Deal Execution
Helping Buyers Build a Business Case
Deals rarely die because the champion stopped believing. They die in the room the seller never sees, where someone asks a straightforward question about cost or risk and the champion doesn't have a good answer ready. Helping build that answer before the room happens is part of the job, not a nice-to-have.
Published 4 September 2026
The internal sale is a different sale
Everything discovered on a call gets said in the seller's own words, backed by whatever rapport has built up over several conversations. None of that carries over when the champion repeats it internally, secondhand, usually under time pressure, to someone who wasn't there and doesn't automatically trust the framing. Selling to multiple stakeholders covers why discovery has to reach beyond the champion in the first place. This is what happens when it doesn't, or can't, reach everyone directly.
What a business case actually needs to answer
Strip away the format and most internal approvals come down to three questions: what does inaction cost, what does this cost, and what happens if it goes wrong. A champion who can answer those three plainly, in the approver's terms rather than the seller's, has a real chance. One who's repeating product language back has already lost the room.
Translate the problem into their language, not yours
The pain uncovered in discovery is usually described operationally, something's slow, manual, error-prone. Finance doesn't buy operational language, it buys numbers and risk. Someone approving budget needs the problem restated in terms they're actually accountable for. That translation work is the seller's job to help with, not the champion's to figure out alone.
Give them something they can use, not a deck about your product
A champion doesn't need another version of the sales deck with their logo on it. They need something built around the internal argument they'll actually have to make, the cost of the status quo, framed with their own numbers where possible, and honest about the trade-offs rather than glossing over them. A business case a champion has to defend as their own holds up far better than one that visibly came from a vendor.
Rehearse the pushback, don't just prepare the pitch
The approver's first question is rarely tell me about the product. It's usually about cost, timing, or what happens if this doesn't work. Going through the two or three toughest questions with a champion beforehand, and being honest about where the answer is genuinely weaker, does more for a deal than another round of feature explanation.
Don't promise numbers nobody can defend
It's tempting to hand over a headline figure to make the business case land faster. If that number can't be defended under real scrutiny, it becomes the thing the deal gets picked apart on. A business case built from the buyer's own numbers, even a more modest one, survives a hard question. A borrowed industry statistic usually doesn't.
FAQs
Common questions
- Should the seller write the business case for the champion?
- Better to build it with them than for them. A document that's clearly vendor-written and handed over loses credibility the moment someone asks the champion a question about it they can't answer in their own words.
- What if the champion won't share who else needs convincing?
- That's usually a sign discovery hasn't reached far enough yet, worth revisiting selling to multiple stakeholders before investing more time in a business case aimed at the wrong audience.
- How specific should the cost-of-inaction figure be?
- As specific as the champion's own data allows, and no more specific than that. A precise-looking number nobody can trace back to something real is more likely to be challenged than trusted.
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