Free Business Case & ROI Builder Prompt

## StackSwap execution contract

You are running a StackSwap operator workflow. Your job is to turn the user's real context into a decision-ready GTM artifact, not a generic explanation.

1. Start by extracting the objective, audience, motion, constraints, available evidence, decision, and definition of success.
2. If a missing fact would materially change the answer, ask up to 3 precise questions. Otherwise state reasonable assumptions and proceed.
3. Separate supplied facts, assumptions, unknowns, and recommendations. Never invent customer evidence, performance claims, market data, or proof.
4. Use the workflow below as the default operating method, adapting it to the user's context. Explain important trade-offs briefly.
5. Produce the promised artifact first. Make it copy-ready, specific enough to run, and structured for the user's actual team or buyer.
6. Include the evidence used, the verification or inspection loop, the main failure modes, and what would change the recommendation.
7. End with: Assumptions; Risks or failure modes; First 3 actions with owner and timing; and a short quality check showing what would make this artifact trustworthy.

### Output contract

Every workflow must make its output observable. Name the artifact, its required fields, the evidence or inputs behind each important claim, and the acceptance check that determines whether it is usable. If the workflow is a decision, show the viable alternatives, criteria, recommendation, runner-up, reversibility, and stop/continue rule. If the workflow is a copy-ready asset, include the final asset before commentary.

### Evidence and verification

Use the user's evidence first. Label sourced facts, assumptions, estimates, and recommendations. Prefer a small test, review, calculation, or comparison that can falsify the recommendation. Never treat an AI assertion as verification.

### Follow-on behavior

Name the next useful workflow only when it follows from the current artifact. Link the handoff to a concrete decision, missing evidence, or unresolved risk; do not recommend a generic tour of the library.

### Cross-platform behavior

This prompt is designed to work in ordinary chat, Claude, and Codex. Do not depend on hidden system instructions, a specific model, slash commands, or unavailable tools. If tools or files are available, use them only when they improve evidence quality; otherwise complete the workflow from the provided context.

---

---
name: business-case-and-roi-builder
description: "Build the economic business case and ROI model a champion takes to the economic buyer to win budget, quantified status-quo cost, hard and soft value drivers, a defensible ROI/payback model, the cost of doing nothing, and a champion-ready one-pager framed in the buyer's own metrics. MANDATORY TRIGGERS: 'build a business case', 'ROI for [deal/tool]', 'justify the budget', 'how do I prove ROI', 'the champion needs a business case', 'cost-benefit for', 'build the ROI model', 'value justification'. STRONG TRIGGERS: 'deal stalled on budget', 'they love it but no budget', 'EB wants numbers', 'CFO pushback', 'how do I quantify the value', 'payback period for'. Do NOT trigger on: pricing structure design (use pricing-and-packaging), the negotiation/close itself (use deal-negotiation-and-closing), or computing the seller's own unit economics (use saas-metrics-and-unit-economics). DO trigger when a seller (or buyer's champion) needs to build the economic justification for a purchase."
allowed-tools: Read Write WebSearch WebFetch
metadata:
  author: Nick French / StackSwap
  version: '1.0'
  product: Operator Playbook
  website: stackswap.ai/playbook
---

# Business Case & ROI Builder

Deals stall at "we love it, but we can't get budget." Not because the product is wrong, because the champion walked into the budget meeting with enthusiasm and no numbers. The economic buyer funds outcomes, in dollars, measured against the metrics they're held to. The rep pitched features. The champion couldn't defend the spend. The deal died in a room the rep was never in.

> **A champion without a business case is a champion who loses the budget fight. The deal is won or lost on the ROI math the economic buyer sees, so build that math for them, conservatively and defensibly, and never hope they build it themselves.**

This skill builds the business case: quantify the cost of the status quo, model the value, stress-test the assumptions, and hand the champion a one-pager that survives the CFO. The deliverable is the document that gets budget approved when you're not in the room.

---

## When to use this skill

Trigger on:

- "Build a business case / ROI for this deal"
- "They love it but can't get budget"
- "The EB wants numbers"
- "How do I justify the spend?"

Don't run for:

- Pricing structure design (use `pricing-and-packaging`)
- The negotiation / close (use `deal-negotiation-and-closing`)
- Your own company's unit economics (use `saas-metrics-and-unit-economics`)

---

## The framework

### 1. The economic anchor (cost of the status quo)

Before you model the solution's value, quantify what the *problem* costs them today, in dollars. Hours wasted × loaded labor rate. Deals lost × ACV. Churn × LTV. Errors × cost-per-error. If you can't put a number on the status-quo pain, you have no business case, you have a feature pitch. The anchor is the foundation; everything compares to it.

### 2. The value drivers (hard before soft)

Split value into two buckets and lead with the first:

- **Hard ($, defensible):** cost reduced, revenue gained, time converted to dollars, headcount avoided. These win budget.
- **Soft (real but not fundable alone):** risk reduction, morale, brand, "future-proofing." These support; they don't carry the case.

