Sales
Sales Business Case: Build a Buyer-Reviewed ROI Worksheet
Build a sales business case that separates confirmed facts, modeled benefits and total costs, with a worked ROI worksheet buyers can challenge.
What you will learn
- Distinguish cash savings from released capacity
- Calculate a consistent benefit-cost scenario
- Identify assumptions the buyer must confirm
A sales business case connects a buyer's problem to a proposed change, the effort required and a decision they can defend internally. A credible ROI worksheet does not begin with the seller's preferred return. It begins with a baseline the buyer recognizes, then shows exactly which assumptions turn that baseline into a modeled benefit.
Use the worksheet below to make those assumptions inspectable. A smaller, supportable case is more useful than a spectacular percentage nobody can explain. This is a planning exercise, not a financial forecast or a promise of savings.
Start with the decision, not the percentage
Write one sentence: “We are deciding whether to replace this process for this team during this period.” Name the current alternative, including doing nothing. Then ask who will confirm the operating baseline, who can approve the change and who owns implementation.
For a useful commercial context, Pete Kazanjy's Founding Sales chapter on closing and pipeline management treats buying as a process with recorded stages and next steps. Your business case should support a specific buyer decision inside that process, not substitute for it.
Keep three categories separate: observed facts, assumptions and proposed commitments. “The team reviewed 400 records last month” can be a fact supported by an export. “The new process will halve review time” is an assumption until tested. “Operations will own the rollout” is a commitment only after Operations accepts it.
Worked example: capacity is not automatically cash
In this fictional example, an operations team reviews 400 records each month. A sample suggests 12 minutes per record. The proposed process is modeled at 6 minutes, but the buyer wants an adoption adjustment because not every record will follow the new route.
| Input | Base assumption | Validation needed |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly records | 400 | Buyer export for the same period |
| Current / proposed minutes | 12 / 6 | Comparable samples with exceptions included |
| Adoption factor | 75% | Owner confirms eligible work and rollout |
| Hourly planning value | $50 | Buyer-selected capacity valuation, not payroll savings |
| Recurring annual cost | $12,000 | Approved scope and price reference |
| One-time implementation cost | $3,000 | Internal and external effort |
Modeled monthly hours released = 400 × (12 − 6) ÷ 60 × 75% = 30 hours. Annual capacity value = 30 × 12 × $50 = $18,000. First-year cost = $12,000 + $3,000 = $15,000. Modeled first-year net benefit is $3,000, and the simple ROI is $3,000 ÷ $15,000 = 20%.
That 20% is a scenario, not a result. If salaries and headcount remain unchanged, the $18,000 is not automatically money removed from the budget. Ask which useful work the released hours would support. If nobody can name that work, keep the benefit as potential capacity rather than presenting it as cash savings.
Make uncertainty visible before sharing the case
At 50% adoption, the same calculation releases 20 hours monthly, valued at $12,000 annually. With unchanged first-year cost, net benefit becomes negative $3,000 and simple ROI becomes negative 20%. At 100% adoption, annual capacity value is $24,000 and simple ROI is 60%. This sensitivity tells the buyer where the decision depends on execution.
Do not add another benefit for “greater productivity” if it describes the same hours. Do not combine a monthly benefit with an annual cost. Show implementation delay, ongoing administration and additional services when relevant. If a benefit cannot be valued credibly, describe it separately instead of forcing it into the numerator.
A pricing experiment answers a different question: how customers respond to a price or package. This worksheet tests the economics of one defined customer use, using their assumptions.
Review the worksheet with the buyer
- Ask the process owner to correct the volume, time and exception inputs.
- Ask the implementation owner which work can actually change and when.
- Confirm which costs are included, excluded or unknown.
- Let the buyer challenge the downside case before selecting the next step.
- Record unresolved assumptions with an owner and a validation date.
The output may be “run a bounded evaluation,” “revise scope” or “do not proceed.” Those are useful decisions. A business case should make disagreement easier to resolve, not make uncertainty disappear.
Copyable AI prompt
Try this with Aurora AI in Finta, Codex, or Claude. Share only information you are authorized to use.
Review this draft sales business case for a human buyer review. Inputs: [decision], [buyer-confirmed baseline], [proposed change], [period], [costs], [assumptions and source notes]. Separate facts, assumptions and unaccepted commitments. Recalculate every formula with units. Flag double counting, mismatched periods and capacity presented as cash savings. Produce a base/downside table, unknowns register and five buyer questions. Do not invent benchmarks, access records, send anything or promise ROI.Keep the case connected to the conversation
Prepare the evidence and buyer questions with Finta's Sales Proposal Writer, then review the draft before sharing. A Finta Share Page can keep the reviewed materials together. The useful next move is a clear, traceable decision, not a bigger unsupported number.