How to Sell Your Ideas to Management

Many employees, particularly those newer to the workforce, have some wonderful original ideas, but lack the experience to present and sell their innovations to management. This reaction is natural and understandable. However, there are some proven methods to help employees sell their ideas to managers.

Sources of Employee Ideas

Two types of employees represent the most typical sources of new ideas.

•Younger employees newly entering the workforce. Recent graduates, armed with up-to-date knowledge, often generate innovation. Without professional “baggage” or “this is the way we’ve always done it” philosophies, new employees with minimal experience can evaluate issues, processes, procedures, and throughput methods without preconceived beliefs.

•Veteran employees who have spent years “in the trenches” of day-to-day operations. Those employees, having up close and personal experience with front line procedures, often develop ideas for better ways to complete tasks more efficiently. The natural "distance" that managers must maintain often results in insulation from the intimate details of many individual day-to-day tasks performed by their workforce. This employee group, however, often develops useful ideas to improve on current procedures.

The common problem: Most employees, new or veteran, are unsure of the best way to communicate their ideas to management. Frequently, the existence of this uncertainty prohibits employees from even describing their ideas to managers, thereby avoiding the risk of rejection.

In reality, many managers are quite open to receiving new ideas from employees. Even those supervisors that appear to be “unapproachable” may welcome and seriously consider ideas of substance. Understand that selling ideas to management is similar to marketing any new product or service.

Tips for Selling Your Ideas to Management

These are popular strategies that have a strong track record of success.

•Assemble third party facts that support the basis of your idea. Unless your idea is so revolutionary that it has no similar examples or processes, you should still be able to collect facts and data that support your idea. Your factual support should be logical and easily verified by management. If your innovation is truly new, assemble sufficient factual information that supports the potential success of the idea.

•Develop an internal commitment to the value of your idea. Developing an idea after playing golf with your friends while sitting at the 19th hole enjoying adult refreshment may be ground breaking or merely marginal. Evaluate your idea multiple times. Even if your innovation projects to be a “winner,” without your emotional involvement and commitment, its chances of succeeding are diminished. Enthusiasm and commitment can make all the difference in a successful sale to management.

•Create a picture, rendering, video, or other physical representation of the idea. There is a solid reason why the cliché, “one picture is worth a thousand words,” still has value: It’s true. Unless you are a successful, published author, an accurate pictorial display of your idea is much easier to sell than a 100-page text description. This does not imply that your management team lacks vision or imagination. However, if your real target is to sell your idea, graphics, videos, a mockup, or a prototype makes your innovation more real and easier to support.

•Prepare some implementation ideas. Creating some attached ideas for smooth implementation of your idea also enhances the ease of supporting your suggestion. Implementation plans also remove many classic roadblocks to accepting your idea. Since most obstacles are seldom truly “deal killers,” unfortunately they often accomplish that goal. Suggested implementation plans will eliminate many potentially perceived obstacles.

•Build support for your innovation one person at a time. Waiting for a major meeting to unveil your cutting-edge idea is most often a plan for rejection. Like a strong political candidate (and that is what you really are), advance planning and garnering support is critical to generate a favorable response. Risking shock and surprise often generates a simple “no,” instead of a wellspring of hearty support.

•Develop a sense of proper timing to introduce the idea. Prepare, prepare, and prepare for selling your idea; then, also prepare to wait until the right moment occurs to unveil it. Waiting for the best timing may involve the right moment to get a favorable hearing from management, appropriate market conditions, or most advantageous budget situations. While timing may or may not be “everything,” picking the best moment to introduce an idea, suggestion, or procedural change is always important. You want and deserve a fair hearing for your idea. Use the right atmosphere to your benefit, not your detriment.

•If necessary, select another “sales channel.” New employees or those who face challenges presenting ideas should consider recruiting another peer, who may have a better chance of selling the idea, as their “salesperson.” This tip can be an effective strategy when combined with your “one person at a time” support generating plan. A veteran, respected employee, who already supports your idea, may have a better chance to sell your innovation to management. If your analysis indicates that your idea may have greater chances of acceptance coming from another voice, use this strategy to your advantage.

These tips have consistently worked for others over time. Employing these strategies also helps deepen your knowledge, understanding, and commitment to the benefits your idea will deliver to your employer, workplace, and career. Preparing the background, basis, benefits, and implementation plans for your ideas helps you make a more authoritative presentation of your ideas when the timing, audience, and environment is appropriate.