We are All In Sales: Marketing your Ideas

Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration - Thomas Edison

You have some new idea you want to get off the ground. Having the idea is just the starting line. To make the idea happen, you're going to have to get everyone moving toward the goal. Now what?

Building consensus in an organization is a challenge for everyone. It doesn't get easier as you rise the ladder. It gets harder.

When I'm trying to pitch an idea up, down and sideways in my organization I structure my approach to based on how companies market their products. Specifically, I approach it as a Value Proposition. It works pretty well, so I wrote this article to share my approach with you.

Your job: getting people on board

In today's world, you want to lead, not micromanage. You want to be able to communicate the goal and have the people around you figure out the details of how to get there. They'll do a much better job that way, and they'll cover the things you didn't think of.

You can't decree upwards or sideways. Your boss and peers can just say no. And they will. Unless you build consensus first.

So how do you get everyone on board with your new idea? If you decree it from the top to the troops below, you're not going to be effective past your immediate reports. You need to do something different.

So where to start with building consensus? To start, let's look over the pain points you're going to have when communicating with people about something you want to do.

First pain point: Your agenda is not about them.

People care about themselves, and their work. It doesn't mean they're bad people. It's just life. They have a boss, the boss wants stuff to get done, they're thinking about that stuff and not your stuff. If you're talking about your new idea; you're talking about you, they're not going to be as interested as they are about themselves.

So your first pain point is gathering people's interest.

Next pain point: different levels of the organization need different information.

What you need to tell your boss or boss' boss about your initiative is different than what the people below you and to your side need to know. You're going to have to tweak your message for each level of your organization. How do you know what to tell each level?

Your rewards for building consensus

You have some challenges. But if you can build consensus you'll reap all kinds of rewards. Let's look at them.

You'll build allies

You are not good at everything and never will be. Getting allies is a critical step of getting your idea to happen. Building consensus gathers allies. That leads to the next gain for building consensus.

Your initiative will have organizational depth

You'll have people at all levels of the organization building upon and improving your plan. At every company I've been at, when everyone up and down the org chart agreed, things happened. Multi-level consensus is key to your success.

Insights from Product Management

Ok, so we've discussed the task, which is building consensus, we've talked about the challenges there, and we've talked about what you hope to gain. Now its time to get down to work.

To start with, think about the people your communicate with as not just peers, bosses or employees but as customers. A company provides a product or service in return for money. You are trying to promote a new idea inside your company in exchange for their effort and attention. Later on, you're going to need resources, people, time and money. At the most basic level, you want someone to pay attention to your idea just like a business wants customers to buy their products.

We are all in Sales.

So we're going to approach our communications like a company would approach marketing a product. We will seek to understand our customers needs. Then we will explain what we are trying to do for those needs. We are going to make our initiative about them.

First step: talk about the customer's jobs

To quote Bob Dylan, we all serve somebody. Your customers have a job, and that job is made of many smaller jobs.

Some part of what you're trying to do that relates to a job your customer is doing. Figure out what that is, and start talking about your customers job.

This will help you build rapport with them and put them in the right frame of mind to think about what you're about to say to them. I think of this step as the I see you step. You're telling your customer you see what they're doing.

You've taking the first step towards making your idea about them. This is critical to getting people's attention.

Next step: talk about the customer's pains

All your customers have problems performing their jobs. That's why it's called work and not happy rainbow funtime. That's why we get paid to do it.

So your customer has problems doing their job. Start talking about the problems they have. After all, that's why you're promoting this idea, to improve things. Talking about their problems will pique their interest.

Not only are you talking about them, but you're talking about their problems. This is going to get even more interesting for them.

Talk about the customer's gains

So far, you've talked to your customer about the work and the problems. Now its time to go positive.

Your customers are performing that job to gain something. They work through the problems not out of masochism, but to achieve a result. Talk about that result as the reason they're doing their job.

Talk about your Idea

At this point, you should have now made your customer sit up and take notice. Why yes, they are working on this or that, and they do find this or that annoying, but their goal is such and such. It's a simple three subject formula for the first part of your pitch: Job, Pains, Gains.

Now that you've gotten their attention, you can you start talking about your idea. You have also given your customer the context they need to appreciate what you're trying to do, from their point of view. You've engaged them by making your idea about them.

As a side effect of thinking of your audience as a customer, you've naturally tailored your message for the audience. This will work at all levels of your organization. Not sure about how to reach someone at some level? Ask them about what they do while you're developing your idea. Everyone loves to talk about their job and their problems.

So take a moment to summarize what you've told them about them. Job, Pains, Gains. Now you sink the hook:

Let me tell you how I can help you with that.

Your pitch for your idea is going to mirror what you described to your customer. Just as you described their Job, then Pains, then Gains, you're going to describe your idea as if its a product or service, and how that product or service will relieve their pains and create more gains for them. It's a very simple formula: Idea, Pain Relief, Gain Creation.

Putting it all together

When you sit down to structure your communication, whether its an email, a presentation, or a blog post, you can start with the following formula:

Think of them as a customer, and Make it about them

Their Jobs

Their Pains

Their Gains

Pitch your idea as a product to help a customer

Your Idea

How it Relieves their Pains

How it gets them their Gains

The end result will be a communication that engages your customer, and is appropriate for them. Because as you repeat this formula for each level of your organization, you'll be adjusting the communication naturally. Because you're thinking of your audience as a customer.

Does it work?

You tell me. I followed the formula above to write this post. Let me know in the replies. If you really liked it, share it.