Course objective.

• Establish what your customers are trying to achieve with their business and how their return on investment’ is achieved
• Assess how your decisions and actions affect your company’s profitability –using case studies and practical exercises
• Interpret company accounts and use financial measures selectively and knowledgeably to reveal the financial health and pressure points that a client is under before you make your sales call
• Evaluate the impact of pricing –the factors that affect the pricing decision and when to employ different strategies in different markets
• Present a persuasive financial case –targeting their known ‘hot issues’ and geared to achieving their objectives
• Assess the costs and revenues which are relevant to your decision-making and those which are not

Course outline.

• Understanding the financial structure of businesses
• Profit and return on investment

• Fixed and working capital
• Financial objectives
• Understand what drives profitability
• Know what your offering does to your customer’s Return on Investment

• Different forms of business and what we need to know about them

• Limited companies, partnerships, public and private companies, sole traders
• What is the difference and does it matter?
• Be aware of the risks you take when dealing with the different types of business

• Basic financial statements

• What financial information is needed to run a business?
• What do the statements mean?
• How to measure cash flow
• Understand what is shown by the three main financial statements used by any
• Business the Profit Statement, the Balance Sheet and the Cash Flow Statement
• Know how to judge results

• Private company accounts Mars Ltd

• What information is available to you?
• How to interpret it usefully
• Know what information is publicly available and how to use it

• Public company information - Tesco Plc
•  The information public companies have to reveal
•  How this helps salespeople who deal with them
•  Be able to find the information you need and use it to support your sales effort
• Analyzing accounts and finding the ‘hot buttons’

• The financial ratios which reveal performance and trends in the business

• What they mean

• Know what drives your customer, what their issues are, and how you can help Them

• Strategic business planning

• How top managers plan for the future of their businesses?
• How to become a ‘business partner’ for them
• Understand the process of strategic planning
• Be able to discuss business comfortably with your customer’s senior managers

• Sales forecasting

• The forecasting process
• Techniques of forecasting
• Be able to create a sales forecast which deals with a range of optimistic and pessimistic assumptions

• Understanding your costs

• Fixed, variable and mixed costs and how they behave when sales volumes change
• The importance of ‘contribution’
• Be able to make a business decision knowing the impact on your costs
• Know how ‘contribution’ affects profits
• Know how to measure the ‘bottom line’ impact of your decisions

• The structure of a business’ costs

• Some businesses have high fixed costs and some low what does this mean?
• How do I find the break-even point of the business in sales?
• Know how falling or rising sales affect a business
• Be more informed about extending credit

• Costing case study ‘what if’ decisions

• A number of ‘what if’ decisions are to be made
• How do we approach them and calculate the bottom line impacts?
• Feel confident in assessing the financial impact of your decisions Pricing
• The economics, accounting and marketing approaches to pricing are very different and all have something to contribute to price setting
• Are they relevant to sales negotiation and how do we get the best out of     all of them?
• Understand the different influences on price
• Be able to sell at higher prices with confidence
• Be able to calculate the cost of discounts

• Financial aspects of negotiation

• Understanding financial variables
• Cost versus value of variable
• Negotiating the best package for your company
• Know what to defend and what to trade
• Be able to see the deal from the other party’s perspective and make suggestions  
• Which are acceptable to them
• Win the sale and maintain the margin

• Practical case study –putting it all together

• very complex negotiation is about to take place
• Your FD has prepared a spreadsheet which takes all variables into account
• Checking the impact of various suggestions
• Be able to identify which variables have to be protected and which may be flexed with little impact on the bottom line.
• Negotiate more scientifically and confidently

Who should attend?

• Sales professionals who wish to gain control over the financial implications of the selling process and better understand the financial workings of business. As they progress through their careers in sales and sales management they will inevitably be more exposed to financial decision making. This course provides the understanding they will need.