VALUE STORY

Home › Value Story

What is a Value Story

A B2B Value Story is a tentpole marketing asset that presents a product or solution’s quantified value proposition in an interactive, narrative-based format. By communicating differentiated value in a compelling, easy-to-consume way, value stories are the ultimate tool for B2B sales teams looking to improve their sales velocity.

A Value Story incorporates and improves upon many traditional elements of a B2B seller’s toolkit, such as product slide decks, ROI calculators, and case studies, and combines them into a single, unified vehicle for engaging in value communication with the customer. By focusing on outcomes delivered, a Value Story is inherently customer-centric. By enabling a live conversation about a customer’s business problems, an interactive Value Story collaboratively builds trust.

Value Stories are critical for B2B companies looking to convey customer value across the buyer’s journey. They support strong value communication practices across aligned marketing and sales functions and are essential for organizations looking to scale value selling best practices.

Value Pillars – Key Elements of a B2B Value Story

There is no one way to create a great value story. Indeed, the look and feel of a value story will vary based on solution specifics, the industry of the buyer and seller, the corporate brand standards, and the makeup of the customer audience. Despite this, several pillars provide a strong foundation for high-quality Value Stories.

• Leading With Value: The power of a Value Story is that it orients the entire buyer’s journey around the economic benefit to the customer. Since 74% of buyers purchase from the first salesperson to provide value, a great Value Story must begin by clearly communicating the value delivered by a B2B solution. This value should be conveyed in three ways within the opening minutes of any Value Story presentation. 
  
  • Qualitative Value: A clearly communicated topline description of the customer outcomes delivered by the solution and its primary value drivers.
  • Qualitative Value: The measurable impact of the solution on customer KPIs.
  • Financial Value: A tailored estimate of the economic benefit to the customer over a period of time (i.e., per year or the life of the contract).

  Too many B2B sales presentations focus early on product features, failing to highlight points of offering differentiation. Even worse, many waste precious early minutes on corporate overviews or other seller-centric details. A Value Story can be structured to include technical details and highlight relevant corporate-level differentiators, but it does this in support of the primary theme of customer economic outcomes delivered.

  A Value Story takes a different approach, boldly stating, “This is the impact our solution can have on your business, and this is how much it is potentially worth to you.” By highlighting “why change,” this key opening step sets the stage for an effective value conversation.

 

• Customer and Industry-Specificity: In addition to communicating differentiated value, establishing credibility is a second critical objective for B2B salespeople engaged in value conversations. Buyers want to understand your value, but they also want to know how you can specifically help their business, and how you’ve helped businesses similar to theirs. After all, executive buyers report that while the majority of vendor salespeople are knowledgeable about their company and products, only 22% understand their business issues and where they can help.

  Value Stories are a natural tool for establishing credibility. Value Stories get customers talking by structuring a presentation around well-chosen assumptions that reveal familiarity with their industry, metrics, and business logic. By embedding stakeholder problems and industry-specific design, sellers communicate intimacy with the customer’s business. The result is buyer confidence in the seller’s ability to execute as sales teams clear the initial bar of buyer skepticism.

 

• Interactivity & Flexibility: Great Value Stories capture the attention of B2B buyers by credibly asserting financial value delivered up-front. A seller will know they have generated traction when the buyer engages with the estimate—even if they have reservations. A Value Story that is both interactive and flexible converts this engagement into a consensus business case.

  Interactivity is at the heart of every great Value Story. It supports collaboration between buyer and seller. In practice, there are several ways that a flexible Value Story engages and persuades buyers:

  • Addressing Buyer Skepticism: When presented with an initial value estimate, a buyer will usually respond with a variant of “How did you get that number.” With a well-structured Value Story in place, this becomes a critical moment, as the buyer invites a discussion into the quantitative assumptions and mathematical logic underlying asserted outcomes. Whether they question a specific assumption, the way the math is structured, or even the applicability of an entire value driver, the resulting value estimate has their fingerprints on it, and typically their buy-in alongside it, whether explicit or tacit. Buyer agreement is a critical step in building a shared business case to buy and is accelerated by interactivity.

