The Concept of Evangelistic Motion: IN to OUT, OUT to IN and ACROSS

Corporate Evangelists are people who choose to live by a simple but wildly ambitious definition:

A person who can see what is possible, craft a message that brings it to life, and lead others there without having defined control of the vision they’ve conceived.

That’s the essence of corporate evangelism. But this post isn’t just about leading people toward some far-off “true north.” It’s about the journey in between — the messy, unglamorous, roll-up-your-sleeves part of the work that turns possibility into progress.

Because here’s the truth: driving change, whether it’s seismic or subtle, isn’t just about the destination. It’s about the motion — the daily cadence of small wins that slowly pave the path to that future state. Each successful project launched, each person promoted, each process improved — those are the bricks that build the road toward the vision.

I like to call that Evangelistic Motion.

Evangelistic Motion is the way a person shows others what’s possible by how they approach their work. It’s not about holding the title of “evangelist” — it’s about embodying the mindset. If we take a step back and really think about it, Evangelistic Motion is the subtle art of how the Corporate Evangelist leads people toward that vision. It’s not just the message — it’s the movement.

The IN to OUT Evangelistic Motion

Let’s start with the first kind of Evangelistic Motion — IN to OUT.

IN to OUT is all about showing the world what your company has to offer that’s new, different, and worth paying attention to. It’s the outward push — taking what’s being imagined inside the walls of your organization and translating it into a message that connects with the market.

Think of the Evangelist in this mode as a bridge builder. They’re charged with crafting a market vision that expands the business, not just by dreaming big, but by making sure that vision resonates with what the market actually wants. In most organizations, the CEO has a “future state” in mind — a beautiful, bold north star. But the market? It often hasn’t caught up yet. That’s where the Evangelist steps in — not to preach from the mountaintop, but to connect the dots between aspiration and reality.

In this motion, the Evangelist’s job is to engage with customers, uncover patterns, and build stories that help shape the product roadmap. They’re the ones finding out which features matter, which ones miss the mark, and how all of it translates into ROI. A good Evangelist doesn’t just play with shiny new ideas; they blend innovation with financial truth. They can see the spreadsheet and the spark — and they use both to reveal where growth actually lives.

When I held the title of Chief Evangelist (twice, to my own surprise), I made it clear I didn’t want to be seen as the “innovation guy” detached from the bottom line. I wanted to be the person who helped others see how imagination and accountability could live in the same room — where new ideas had to earn their keep.

That’s what IN to OUT motion really is: the link between the CEO’s grand vision and today’s market reality. You’re laying out the ROI breadcrumbs — showing the organization where the scale is, one insight at a time.

If I were to paint a picture, imagine this: you’re an innovation Navy SEAL. You’re dropped onto an unfamiliar island ahead of the rest of the troops. Your job isn’t just to survive — it’s to scout the terrain, understand the enemy, and figure out where the landing zone should be. The IN to OUT motion is exactly that — you’re the one figuring out how to take the beach long before anyone else can see it.

The IN to OUT tends to be a role you play in smaller companies trying to grow rapidly, but it can just as easily live inside a large enterprise launching something new. Maybe it’s a fresh business unit, a new vertical, or a bold idea that needs a champion. The point is, IN to OUT is about growing something new.

The OUT to IN Evangelistic Motion

If IN to OUT is about taking ideas beyond the company’s four walls and building new markets, then OUT to IN is its mirror image. OUT to IN is about keeping your company fresh — helping it rediscover how to innovate from within.

In this motion, the Evangelist becomes the internal champion of change. They’re the one shaking the cobwebs off the corporate playbook, taking strategies that usually die as PowerPoint slides or “values on a wall,” and showing people how to actually live them.

When I worked inside large organizations — trying to innovate from the bottom, middle, and top, often with no budget, no team, and no authority — I learned something sobering. Most big companies don’t reward true innovation; they reward safe failure. They thrive on predictability, slow growth, and managing risk. The system is designed to protect itself — and it does that by rewarding people for “failing appropriately.”

Imagine a machine built for steady output. The gears run smoothly, the metrics are clean, and the quarterly results are fine — not great, but fine. Over time, inertia sets in. The culture starts worshipping process over progress. The innovation rhetoric sounds inspiring, but it’s mostly theater — because in practice, most people will choose survival over boldness every single time.

And here’s the kicker: when you actually do try to drive real change inside a big company, the antibodies show up fast. You get labeled as the crazy one. The rule-breaker. The person who “doesn’t follow the process.” Trust me — I’ve lived that life. And while it can be exhausting, it’s also where I learned what being an Evangelist truly means.

OUT to IN is about bringing big ideas into the organization and helping others make them real. You become the gatekeeper for fresh thinking — managing what ideas make it in, and how they survive once they arrive. It’s not about lobbing grenades of inspiration and walking away. It’s about building new processes, cultivating internal allies, and carving out the tiny safe spaces where real experimentation can breathe.

When everyone else is busy explaining why something can’t happen, the OUT to IN Evangelist is busy showing how it might. That means finding the right internal partners, choosing your battles carefully, and playing smart politics. Because make no mistake — this motion is slower, harder, and often thankless. Even your biggest wins can be hijacked by process-wielding assholes who get to sit in the room when you don’t.

But here’s the truth — mastering the OUT to IN motion builds real muscle. It’s the gym where corporate Evangelists earn their scars and their stripes. It teaches you how to make change in places that resist it most. It’s incremental Evangelism at its finest — the kind that keeps a company relevant even when it doesn’t know it’s drifting toward irrelevance.

