Why a business case becomes personal in an owner-led company

The table reflects the EIG, DGA and MDE columns in the source workbook’s entrepreneur section. DGA is a Dutch term for a director-major shareholder; owner-manager refers to the managing director who also owns the company.

Suppose the investment reduces rework or improves margins. For the SME owner, that benefit may finally mean fewer interruptions on a Sunday. For the DGA, it matters in the context of overall enterprise value, asset protection and a future transfer. For the owner-manager, it only becomes real if managers continue to use the new way of working after the programme ends.

These are not arbitrary personality categories. The cards describe different responsibilities, fears, objections and evidence requirements. Before you build your presentation, establish which unwanted consequence this particular owner most wants to avoid.

The established owner’s main problem is that too much still depends on them. Years of solving everything personally may have produced few documented routines and limited delegation. The emotional consequence described in the card is exhaustion and a sense of being trapped inside the company.

The profile values craftsmanship, reliability and straightforward business dealings. Its strongest fear is an unnecessary expensive commitment. A polished forecast cannot, on its own, show that you understand the sector or will do what you promised.

Lead with evidence of dependable delivery: an up-front price, a recognisable reference from the sector, a clear owner of the work and an explanation of what will no longer land on the entrepreneur’s desk. The desired outcome in the source card is concrete: the company should run for two weeks without the owner.

A Dutch director-major shareholder owns and runs the business. In the role card, this creates a second layer to almost every major investment: how does it affect business value and protection of accumulated wealth? The profile explicitly includes long-term value, structural risk and eventual transfer or sale.

The objection is not “I have never used an adviser.” It is the opposite: “I already have an accountant and an adviser. What do you add?” Vague strategic language does not answer this.

Lead with evidence of incremental value: distinguish your work from existing advisers, show quantified benefits and the risks assumed, provide a comparable track record and use a fixed price or transparent fee structure. This buyer need not choose the cheapest solution; the profile allows a higher price when the return is substantiated. A large upside without a bounded downside is not enough.

The owner-manager’s main pain in the source card is a management team that does not take sufficient responsibility. Workflows have grown informally, and previous change initiatives may have faded when the adviser departed.

For that reason, a strong final presentation does not complete the business case. The buyer wants to know who will decide what, which manager becomes accountable and what prevents the old routines from returning.

Lead with evidence of lasting implementation: phased milestones, examples of more independent leadership teams, changed decision rights and follow-up after the external team leaves. The personal outcome is freedom to lead strategically without remaining the default problem-solver.

These are the source-card values for the three broad roles, not individual brain measurements or universal population averages.

BIS represents sensitivity to possible negative outcomes in this profiling framework. The DGA’s BIS 7 is consistent with wanting to contain value-related risk; the owner-manager’s BIS 5 does not mean risk is irrelevant.

BAS concerns the pull of opportunity and reward. The owner-manager scores BAS 7, highest of these roles, which fits the desire for professionalisation. The established owner’s BAS 5 makes concrete, familiar benefits especially relevant.

The delay-discount parameter k concerns how future outcomes are weighted relative to nearer ones. At k 0.10, the DGA profile gives comparatively more weight to long-term outcomes than the two k 0.20 profiles. That does not mean we can predict an individual purchase date.

A useful sales hypothesis comes from combining the numbers with the actual objections, desired outcome and required evidence - not from treating a score as an automatic buying script.

Illustrative example, not a real respondent case: you propose a programme to improve responsibilities, processes and management information. The financial model expects less rework and a more efficient use of time. You have not promised a specific return.

SME owner: “How much of my time does this take? Who makes sure it actually gets done?” Show the schedule, a named contact, the fixed scope and a relevant peer reference.

DGA: “How is this different from what our accountant or advisers already do? Which downside is included?” Show your incremental contribution, quantifiable assumptions and risk limits.

Owner-manager: “Who makes sure the management team still owns this six months from now?” Show decision rights, manager accountability and post-project reinforcement.

The ROI is unchanged. The missing evidence is not. That is the point of tailoring a business case without arbitrarily reinventing the product.

SME owner: “When you are away for a week, which decisions still come back to you? I can show you how a comparable company distributed responsibilities without adding more work for its owner.”

DGA: “You already have advisers. Where might risks or opportunities still fall between their disciplines? I would like to compare the measurable value we add, as well as the assumptions that need checking.”

Owner-manager: “What should your management team be able to decide without you six months from now? I can show how we make roles, decision-making and follow-up stick after external support ends.”

These are illustrative copy examples, derived from the cards. They are not tested winning messages or verbatim respondent quotations.

Do not begin every owner conversation with the same ROI slide. Use the role profile to test which order of evidence is more useful.

A generic “What do you think?” usually produces feedback on the presentation. Use questions that test the actual decision context.

A business case becomes personal when the investment touches what the owner has built, needs to protect or hopes to stop carrying alone. The SME owner wants dependable relief; the DGA wants value without uncontrolled risk; the owner-manager wants a company whose people can act independently.

The strongest case is not a larger spreadsheet. It is one that joins commercial value, a credible delivery path and the personally meaningful outcome. ROI tells the company what it could gain. The right target-group insight explains why its owner might be ready to commit.