The Sales Skill Most Reps Are Missing
- Acumen Learning
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Executives don’t buy features. They buy outcomes. They’re not asking, “What does this product do?” They’re asking, “What will this do for our margins, our growth, our future?”
If your pitch doesn’t answer that, you’re not selling, you’re just describing. The reps who win today are the ones who shift from technical details to financial impact. That’s how you earn a seat at the table.
The Problem with Feature-Focused Selling
Think of it like this: if you’re trying to sell a car and you only talk about the leather seats, you’ve missed the point. Buyers want to know what gets them from point A to B faster, cheaper, or safer. The same holds true in B2B.
Why do feature-first pitches fall flat?
They don’t connect. They fail to link your product to business objectives.
They miss opportunities. Executives don’t buy tools. They buy outcomes.
To move beyond transactional selling, you need to speak to what really matters: the buyer’s financial drivers.
Understanding Financial Drivers
The most persuasive reps don’t start with specs—they start with strategy. They ask: What does this company need to achieve this quarter? This year?
At the core of every business is the fundamental mental model called the 5 Business Drivers®. These five drivers are cash, profit, assets, growth, and people. If you want to understand your customers' world, priorities, challenges, and industry, you first need to know how these five drivers shape executive decisions.
Here are a few key questions:
Cash:
Does your solution shorten the cash conversion cycle?
Can it reduce days sales outstanding (DSO) or speed up receivables?
Profit:
Will it improve gross margin or reduce cost of goods sold (COGS)?
Can it increase operating income per unit sold or reduce SG&A as a % of revenue?
Will it help identify and scale high-margin offerings?
Assets:
Can it help the company generate more revenue per asset (like machines, real estate, or software licenses)?
Does it increase return on assets (ROA) or asset turnover?
Can it minimize idle inventory or underused capacity?
Growth:
Does it support scalable growth without proportionate increases in cost?
Can it expand revenue per employee or margin per new customer?
People:
Does it reduce low-value work and boost employee output?
Can it improve manager-to-team ratios or reduce turnover in critical roles?
Will it reduce support ticket volume or increase speed-to-resolution?
You don’t need a finance degree to speak to these drivers. You just need curiosity, discipline, and a willingness to reframe your message.
Aligning Your Approach
Once you understand what your customer is trying to achieve financially, it’s time to reposition your solution.
Here’s how top sellers do it:
Research earnings calls. Listen to how they talk about margins, market shifts, customer retention, and operational priorities.
Map product benefits to goals. Don’t just say “our platform reduces steps.” Say “our platform helped a peer reduce processing costs by 18%, improving their gross margin.”
Use their language. When a CFO hears a salesperson mention “cost per unit” or “EBITDA impact,” their ears perk up. It signals relevance, not rhetoric.
Practical Ways to Make This Work
Want to be the rep who earns a second meeting? Then every pitch needs to feel like a solution crafted for them, not a templated feature list.
Try this:
Tell better stories. Share a client win that mirrors your buyer’s current struggle. Make the stakes and outcomes clear.
Use hard numbers. Don't just say it’s “faster.” Say it “cut lead time by 22%, saving $450k annually.”
Ask smarter questions. “What’s the cost of inaction here?” “How does this initiative tie to your CEO’s priorities?” These are questions that unlock meaningful dialogue.
When you tailor your approach to a client’s strategy, you’re not just another vendor, you’re a trusted business partner.
The Bottom Line: Shift from Product to Purpose
When you align your message to your client’s financial goals, your pitch becomes more relevant, more persuasive, and more memorable. You’re not just selling something. You’re helping solve something.
👉 Ready to Start Selling Like a Strategist?
Download our Sales-to-Strategy Guide to learn how to turn earnings call insights into resonating sales stories. It’s your blueprint for building sales conversations around what the business really needs and what executives actually care about.
Let’s turn information into insight—and insight into impact.
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