I’ll be honest: my time living the OUT to IN motion was both the most rewarding and the most frustrating period of my career. I did it for twelve years — long enough to learn how big companies really innovate, and why they often don’t. But that experience became fuel. It made me sharper when I later stepped into IN to OUT roles — because by then, I understood how the customer really operated inside those walls.

The ACROSS Evangelistic Motion

This one’s the least obvious.

If IN to OUT is about building new markets and OUT to IN is about keeping the innovation flame alive inside a company, then ACROSS is something different altogether. ACROSS is about culture. It’s about people. It’s about being the connective tissue that keeps everything moving when the gears of the organization start to grind.

To put it plainly, ACROSS is being a culture warrior.

No matter what kind of company you’re in — startup, scale-up, or corporate behemoth — if you’re going to be a true evangelist, you have to be someone who drives cohesion. Think about it: if the role of an Evangelist is to lead people toward a shared vision, then being a lightning rod for collaboration isn’t optional — it’s essential.

In every role I’ve ever held, I’ve tried to live the vision, not just repeat it. My job has always been to take the lofty ideas from leadership — the “north star” statements that live on slides and walls — and bring them down to earth. I work hard to show that the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts.

When you work in a culture that feels stale or fractured, the Evangelist’s job is to be the one who brings air back into the room. You build trust. You bring transparency. You support your allies relentlessly. And you do it with just enough optimism to make people believe that change is possible — because they can feel it when they work with you.

That kind of energy doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built through a few very deliberate habits:

Support your allies — always.

Simple advice, but critical. The people who stand beside you when you’re trying to make change possible are gold. Be loyal to them. Evangelists often operate without formal authority, and when influence is your only currency, allies are your capital. Protect them fiercely.

Be a wizard at expectation management.

Say what you mean. Mean what you say. The Evangelist who can’t manage expectations becomes noise. Pushing the envelope doesn’t mean promising the impossible — it means balancing ambition with realism. Be honest about the risks. Be clear about what can and can’t be done. Never sugarcoat failure. People will trust you more when they know you won’t sell them false hope.

Be honorable at all times.

You won’t like everyone you work with — that’s just life. But living with integrity, even when others don’t, gives you a kind of credibility that can’t be bought. In environments where Evangelists rarely hold formal power, your honor is your power. Use it to fight the good fight without losing yourself in the politics.

Be a bubble of collaboration, innovation, and fun.

Doing new things should feel energizing. Innovation should have a pulse. When culture gets heavy or bureaucratic, being someone people genuinely like to work with becomes an act of rebellion. Bring good energy into the room, and you’ll find people are far more willing to take risks with you.

The ACROSS motion is what ties everything together. It’s what keeps both the IN to OUT and OUT to IN motions alive and connected. Because in the end, even the boldest ideas and the most brilliant strategies don’t mean a thing without trust, cohesion, and a little bit of joy in the mix.

The Closing Thought: The Motion That Moves Us

Evangelistic Motion is an awkward concept — but an important one.

Too often, people confuse innovation with evangelism. They’re cousins, not twins. Innovation is about creating something better by thinking or acting differently. Evangelism, on the other hand, is about the motion that brings that vision to life — the process, the behaviors, and the relentless energy that turn ideas into reality. The visionary thing you’re chasing can take a hundred forms — a product, a culture shift, a market disruption — but the motion it takes to get there is always the defining factor.

The goal of this post is to give a little structure to something that’s notoriously hard to hold. I came up with the idea of Evangelistic Motion after spending years moving between wildly different worlds — big corporations, scrappy startups, consulting gigs, and even my own company. What I realized was simple: the motion needed to succeed changes depending on where you stand.

The “aha” moment for me came in what I like to call Chapter 3 of my career.

In Chapter 1, I was an evangelist at the bottom and middle at a large company — no budget, no people, no authority — just a belief that change was possible.

In Chapter 2, I became an executive. I had a fancier title, a few more resources, but still no real change mandate. I was expected to lead transformation without the permission to actually do it.

And then came Chapter 3: I was officially given the title of Evangelist at a small startup. (For the record, I didn’t ask for it — they just decided to put me back in the “crazy visionary” box.)

During that time, as I worked the IN to OUT motion — helping the company grow outward into new markets — someone asked me what would happen if the company blew up and became huge. “Would they still need you then?” they wondered.

I laughed. “Of course they will,” I said. “Because once you grow, you’ll need someone to keep you innovating when the change antibodies kick in — when the process people take over and everyone starts worshipping predictability.”

That was the moment Evangelistic Motion was born. Because I realized I had already lived the OUT to IN version for years — keeping a big company fresh when everything in the system was designed to keep it the same. And the ACROSS part? That was just natural. Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve been drawn to the cultural side of business — to the simple truth that great cultures produce great results.

So here we are. Three motions. One mindset.

Evangelistic Motion isn’t a job title — it’s a way of showing up. It’s how you translate vision into movement, how you keep your company (and yourself) from calcifying into the comfort of “good enough.”

In the end, these ideas are meant to make you think differently about the work you do every day. Too many people convince themselves they can’t make change happen because they don’t have the title or the authority. But here’s the secret: you don’t need either. What you need is motion — the kind that starts with you, spreads to others, and refuses to stop moving until possibility becomes reality.

In the end, these concepts are here to get you to think differently about the job you do every day. Too many people think they can’t make change happen, but until you conceptualize what your role is, the idea that you can make a difference seems daunting. It isn’t — not if you decide you’re “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” Just remember, as an evangelist, you’ll need to do it a bit more lovingly if you don’t want to get thrown off the island.