   

  • Tailoring for Different Buyer Personae: Purchasing committees today are larger than ever, spanning a range of account job functions. The value drivers relevant to a user of a cloud IT solution may differ from those that matter to the CFO, or the head of Marketing. A flexible Value Story enables salespeople to focus on value drivers most relevant to the stakeholders at hand, streamlining the vision of value and facilitating buy-in across the committee.

   

  • Tailoring for Industries and Segments: Many differentiated B2B solutions have a range of applications across industry segments. As a result, the relevant value drivers, price components, and scale of impact sometimes vary across different segments. A value story that can toggle between industry-specific value estimates and their supporting financial logic is a powerful tool for B2B teams selling into different verticals.

• A Clear Value Summary: The culmination of every Value Story is the summary of financial impact. While an initial value estimate should always be presented toward the front of the value story, the conclusion must present the business case to buy in a powerful, consumable way. This means utilizing the best visuals to clearly highlight the business impact of your B2B solution.

  There are several ways to present this information, and the best choices vary based on the solution and the customer audience. Here are a few common ways B2B companies convey their value impact, and when it makes most sense to deploy them:

  • Waterfall / Value Stack: A waterfall chart, or value stack, is a widely used way to convey economic value delivered in an efficient, clear way. There are two main characteristics of this approach. First, it covers a wide array of customer benefits, including cost savings, revenue improvements, and risk reduction. Second, it shows the quantified value drivers as discrete differentiators, clearly tying the final value to the elements presented in the Value Story.

    This is the standard graphical display for companies deploying an EVE® (Economic Value Estimation®) approach and requires a reference alternative, be it an incumbent or competing solution or a status quo scenario.

    It is an excellent approach to deploy when a solution delivers not only cost improvements but also revenue increases and risk reduction. It is also ideal as a way to highlight competitive differentiation. This can require more nuance to explain for sales if they are unfamiliar with this approach, so it may require additional training.

   

  • Cost-Benefit: A simplified variation on economic value, it collapses the waterfall chart into two bars—one representing the costs and the other representing the benefits. Each of these can be sliced into subcomponents, but the net result should show a solid delta between the two, representing the value delivered to the customer.

    This approach has advantages in terms of communication simplicity, giving marketers the ability to be creative with gross and net benefits. It is intuitively useful in comparisons with an incumbent solution. However, it is less effective in scenarios when a heavy emphasis on value is desired or when value is not much greater than price. Cost-benefit summaries are best deployed toward the end of a Value Story.

   

  • Total Cost of Ownership: A Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) chart is the other primary way, besides Waterfall, to summarize the total customer value created. Like a Cost-Benefit chart, it shows a simple side-by-side view but instead shows the overall costs of the competing alternative versus the seller’s solution, often stacked in a bar chart format. An accompanying table is a great way to enhance this presentation format.

    Although differentiators are less visible, cost components can line up nicely with any cost-savings value drivers included in a Value Story and work best in selling scenarios where the primary impacts are cost-related and when a detailed, thorough economic comparison makes sense with specific stakeholders. TCO can also be helpful in making simultaneous comparisons with multiple alternatives. The TCO format can also resonate with less sophisticated buyer audiences. However, TCO is less effective when the status quo is the reference alternative and is often a cumbersome way to convey revenue value drivers. Because TCO graphs do not show the magnitude of value drivers, they may not be as effective in conveying differentiators in a memorable way to customers.

   

  • Return on Investment: As a measure of economic results, estimated Return on Investment (ROI) conveys a simple concept, illustrated by Warren Buffet’s quote “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” It pairs well with a Cost-Benefit chart or can be shown as a single column with cost on the bottom and benefit on the top. ROI is effective because it can be expressed with a clear, time-based reference point (i.e., 60% ROI per year, 150% ROI over the life of a contract, or 40% per annum over the life of a piece of equipment).

