How To Get What You Want
I was reading an insightful article the other day about who should shoulder the responsibility when the client fails to heed the wise words of the Search Marketing Consultant. The SEO Blame Game doesn’t stop at SEO, however. Regardless which department you’re in, or what your responsibilities are in a given day, you always stand a chance of your advice not being heard. It definitely sucks for consultants who put a lot of time and effort into finding the right ways to promote a business, only to have the client not listen and send your entire strategy into a tail spin. It also sucks to not be listened to when you’re the customer service manager, lead developer, technical support representative or even office manager. We all have some really great ideas that are going to have to go through a lot to be listened to.
Having your ideas heard really isn’t as difficult as it may seem. You’ve got to make sure your idea is sound and your will strong. Voice your opinion where possible, but don’t shout others down in order to get that coveted position in the spotlight. When your client or boss doesn’t initially like your idea, don’t shelf it. Change it. Instead of offering the entire meal, just pull off a little piece and give that scrap to them.
What’s a Scrap?
When you’ve got a nice big complex strategy for making a process more efficient such as training, every-day procedures or otherwise, your boss might find it a bit hard to swallow. Keep in mind that everything is a negotiation so when your boss says no to your idea, they really just want you to show it to them in a different angle, under a different light. In other words, smaller bites may work:
- Find one aspect of your strategy that’s easy to implement and won’t have a very big impact
- Identify some metrics having to do with the above strategy and find a way to collect statistics
- After a period of time (week, month, quarter), put that data together into a report and show it to your boss
If you’ve done your homework and your idea was indeed a good one, then your report should reflect that. In virtually every scenario where I’ve done this, I have almost always been given the go-ahead to expand the strategy for broader scope.
Many business owners are successful for a variety of reasons. Some have been conservative when they’ve needed it most while others are risk-takers and are only really making money when they’re putting it all on the table. Regardless, business owners aren’t the only one’s in the company with ideas that need to be acted upon. If your idea is good, you owe it to yourself and your company to let it be heard and acted upon as well.
