Everyone wants to close more deals. The real question is how revenue leaders can help their teams do this more efficiently, without draining time or resources.
The answer might be simpler than you think: partner with finance.
Finance teams are a goldmine of insights, holding everything from precise forecasting data to strategic cost-management know-how. By collaborating with finance early and often, sales teams can anticipate potential hurdles, optimize pricing strategies, and negotiate from a position of strength — ultimately closing more deals, quicker.
In this CFO panel, we invited two finance leaders — Danielle Cerisano, CFO at League, and Tyler Sloat, CFO and COO at Freshworks — to share how to scale operations and partner effectively with your finance department.
Partnering with Finance Internally
“Growth is the heartbeat of our business,” says Danielle. “You can’t forecast without understanding what’s going on in sales. I need Salesforce to be updated. It’s so simple, but I’m nothing without the data you give me. That’s key.”
Having the right data at the right time creates predictability between teams, which is essential for sound decision making. “If we don’t have predictability in business,” Tyler notes, “it’s really difficult to run the company. You don’t know where you’re going to make investment decisions, and you can’t truly grasp your business model until you have a sense of what’s ahead.”
Predictability isn’t the only benefit of working together. When everyone realizes they share the same goal, Finance stops being the “bad guy” and becomes a partner. “We’re all in this together,” explains Tyler. “Let’s design an outcome that meets the company’s needs while also helping the go-to-market organization demonstrate success. There can be a healthy balance between those two things, but the conversations must happen. There has to be a common understanding of each side’s pain points and goals.”
Tyler also stresses the importance of constant communication — both at the highest levels and in day-to-day operations. “We need to look at systems, people, and processes to see where we should invest to make it easier for GTM folks to do their jobs. It’s a hard job, and that’s where real partnership starts: with a shared understanding. Once you have that, you can work through the hard issues, because everyone recognizes they’re on the same team.”
Ultimately, the main ingredients for a strong internal partnership include open communication, ongoing collaboration, and accurate, updated data. By keeping these factors at the forefront, Finance and Sales can operate as one cohesive unit, paving the way for long-term growth and companywide success.
Partnering with Finance Externally
We’ve all heard the trope that Finance teams “kill deals.” And oftentimes, from the sales perspective, it can feel like finance doesn’t understand the need to move quickly or the nuances of certain deals — making finance seem like just another hurdle for GTM teams. Meanwhile, Finance often sees requests arriving with minimal context, conflicting timelines, or unrealistic expectations.
According to Tyler, one of the easiest ways to avoid these frustrations is to establish guardrails early. “You’ve got to have the systems, training, and enablement in place so you never get into a situation where something happens outside the process. Of course, it always does. But when you have boundaries, you can course correct without completely shutting everything down or pulling back too much on governance.”
Danielle echoes the importance of collaboration, explaining her approach to budget management: “I like to give my leaders plenty of autonomy and trust them to make smart spending choices. I’m here as a thought partner to help buy technology they need and think through headcount planning. But one question I’ve been asking recently is, ‘Tell me about this company’s AI roadmap.’ You can have a beautiful business case, but if there’s no investment in AI, that company probably won’t be around in a few years.”
When it comes to GTM spend, the Finance team needs a business case in place for everything the org is spending money on. The business case should include:
- A justification of the need
- How it will be used and the expected outcome
This way, people are held accountable and follow through on their intentions. “What I don’t like is niche products that are only going to be used by a piece of the organization," explains Tyler. “If you have a product that one region, such as Europe, likes but then there’s going to be a different product used in North America, it creates disparity across the organization.”
Tyler clarifies that pilots are different. They’re smaller tests designed to validate a solution before rolling it out holistically. However, his team quickly shuts down significant disparities in solutions or how GTM motions are run because, as he puts it, they’re “the guardians of the business model at the highest level.”
The bottom line is that to successfully partner with Finance externally, clear communication, realistic expectations, and early collaboration are all key. By aligning on strategy and understanding each other’s constraints, Sales teams can avoid being blindsided by deal requirements, and Finance can participate as a strategic ally rather than a last minute hurdle.
Closing thoughts
Finance and GTM teams shouldn’t be siloed departments within the same company. Instead, they should act as partners working toward the same goal: revenue growth. Achieving this requires both teams to establish and maintain open communication, set clear expectations, and commit to shared accountability. When this alignment occurs, magic happens: deals close more quickly, teams operate in unison, and the company can scale faster — benefiting everyone in the process.
