How to close more deals

Hi There,

In this issue of the automated salesman newsletter you’ll learn how to close more deals by proving ROI to your prospects using AI.

As always feel free to jump to the part you care about:

• Why you lose deals.

  • Quantify the pain.

  • Find and show ROI.

  • Create a business case with AI.

  • Additional Prompts

Deals are lost for many reasons.

Outliers, like your champion got fired.

Or a new executive joined the company and decided to shift priorities.

But the most common reason:

Indecision.

According to a 2020 study, you can attribute 40%-60% of deals lost to no decision.

That’s right.

You’re not losing deals to your competition.

Or because your product sucks.

Simply, your prospect wasn’t motivated enough to buy and implement your solution.

Most of your deals are dying in a 10-15 min 1:1 between your prospect and their boss.

It goes something like this:

• “Hey, I met with XYZ company and they have this service that does X.”

• “Hmm, sounds interesting, but not right now maybe next quarter.”

RIP your deal.

So how do you prevent this?

With one of the biggest sales cliches.

Quantify the pain.

Discover a pain you can solve, and attach dollars to it.

To do this, you first have to find the metrics that matter to your customer.

Maybe it’s speed-to-market.

Maybe it’s productivity.

Maybe it’s safety.

Then you need to understand how they influence the bottom line.

And finally, if possible, you tie it back to how your product can help.

Once you know how you impact revenue, you can prove the ROI of your service.

And you can show prospects how much not having your solutions is costing them.

The best part?

Not only will this help your prospect sell internally.

But it also helps when you need to get it over a CFO or a budget holder.

Showing how you're making or saving a company money is the #1 thing you can do to close more deals.

However, going from product to metrics to cost savings or revenue is one of the toughest things to do in sales.

It’s not always clear and simple.

You might’ve not thought about every aspect.

But it’s worth it.

Once you have it down, the conversation transforms into:

• “Hey, I spoke with XYZ company and you know how XYZ metric is really important for us right now? Well, they showed me some things we could do to improve it by X amount.”

• “Hmmm, interesting. Tell me more.”

Alright, I get it! So what’s the best way to find these metrics and convey them to prospects?

Usually, the best way to find these metrics is through your existing case studies.

The successful customers you’ve already helped.

Whose metrics you could replicate with other prospects.

However, discovery is also important.

Plain asking “Which metrics do you track?” and “How do they relate to revenue?” can make your life a lot easier.

Collect the information. Apply it to your prospect’s situation.

Calculate the ROI you can deliver.

And then put together a business case.

A business case is the best way to convey the impact of your product.

It’s a one-pager with all the key information an executive needs to make a decision.

But what happens when your prospect doesn’t know?

When you haven’t collected case studies?

When you’re metrics don’t apply?

When you’ve just started in a role and have no clue how to apply this?

How do you tie something like productivity or employee satisfaction to revenue?

In the past, you spent a lot of your time ideating on ways to make this work.

Luckily for us, we can use AI to craft a clear, compelling business case.

Here’s a prompt you can use:

Replace the brackets with your information and run it on your AI service of choice (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini).

My favorite for this task is Claude 3.7.

You’ll receive a great example of a business case showing how your product delivers ROI for your prospect.

Now copy paste to a Google Doc and fix anything that needs fixing.

Or ask the AI to tailor its response until you’re satisfied.

Tip: Use Deep Research (ChatGPT, Grok, Gemmini) to browse the web and find information such as employee count or company goals to give you better metrics.

Boom! Now you have a ready-to-use business case.

Guaranteed to deliver sales.

While this is a great exercise, you don’t need to stop here.

You should continuously look for ways your product is delivering value.

Other additional prompts to expand knowledge of your product’s impact on revenue:

• "Analyze the top ways {my product/service} increases a company’s revenue and provide specific examples for my industry."

• "Break down how my {product/service} improves operational efficiency and translate that into revenue impact."

• "Show how {my solution} helps reduce {harmful metric} and estimate its financial impact on long-term revenue."

• "Explain how {my service} increases {good metrics} for my customers."

• "Identify hidden revenue opportunities that my {product/service} unlocks for customers in {industry}."

• "Estimate the financial cost of inefficiencies or manual processes that {my solution} automates, and translate that into revenue gains."

• "Provide a competitive analysis showing how companies that use {a solution like mine} outperform their peers in revenue growth."

• "Quantify the impact of my {product/service} on reducing {bad outcomes} and show how that affects a company’s bottom line."

• "Develop a simple revenue impact formula based on {key business metrics} my customers care about."

• "Translate the benefits of my {product/service} into financial terms executives care about, such as ROI, gross margin improvements, or revenue per employee."

Tip: Add call notes or transcripts for the AI to take into consideration.

You should do this exercise even if you don’t have a specific deal in mind right now.

It will give you a better idea of what you’re selling and what the impact of your product is.

Logging Off,

Automated Salesman