Value engineering advisory
Baseline Value Advisory helps B2B software and services teams win on value, with business cases that survive finance review and reps who can tell the story on their own.
Cory Theobald, founder. Formerly a business value leader at Microsoft and a value engineer at JDA / Blue Yonder.
The problem
Buyers rarely say no to the product. They say no to a number they can't defend to their own leadership.
Buyers hear capabilities and do the value math themselves, usually in a way that favors the cheaper option.
Built in a rush at the end of the cycle, it reads like vendor math and stalls in finance review.
Results from happy customers never make it back into the next pitch, so every deal starts from zero.
Services
Every engagement is a fixed fee, scoped together. Start with one step and add depth when it pays.
Engagement stepsEach step builds on the one before it
A value map and value messaging for up to three products, built with the people who designed them.
ROI calculators, business case decks, and benchmark questionnaires built on your value maps.
Business acumen training and AI value assistants so reps can go three layers deep.
Available on its own
Prove value after go live, scoped to what each product can actually measure.
A senior value lead on a monthly retainer, without being tied to individual deals.
Adoption rates, licensing, and token costs built into the math.
Roles, reusable frameworks, and a working rhythm with sales.
Approach
Turn product research and customer outcomes into a value map for each product.
Build the calculators, decks, and questionnaires sellers use with buyers.
Train reps in business acumen and give them AI assistants built on your maps.
Measure realized value against baselines captured during the sale.
Value calculator
Move the sliders to your numbers. The math stays conservative on purpose.
in added bookings per year
Illustrative only. In an engagement, this model runs on your CRM data with ranges your finance team signs off on.
Selected work
Selected engagements from prior roles, anonymized.
Total contract value
Ran discovery and envisioning workshops across divisions, captured KPI impact for each line of business, and built the case with the customer's own champions, who then presented it alongside me to their executives.
The largest AI business applications deal of the year across the entire business unit.
No direct discovery access and an entrenched incumbent. Built a credible spend baseline from public information, tore down total cost of ownership, and refined it for six weeks.
Validated by the CCO and CIO/CFO, then adopted as the standard playbook for large pursuits.
Standing office hours, a library of reusable frameworks and calculators, and three colleagues mentored into the business value role.
Sellers running value conversations on their own, long after the work closed.
Tell me about your products, your buyers, and where the value story breaks down today.