How to sell your new idea to other people
As a manager, you'll often have to persuade people to believe in your views and to accept your ideas. If you're good at selling your ideas to employees and colleagues, you'll go further, faster, in your career. Unfortunately, good ideas must first be sold to staff and, if you can't get your proposals across as you envisaged, they may well go the way of many other good ideas - into oblivion. So here are some simple rules that will help you sell your ideas more effectively in the future...
1. Know what you want - exactly.
Don't present a vague fuzzy shadow of an idea and then grow angry when you fail to get it across to others. Pretest your idea for clarity: put it on paper. If it can't be written down - goal, numbers, key players, deadlines, budgets - it isn't a fully developed idea. The very act of finding the appropriate words with which to express an idea compels you to think it through.
2. Double-check everything.
Make sure that all the necessary research and validation has been done to support your idea and that you have all the facts and figures readily available. You'll need them later.
3. Consider current circumstances.
Ensure that the idea suits the current climate of your organisation. For example, you wouldn't want to suggest a costly idea if little money were available in your organisation's organisation. For example, you wouldn't want to suggest a costly idea if little money were available in your organisation's coffers.
