The Four Archetypes of Value Program Leaders: Mapping Success Across Automation, Scale, and Alignment

In a recent survey, we examined the key characteristics of value program leaders, with each falling into four distinct archetype categories — Doer, Enabler, Evangelist, and Orchestrator — each representing a different level of maturity and focus along two key dimensions:

1. Automation and Scale: The ability to leverage tools, platforms, and processes to amplify the reach and efficiency of value programs.
2. Promotion and Alignment: The focus on spreading and aligning value across stakeholders and throughout the buyer’s journey.

Understanding which archetype you currently are, and how you would like to evolve to the more desired type is essential for organizations looking to optimize their value programs and scale their impact. 

Here’s a closer look at each archetype:

1. The Doer: Transactional and Tactical

The Doer represents the starting point for many value program leaders, and remains the domain of about 1/3rd of the respondents.

This archetype is focused on running the “business case factory “ —handling “higher-order” customer value engagements and crunching the ROI calculations in a transactional, deal-specific manner.

Characteristics:

• Reactive, deal-by-deal support for sales and success teams.
• Limited focus on automation or scale, relying heavily on manual processes and value consulting engagements.
• Focused on a smaller subset of potential deals – focusing on the largest and most strategic typically.

Strengths:

• High-quality, tailored value analyses and business cases for individual large and strategic deals.
• Deep expertise in crafting compelling business cases.

Challenges:

• Scalability Issues: Struggles to keep up with demand as the number of deals grows.
• Low Organizational Visibility: The value program is often seen as a tactical resource rather than a strategic initiative.

Moving Forward:

To evolve, Doers must begin adopting tools and processes that enable automation and empower others to participate in value creation.

2. The Enabler: Focused on Automation and Scale

The Enabler takes a significant step forward by emphasizing automation and scalability. This leader represents the largest group of value leaders right now, with 44% of the total, using tools and platforms to empower sellers and success teams to engage with value independently, scaling the program to support more deals and stakeholders.

Characteristics:

• Develops reusable frameworks, calculators, and templates for value selling.
• Implements value automation platforms to empower sales and success self-service on discovery, value hypothesis development and business case development and delivery.
• Trains sales and success teams to conduct value conversations and deliver business case presentations on their own.

Strengths:

• Scalable Impact: Enables broader participation in value creation, freeing up the value team to focus on high-impact deals.
• Efficiency Gains: Reduces the time required to create business cases and conduct value analyses.

Challenges:

• Promotion Gaps: While scaling processes, the Enabler may neglect the need to advocate for value’s strategic importance across the organization.
• Adoption Hurdles: Getting sales and success teams to fully embrace value tools can be difficult (with less than 1 in 5 the current norm).

Moving Forward:

Enablers can elevate their impact by combining their focus on scale with efforts to promote and align value initiatives across the organization.

3. The Evangelist: Driving Awareness and Advocacy

The Evangelist excels at spreading the word about the efficacy of value programs, ensuring that value becomes an integral part of every deal. This leader, about 16% of the population, focuses on promotion and alignment, rallying teams and stakeholders to adopt value-driven approaches.

Characteristics:

• Advocates for value’s role in winning deals and driving customer outcomes.
• Ensures that value consultants are leveraged effectively to support sellers.
• Aligns internal stakeholders around the value narrative, from marketing to customer success.

Strengths:

• Cultural Impact: Creates buy-in for value programs, fostering a value-first mindset across the organization.
• Strategic Influence: Elevates value from a tactical tool to a core business strategy.

Challenges:

• Limited Scale: Without a focus on automation, Evangelists may struggle to meet the growing demand for value engagements.
• Over-Reliance on Advocacy: Success depends heavily on their ability to persuade and rally stakeholders, which can be time-intensive.

Moving Forward:

Evangelists can achieve greater impact by integrating scalable tools and processes to complement their advocacy efforts.

4. The Orchestrator: Balanced and Strategic

The Orchestrator represents the most mature archetype, seamlessly blending the strengths of the Doer, Enabler, and Evangelist. This leader, less than 8% of the total population, achieves a balance of doing, automation and scale, and promotion and alignment, ensuring value is embedded throughout the buyer’s journey.

Characteristics:

• Combines high-quality value engagements with scalable tools and processes.
• Aligns sales, marketing, product and customer success teams around a unified value narrative.
• Ensures value programs are strategic, measurable, and integrated across the organization and throughout every step of the buyer’s journey.

Strengths:

• Comprehensive Impact: Balances strategic advocacy with operational execution.
• Customer-Centric: Embeds value into every stage of the customer lifecycle, from initial engagement to renewal.
• Future-Proof: Continuously evolves processes, tools, and narratives to stay ahead of market trends.

Challenges:

• Complexity Management: Balancing all dimensions requires strong leadership and cross-functional collaboration.
• Sustained Investment: Maintaining automation, promotion, and alignment simultaneously demands ongoing investment in tools and training.

Moving Forward:

Orchestrators must focus on refining their approach, ensuring that every initiative is tied to measurable outcomes and continuously optimized for impact. Click here for more information on Orchestrators.

Mapping the Archetypes: From Tactical to Strategic

Archetype	Automation & Scale	Promotion & Alignment	Key Focus
Doer	Low	Low	Tactical value business case support for individual, larger and more strategic deals.
Enabler	High	Low	Scaling value programs through automation and self-service.
Evangelist	Low	High	Promoting the importance of value and alignment.
Orchestrator	High	High	Strategic integration of value across the organization and throughout the buyer’s journey.