INSIGHTS

Our latest thinking on the issues that matter most in value enablement, management, and consulting.
Leaky pipeline
Best Practices
Your CAC Is Rising: Here’s Why Volume Won’t Save You

If your acquisition engine is burning more cash than it brings back in revenue, you’re not alone.

Across B2B markets, companies are pouring record sums into campaigns, ads, SDR teams, and martech stacks: yet seeing diminishing returns. Pipelines look healthy on paper, but deeper down, they’re quietly leaking value.

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Value Growth
Best Practices
What a CFO Wants. What a CFO Needs: Why Clear Communication and Quantified Value Win CFO Confidence

Budgets are tight, scrutiny is high, and every purchase must prove its financial worth. Yet too many sellers still lead with cool tech, product demos and feature promises instead of business outcomes and ROI.

To win a CFO’s approval, you must move beyond show and tell, to outcomes and proof—translating your value into measurable business impact and financial confidence.

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2026 Growth
Best Practices
The Revenue Reset: Why Value Execution, Not Market Conditions, Now Determines Growth

When growth stalls, many blame the market. But according to a new Customer Revenue Leadership Study, the real story is not market turbulence – it’s execution.

The research reveals that while macroeconomic conditions have stabilized, performance hasn’t rebounded. Revenue growth now depends less on headcount or spend – and far more on how well teams create, communicate, and sustain customer value. In short: your value engine is your growth engine.

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AI Pacesetter
Best Practices
From Drought to Drive: How the Most AI-Ready Firms Turn Readiness into Real ROI

In our earlier piece, The AI Value Drought: Rethinking ROI and Outcomes, we argued that the problem with AI isn’t a lack of ambition – it’s a lack of realized value. Many organizations have experimented with pilots, prototypes, and proofs of concept, only to see returns evaporate before they scale.

Cisco’s 2025 AI Readiness Index, surveying more than 8,000 business and IT leaders across 30 markets, now confirms that readiness – not experimentation – is the differentiator between hype and harvest.

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Max Elster
Podcasts
Episode 81: AI and the Future of Value Engineering and Automation

In this episode of Value Coffee Talk, Thomas Pisello and Max Elster discuss the evolving landscape of value engineering in the age of AI.

The pair explore how AI is reshaping the role of value engineers, emphasizing the importance of differentiation, customer accountability, and the orchestration of value across organizations.

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Steve Thibodeau
Value Superstars
Steve Thibodeau

Steve has over 40 years of experience in the enterprise software industry, gaining valuable experience early in his career running post-sale support and software development groups. Most recently, Steve has been a value engineer, consultant and leader with Amazon Web Services, Infor, SAP, and HP Enterprise. For the past 10+

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Value Consulting Success Path
Best Practices
Value Consulting Outlook: Planning for 2026 & Beyond

As we round the corner from the end of 2025 into 2026, a complicated picture for value consulting and engineering groups and roles emerges. While business development and customer success are showing continued hiring growth, value teams remain under pressure. This is a guide to not just survive, but thrive into 2026 and beyond.

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Podcasts
Episode 79: Success Starts with Value-Centric Qualification and Discovery

In this episode of the Value Coffee Talk podcast, host Thomas Pisello and guest Mike Muhlfelder, veteran CRO and sales performance coach, discuss the current challenges in B2B sales, particularly in light of economic uncertainty and the rise of AI. The pair unfold two fundamentals – proper value-centric qualification and discovery processes can lead to an incredible increase in success.

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Value-Led Growth Update
Best Practices
The Value-Led Growth Method: Unlocking Success in the Outcome Economy

Why do so many deals stall out, end in discounting, or lead to customer regret?”
Because too often, companies lead with features instead of value. In today’s Outcome Economy, buyers demand proof of impact.

That’s why we built the Value-Led Growth Method — a way to embed value into every part of your go-to-market strategy. Checkout why this is so essential, and how to accomplish.

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