Preparing CHRO Sales Pages for Executive Buy-In

Selling to the C-Suite? Here’s what they actually care about. Most reps blow the meeting before it even starts. Not because their product sucks... but because they show up sounding like a feature brochure with a pulse. When you’re in front of a C-level exec, you’ve got 30 seconds to prove: ✅ You understand their world ✅ You’re not here to waste time ✅ You can move the needle on what matters to them What that looks like, by title: 🧠 CEO – Growth + Risk ✖ Don’t pitch features. ✔ Show how you help them scale faster, cut risk, or hit strategic goals. 💬 “This helps teams like yours enter [X market] 3x faster - with fewer moving parts.” 💰 CFO – Cost + ROI ✖ “This will improve productivity” = fluff. ✔ Quantify ROI. Speak in margins, efficiency, risk reduction. 💬 “We reduced vendor cost 18% and freed 22 hours/month for [role].” 🛠 COO – Efficiency + Execution ✖ Don’t say “streamline.” Prove it. ✔ Show how you simplify ops, reduce friction, and speed up delivery. 💬 “We eliminate 4 handoffs in your process, cutting fulfillment time in half.” 📈 CRO – Pipeline + Predictability ✖ Don’t pitch dashboards. ✔ Show how you help them hit number faster - with fewer surprises. 💬 “We help reps close 12% more deals without changing your CRM.” 📣 CMO – Leads + Attribution ✖ Don’t promise “awareness.” ✔ Show how you help convert demand into real pipeline. 💬 “We cut cost per qualified lead by 38%... and proved it with revenue impact.” 👥 CHRO – Retention + Culture ✖ Don’t pitch “engagement.” ✔ Tie your solution to retention, onboarding, or team performance. 💬 “Your reps ramp 30% faster...and stay longer because the system supports them.” CIO/CTO – Security + Scalability ✖ Don’t ignore technical friction. ✔ Preempt risk and show how your tool fits their stack. 💬 “No extra infrastructure, fully SOC 2 compliant, and deployed in 48 hours.” CPO – Velocity + Adoption ✖ Don’t talk features to a feature owner. ✔ Show how you drive product adoption and roadmap execution. 💬 “Adoption jumped 44% in 3 months - because we removed friction at the edge.” You’re not selling your product. You’re selling outcomes to people with power, pressure, and no patience. 👇 Which C-level convo are you prepping for next? — 📬 Want access to practical sales resources and advice from top sellers every day? Subscribe here: SalesDaily.co

“I’ll have to run this by our CFO.” That line has killed more deals than bad pricing, long sales cycles, or weak demos. Here’s the truth: Your champion isn’t trained to sell. And yet 99% of reps hand them a 25-slide vendor deck and pray it somehow gets executive approval. That’s not enablement. That’s deal suicide. In enterprise sales, you will not always be in the room. Your champion—no matter how well-intentioned—has to carry your deal up the chain. And if you don’t equip them to do it in executive language, you’ve already lost. Executives don’t care about feature sets. They care about: - Profitability - Risk - Market share - Growth But most sellers send over jargon-filled PDFs that die on the first scroll. Here’s what I do instead: I build what I call a Champion Selling Aid (inspired by The Challenger Customer and refined through years of $1M+ deals). It’s a one-page executive memo—co-created with your champion—that distills the entire deal into the only things execs actually care about: 1. The core issue → One line that frames the problem at the highest level. 2. Why it matters → Translate the pain into executive KPIs (profit, revenue, churn, risk). 3. Desired outcome → What success looks like in their words. 4. Background → Proof of work already done (pilots, security checks, stakeholder interviews). 5. Options → Do nothing, hire more people, or implement your solution. 6. The ask → Clear, simple, and budget-aligned. Sometimes I even rebrand it into their internal template so it feels like their deck, not mine. Lately, I’ve been using AI to help champions polish these into crisp, executive-friendly emails and memos. But the principle stays the same: Don’t just sell to your champion. Sell through your champion. If your deal lives or dies on whether a mid-level manager can pitch your product… you’re not just rolling dice—you’re throwing them away. Stop handing over vendor decks. Start equipping champions to speak the only language that matters: executive outcomes. That’s how you turn “I’ll run this by my CFO” into “My CFO already said yes.”

