are basically clueless financially?
- Should I be sad at the sorry state of this essential skill set among my peers in sales; in my chosen and loved profession?
- Or is it great news!!!??? Puts me at one heck of a competitive advantage!
What do you think?
FYI – Here’s the series:
- Part 1: Do you speak the universal language of business?
- Part 2: Selling With A “Net Cash Flow” Approach
- Part 3: Cumulative Cash Flow + Payback = Committed Customer
- Part 4: ROI – For Pete’s Sake, Know What It Means!
- Part 5: Net Present Value (NPV) – Coming soon
- Part 6: Internal Rate of Return (IRR) – Coming soon
