TCT Portal is your all-in-one platform for organizing and managing all the moving parts of your compliance assessments. The software combines automation with deep compliance expertise to give you a powerful tool that takes the chaos out of your client engagements.
TCT Portal takes away all the frustrations and inefficiencies of compliance assessments:
- Countless hours hounding clients
- Attempting to locate submitted evidence
- Entering data into spreadsheets
- Searching for missing pieces and manually creating reports
- Communicating and miscommunicating with clients
- Trying to figure out how to collaborate within your internal team
But what’s important to you isn’t important to your CFO. While you’re most concerned about giving the greatest value to your clients and calming the chaos around compliance, the finance officer is most interested in reducing costs, improving efficiency, and protecting the firm’s bottom line. To get them on board, you’ve got to think like a CFO, not an assessor.
The good news is, appealing to a finance officer is a simple matter: just show them how the numbers add up.
Here are a few best practices to convince your CFO to say “Yes” to TCT Portal compliance management software.
Focus on Cost Savings
The CFO is on a mission to eliminate costs and maximize profitability. He or she sees themselves as the protector of the company, and it’s on them to keep the books in the black. Unnecessary costs damage the health of the organization, and the finance officer is the last line of defense. Even small costs are important, because they add up. Without vigilance, your firm could die the death of a thousand paper cuts.
That makes it essential to focus your conversation on cost savings — not the benefits you care most about. You need to answer one question: why should we add to our out-of-pocket costs now, when we can use other tools that are already paid for, like Microsoft Excel or MS Project?
Fortunately, TCT Portal can help your company recover tremendous costs each year. More on that below.
Cut to the Chase
CFOs want to skip to the end. Remember, these are bottom-line people. They don’t care about the setup, they want the punchline first.
When you present your pitch, cut straight to the chase. Give the most important information first. If they’re compelled early on, they’ll be more willing to listen as you build your case on that foundation.
Be Concise
To a finance officer, time is money. They already have enough on their plates, and they don’t want to spend any more time than necessary discussing a request for more spending.
Provide a short, easy-to-skim summary of all your points, with bottom-line numbers that stand out. Your CFO should be able to see at a glance what you’re asking, and what the financial benefits are.
Don’t waste their time, either. Keep the conversation brief and be prepared, so you can make your points quickly and clearly.
Present the Alternative: Doing Nothing
What happens if your request is denied? What are the financial implications of maintaining the status quo? There are opportunity costs with every decision, including doing nothing.
Present a financial scenario in which your assessment firm continues to use the tools you’re already using. What will your organization miss out on, from a cost/revenue perspective? How will the company’s bottom line be negatively impacted?
While CFOs may appear to be fixated on cost reductions and revenue increases, they will also be open to opportunity costs and gaining efficiency. You just need to get them listening first. If you plow through the tripwire of increasing costs without the appropriate (and quick) justifications of why it’s a smart idea, you’ve lost them.
Be Realistic
The most compelling arguments are those that present both sides of an issue. Every solution has a downside — either financial or opportunity costs. By presenting the costs associated with TCT Portal, you’ll show that you have a balanced view — and thus a reasonable position. You’ll be more convincing and you’ll have a better chance of winning your case.
Equip Yourself with Talking Points
Your CFO will want to see actual numbers — dollars and cents that your company will spend or recover. While you’ll need to do a little legwork on your own, we’ve run some numbers that you can use to get started.
Use these talking points to present the kind of ROI your company can expect to see from TCT Portal. At the same time, use numbers that you believe are easily attainable. Throwing figures around that appear to be fantasy won’t help your case with the CFO.
- While the compliance software does mean new out-of-pocket costs, the investment enables your assessment firm to recover thousands of dollars per assessor per year.
- Your current process is burning hours, which means you’re burning money. Those hours spent on engagements can be directly attributed to salaries (which is an out-of-pocket cost). We estimate that the average assessment firm will reduce their time on each engagement by 25 percent, or roughly 50 hours.
- A quick calculation of your average assessor’s salary can give you the costs you’ll recover with TCT Portal. For a single client with a single reporting location, the cost of the TCT Portal is only $600 per year.
- Not only will the solution cut costs, but it opens new opportunities for revenue as well. A 25 percent time savings means you’ve got an extra week in your month for additional client work. Over the course of a year, that could be as much as 8-12 weeks of new revenue per assessor.
Also check out this article: What’s the Real ROI of TCT Portal for Assessment Firms?
Get Ahead of the Game
Your competitors are actively finding ways to cut costs and boost profitability right now. They’re actively making themselves more efficient and streamlined. If your firm doesn’t step out of the out-of-pocket cost bubble, you’ll find your organization struggling to play catch up with other firms.
TCT Portal is a low-cost platform that yields tremendous savings for your bottom line. It could be your CFO’s new favorite tool for recovering costs and providing new opportunities for revenue growth.
Need help making the pitch to your CFO? Let’s start a conversation about how we can help you bring TCT Portal to your assessment firm.