Selling to leadership is tough. Learn to speak finance, and everything changes. (This works for both B2B sales and internal pitches.) Speak the language of financial metrics and business impact, and you’ll earn buy-in. Whether you’re pitching a product, service, or internal idea, this skill makes you a trusted partner to decision-makers. Want to dive deeper? Download my free guide “10 Levels of Profitability” here: https://bit.ly/40pY3CQ Here’s why: Executives don’t want fluff. They need to know *how* your solution or proposal will impact their business financially. Here’s how to make your pitch resonate: 1️⃣ Talk Margins, Not Just Savings ↳ Show how your solution improves gross, operating, or net profit margins. Make it clear how it improves topline or streamlines processes to ultimately add value to the bottom line. 2️⃣ Connect to Cash Flow ↳ Highlight how your solution will boost cash flow, not just the bottom-line. Smart executives prioritize cash flow over simple revenue increases or cost savings because it keeps the business stable and flexible. 3️⃣ Show ROI and Payback Period ↳ Present clear numbers on return on investment (ROI) and how quickly they’ll see a payback. Executives need to know when their investment will yield results. 4️⃣ Impact Key Financial Ratios ↳ Explain how your proposal enhances key metrics like ROE (Return on Equity), ROA (Return on Assets), or EBITDA. This demonstrates that you understand their financial framework and how your solution strengthens it. 5️⃣ Talk Risk Management ↳ Show that you’ve considered potential downsides. Demonstrate how your proposal mitigates financial risk and supports long-term stability—not just quick gains. Why this matters: 1️⃣ You Stand Out ↳ Most sales pitches and internal proposals focus on benefits. When you speak in terms of financial strategy and impact, you differentiate yourself. 2️⃣ You Build Trust ↳ Speaking their language shows you understand their challenges, priorities, and goals. 3️⃣ You Become Indispensable ↳ When you can prove your solution impacts key business metrics, you shift from being just another vendor or team member to a trusted advisor. If you want to learn finance strategy to elevate your pitch and proposals, join 3,000 learning with me here: https://bit.ly/famcol Remember: Learn to speak finance, and you’ll open doors that most can’t. ♻️ 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞, 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 to help someone else. And follow Oana Labes, MBA, CPA for more  

As an executive buyer, I *never* review sales decks. Yet, 99% of AEs equip champions with 25 slides at the critical decision stage. Instead, it only takes 60min to craft a decision resource that *does* get read (here’s how we do it): BACKGROUND: Your entire Sales Process has one goal. Support the Buying Process. That's it. You spend hours on: - Running POCs - Listening to calls to prepare - Catch-up calls with champions - Follow-ups to get an executive meeting But not 60 minutes writing a BUSINESS CASE? That's insane! Your buyer’s process ends with a business case. So the POCs, Call Recordings, Catch-Ups, FUPs… Don’t mean a thing if you fail at this step. —— Here’s our teams’ 5-step Business Case framework: 1. EVERY SINGLE CALL IS ABOUT THE BUSINESS CASE Discovery is not a stage; it’s the definition of your role as a seller at every stage. And its main goal is serving the business case (not you). Why do Anything? Why Now? Why Us? After each call, all of that goes into a living and breathing Exec Summary section in our Aligned Deal Room. 2. DRAFT A STRONG PROBLEM STATEMENT We use our discovery notes to draft strong storytelling that: a) Describes the problem, b) Its root cause, c) The impact of the problem (ideally quantifiable), d) Why it’s important now, e) Why it wasn’t yet solved (this helps fight scrutiny). 3. USE OUR BUYER'S LANGUAGE We ditch the lingo that comes with our standard enablement materials and use what we hear all stakeholders say throughout the process. How they describe the problem, their acronyms, etc. 4. ADD SUPPORTING DATA THAT EXECS WILL ASK FOR Include what execs will need to make a decision. For us, it is: a) Quantifiable impact, b) Project scope, c) Terms, d) Recap of evaluation and why us. 5. MAKE IT COLLABORATE AND SHAREABLE Using a Deal Room helps us get our champions’ input more easily and edit it together with them. Very often it turns into the internal version that they present, which gives us more visibility into who’s involved and viewing what. —— Want to ensure you get chosen in that hard-worked deal? Get off your a**. Spend 60 minutes writing a Business Case. Skip the 25-slide deck. And if you want help getting started… I can send you a copy of the Business Case template/playbook we use at Aligned. EDIT: We couldn't DM everyone, so here's the link: https://lnkd.in/dtNcb4y2

