On Selling (& Buying) Your Vision

I was asked recently how to get a boss or client to buy in to your new idea.

I’ll start first with how not to.

Don’t pit your idea up against theirs - their way of doing it vs. yours.

This will never work.

When you present your idea within a binary - my way is better than your way - you’ve landed yourself right in the middle of an argument. Not a great place to cast vision if you ask me.

So, then how exactly do you do it?

You must help her imagine something better than both of your ideas.

This isn’t easy, but it’s quite possibly the only way.

You must do the hard work of showing your boss a vision of the future that is elevated above both your ideas.

Don’t tell her how your idea is better. Show her the possibility of a new future by evoking her imagination for what could be.

If you’re casting the new vision the onus is on you to cast well - not for them to understand.

In the end, she may not catch the vision. In the end, nothing you can say will convince her. If that is the case, must you must now decide what kind of risk you’re willing to take.

At some point we have to buy what we’re selling or call the whole thing off anyway.