I recently completed Google Cloud’s “Discover Business Value for Customers” training (Pre-sales Technical Expert) and earned the badge issued on 01 Jan 2026 (verified via Credly).
This is not a “sales course.” It is a decision-making course.
If you are a cloud architect and you cannot connect your design to business outcomes, you will keep seeing the same pattern:
- Great architecture, slow approvals.
- Workshops, no funding.
- Technical alignment, no executive buy-in.
- A project that becomes a “cost debate” instead of an “outcome plan.”
Learning value-selling changes your role from “solution designer” to deal shaper.
The uncomfortable truth
Cloud projects are approved for business reasons and killed for business reasons.
Not because the architecture is wrong, but because:
- the value is unclear,
- the risk story is weak,
- the timeline is fuzzy,
- ownership is missing,
- success cannot be measured.
So the person who wins is not always the best architect.
It is the person who can answer, early and crisply:
“What will the business get, by when, and how will we prove it?”
Why this matters specifically for me
My work sits at the intersection of enterprise complexity and execution pressure: landing zones, governance, security, private access patterns, migrations, operating models, FinOps, and automation.
That kind of environment has a predictable failure mode:
- everyone agrees the cloud direction is “right,”
- nobody agrees what to do first,
- and the program stalls in analysis and meetings.
Value-selling gives me a structured way to:
- turn complex architecture into executive language,
- translate technical options into measurable outcomes, and
- drive decisions without oversimplifying risk.
In enterprise cloud, this is the real differentiator.
“Architecture-first” conversations fail. “Outcome-first” conversations close.
Most architects start with:
- target state,
- reference architecture,
- service choices,
- networking and security controls.
But customers start with:
- why now,
- what pain this removes,
- what changes in 90 days,
- what risk this introduces,
- what it costs and how it is governed.
If you start too technical too early, two things happen:
- You get parked in “technical discovery” while someone else shapes the business case.
- Your design becomes a cost center, not a value engine.
Value-selling flips that dynamic.
What “value-selling” means for a cloud architect
Value-selling is not persuasion. It is structured clarity.
It teaches you to:
- find the real business driver,
- quantify the impact,
- define measurable success,
- map technical work to outcomes,
- and package it into a decision-ready 90-day plan.
That is what executives fund.
A practical framework you can use in your next customer call
Use this as a repeatable flow. It works across migrations, landing zones, modernization, and AI programs.
1) Start with the business trigger
Do not accept “we want to modernize.” Ask:
- What forced this conversation now?
- What happens if you do nothing for 6 months?
- What deadline is real (regulatory, renewal, data center exit, product launch)?
2) Clarify pain in business terms
Ask:
- Where is the business bleeding today (downtime, slow releases, audit pressure, cost volatility)?
- What is the impact in money, time, risk, or reputation?
- What constraints are non-negotiable (residency, compliance, budget, skills)?
3) Define success with 3–5 metrics
If you cannot measure it, you cannot defend it.
Examples:
- Release lead time
- Deployment frequency
- MTTR and incident volume
- Audit findings and remediation time
- Cost per workload / per transaction
- Time to provision environments
- Security exposure reduction (attack surface, public endpoints, privileged access)
4) Map to a value hypothesis
Now you connect architecture to outcomes:
- Landing zone + policy = faster onboarding with guardrails
- Private connectivity + segmentation = reduced breach exposure
- IaC + pipelines = repeatability, fewer human errors
- Observability = faster recovery, fewer outages
- Right-sizing + reservations = cost predictability
5) Close with a 90-day proof plan
Most enterprise customers cannot commit to a 12-month program at day 1.
They can commit to a 90-day proof of value.
A strong 90-day package:
- application portfolio assessment and rationalization
- baseline metrics and target metrics
- landing zone MVP aligned to governance
- pilot migration waves (2–3 workloads)
- FinOps model with assumptions
- risk register, security controls, and operating model
This is how you move from “discussion” to “decision.”
The one skill most architects avoid, and why it costs them influence
Architects avoid “selling” because it feels political or uncomfortable.
But here is the reality:
- If you do not sell the value, someone else will sell a simpler story.
- That simpler story often creates bad constraints that break the architecture later.
Value-selling is how you protect technical integrity while accelerating approval.
A quick example: turning “landing zone” into value
Customer: “We need a landing zone.”
Average architect: “Hub-spoke, firewall, policy, management groups.”
Value-selling architect:
“Understood. The landing zone is a means, not the goal. Which outcome is driving it: faster onboarding,
audit compliance, security risk reduction, or cost control? Let’s baseline your onboarding time, your audit
exceptions, and your current security exposure. Then we’ll prove improvement in 90 days.”
Same topic. Completely different level of leadership.
What I changed after this training
Going forward, I will run cloud conversations with a clean traceability chain:
This keeps everyone aligned and prevents drift, scope creep, and “random features.”
It also makes the project defendable in front of:
- CIO and CISO,
- procurement,
- finance,
- and risk and compliance.
If you are a cloud architect: learn sales, but learn the right kind
You do not need to become an account executive.
You do need to become a value engineer:
- someone who can translate complexity into outcomes,
- build trust with business stakeholders,
- and turn “good ideas” into funded programs.
That is what “Discover Business Value for Customers” trains you to do.
Personal Reflection: Motivation for 2026
In 2026, find something that keeps you motivated to go after your goals. For me, it’s the realization that mortality is real, and the time we have is precious.
Personally, I didn’t want to live the same one year over and over again. I realize that, we came with nothing and we will leave with nothing. And before I leave, I wanna do something that’d be a heck of a story to tell my son and someday my grandkids.
My goal is to show my son that it’s okay to take brave decisions - “What are you afraid of losing, when nothing in the world belongs to you.” This is my motivation to try new things in 2026.
So if you’ve been thinking for years about a career switch, learning a new instrument, or finally committing to your health - find something that motivates you deeply enough to act, and go for it in 2026.
Get the Scripts
If you want, I can share my first-call discovery script and a 90-day value plan template that you can reuse for landing zones, migrations, and AI programs.