You've partly filled out your version of Clarke's Selling Grid (feel free to replace "Clarke" with your name).
You've chatted to a few of the "Customers" to check your assumptions - and probably discovered some were good, some not so good.
Now's time to add a huge-but-tiny detail to the Then/After column.
It's a very rough estimate of how much money the business LOSES if they don't use your idea/solution.
It's neither accurate, nor precise. A conversation starter.
Your thinking might go something like this:
"Just looking at project A, if we don't implement Clarke Ching's POTEnT Projects (profitable, on time or early, and turbocharged) protocol, it will takes us 12 months, rather than 6 months to deliver project A, and we will LOSE approximately $3.5m".
I call this Dollarization, and it's part of my POTENT projects protocol.
Imagine you took the above statement to your CFO, and they said,
"We wouldn't LOSE that much. No, it's more like $2M."
and you said,
"Oh ... is that a lot?"
Do you think that, after that question, they're take you and your idea more seriously?
The moment they said, "$2M", the solution became a lot more interesting to them.
And a lot more real.
Bonus tip:
- The conversation with the CFO is easier than you think, provided you've done a little homework.
- Ask them to help you understand how much the business might "win" if your idea worked
- Then turn that into a question about how much they might lose.
- A lot of CFO love discussing this sort of stuff with curious colleagues.
Good new ... I got my first paperback copy of The Bottleneck Detective.
It's real!
You can still buy the kindle at the pre-order bargain price for another 3 days. Go here.
Take care, hit reply, say hello, or not!
Clarke