Lead with hard dollars. Soft value is the tiebreaker, never the argument.

### 3. The ROI model (investment vs. return)

Build the simple, defensible model:

- **Investment:** total cost (license + implementation + internal time). All-in, not sticker.
- **Return:** annualized hard value from §2.
- **ROI %** = (return − investment) / investment.
- **Payback period** = months until cumulative return covers investment. The EB cares about payback more than ROI %, it's the cash-flow question.
- **3-year view:** a simple cumulative table beats a fake-precise NPV for most deals.

### 4. The cost of doing nothing

The status quo is the real competitor, not the other vendor. Quantify the cost of inaction *over the deal timeline*: every month they wait, the §1 anchor keeps bleeding. "Doing nothing costs $X/month" reframes delay as a decision with a price, and it's the single most effective antidote to "let's revisit next quarter."

### 5. Assumptions (conservative and sourced)

The fastest way to lose a CFO is one inflated number. Every assumption:

- **Conservative**, under-promise. A believable 3x beats an unbelievable 10x.
- **Sourced**, their data where possible, your benchmarks where not, labeled which.
- **Adjustable**, give the EB the levers so they can run their own conservative case and still land positive.

Credibility is the whole game. A defensible case that shows a modest win beats a spectacular one nobody believes.

### 6. The champion-ready one-pager

The champion forwards this when you're not there. So it must be:

- **One page**, skimmable, EB-readable in 90 seconds
- **Framed in the EB's metrics**, if they're measured on pipeline, speak pipeline; on margin, speak margin
- **Defensible line by line**, the champion can answer any "where did this come from?"
- **Ending in the ask**, the specific budget, the timeline, the next step

### 7. The CFO test

Before it ships, run it: would a skeptical CFO sign off? If any number would make them raise an eyebrow, cut or source it. The case that survives the CFO is the case that gets funded.

---

## The process when triggered

### Step 1: Pull the inputs
From discovery (`discovery-call-runner`): the quantified pain, their metrics, current costs, the EB's priorities, the deal's investment.

### Step 2: Anchor the status quo
Put a dollar figure on the problem today (§1).

### Step 3: Model the value + ROI
Hard drivers, investment, ROI %, payback, 3-year cumulative (§2-3).

### Step 4: Quantify the cost of doing nothing
Monthly bleed over the deal timeline (§4).

### Step 5: Stress-test assumptions
Conservative, sourced, adjustable. Run the CFO test (§5, §7).

### Step 6: Build the one-pager
EB-metric-framed, defensible, ending in the ask (§6).

---

## The artifact (template)

```markdown
# Business Case, [Solution] for [Company], [Date]

## The problem (status-quo cost)
[Problem] costs [Company] ~$[X]/year today: [calculation].

## The value
| Driver | Type | Annual value | Assumption (source) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ... | hard/soft | $... | ... (their data / benchmark) |

## ROI model
- Investment (all-in): $___
- Annual return (hard): $___
- ROI: __% | Payback: __ months
- 3-year cumulative: Y1 $__ / Y2 $__ / Y3 $__

## Cost of doing nothing
Every month of delay costs ~$___ (status-quo bleed).

## Assumptions
- [Conservative, sourced, adjustable]

## The ask
[Budget $___, timeline, next step]
```

---

## Common mistakes

- **Feature-pitching instead of outcome-pricing.** The EB funds dollars saved/earned, not features.
- **Inflated ROI.** One unbelievable number sinks the whole case. Conservative and sourced.
- **No cost-of-inaction.** Without it, "next quarter" is free. Price the delay.
- **Not in the EB's metrics.** Speak the language they're measured on, or it doesn't land.
- **Too complex.** A skimmable one-pager beats a 12-tab model the champion can't defend.
- **Champion can't defend it.** If they can't answer "where did this come from?", you've armed them with a liability.
- **Soft value as the argument.** Lead with hard dollars; soft is the tiebreaker.

---

## How to use the artifact downstream

1. **Sourced by discovery**, `discovery-call-runner` surfaces the pain and metrics the case quantifies.
2. **Arms the champion**, feeds directly into `multithreading-and-champion-building` (the champion's internal-selling tool).
3. **Becomes negotiation leverage**, a strong ROI case is your anti-discount argument in `deal-negotiation-and-closing`.
4. **Reconciles with pricing**, the investment side ties to `pricing-and-packaging`.

---

**Budget fights are won on numbers, not enthusiasm. Anchor the status-quo cost, model the value conservatively, price the cost of doing nothing, and hand your champion a one-pager that survives the CFO. Reps who pitch features lose to "no budget." Operators who build the business case get funded.**

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_Part of the StackSwap Operator Playbook. → stackswap.ai/playbook_

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