ROI In Sales Is Dead. Great Salespeople Are Doing This Now Instead.
The Worst Way to Build Your Business Case In Sales
Before you learn how to present a killer business case, here’s a warning (Ignore it at your own peril):- Presenting ROI at any point in your sales process correlates with a 27% drop in close rates.

- Presenting ROI doesn’t work.
- Presenting ROI does work, but most salespeople do it so naively that it backfires.
- Most attempts at presenting ROI are a desperate Hail Mary to save hopeless deals.
Why “Proving ROI” Is a Loser’s Strategy
Presenting ROI to your customer awakens the wrong part of their brain. The human brain has two parts: logical and emotional (this is grossly oversimplified). Your goal as a seller is to push the right buttons in the emotional brain. That’s where buying decisions happen. When you calculate ROI, you stimulate the logical brain: The part responsible for critical analysis. That’s why every time you present ROI, your customer rolls their eyes and argues with your assumptions.
How to Build Your Business Case In Sales
Tell a before-and-after customer story. This neutralizes your buyer’s logical brain. It puts it to sleep, so to speak. Stories access your customer’s emotional brain. They let you slip in your business case under the radar, cloaked as a narrative.When you tell your story, mention the financial metrics (i.e., ROI) as a passing detail, rather than as the primary focus. This approach invites your customer’s emotions to run the show. It gives them just enough numbers to rationalize their emotions. And remember, humans are irrational creatures. We come up with elaborate rationalizations to justify our emotional decisions. People buy on emotion and justify with logic. The key to getting your story right is telling both the before and after customer story. Most salespeople forget the “before” part. But as Tim Riesterer at Corporate Visions says: Value is perceived in contrast. Without the “before,” the “after” has no context and falls flat. Here’s a slide from one of our business case decks so you can see what this looks like:
Free Cheat Sheet: Build Your Sales Business Case
There are four steps in building a compelling business case using customer stories. Each step expands on the last. Want to learn how to build yours? Get our FREE cheat sheet for building your business case. It takes you step-by-step through crafting your business case:
