What is Value Selling?
Value selling is a sales methodology focused on articulating the measurable business outcomes and ROI a prospect will achieve, rather than competing on features or price.
Value selling shifts the conversation from 'what does your product do' to 'what will it be worth to your business.' Reps quantify the financial impact of solving the prospect's problem, making it easier for economic buyers to justify the investment and harder for procurement to negotiate on price alone.
How Value Selling Works
The value selling process starts with discovery: understanding the prospect's current state, quantifying the cost of their problem, and projecting the future state with your solution. A good value seller can say 'your current process costs you $2M/year in lost productivity, and our solution will recover $1.4M of that within 12 months.' That framing makes a $200K annual contract feel like a bargain rather than an expense.
Value Selling in Practice
The best value sellers build ROI calculators, business cases, and TCO (total cost of ownership) comparisons as standard deal collateral. They train champions to present these internally. CROs implementing value selling typically see 15-25% increases in average deal size because reps stop discounting when they can prove the math. It also shortens cycles because CFOs approve investments faster when the ROI is documented.
Value Selling and CRO Job Requirements
CRO Report analysis shows that 28% of VP Sales job postings mention 'value-based selling,' 'ROI selling,' or 'business case development' as required experience. The percentage jumps to 40%+ for companies selling $100K+ ACV products. If you're interviewing for an enterprise sales leadership role, expect to demonstrate how you've built and scaled a value selling motion.
Get Weekly Sales Intelligence
Join 500+ sales executives getting compensation data, market trends, and career intelligence.
Subscribe Free