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Here are some detailed questions from our article, Why ROI Doesn’t Work. They represent a great way to take the next step in making ROI a successful selling tool for your company.
To see an example of an elegant-looking, interactive ROI tool, click here.
If you'd like to learn more about using economic justification tools (ROI, TCO, and ROA), just let us know!
QUESTIONS REGARDING YOUR CURRENT APPROACH
- Is your selling method consultative? How can this approach enhance the consultative nature of your approach?
- How important is economic justification to your prospects?
- What percentage of your sales force uses an ROI approach?
- Of those that use it, why do they believe it works?
- Of those that don’t, why don’t they use it? We recommend probing heavily to determine if the real reason is discomfort with this approach – the most common reason it does not get applied.
- What are the valid complaints about the current ROI approach?
- Who in marketing understands the ROI model and can leverage its output for existing marketing initiatives?
- Is there any process in place for capturing the output of ROI analyses for deployed solutions?
- Who, if anyone, supports the ROI model on behalf of field deployment?
- Are new employees (both sales and company-wide) introduced to the ROI process and supporting materials?
- What kind of auxiliary supporting materials go with your ROI Model? In other words, what makes up the “whole product” of the ROI approach?
- If the ROI model, supporting materials, and professional expertise with ROI are dispersed throughout your organization, who would you say “owns” it?
QUESTIONS IF YOU ARE GETTNG READY TO BUILD A MODEL
- What
is your inventory of current tools related to economic justification:
ROI model? White paper? Quantitative case study? Web calculator?
3rd-party analyst paper? Press release(s)? Market research covering
your segment?
- Have you unified existing collateral and mined it for payback metrics representative of your product benefits?
- Working from the other side, have you quantified each feature and benefit listed on your collateral?
- What 3rd-party analyst(s) cover your market segment, and have they produced segment benchmark data?
- Could
you run a one-time ROI analysis today, on a live customer, if you had
enough performance data from that customer? Who in your company would
you need to engage?
- Who can best identify the business value drivers and metrics associated with your solution?
- What type of approach will you be developing: ROI, TCO, or ROA?
- Who will be the owner of the process and the model?
ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN DEVELOPING AN INTERACTIVE MODEL
- Make
the model as simple as possible on the exterior. The right front end
will hide the complexity of the tool, but show the completeness of the
tool. This can most effectively be accomplished by hiding the
spreadsheet view, and showing only a simple data-entry view (easily
accomplished through wizards).
- Design the tool so it can be completed within 10-15 minutes.
- Strike a balance between ease-of-understanding and the reality of the complex environment in which your prospect is likely to be operating.
- Add simple fill-in blanks to customize the tool for your specific prospect.
- Have industry-standard data available in the likely event your prospect doesn’t have all the data they need to populate the model.
- Provide ROI FAQs three ways: as a PDF document, web deployed, and embedded within the ROI Model.
- Populate the model heavily with “Learn More” buttons.
- Capture, codify, and publish assumptions and authority sources behind the ROI model.
SPECIFIC TACTICS FOR SALES SUPPORT
- Internally
publish success stories based on use of ROI model. Describe support
resources used to enable the win. Track and compare deals closed that
used the ROI model with others and identify success factors related to
the tool and the approach.
- Conduct
a one-day course (3-6 hours) on use of model; minimize war stories, go
for role-playing and hands-on calculation exercises.
- Provide
a one-page synopsis setting customer expectations around ROI and
providing a context for your ROI model's output. “What is ROI, and how
does it relate to NPV, IRR, EVA, and other decision support metrics?”
- Constantly
clarify the difference between a payback (a line item return) and an
ROI (a full project’s scenario-specific net return).
- Archive and circulate, push, or publish an ROI topics list and locations (URLs).
- Ask about ROI sales experiences at weekly sales meeting.
- Set up a secure discussion board area for ROI advice, searchable by keywords.
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