Latest / Closing the Deal with Fexingo: Sales, Negotiation, and Revenue Conversations for Operators / How One Rep Won by Asking the Buyer to Build the Business Case
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this rep — let's call her Sarah — selling a workforce management platform to a mid-sized logistics firm with about twelve hundred employees. The deal size is just under two hundred thousand dollars annually. She's been in the process for about four months. The procurement director, a guy named Dan, has been polite but evasive. Every time Sarah asks about next steps, Dan says they're 'building a business case internally.' Luna: Right, the classic 'we need to build a business case' stall. Which is usually code for 'we're not sure this is a priority' or 'we're waiting for a cheaper option.' Lucas: Exactly. Most reps hear that and they go into pitch mode — they send ROI calculators, they offer to build the business case for the buyer, they bring in their own analysts to run the numbers. And that often backfires because the buyer feels like they're being sold to, not helped. Luna: So what did Sarah do instead? Lucas: She did something counterintuitive. She said to Dan: 'I'd love to help you build that business case. But I think the most credible version is one you build yourself, with your own data. Would you be open to me sending you a simple framework — three questions — that you can fill in with your team? I won't touch the numbers. You own the output.' Luna: And Dan went for it? Lucas: He did. Partly because Sarah reframed the ask. She wasn't asking him to do busywork. She was saying: 'Your internal approval committee will trust your numbers more than mine. So let me give you the structure, and you put the meat on the bones.' Luna: That's smart. It also shifts the dynamic from vendor-pushing to buyer-owning. What were the three questions? Lucas: First: 'What is the total annual cost of the problem we're solving today — including overtime, penalties, lost productivity, and any temporary labor?' Second: 'What is the minimum improvement you would need to see to justify the investment — in percentage terms?' Third: 'Who else in the organization would need to validate those numbers for the CFO to sign off?' Luna: That third question is the hidden gem. Because it forces the buyer to identify internal stakeholders before the rep even has to ask. Lucas: Exactly. Dan came back two weeks later with a one-pager. He'd gotten input from the operations VP and the finance director. His own numbers showed a 22 percent potential savings in overtime alone. That was enough to get the CFO's attention. Luna: And the deal closed? Lucas: Eleven days later. Signed. No discount, no last-minute price objection. Because the buyer had already convinced themselves — with their own math — that the ROI was there. Luna: I want to push on this a bit. I've seen reps try this exact approach and fail. What's the difference between Sarah's success and someone else's failure? Lucas: Timing and framing. The reps who fail ask for this too early, before the buyer even acknowledges the problem. If you ask a buyer to build a business case before they've agreed there's a gap worth fixing, it feels like homework. Sarah waited until Dan himself said 'we're building a business case' — that was her cue. Luna: So she let him name the activity first. Then she offered a better way to do it. Lucas: Exactly. The other mistake is making the framework too complex. I've seen reps send a twenty-row spreadsheet with macros. That's intimidating. Sarah's three questions fit on a sticky note. Low friction, high ownership. Luna: There's also a psychological piece here around the IKEA effect — people value things they build themselves more highly. Lucas: That's exactly it. By having Dan build the business case, Sarah made it his creation. He wasn't defending her numbers to his CFO; he was defending his own numbers. And his CFO knew that, which made the approval easier. Luna: Was there any pushback from Dan at all? Lucas: One concern. He said: 'I'm not a spreadsheet person.' Sarah's response was: 'That's fine. You can write the answers on a piece of paper and take a photo. The format doesn't matter. What matters is that the numbers come from your team's experience.' Luna: That's a great unlock. Lowers the bar even further. So she gave him permission to be informal. Lucas: And he did exactly that. He scribbled answers on a legal pad, sent a photo, and then his operations VP formalized it into a slide. That slide became the backbone of the approval memo. Luna: I want to talk about the CFO angle. A lot of reps are terrified of the CFO. How did Sarah's approach change that dynamic? Lucas: She never actually met the CFO until the final meeting. But the business case Dan built answered the CFO's likely questions in advance: What's the payback period? Under two years. What's the total cost? X. What's the risk? Low, because we can phase the rollout. The CFO came into the final meeting not as an adversary but as a validator. Luna: So the