Tips to Help You Sell Your Ideas to Management

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

But if you are willing to take a few chances and really believe your idea has merit, you should share your ideas with management. Here are some strategies to help you sell your ideas to the right people:

• 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 your idea relates to current employer issues, goals and objectives. By making sure your idea speaks to current goals, you are pushing the right buttons by addressing management’s direct area of 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 you can sometimes minimize these probabilities when presenting your idea. Focusing on the negative seldom achieves a positive result.

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. In all cases, be confident and do your homework. A marginal idea is seldom a career killer, but a revolutionary idea can often be a career maker.

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