    ROI is useful as a supplement to a Waterfall or TCO analysis, especially when the reference point is the status quo and when the timing of outlays occurs before the financial value is realized. ROI is often directly compared by financially trained stakeholders to the cost of capital. It is less effective as a standalone value summary, as it fails to communicate differentiation and how the solution makes money for the customer. Standard ROI measures can also be less relevant or misleading when a customer’s primary comparison is with a direct competitor – in this case, looking at the return on incremental investment (“incremental ROI”) can be more useful.

   

  • Payback Period/ Breakeven: A way to visualize ROI when the costs of a solution precede its benefits is the Multiyear / Time to Payback chart. Aside from ROI, a very useful measure that can be visualized in this chart is the payback period. Like ROI, it is an excellent supplement to Waterfall and TCO. It highlights time effects by estimating the period it takes for delivered value to break even with the initial outlay. In scenarios where value can be recouped in a matter of months or a year or two, it goes a long way to defang sticker shock on the part of the buyer. This is especially useful in the case of capital equipment purchases, where the return on investment can be visualized across the anticipated lifespan of the solution.

• Credible Evidence – How You’ve Helped Others: Case studies are commonly cited as the most impactful piece of marketing collateral – and for good reason: they resonate with B2B buying committees. Studies have shown that 80% of buyers reference case studies as part of their buying research, and that they can substantially improve close rates. This is because case studies demonstrate customer outcomes concretely and credibly by describing the process through which you delivered value for others, preferably for other, similar businesses.

  Constructing a well-designed Value Story accomplishes many of these goals by demonstrating familiarity with a buyer’s problems and/ or business, estimating economic outcomes, and telling a story of how those outcomes were and can be achieved. A case study is a way to make a Value Story more concrete by sprinkling in details.

  For example, an estimated 30% time savings in a particular cost value driver can be backed up by referencing a similar time savings at another account (if the account can be named publicly, all the better). An estimated 20% revenue improvement due to improved sales effectiveness can be positioned as an average seen across all customer implementations.

 

• Wow Factor: A critical, yet overlooked factor that makes Value Stories highly effective in enabling memorable sales conversations is their overall look and feel. B2B marketing and sales enablement teams generally put a great deal of care into ensuring that their customer-facing content conveys key information in a way that is compelling, informative, and brand-compliant. Yet often enough, their value calculators are ugly, hard to follow, and can only be presented by product experts. Value Stories – as tentpole content for any value selling initiative – deserve attention to branding and visuals. Here are some best practices for making Value Stories stand out as content the entire team will want to use.
   

  • Clear Narrative Structure: A Value Story naturally centers on customer value, but care must be taken to ensure that the “story” aspect of it is memorable and compelling. The best presentation of information and data is a clear chapter-based format, that starts by painting an initial picture of value in qualitative, quantitative, and economic terms.

    Next, it should guide users through each of the estimated impacts, expressed in the form of value drivers created by the solution’s differentiated benefits and features. Often, it makes sense at this stage to get some key assumptions on the table as a means of good customer discovery. This can be followed by an interactive chapter where the seller can go deeper as needed, walking through each value driver individually and inviting collaborative adjustment of assumptions. Some well-designed slide decks are structured this way, but even the best ones lack the interactive, quantitative, and customer-centric elements that characterize a great Value Story.

   

  • Embedded Value Logic & Support: The ability to convey persuasive financial value delivered is a crucial “wow” moment for B2B customers. In addition to eliciting engagement, conveying domain intimacy, and inviting the customer deeper into a sales journey, it stands out because it is both valuable and rare.

    B2B buyers ultimately will need to develop some type of business case for any major investment decision, requiring senior sign-off, budget, and possibly CFO approval. A seller that connects with this buying process from the very first sales call immediately delivers value to members of the buying committee, even if some work is needed to refine the Value Story.

    Connecting with the buying process is also rare. Most purchasing committees find themselves lulled into boredom by successive slide deck-driven presentations. In the event that a seller offers some sort of ROI tool, it typically takes the form of an overly simplistic ROI calculator or a bespoke, hard-to-parse spreadsheet, neither of which is memorable or presentable internally by a buyer. A presentation with an underlying mathematical model built in provides a powerful in-person experience that ultimately produces a customer-specific case study to buy that can be reused for internal approvals.

