Why Business Acumen Matters for Sales Teams

Business acumen is the formal term for “business savvy” or “business sense.” It is the keenness & quickness in understanding and dealing with a business situation (risks & opportunities) in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome.

How does business acumen translate into greater access to decision makers? The reality is, business executives want to talk to other “business savvy” people. The following are some insights on how to sell to business executives:

1. The reality is, the language of business is accounting & finance – it’s a numbers game. You have to be able to talk about & understand the language of business. You need to know and understand enough to converse in intelligent, credible conversations with the business executives that you meet with.
2. Competing on value is one of the keys to this is – being able to position and understand the impact of what you sell on the business you’re selling to. Value is always going to directly relate to the business objectives and issues facing the organizations you’re selling to. If you can’t have a business conversation, you will struggle in creating & understanding the value and justifying the solutions you sell.
3. It’s important to remember that business conversations are different than regular conversations. Think of what salespeople typically get trained on – the industry, the products, the services, potentially the competition. These salespeople are going into situations where they’re talking about what they know. Let’s say you’re selling software, you’re going to be very comfortable talking about it (what it does, its benefits, its features) – this is not a business conversation. The business conversation would be about why that software should be considered by the company that you’re talking to. It’s about the why (what’s going on in the business) and how you can connect your technical solutions to their problems.