Image Source and ©: Respective Publisher / Amazon.com / Google Books

By: Mark Stiving (Author)

Selling Value is written for salespeople who are told to “sell value,” but still find most conversations drifting back to discounts. The book starts from the premise that saying “no” to discounts rarely works, because many teams do not have a shared, practical understanding of what value means. It focuses on how buyers discover value, and how salespeople can help buyers evaluate value in the way buyers want to hear it.

Mark Stiving frames the book as a practical bridge between pricing expertise and sales execution. He describes himself as a value expert and uses that lens to unpack value in a way meant to remove ambiguity. The book is structured in three parts. The first part is designed to clarify what value means and to explore how buyers use value to make decisions. It highlights “value tables” as a technique companies can use to document how buyers value their products.

The second part shifts from understanding to action. It focuses on what salespeople can do once they understand value. It introduces “value journeys,” described as how a buyer goes about learning about the value of a product in order to make decisions. The book’s stated intent is that once salespeople can recognize the value journey their buyer is on, they can communicate more effectively by focusing on what is important to the buyer. This part positions value journeys as a practical way to improve several sales activities by aligning messages and conversations to the buyer’s current decision needs.

The third part expands beyond sales. It describes how the rest of the company can help salespeople sell value. It offers ideas for multiple departments. It states that product teams can build products with more value. It states that marketing teams can communicate about value. It states that sales management can incentivize salespeople to hold prices, while still discounting when necessary. The overall picture is a coordinated, company-wide approach where value is created, communicated, and supported consistently, not improvised late in the sales cycle.

Across its positioning, the book emphasizes a clear business outcome. Helping salespeople win more deals at higher prices. It presents selling value as a discipline grounded in understanding what buyers value, documenting it, and communicating it in a way that matches how buyers evaluate choices. It also positions the book as a go-to guide for learning how customers see value, and for learning how to create, communicate, and capture more value in the marketplace.

* Amazon Affiliate Link (What is this?)