Observations
Content That Closes Deals: Four Formats Your Sales Team Needs
A classic situation in B2B sales. The deal is 90% complete. The commercial proposal has been sent, the client likes the product, and your contact person (the “champion”) is on your side. Victory seems close. But the contract is still not signed. The deal has “stalled.”
How do you cover the last and most difficult ten percent of the journey? Standard sales tools at this stage, such as follow-up calls asking, “Any updates?” or offering a discount, often do more harm than good. Pressure creates resistance, and discounts devalue your product.
In reality, clients do not need pressure at this final stage. They need confidence. They need confidence that they are making the right choice, that the risks are under control, and that they will be able to “sell” this decision to their management. The best tool for building this confidence is specialized, deal-closing content.
In this article, we will take a detailed look at four key formats of such bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content. This ready-made “arsenal” allows your marketing team to systematically and without pressure bring promising deals to a close.
Format No. 1: ROI Calculator (The Answer for the CFO)
The most common objection at the final stage comes from the CFO or CEO and sounds like this: “I understand that this is a good thing, but I don’t see how it will pay off. It looks like just another expense.” Your champion will likely not be able to answer this question with clear numbers.
An ROI calculator translates “useful features” into the language of money. Its purpose is to help clients calculate and convince themselves of the financial benefits. The ideal format is not a complex financial model but rather a simple, clear Google Sheets table or an interactive website calculator. It should be based on two or three key drivers of savings or revenue generated by your product.
For example, if your product automates reporting, the calculator may include input fields such as: “Number of employees in the department,” “Average hourly rate,” and “Hours per week spent on manual reporting.” The client enters their figures and instantly sees the result: “Annual savings: 1.5 million rubles. Payback period: four months.” Now, this is their own calculation, not your promise.
By equipping salespeople with such a tool, you change their role. They stop being just a product seller. They become financial consultants who help clients justify profitable investments for their companies. This establishes a completely different level of dialogue and trust. An ROI calculator is one of the most powerful deal-closing tools because it transforms the abstract concept of “value” into a concrete number on the client’s profit and loss statement.
Format No. 2: Comparative Analysis (Answer to the Question about Competitors)
At the final stage, clients almost always ask: “We are also looking at Company X. How are you objectively better?” A weak response from the salesperson is to criticize the competitor or make vague statements. This undermines trust.
A strong response is to provide an honest, structured comparison. Rather than a marketing brochure, it should be a “battle card” that demonstrates your confidence and deep knowledge of the market. It should be a simple, one-page document that compares approaches across five to seven critical parameters for the client.
Honestly indicate not only your strengths but also areas where a competitor’s solution may be preferable for other tasks. For example: “If your main goal is maximum customization, Solution X is a good choice. If speed of implementation and ease of use for the team are more important, our solution is designed specifically for that.” This approach defuses objections and transforms the salesperson into an expert consultant.
Format No. 3: Implementation Plan (The Answer to the Fear of Change)
Even if the client has chosen you, a major fear remains: “What happens after the contract is signed? Will implementation turn into a months-long nightmare?” This fear of change and complexity can be a powerful inhibitor.
The best remedy for this fear is a detailed implementation plan, also known as a “first ninety days roadmap.” This clear, visual document (an infographic or a simple slide) breaks down the entire process week by week. What should we do? What is required from the client? What will the interim results be? It transforms an intimidating unknown into a predictable, manageable joint project. By providing such a plan, you are selling confidence in your well-established and safe process, not just a product.
Format No. 4: Internal Presentation Template (A Weapon for Your Champion)
Your contact inside the client’s company must sell your idea to management. However, they are not salespeople. They may have difficulty structuring arguments and answering questions from the CFO or CEO.
Your task is to arm them. Give them a ready-made internal presentation template. It should not be your fifty-slide sales deck, but rather a short, concise five-to-seven-slide template that your ally can easily adapt. Its structure is: Problem (theirs), Solution (yours), Business Result (numbers from the ROI calculator), and Implementation Plan. You do ninety percent of the work for your champion, helping them appear convincing to their leadership.
Build a “Deal-Closing Package”
It includes an ROI calculator, a competitive comparison, an implementation plan, and an internal selling template. These four formats are not just individual files. Together, they form a systematic “deal-closing package” that every salesperson should have.
Creating such an arsenal is an ideal joint task for salespeople, who know the objections, and marketers, who know how to package information.
Which of these four tools would have the greatest impact on your current pipeline? Discuss this with your head of marketing. It’s the highest-return investment in content you can make this quarter. If you need help creating such a package, we can help.
