The no B.S. guide to selling your ideas

How to be more confident - and successful - when selling your ideas

Most people would rather stand on stage in front of a room of people in their underwear than sell an idea to their boss or a group of important stakeholders.

Why does pitching your ideas strike so much fear into so many of us? Because it’s not a skill that’s not taught in school.

It’s also not easy to find good advice online, either. A recent Google search on “how to sell your ideas” turned up a LOT of well-meaning but ultimately meaningless advice.

Lots of noise.

Very little signal.

Not very helpful.

So I took it upon myself to combine my 30+ years of experience studying creativity and selling ideas as part of my work to put together a no B.S. summary of the best practices for this important life skill.

Why cultivate your idea-selling skills?

You may be tempted to say, “I don’t need to sell my ideas to anyone. I don’t do creative work.” But actually, you do!

Think about it: You need to convince someone of something more often than you realize. The ability to tailor your pitch to the person you're talking to and persuade them to your way of thinking can help you become more confident, inspiring and successful.

So let’s start at the beginning. You’ve got a Killer Idea. And you need to sell it to someone. Your first step is to…

Formulate your pitch

Framing your idea correctly to give it the best chance of survival is critical, says the Harvard Business Review. In other words, you need to tailor it to the people to whom you’re selling. For example, a CEO is going to have different priorities than a VP of marketing, your significant other or a close friend.

Think through how your idea would be implemented and any challenges in doing so. What resources (people, money, support) would be required?

How different is your idea than the status quo? How does it fit with your organization’s current portfolio of products and services? The more different it is, the more resistance it’s likely to encounter.

If your idea is complex, how can you summarize it in a memorable way? Can you visualize it with a diagram or compelling graphic? Telling others in excruciating detail about the wonders of your idea may test the limits of their patience.

To compel them to pay attention, make a visual representation of your idea - a diagram, infographic or low-res prototype. Give them something they can wrap their heads around easily.

A good way to anticipate what your audience wants is to put yourself in their shows and ask…

Where’s the pain?

Before the people you’re trying to persuade will consider your idea, they need to clearly understand the need. Why this solution? Why now? What’s the risk of doing nothing?

How does your idea help them to solve a problem or achieve a goal? Don’t just try to sell them something. How will your idea speak to or alleviate those pain points?

Make a list of the decision-makers and stakeholders to whom you need to pitch your idea. Develop personas for each of them. Make sure you clearly understand how they think, what they value, the challenges they face and what keeps them up at night. How will your idea make their lives better or easier?

Get good at putting yourself in other people shoes, so you can accurately anticipate their questions and objections.

Give some thought to the type of language you should use in your pitch. Some people will respond to an emotional appeal while others may prefer facts and statistics.

Include examples in your pitch that are relevant to them, their interests and pain points. Storytelling can help bring your concept to life, and can increase your odds of success. Invest in Donald Miller’s excellent book, Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen. It’s a perfect primer on how to construct a compelling, customer-focused story around your idea.

As you hone your pitch, recognize that you need to be clear, concise and compelling. Don’t try to communicate every possible detail. Focus on giving them an executive summary - just the bigger picture at first. If they’re intrigued and want to know more, you can then drill down into more details.

Anticipate and overcome objections

Walk through a simulation of your pitch on your mind. Imagine each person’s reactions and the questions they’re likely to have. Frequent categories for questions include resource requirements, staffing, budget, degree of fit with your organization’s existing offerings and managing risk.

Even more important, imagine what objections they may raise. You need to have a plan to counter the most likely questions and objections.

Don’t forget that new ideas frequently involve change: That can feel threatening to many people - especially your boss. Could your idea affect your boss’ standing in the organization? If it fails, could it have a negative impact on their career? Could your idea make your boss feel criticized or threatened? Often, new ideas expose an existing weakness that may be partially or wholly your boss’ fault.

Paint a compelling picture

During your pitch, highlight the benefits of your idea. What is the ideal future state it will enable? Paint a compelling picture for your audience. Help them picture your idea at work in their life. What will that feel like? What will they experience? Paint a rich emotional picture, not just a factual one.

Case studies can often be powerful. Of course, if your idea is totally new to the world, that may not be possible. But in most cases, a case study can be a powerful selling tool. It dramatizes how someone else who is very similar to your audience implemented your idea - and the positive outcomes they’re now enjoying.

Can you show that your idea is designed to improve the organization as a whole as well as your boss’ standing? When possible, try to emphasize the benevolence of your motives in presenting your idea.

Before you pitch it publicly, share your idea with your boss in private. That way, you will spare them the embarrassment of springing the idea upon them in front of others.

Leaders hate risk. Here's a practical solution

Keep in mind that most organizations are incredibly risk averse. For that reason, they tend to be very skeptical of new ideas.

To help mitigate investment and risk, consider recommending a pilot or prototype of your idea. If it’s successful, it will help you score an early “win” that should help to build a base of support for your idea.

It’s also an incomparable opportunity to get real-world feedback on your idea, which will help you to refine it and sharpen its value proposition to the people it’s designed to serve. You may even need to pivot in a different direction. But you won't know that until you get feedback from the people who will benefit from your idea.

Conclusion

Keep these questions and factors in mind when pitching your ideas to increase your odds of success. Always remember: even though they may not buy THIS idea from you, they DO appreciate you thinking about the business creatively. Learn from the experience and fine tune your approach for your next idea sale!

What else do you need to know about selling your ideas? If I get enough questions and suggestions about this topic, I may do a deeper dive into it. Contact me at [email protected].

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Transformation Tool

Canva as a brainstorming tool? It’s true

Today, Canva is the most widely used graphics creation tool in the world, thanks to its ease of use, well-designed tool set and thousands of templates.

But since when is Canva a brainstorming tool?

The developer is now promoting its flagship graphics creation tool as an ideation engine as well. This web page showcases numerous colorful templates for conducting brainstorming sessions and presenting your ideas. Examples include:

• Mind map
• Kanban board
• Venn diagram
• Roadmap diagram
• Comparison table
• Fishbone (root cause analysis) diagram
• Process map
• 4-quadrant diagrams

You can even use Canva’s collaboration capabilities to conduct small team brainstorming sessions, using sticky notes to capture ideas and comment on each other's contributions. It’s not exactly Miro or Mural, but it may be a perfect place to start for many budget-conscious entrepreneurs and creators.

I’ve been using Canva for many years for most of my online graphics. It’s easy to use and empowers me to create great-looking images quickly for my articles, social media posts and presentation graphics.

But I never considered it for this use. I’m definitely going to do so!

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Got an opinion or something cool to share? Please send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

Chuck Frey

Author & Publisher

CATALYST