How to Sell Your Ideas to Management

Why Many Good Employee Ideas Go Unnoticed

It’s not a secret that employees at all levels often have fabulous ideas that improve operations, marketing, customer service, and branding. Unfortunately, it is also common knowledge that many good ideas never are heard by the right people.

There are some historical reasons for this result, but one is more common and repeated many times more than others. Many employees try to sell their ideas as if they were marketing “products.” Although perfectly understandable and natural, trying to sell an idea as if it were a product seldom works.

With no physical substance, an idea typically falls off the charts even if the “right” people hear it. No matter how brilliant, inventive, and potentially successful, an idea offers nothing to see, feel, smell, touch, or physically examine. To you, a favored idea has all of this substance, at least in a graphic mental picture. However, to everyone else it is just a hazy concept that typically needs extensive support to become clear.

Three Common Options When You Have a Solid Idea

When you develop a good idea, common “wisdom” dictates that you choose one of three action plans.

• Find someone you trust and higher on the organization chart. Share your idea with this person, who has earned higher credibility, and have them introduce your idea to upper management. The key word is “trust” as you risk having the other employee claiming your idea as his/her own.
• Re-formulate your idea to reflect your credibility level at the company. For example, assume you are a new customer service representative in a call center. You have a wonderful idea to improve the global customer service strategy of your company. The odds are that your idea will be ignored, as you haven’t yet established a credibility level that gives weight to a global strategy idea. You might try to scale down your idea to apply its effects to call center issues.
• Simply forget about your idea and do your job. File it away, and introduce the idea again after you move up the corporate ladder and earn the credibility needed to have management analyze its value honestly.

As you can see, none of these common options stands out as a wonderful choice. Unfortunately these options are often all that are offered in many companies. However, if you are willing to take a few chances and really believe your idea has merit, disregard these options and go for the gold. Here are some suggestions to help you turn an idea into a corporate reality.

Some Strategies to Help You Sell Ideas to Management

• Fearlessly develop a strong, well-founded, convincing argument. Think out all possible aspects of your idea as best you can to state it authoritatively.
• Be sure that your idea relates to current employer issues, goals, and objectives. By “attaching” your idea to current goals, you are pushing the right management buttons as you are addressing their focus.
• Structure your idea from the decision-maker’s perspective. Whether presenting your idea orally or on paper, structure your presentation from your listener’s point of view, not your own. This is particularly important if your listener must bring the idea for a decision-by-committee, which is very common.
• Minimize the downside and failure risk quotient. Never disregard the downside risk, but minimize these probabilities when presenting your idea. Focusing on the negative seldom achieves a positive result.
• Try to generate some positive momentum for your idea with peers and management. You need some professional “friends” when selling an idea. Avoid being too intense to the point of annoyance. Your behavior will be much “louder” than your words and, eventually, your idea. If you are polite, professional, persistent, and patient, your idea might create the support you need to get it approved.

Selling your ideas to management is a challenge that you can overcome by using these tips. All of these techniques work under the assumption that you have an idea that could make or save your company money while improving its image or market position.

Should you have an idea that originally appears to be tremendous, but, after some research, loses its luster to you, it will probably not be embraced by management for the same reasons. You should probably toss it aside and brainstorm another. Possibly a variation of the original idea may work in your business environment.

In all cases, be confident and do your homework with new ideas. A marginal idea is seldom a career killer, but a revolutionary idea can often be a career maker. Even if you hold a modest position on the organization chart, your brain and imagination are your own. You may be far superior to your peers in the idea generation area. Use this talent to improve your professional life.