Vision & Value
Establish the customer's vision and align every activity to measurable business value.
From Chapter 3 of Modern Presales
Overview
Vision & Value is the foundation of every presales engagement. Before you demo a single feature or configure a test environment, you need to understand where the customer is trying to go and why it matters to their business. This element ensures that every technical activity maps back to an outcome the buying committee cares about — revenue growth, cost reduction, risk mitigation, or competitive advantage.
Why it matters
Vision & Value is where most presales engagements either lock in or drift off course. The temptation is to start with the product — what it does, how it works, what makes it different. But top-performing SEs start with the customer: where they're heading, what's at stake, and what "winning" actually looks like.
This isn't about asking generic discovery questions. It's about building a value hypothesis that you can test and refine throughout the deal cycle. When you understand the customer's vision deeply enough to articulate it back to them in their own language, you've earned the right to shape how they evaluate solutions.
The practical output of this element is a value map — a simple document that connects each of the customer's stated objectives to the specific capabilities you'll demonstrate and the metrics you'll use to prove impact. This map becomes the backbone of your demo narrative, your POV success criteria, and your executive summary.
Without Vision & Value, everything downstream is guesswork. Your demo covers features nobody asked about. Your POC tests scenarios nobody prioritized. Your proposal quotes capabilities nobody budgeted for. With it, every interaction has purpose and every stakeholder sees themselves in the story you're telling.
Key discovery questions
- 1What does success look like for your organization in 12 months?
- 2How does this initiative connect to your team's goals this year?
- 3What is the business cost of your current approach — in revenue, time, or risk?
- 4What outcome would make this investment clearly worth it?
- 5Who else in the organization is affected by this decision?
Common mistakes
- Jumping straight to product features without understanding the customer's strategic objectives.
- Accepting surface-level answers like 'we need better reporting' without digging into why and for whom.
- Conflating the technical evaluator's priorities with the economic buyer's priorities.
- Failing to quantify value early, leaving the business case to be built after the evaluation is over.
This element is covered in detail in Modern Presales (Chapter 3), including real-world examples, templates, and implementation guidance.