Only 48% of board directors say their CHRO effectively explains insights. Translation: ideas don’t fail in the boardroom, the framing does. Here's how to do it to gain buy-in It’s 7:04 AM. You’re finalizing the deck for today’s exec steering meeting. The ask is clear: $2.2M for a sourcing tech stack and internal mobility overhaul The problem? You’re still leading with TA pain points: – Time wasted on manual sourcing – Candidate drop-off – Lack of visibility across reqs You pause. Because you know what’s coming: “How does this help us hit our revenue targets in EMEA?” And the truth is, they’re not wrong to ask High-impact business cases don’t start in HR. They start in the business “We’re underdelivering in EMEA because we can’t hire cloud engineers fast enough. If we miss Q3 NPI delivery, we risk $8M in delayed revenue.” That’s the anchor. Everything else is just leverage So you rebuild the deck: Slide 1: Missed NPI targets Slide 2: Revenue at risk Slide 3: Where your hiring bottleneck hits that delivery timeline Then you translate the ask: “Sourcing investment” → Productivity acceleration “Offer decline rate” → Conversion leakage “Time-to-fill” → Time-to-impact Now you’re not pitching a TA initiative. You’re pitching business leverage If your business case needs a translator before it hits the CFO, it won’t survive the second slide DM me if you want help tightening yours

Most deals don't die because you lost to a competitor. They die because your champion couldn't sell your solution internally. I had a rep this week who's vendor of choice. VP of Talent loves them. Pricing is aligned. Technical fit is perfect. But they need C-suite and board approval. And the rep hasn't talked to any of them yet. This is where 90% of deals stall out and die. Here's how I told her to fix it: Step 1: Study how the champion has closed deals before "When you got Bamboo HR and Coursera approved, what did that process look like? How did you present it to the C-suite? What made them say yes?" You need to know her playbook. Because if you don't know how she successfully sold internally before, you're guessing. Step 2: Offer to co-create the business case Don't just hand her a document and hope she reads it. "Some of our customers find it helpful to put together a one-pager for the internal conversation. What if we spent 30 minutes co-writing it together so you look really good to your C-suite?" Step 3: Pre-arm her for objections Walk through pricing. Then ask: "Pricing aside, remind me what you like most about us?" Let her articulate the value again in her own words. Then pressure test her conviction: "What would happen if Bamboo or Coursera cut their pricing by 50% to keep your business? Would you still choose us?" If she can't confidently say "Yes, we'd still switch," you have a problem. Because the CFO is going to ask the exact same question. Step 4: Link it to executive priorities "When you talk to the CHRO and CFO about this problem, what do they say? What do they believe will happen if you don't solve it?" You need to connect her problem to their priorities. Otherwise, it's just a nice-to-have that gets deprioritized. Here's what most reps get wrong: They think their job ends when the champion says "I want to buy." It doesn't. Your job is to arm your champion to sell for you when you're not in the room. That means co-creating the business case. Pre-arming them for objections. Linking to executive priorities. Because if your champion walks into that C-suite meeting unprepared, your deal is dead. And you won't even know why.

Your 50 hours of analysis = 1 slide in front of the board. Executives are 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲-𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵. They’re asking: “What should we do?” Not: “How hard did you work?” That’s why they skim for the takeaway (“so-what”) and glance at the visual proof. ➝ Your months of research and analysis are 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲, unless the final slide makes the decision 𝗼𝗯𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀. Example? #1 Title: your conclusion, not a description. ➝ Bad: “Sales by Region, 2022–2025.” ➝ Good: “APAC drove 80% of 2025 growth; EU flat despite price hikes → shift budget to APAC.” #2 Chart: the proof of that conclusion. ➝ Bad: Dense combo chart with 6 lines, 4 bars, and a legend → no one knows what to look at. ➝ Good: Simple waterfall chart showing 2025 growth driven by APAC, with EU flat, instantly proving the headline. TL;DR: ➝ Your audience will only notice the headline and the proof. ➝ Design every slide so that, if those are the only things they see, they’ll still land on the right decision. Fast. I’ve built an end-to-end framework for this, and it has received 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸. See the attachment below. 👉 More at: aseptamar.com https://lnkd.in/gMhS9-jK