Today as part of the Revenue Science™ Context of Business Series we have Susan Foley a regular guest writer for the Revenue Science™ community. Susan’s post is a perfect fit in today’s crazy world.

Our current, as well as the post-virus economy, will demand not just knowledge, skills, and new habits, but a science based context in which to deploy.

Our guest author today is Susan Foley, Managing Partner, Corporate Entrepreneur

The Last Frontier for Intrapreneurs

One of the biggest challenges facing Intrapreneurs is successfully getting their ideas across the finish line with the value that was intended still intact. Not an easy task given all the uncertainty and complexity facing intrapreneurs internally and in this new environment.

The journey from idea to implementation is not easy.  It is like navigating an obstacle course. Not knowing what you will encounter until it is staring you in the face. We know from experience that everything in the organization is a potential obstacle.  Everything from strategy thru to execution. Some of them are obvious, many of them are hidden.

Our research and work with intrapreneurs have identified over ninety potential barriers that can get in your way. These barriers serve to slow you down, make you question what you are doing, marginalize your innovation efforts and diminish the value you deliver to your clients and the organization.

What you start out doing and what you wind up delivering often fall short of the expectations and goals set at the beginning of the project.  The true value is gone and the profitable growth you expected are not realized.

Organizational barriers can and do have a major impact, but they are often not the main reason why new innovations are not successful.

A barrier only impacts your work if it prevents you from delivering on the promise your organization makes to the market or diminishes the value of your offering.  Both of those result in less value to your customer and less profitable revenue growth for your organization.

The simple truth is that most new innovations fail because the link between the buyer and the seller (your organization) are out of sync.  This is the biggest barrier to success. It is also the last frontier for Intrapreneurs.

Organizations have made tremendous progress in supporting Intrapreneurs by providing the necessary training, experience, and tools to enable them to be successful.  There are new processes, roadmaps and techniques that help refine the way innovations are developed.  There is more support, encouragement, and commitment to bringing new innovations to market. These are all positive signs.

That said, the problem is that most new innovations are still not successful despite all the resources going to them. Why? …… That is the question we need to answer.

According to Rick McPartlin, CEO of The Revenue Game, “You need a RoadMap to align your business and resources to support a profitable revenue strategy.  One where opportunities, organizational capabilities and revenue are in alignment.”  Revenue Science provides the tools to evaluate and assess that alignment.

Many of the existing revenue models are outdated.  They are rigid and inflexible, filter out high risk innovations and focus on traditional ROI measures.  These models are designed to play it safe. Or at least organizations think that is what they are doing.  Instead, they may be eliminating high potential, higher value projects.

New revenue models more closely align the market needs to the organizations capabilities to meet those needs.  This requires taking a deeper look at the needs of the buyer and aligning them with you as the seller. This requires an analysis of your value chain and the resources needed to support this alignment.  Many organizations use the Value Proposition Canvas, Jobs to be Done or Design Thinking as a blueprint for this alignment. The goal is to find a fit between the product and customer.

These tools are effective when you are trying to map a new or established product to relieve an existing buyer pain point.  Pain points that are often a result of an organization doing the wrong things very well. Mapping buyers to products and products to buyers ensures that you have a match.  But may not be as helpful in creating new value that is not currently identified or recognized by the buyer.  Buyers purchase products that solve problems that exist today.  The value that is created is often short-lived.  It’s the value they know, not the value they need.

Revenue Science takes it one step further and focuses on the ‘Ideal Buyer’.  Then provides the steps you need to take to identify, qualify, communicate, and transfer the value intended to the buyer.  A step-by-step process that helps your organization provide short-term value linked to longer-term value to those same buyers. The tighter the alignment the less risk you take on.  The higher the probability that you will address an unmet short-term and long-term need that will generate profitable revenue for your organization and significant value for your customer.

All of this requires a shift in thinking and actions.  A refinement process that focuses on the salient factors needed to align the perfect buyer with the organizations capabilities to deliver the highest value possible. Each new opportunity may require a different set of resources and capabilities.  Revenue Science provides the insight you need to effectively align your organization to the specific unknown needs of the buyer.  Ensuring that the value delivered extends beyond the short-term and addresses the underlying issues that created the pain points in the first place. It is both a diagnostic tool and forecasting tool for both the buyer and seller.

According to Josh Dunham, Co-Founder of Reveel Group, “Revenue Science has helped our leadership team immensely. We were struggling to understand our ideal customer and through the Revenue Science workshop we were able to clearly identify that and so much more. We now have a thorough understanding of our offer and how we deliver our brand promise. Our leadership team is much more aligned and optimistic about the future.” 

At first, you might think that having a revenue strategy is all about marketing and selling but when you get to that point the damage has already been done.  Now you are asking marketing and sales to compensate for any discrepancies between the product/service offering and the value you hoped it would provide to clients.  Your salespeople are left closing this gap.  It is far easier to start the alignment of the buyer and seller at the front end of the innovation process not the back end.  It is a matter of knowing your buyer far better than they know themselves by showing them what new and incremental value is possible. That is what Revenue Science does.

As an intrapreneur you may be asking yourself if this is the missing piece to getting my idea across the finish line.  It may very well be.  The closer the link between buyer and seller the higher the probability that your innovation will be a success.  Having a roadmap that you can follow and everyone else can see and understand helps you deal with the barriers and obstacles that will get in your way.  Everyone in the organization will be on the same page, understand their role, the resources it will take, the changes that will have to be made and the systems that will be needed to make it happen. Your customers will understand exactly what they are getting and why.  The value to both organizations will be apparent.

This is a process that ensures that you deliver innovations with the highest short and long-term value to clients and your organization.

This is the last frontier for Intrapreneurs.

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Check Out the Podcast – The “Living a Revenue Culture” podcast June 7, 2021 at 10am MST with Rick McPartlin, CEO of The Revenue Game and Susan Foley the Founder of Corporate Entrepreneurs LLC. The podcast will be available at https://www.therevenuegame.com/larc/

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For more information on the Corporate Entrepreneur Profile™ go to: https://corporate-entrepreneurs.com/entrepreneurship-services/corporate-entrepreneur-profile/ or download The Corporate Entrepreneur Profile Brochure for FREE at: https://corporate-entrepreneurs.com/cep-key-competencies/

Susan Foley
Managing Partner
Corporate Entrepreneurs LLC
Office: 781-662-9513
Email: susan@corporate-entrepreneurs.com
www.corporate-entrepreneurs.com