Business Value Assessment (BVA) Overview

Why This Guide Exists (And Why You Might Need It More Than You Think)

Let’s be honest: when most reps hear “BVA,” they think spreadsheet.

Or procurement hurdle.

Or worse (!) something value consulting owns.

But here’s the truth: reps who run strong Business Value Assessments (i.e. business cases)

win bigger deals, with higher confidence, and stronger internal champions.

Yet most reps never get trained on how to run a BVA — not really. They get a link to a template, maybe a two-slide deck, and that’s it. The rest? They figure it out mid-call. Usually with a half-filled calculator and a hopeful smile.

This guide exists to change that.

What You’ll Learn

Spotlight the BVA is a hands-on, rep-first guide to using Business Value Assessments the way they’re meant to be used:

• To build trust, not pressure

• To frame insight, not just dollars

• To move deals forward, not bog them down in approval hell

• To align strategically to the most important and urgent objectives of the business

• To create a compelling event to move forward

• To build and deliver with confidence and high credibility

• To ensure your champion can own the BVA as if it’s theirs — delivering it credibly to executives when you’re not in the room

• To elevate the conversation to executive-level objectives, moving beyond feature-for-feature battles and personal pain points

Across the next few chapters, you’ll learn how to:

• Define what a Business Value Assessment (BVA) actually is, and what it’s not

• Prepare and run discovery that feeds into a powerful BVA

• Talk about value without sounding like finance

• Adjust ROI until it’s believable and bulletproof

• Anchor ROI in credible ranges: 200%–600% is realistic, while 50% signals you’re losing money

• Arm your champion to sell the BVA when you’re not in the room

• Qualify out early when the math shows the deal isn’t real

  
  

Who This Is For

This is for:

• AEs and SEs who want to close with confidence

• New reps who’ve never run a BVA

• Veterans who avoid them (because they’ve been burned before)

• Sales leaders looking to scale consistent, insight-led selling

• Value consultants who are upleveling the skills of their sales org

• Anyone who thinks: “I sell outcomes. But I hate talking about ROI.”

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A Word from Spotlight

At Spotlight, we’ve seen what happens when reps stop pitching features and start owning the value conversation. The best reps don’t wait for a Value Engineer — they run the Business Value Assessment themselves, with structure that guides the process and curiosity that uncovers real insight.

This guide was built from real rep conversations, live calls, battle-tested scripts, and lessons learned from hundreds of BVAs run through Spotlight. It also reflects proven practices from sales value frameworks and business case building across high-performing sales organizations.

We hope it changes how you think about value and helps you win more of the right deals, faster.

Let’s get into it.

Q&A

Q: What is a Business Value Assessment (BVA) or Business Case?

A BVA is a structured, collaborative way to show buyers the business impact of your solution. It’s not just an ROI calculator — it’s a conversation that connects outcomes to strategy.

Q: Why should I care about BVAs as a rep?

Reps who run BVAs themselves win bigger deals with stronger champions. You don’t need a finance degree — you need a framework that builds trust and credibility.

Q: Who is this guide for?

Account Executives, Sales Engineers, Sales Leaders, and Value Consultants who want to sharpen value selling skills. If you sell outcomes but hate “ROI talk,” this guide is for you.

Q: What will I learn here?

You’ll learn the fundamentals of BVAs: what they are, why they matter, and how to use them to move deals forward. Later chapters go deeper into discovery, ROI, and equipping champions.