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Value-Based Selling: Defend Price With Confidence Now

Burn The Playbook - B2B GTM Strategies with Marc Crosby

Burn The Playbook - B2B GTM Strategies with Marc Crosby
Value-Based Selling: Defend Price With Confidence Now
Mar 03, 2026
Digital Rebels Consulting - Marc Crosby

Pricing pressure is real. Here’s how B2B teams defend price and win.
Dr. Steve Laborda shares the value moves most sellers skip.

On this episode of Burn The Playbook, Marc Crosby (Digital Rebels Consulting) sits down with Dr. Steve Laborda, Founder and CEO of Value Biz Booster and author of Master The Art of Value-Based Selling. Steve breaks down why “value-based selling” fails inside most companies, how to stop marketing-to-sales handoffs that die on impact, and what it takes to defend price without turning your reps into discount machines.

What you’ll learn:

  • How to break silos with value mapping that forces real alignment (and healthy friction)
  • Why “discipline” beats one-time workshops, and how to set recurring checkpoints
  • The simplest way to add price transparency without exposing the whole P&L
  • How to sell services and terms without throwing the whole menu at the customer
  • How to differentiate in true commodities using service levels (and prove it)
  • Where AI helps pricing, where it hurts, and why the black-box effect kills confidence

Chapters:
[00:00] Intro
[00:29] Steve’s background: technical to commercial, translating features to value
[02:18] Stop “throw it over the fence” value props: break the silos
[04:14] Discipline, routines, and why value mapping creates alignment
[06:05] Ownership, sales activation, and keeping momentum after workshops
[09:06] Strategy first: profit vs growth, portfolio choices, no one-size-fits-all
[13:44] Price transparency: guardrails, color coding, and commercial acumen
[17:04] Selling add-ons: curiosity, relevance, and helping customers sell internally
[19:34] Buying centers: why one-thread selling gets played by procurement
[26:30] Global value: perceived value shifts by region and culture
[29:18] Commodity reality: differentiate with services (the 20% premium story)
[34:38] Guardrails for service: segmentation, service catalog, and give-get trades
[39:19] AI in pricing: data limits, correlation vs causality, and the black box risk
[45:08] Burn it or build it: cost-plus, discounts, email-only increases, AI pricing
[52:07] One move to reduce pricing headaches: curiosity
[53:03] Where to find Steve: LinkedIn + Virtual Coffee

Who this helps:

  • Sales leaders tired of margin erosion and discount reflexes
  • Pricing, marketing, and product teams who want sales to actually use value
  • Key account teams selling into procurement-heavy, complex buying centers

Credits:
Guest: Dr. Steve Laborda, Founder/CEO at Value Biz Booster
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevelaborda/
Host: Marc Crosby, Digital Rebels Consulting
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marccrosby/

#BurnThePlaybook #ValueBasedSelling #PricingStrategy #B2BSales

Stop discounting out of fear. Sell value like you mean it. #Pricing
Confidence beats concessions. Here’s how to defend the number. #SalesConfidence
Commodity or not, you can still win on value. #ValueSelling

Views expressed are our own and do not represent any organizations

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