How a CFO Evaluates Spend
A short read on the finance lens, so the bank reads as a way of thinking, not a script.
It is annual planning season and you have one meeting to keep next year's event budget. The person deciding is the CFO, not your CMO. The questions are predictable and fall into five groups. This bank gives you all twenty, what each one is really asking, the data to have ready, and a sample answer to adapt.
The questions are sitting right here; the only variable is whether you walked in with the answers.
A short read on the finance lens, so the bank reads as a way of thinking, not a script.
Cost, return, comparison, repeatability, and causation, grouped the way finance actually thinks.
The intent behind each question, so you answer the concern, not just the words.
The specific number or record to bring to each question before you walk in.
A strong, adaptable answer you can make your own.
A one-page, fill-in checklist of the numbers to assemble before the meeting.
Marketing leaders heading into annual planning who have to defend event spend to finance - where the answer to every predictable question needs to be ready, in the CFO's own terms, before the meeting starts.
A recap describes the event. A budget defense answers what finance will actually ask. Those are two different documents.
This is the idea the whole bank runs on. Every question, prompt, and sample answer follows from it. Download the full bank to get all twenty questions in five groups, what each one is really asking, the data to have ready, and the prep checklist.
The full thinking behind this bank, expanded across the blog.