Can a CFO effect sales outcomes?
Sales Managers hold the ultimate responsibility for sales but it is the CFO who has to skilfully manage the aftermath and the repercussions when sales targets are missed.
This involves assessing the impact on cash flows, the necessity of revising cost projections and informing the CEO about the need to report missed sales forecasts to the board. It is not just the immediate hit to revenue as there is also a snowball effect on costs from sales staff turnover and the associated costs of recruiting and training new personnel. But the biggest and most significant hit is the time it takes for new salespeople to become productive.
The transition from receiver to preventer – the realisation of a CFO
As a CFO, I’ve witnessed and experienced this firsthand.
However, after encountering GrowSure my perspective on what’s acceptable and capable of sales teams has completely altered.
While collaborating with GrowSure, I witnessed the ability to proactively plan future actions and provide the entire company with visibility and the opportunity for input. I also came to recognise that a CRM system falls short in conveying the complete narrative and can offer hiding spots for under-performers. The most profound lesson I learned from my exposure to GrowSure is that growth is a meticulous process. Crafting a go to market plan may take many hours, but the attention to detail enables the precise evaluation of the likelihood of success and sniper like implementation.
What is GrowSure and how it shifted my input to sales?
GrowSure is an organic growth advisory business support by proprietary software that brings structure and visibility to the way companies and sales teams approach their target market.
The process captures the inputs and actions in the software and improves every step with input from multiple sources. The outcome is a complete go to market plan including scripts, invitations, Linkedin messaging and more, centralised and agreed to by the key stakeholders in the company.
Historically, as a CFO I was never included in the building of messaging and scripts but my perspective was invaluable to the process. The GrowSure experience also changed the culture of the organisation; from one where the sales team was making decisions on their own in isolation to everyone having input and seeing the plan developed, multiple fingerprints on the revenue generation plan and tactics.
A shift from multiple self-made plans to a single company plan being actioned by the individual, consistent messaging, visible actions and predictable outcomes.
The impact and benefit of tactical growth plans to sales teams and CFO’s
I’ve operated successfully at a C-Suite level for over a decade and it’s fair to say that, after bringing in GrowSure to improve the structure and outcomes of our salespeople, I have seen the light!
More importantly, it centres the firm’s success and ability to forecast around stress-tested, repeatable actions and not the quality of the salespeople.
It is an easy comparison to make: a go to market plan built in isolation by a salesperson, compared to capturing and improving every growth input and using the collective knowledge of the past growth attempts to build a plan that everyone agrees has the best chance of success.
GrowSure solves this eternal problem for executives, by not only including them in the creation process but also by giving them visibility as to what is being said and done across the sales function.
And from a CFO’s perspective?: it finally gives me the tool to stop people moving the deckchairs on the Titanic and thinking that that’s productive.