business case became a preemptive objection killer. Lucas: Exactly. The CFO's only question was: 'Can we start with the warehouse division first?' Which was actually a buying signal. Luna: Let's talk about the flip side. When does this tactic not work? Lucas: A few scenarios. If the buyer is genuinely time-poor and expects the vendor to do the heavy lifting, asking them to build the case can feel like you're not adding value. That's usually a sign that you haven't built enough credibility or that the buyer isn't truly invested. Luna: What do you do in that case? Lucas: You can offer to build a draft for them to review — but you still ask them to validate the numbers with their own data. The principle is the same: ownership, not outsourcing. You just adjust the level of effort you ask for upfront. Luna: Another failure mode I've seen: the rep asks the questions but then doesn't follow up. They send the framework and then go silent for two weeks. Lucas: Right. Sarah followed up after five days with a simple: 'Any questions on the framework? Happy to clarify. No rush.' That kept it top of mind without pressure. Then after day ten, she sent a: 'How's it going? Anything I can help clarify?' It's a gentle cadence. Luna: So the follow-up is as important as the ask. Lucas: Absolutely. The other scenario where it fails is when the rep doesn't actually know what numbers matter to the buyer. If you ask generic questions like 'What's your ROI?' instead of specific ones tied to their operation, the buyer won't know where to start. Sarah's questions were tailored to the logistics industry — overtime, temp labor, penalties. Luna: Specificity builds confidence. Dan knew exactly what numbers to pull because the questions were in his language. Lucas: And that's the core of the tactic. You're not just asking the buyer to do work. You're asking them to teach you their numbers, and in doing so, they convince themselves. It's a subtle inversion of the typical sales process. Luna: I want to circle back to something you said earlier about the IKEA effect. Do you think there's a risk that the buyer builds a case that's too optimistic? Like they overestimate savings and then the implementation falls short? Lucas: That's a real risk. Sarah mitigated it by having Dan include a sensitivity analysis — what if savings are only 10 percent instead of 22 percent? The deal still worked at 10 percent. So the case was robust. If the buyer's numbers are unrealistic, you have a gentle obligation to challenge them — not to kill the deal, but to protect your own implementation reputation. Luna: Good point. So you're not just accepting whatever they write. You're helping them pressure-test it. Lucas: Right. And that actually deepens trust. When Sarah said to Dan, 'Let's make sure this holds up under scrutiny,' Dan saw her as a partner, not a peddler. Luna: Alright, let's step back. What's the one takeaway for a rep listening to this? Lucas: If a buyer tells you they're building a business case, don't offer to build it for them. Offer to give them the scaffolding — three specific questions — and let them fill in the bricks. Their numbers will always be more credible to their CFO than yours. And the act of building it makes them own the decision. Luna: It's almost like you're not selling them the solution; you're selling them the confidence to sell it internally. Lucas: That's exactly what it is. And it works because it respects the buyer's intelligence and their internal politics. You're not bypassing their process; you're plugging into it. Luna: You know, thinking about this episode and the others we've done, if these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, we keep this show ad-free and listener-supported. If you've gotten value from the specific tactics Sarah used here, or from any of our episodes, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It genuinely helps us keep doing deep dives like this. Lucas: And we appreciate every bit of that support. Now, let's talk about a related scenario — what happens when the buyer builds the business case but then the CFO still says no? Luna: Is that common? Lucas: It happens. And it's often because the business case answered the financial question but not the strategic one. The CFO might say, 'The math works, but is this the right priority right now?' So the rep needs to also ask a fourth question: 'How does this align with your strategic initiatives this year?' Luna: So the business case is necessary but not sufficient. Lucas: Exactly. But if you've asked the first three, you've already built a foundation of trust and data. Adding the strategic alignment piece is the final layer. And that's a topic for another episode. Luna: Fair enough. So to recap: ask the buyer to build their own case, give them a simple framework, follow up gently, and pressure-test the numbers together. Lucas: That's the playbook. And if you try it, let us know how it goes. We'd love to hear a win story. Luna: Or even a loss story. Those teach us just as much. Lucas: Absolutely. Until next time.