@channel Anyone else feel like the product narrative has shifted, and now you need an ROI narrative before you are even aloud to talk about the product? Curious how everyone’s handling this. Are your teams building custom value stories for every deal? is it scaling?
Sorry to hear that -- ROI absolutely helps, especially dependent on who you're selling to. If they're talking with CFOs, data all day.
But something I framed recently was around an AI tool my client built for another team, it cut a weekly task down from 7-8 hours to 1 hour per week. 6-7 hours per week back free, divided by 5 is over an hour a day. What would you do with an extra hour and change each day?
100%. SaaS landscape is so competitive that having a good product might not be enough when there's other players. In our company, we have tons of case studies about how our platform has boosted results with relevant metrics for each client.
I'm in consultative sales, so I guess I go a little different. Someone mentioned the slide deck, I never take a slide deck to the first meeting or two. I am able to speak off the cuff on what we have accomplished, but try to quickly transition into asking them questions about why they are embarking on this, what they hope to get out of it, etc. I can't tell them which KPIs matter to them, only they can do that.
I started seeing the shift late last year. You’re right, it’s not enough to connect to pain points anymore. With the teams I’m working with, we’re building modular ROI frameworks around the top 3–5 business outcomes their buyers care about most. It gives reps a way to personalize, stay credible, and show value before getting into product.
D K. Curious to hear how you approach positioning efficiency if you're not using time savings as a metric for ROI? Would love to learn how to improve my pitch (as an operational efficiency consultant - one of the key metrics to improve is time spent on specific processes, before and after improvement)
Alex J. I don't know your vertical or product category - but time saved is such an arbitrary metric that makes it hard for the company to envision. You are already selling something they physically cannot hold and now you are highlighting a savings they can't even measure or feel? I think asking the prospect what metrics they define as success and then using those metrics to tie back to whatever you are actually saving is the key here. Like instead of the time saved of Specific Process - what is the end goal of the process? Because that is actually what you are contributing to the bottom line - that end result
