Finance for Sales Managers

This book provides a wealth of material to enable salespeople to be more familiar with financial concepts and language so they can be fully confident and effective in selling from a financial perspective. It also guides sales managers to master the relevant essentials of finance. This book helps the whole team to build compelling business cases and present their benefits to Finance Directors, VPs and economic buyers. It is based on a winning combination of good research and practical experience, by professionals both in sales and in finance.
Finance for Sales Managers was written by Steve Hay and Alan McCarthy. The Resource Development Centre (RDC) was founded by Alan in 1987. For the past 25 years across 40 countries plus 26 of the American states, RDC has been helping thousands of sales people to meet their sales target on a regular basis. One of our associates is Steve Hay – an accountant who has excelled in several different sectors of the economy, including Financial Services. Steve’s work over the past 30 years has revolved around two main areas: Finance; and Information Technology.
We are repeatedly asked by our clients to help Sales Teams be more effective in selling from a financial perspective. The most common request is for material that will guide salespeople through the basics of finance and then build on that foundation to deliver more advanced concepts that will help them to communicate with finance professionals and to sell successfully.
Alan McCarthy is an award winning career salesman, selling at different times for Rank Xerox, Exxon, Dun and Bradstreet, US Lines and ICL. He has managed sales teams and personally sold into Financial Services, Logistics, Automotive, IT and Consultancy Sectors. Alan then brought his experience to others through training, developing and consulting in sales related subjects: Relationship Selling; Negotiating; Target Account Management; and Sales Team Direction. He has conducted over 530 assignments internationally. Alan has a refreshingly realistic style of delivery and his wide range of training material is firmly based on experience to encourage the development of pragmatic skills. His unique experiences in competitive selling strategies for high value sales propositions has resulted in his clients winning hundreds of millions of dollars of business, in highly competitive arenas. Alan excels in his chosen profession and continues to deliver successful programmes to a wide variety of clients including Microsoft, Oracle, BT and Siemens plus a large number of smaller companies in a variety of industries.
Steve Hay has been an associate of RDC since 1987. He is a commercially oriented Accountant with a proven record of success in risk management and across a variety of projects and roles in finance; banking; governance; audit; and supply chain management. Steve has been successful in both the private and public sectors. His consultancy work in the UK and overseas has benefitted from his track record of driving value creation through continuous improvement and change management – dealing with cultural leadership, development and motivation of teams, and helping many senior managers to build successful careers.
Finance for Sales Managers successfully blends theory and practice from the distinct disciplines of sales and finance. It delivers a comprehensive guide for professional salespeople who want to know more about finance. It lays a foundation dealing with financial accounts, costing and budgeting - covering profit and loss, balance sheets and cash flow. It develops these themes to explain working capital management; investment appraisal; and how to analyse the financial performance of organisations. It provides guidance on how to help your customers negotiate for the budgets to buy your products and services. It concludes with help on how best to present your value proposition in order to sell successfully to people with a strong financial background.