Want to get better at sales? Become an accountant.
By Nick Adams
Ok, I’m not advocating for you to spend the next 24 months taking the CPA exam and then punch the clock for 90 hours a week at PWC for another 3-5 years to become good at sales. However, I am suggesting that you should be able to hold your own in the conference room when the accounting lingo starts getting thrown around. If you are in sales [to be clear, if you are a founder at a startup, you are in sales] and don’t know the relationship between COGS and Gross Margin or if you think ‘Free Cash Flow’ is a social movement, then you are not positioning your solution as effectively as you need to be.
At the end of the day, every B2B product increases revenue and/or reduces costs in ways that can ultimately be measured on the financial statements. Communicating how your product impacts the financials of your prospective customer will get you to the decision-maker. Figuring out how it can impact your customers’ stock price is your key to the C-suite.
I’m really glad we work with outstanding accountants and auditors for the intricate details of their profession. I also know that I would be a far less effective investor, board member, and fund manager if I didn’t have enough accounting knowledge to know how to ask the right questions of the professionals we work with.
Don’t fret if accounting isn’t your thing. Here’s a simple playbook for getting better in a hurry:
Learn the three financial statements and what accounting terms belong on each of the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Cash Flow Statement.
Understand the basics of how the various line items flow through each statement and, in some cases, from one statement to another. Simple examples:
Balance Sheet: Assets = Liabilities + Shareholder Equity
Net Income from Income Statement flows to Net Cash Flow from Operating Activities on Cash Flow Statement
The final balance of the Cash Flow Statement is the Cash line item on the Balance Sheet.
Think critically about the solutions you sell and where they will show up on your customers financial statements. Learn everything you can about the benefits associated with improving those line items.
Learning accounting is like learning how to ride the subway in NYC. You start out knowing nothing and relying on Google Maps for everything. Pretty quickly, you know your most commonly traveled routes, and after a while, you suddenly understand how the entire system works and where the best train station is for any desired destination. If you start learning common accounting calculations that are most relevant to the solutions you are selling, you will gradually expand your comfort zone to cover a broader range of topics which will help you sell more effectively and build your career or startup to a higher level.
Call me old-fashioned, but I love school and think graduate degrees can be extremely rewarding, both personally and professionally, but obviously, getting an MBA is not cheap or possible for everyone. So, short of dropping $200k on grad school, here are a few resources to get you started:
ROI Selling: I read this book back in about 2006 when I was just a couple of years into my sales career. It was helpful in multiple ways as I learned how to sell at a higher level and I was also working for a tech company that sold into accounting departments.
MOOCs: Online courses are such an amazing resource. Coursera, Udemy, Khan Academy, and a slew of top universities offer free accounting courses or training online. The link provided will help you quickly search all available courses.
Last, don’t underestimate the power of Youtube. I can’t personally vouch for any of the content on there but I’m sure there are some useful videos.
Do your career a favor and learn some accounting. If nothing else, you’ll at least gain a greater appreciation for your friends in accounting when they hunt you down for signed order forms.
More News & Insights
