Value Messaging - Value Selling Katas

A disciplined, repeatable practice for uncovering critical customer problems, quantifying their business impact, and articulating differentiated value so commercial teams can consistently win on ROI rather than price.

6 katas, in the order they are used. Each is free, open-licensed, and comes with a companion guide.

1. Step 1

   Voice of the customer

   Value hypothesis

   The critical-to-quality (CTQ) tree's need-driver-measure discipline pointed at a deal instead of a product: what the buyer actually needs, why what you sell addresses it, and a specific number that proves the value rather than asserts it — with any need still missing a real proof point named plainly.

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2. Step 2

   Problem solving / root cause analysis

   Deal A3 — win-rate root cause analysis

   The same A3 discipline applied to a losing pattern in the pipeline instead of a shop-floor problem: a Pareto over loss reasons, a root cause chain that survives scrutiny, and countermeasures a sales leader can actually act on.

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3. Step 3

   Standard work

   Discovery call standard work

   The work instruction shape pointed at a sales discovery call: major steps, each with a key point for the technique that surfaces real information and the reason it matters — so the compelling event and real decision process get found regardless of which rep is on the call.

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4. Step 4

   Problem solving / root cause analysis

   Proof point inventory

   The evidence register discipline pointed at your standing message pillars: which claims are actually backed by real, checkable proof, and which pillars — or which specific claims — still have none, flagged plainly rather than assumed proven forever.

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5. Step 5

   Standard work

   Consistency audit

   Whether a message architecture's pillars are actually being said the same way across reps and channels weeks after it was written — the sustainment audit's shape, applied to messaging instead of a kaizen event.

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6. Step 6

   Experimentation

   Message testing log

   The learning log discipline pointed at your standing message pillars: which ones actually resonate with a broader buyer audience, tested and recorded honestly, rather than assumed proven everywhere just because they worked in one deal.

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