   

  • Compelling Design Elements: Another element that is often present in static corporate slide decks and typically absent from ROI content is a robust and professional brand presence. From a clean look and feel to customer-relevant icons and imagery to impactful outcomes charts, a Value Story needs to stand out visually. Incorporating interactivity into the presentation, making these visuals dynamic and customizable elevates an excellent Value Story levels above the strongest static slide deck.

Value Narrative Pitfalls:
Common Mistakes to Avoid in B2B Value Stories

• Leading with “Us” Content: The power of a Value Story is that it centers the buyer’s journey on the economic benefit to the customer. An early emphasis on features or company messages distracts from that effort. If the Value Story doesn’t answer the question of “Why change?” and “Why us?” in quantitative terms in the opening minutes, it risks losing the buyer’s attention.

 

• Poorly Structured Discovery:Good discovery questions are an essential part of a great Value Story. They enable a more relevant, tailored conversation and help sales avoid wasting time on opportunities where the solution may not address the customer’s needs or problems. However, many sales teams try to incorporate too many discovery or qualifying questions into the very front of a general sales presentation.
   
  There are several risks to this. Frontloading heavy discovery is not conversational, becoming too much like a deposition, which can cause friction. It also is not especially effective at getting the customer to volunteer information and risks losing the buyer’s attention altogether. Additionally, too much discovery puts a major administrative burden on sales, which can result in wasted time or the rep deviating from the process. Finally, an overemphasis on discovery undermines the earlier goal of getting to value as early as possible in the sales conversation.

  A well-designed Value Story enables discovery throughout the buyer’s journey. An interactive approach allows sales to embed discovery within the context of a value conversation, progressively collecting information required to continuously refine the quantified value proposition. Quantified value, refined over the course of multiple discussions, becomes the lens through which accounts are qualified, rather than a laundry list of questions.
   

• Too Many Assumptions:A handful of well-chosen assumptions, expressed numerically or logically, prompt early discussion, help validate that the salesperson understands the prospect, and offer a customer a chance to clarify elements of the value story for the seller. As with discovery questions, too many assumptions risk derailing the conversation by focusing too much on technical minutiae. This risk is enhanced when multiple stakeholders are in the meeting. Too many assumptions can also generate sales concerns that they must have perfect data for the value conversation to be useful.
   
  A few well-crafted assumptions convey an understanding of the customer’s business and are necessary for enabling the collaborative, back-and-forth nature of a great value conversation. Presenting and refining assumptions that engage buyers and invite them to share data live makes a Value Story impactful as a selling tool.

 

• Lack of Sales Usability: A Value Story is only effective if salespeople are able to present it effectively in front of customers. Overly complex Value Stories can cause salespeople to avoid presenting them altogether or to become distracted and less effective during value conversations.
   
  Presentation content focused on customer value inherently guides reps to center the buyer’s business needs and the solution’s benefits over product specifics. Adding user-friendly features such as easy setup and discovery, simple navigation tools, and well-structured value logic allows reps to present and modify the presentation with ease. Additionally, making the Value Story adaptable for everyday sales situations and buyer types will enable reps to customize the presentation for the customer with a click of a button.

Painting a Vision of Value – Why Value Stories Are Key for B2B

A Value Story is the ultimate means of effective marketing and sales communication because it accounts for two key realities of B2B decision-making:

• Value selling has proven to be the most effective way to consistently win B2B business, as it boosts sales velocity by increasing qualified opportunities, boosting win rates, growing average deal size, and reducing sales cycle time.
• Humans tend to process information best when presented in story-based or narrative format.

A great Value Story is a must for any B2B organization looking to communicate differentiation, increase sales, and grow profitability. Unfortunately, most B2B companies fail to equip their teams with technology that would enable them to create and share great value stories. LeveragePoint Value Stories are the only tool that allows sales to engage in an interactive value conversation that communicates value in a customer-specific, collaborative way.

Want to see how LeveragePoint can transform your business? Click here to sign up for a demo.