“When you create impact, make it massive. If it isn’t massive, it likely won’t gain enough attention or enthusiasm to really catch on. You want momentum and excitement.” – Alex Smith in today’s Tip 443
How do you present your next idea to make the biggest impact?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Alex Smith. Alex is a super active member of the Sales Success Community and consistently shares great insights on LinkedIn where you’re going to want to follow him. Here he is with a tip that he shared with me a number of weeks ago that might be even more relevant right now:
Alex Smith: Have you ever had a great idea at your workplace but it was never implemented? I’ve had ideas that had amazing excitement and lunch and others that are currently sitting in an idea graveyard somewhere and likely will never be brought back to life and everything in between.
So my tip today will help you with actionable ways to prepare you to present your next idea work so that it has the best chance to make the biggest impact.
I’m someone that always loves challenging myself to come up with new ways of doing things. I really look at sales as an art form and it’s up to us to be creative on how we want to approach it. If I ever lose a sale, I will always want to ask what I could have done differently. So I started doing the same with ideas.
One consistent theme that I began to notice was that all of my improvements really centered around how they were presented and my process. Ideas are no different than the products and services you might be selling. So why not adopt similar sales processes the next time you need to present them?
Many of us know the importance of getting our sales process right. We put intricate detail into them. They are the lenses that make our forecasts, crystal clear. Any smudge on the lens, and we clean it up immediately.
We’ve all learned some amazing processes, whether it’s been from David Weiss and MEDDPICC or Trey Simonton and his joint action plan. Whatever process you like to use, I urge you to treat your ideas with the same level of care that you would to one of your sales plans. Your ideas reflect your creativity and you want to give them the best chance to succeed.
So list out your ideas and go through a deliberate sales process with each. I guarantee you can translate whatever current sales process, were processed you subscribed to in order to sell your ideas. Just think about it. Each idea will solve a problem for your organization and delivers a specific impact. List out each idea, the problem it solves and next to it the impact your organization if you solve it, a pic chart for ideas if you will. Make the idea personal.
Your boss might want to make quota, but your CEO needs to increase market share. You need to know how your idea and show how your idea generates revenue and quantify it and you need to create urgency. How will this get your boss and upper management’s attention to act? Create a chart and list this all out.
One of my favorite sales quotes also applies to ideas. If the problem is the reason to change the impact is the urgency to change. I like to say things like, “If we continue to do things this way, this is what we might be risking or not capturing by failing to try this.”
When you create impact, make it massive. If it isn’t massive, it likely won’t gain enough attention or enthusiasm to really catch on. You want momentum and excitement. You’re looking for,” I love that idea. Let’s do it” not, “Oh yeah, that’s a good idea” and then crickets.
Can you gain support for the idea across the organization? If so, with who? What’s your budgeting process look like? Budget timelines. Does it require a financial investment? If so, what’s the ROI? Even better can we start with no revenue investment. If the investment is not revenue but just productivity time clearly spell that out. All things you can put in a chart you’re going for, how can you make it really easy for management to say yes. Remove friction and make them think that they leave little to no extra work on their end and this will just be extra money that’s coming in.
Mark Cuban once said a great quote when he said, “The greatest value you can offer to your boss is to reduce their stress.” So clearly show them how your idea does that for them. I’m always eager to get ideas out there, but to make them really catch on, we need to put a deliberate process behind them. There’s so many examples of people doing that in this community who came up with a new idea internally to increase visibility with senior execs, get promoted, increase influence at companies and learn along the way.
A quote that really guides me on the importance of selling ideas and building excitement was said by the iconic businesswoman and founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Mary Kay Ash when she said: “A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will always go further than a great idea that inspires no one.”
So I urge you to go forth and create a killer process with your next idea at work and generate incredible excitement at your organization. I’d love to hear from you on what ideas you’ve pitched that worked well and maybe also we can swap stories of ones that didn’t and talk about why. I’m always game to chat. Thanks, everyone for listening and good luck with your ideas.
Scott Ingram: For a link to connect with Alex and more, just click over to DailySales.Tips/443 and we’ll have everything for you there.
Then be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!