This is the next Tip in a series supporting the concept of "Translation" - a process for developing more powerful business fit statements.

The process of Translation includes four steps. The first is gathering the right knowledge about the customer by asking business and solution-oriented questions, and organizing our knowledge about the customer's business in a POSI grid. The second step of Translation is to take our research and identify any specific objectives we can help the customer achieve, strategies we can help them implement, and/or the issues we can help them address.

Next comes Step 3 - doing our "Financial Impact Research". The better our knowledge about the financial benefits associated with our proposal, the more compelling our presentation. We need to ask a series of questions that can help us to fully understand and articulate the financial implications of our solution and value in the customer's terms.

As an example, assuming that we know our prospect would like to grow their market share in Mexico and we have a solution that can help make this happen, here are some questions we might ask:


"What is your current market share in Mexico?"
"What would you like it to be? By when? "
"How do you measure it?"
"What does a market share percentage point represent in terms of revenue? Profit? "
"When you reach your goal, what are some of the financial implications?"
"In what other areas will the impact be felt?"
"If you don't hit your market share goal, what will be the financial implications? Non-financial implications?"
"What does it cost in terms of terms of lost opportunities to delay this decision?"
"How does this initiative compare in importance to others?"


Keep in mind that our business fit will impact more than a single objective (which in this example is market share growth in Mexico). We will certainly impact other objectives, strategies and issues. As an example, what if one of the prospect's key strategies is to improve worker safety, and we have the ability to help them? We then want to ask another series of questions that will quantify the potential impact of that initiative.

In the area of financial impact research, more (research) is definitely better!


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