How to Sell An Idea Before You Present It
As a young creative, I thought that doing great work was the most important thing; If I could just have a great idea, everyone would recognize it for the genius it was and the rest would fall into place.
That was flat-out wrong.
The most important part of any job is earning your client(s) trust. They need to know that they have been heard and you care about doing a good job. This is more important than agreeing with them. If you have passion and a point of view (and aren’t a jerk about it) that is pretty overwhelming evidence that you care.
The second most important of any job is helping your client(s) figure out what a good idea looks like. You listen very carefully, research diligently, and then give them a definition of what a good solution would be if it existed.
This is important because every project has an inherent political problem. You’ve got to get a group of people agree. And it certainly feels like getting any project off the ground requires getting more people to agree than it did twenty years ago.
Professionals often have a very hard time agreeing outside their domain of expertise. A group of lawyers can agree on what a good argument is. A group of structural engineers can agree on where the weakest point in a bridge design is. But if you ask them how they evaluate what makes a great piece of communication, don’t be surprised if they have no idea. Or many differing ideas.
So I always think of my first job, as to creating a logical framework that will allow intelligent people to agree with each other. The good news is, most of the time, everybody wants to agree, they just don’t always know how.
So here are some tips.
Recognize and Praise Their Instincts
Every one of my clients is smart and successful. They just don’t know what I know. Which is why I can be useful to them. So I like to give them credit for being brilliant right off the bat.
I’ve done a lot of surprisingly fun work for insurance companies. And one of the things I tell insurance clients is that I recognized that they are in a business where a minor detail can cause a major loss. So it is a matter of tremendous importance that all the little details be checked, cross-checked and corrected before anything moves forward.
I praise them for this and freely admit that I am just not wired that way. Then I tell them that their finely honed instincts will be very useful in the creative process, but if they get out of hand, they will kill any spark of life and spontaneity. That human communication is messy and imperfect in the exact way that contracts should never, ever be.
Then I stress that what we want is a spark of life. Something that creates emotion and interest. Something that attracts people. That first look across the bar. A flirty exchange that leads to a first date. And never, in the history of the world, has a successful flirtation started with a discussion of the details of a pre-nuptial agreement.
Then, weeks later, when I present an idea and it starts to get lost in some meaningless detail, I say is, we’re not hashing out the pre-nup right now. It’s usually good for a laugh, and then the discussion can become about what’s best for the project, and not a clash of philosophies.
(Re)Define the Problem You Are Trying to Solve
“We need a video” is not a problem. “We’d like more sales,” is *barely* a problem. It’s too general. “We’d like people to see that this product will save them time.”
“We’d like them understand how our widget can lower their facility HVAC cost by 20%” is a problem that video can definitely help with, but so can many other things.
I find that redefining the problem at least three different ways, leads to the best ideas and best solutions.
Also, if you take the time to really understand the problem — ask a lot of questions, and state it back to the person you are trying to help in a way that makes them say, “That’s RIGHT!” — you earn their trust.
Feelings Then Thoughts
This critical thinking is important, but it becomes destructive when it turns into a knee-jerk reaction to an emotional response.
So I tell my clients that, in addition to any other problems we’re trying to solve with a video, first, we need them to feel something. That’s how we get them to pay attention.
The most powerful ideas are the ones where everyone in the room laughs hysterically (or cries) and then says, “That’s great, but we could never do that.”
Then you figure out a way to actually do it.
So I ask for a 60 second pause between the feeling and the logic. So that before we go into all of the logical, corporate reasons something won’t work, that they stay with how it makes them feel.
Because there are tremendous pressures to homogenize everything. But the more you homogenize things, the less people pay attention to it. So we’re faced with a trade-off between what feels safe and expected and what will be fresh and captivate an audience.
All I’m really asking for is for them to be thoughtful about the tradeoff, and who doesn’t want to be thoughtful?
Their Response, Then Yours
There’s no such thing as a perfect idea. Every solution involves trade-offs and risks. Be absolutely up front about these. But if they ask which one you like or recommend, I suggest you say something like this, “I have a recommendation, but before I give it to you, I want to fully understand what feels right, and then what you think about it.”
Don’t advocate any position until they believe you perfectly understand where they are coming from and why.
If Only One Thing, Trust
Powerful communication just isn’t possible without it. Use the trust you have responsibly and it will grow. Abuse is and it will be destroyed.
The Department of Mirth
Worst Use of an A-List Actor in a Video Game
There’s an old adage in screen- and playwriting that says you should write things so that they are actor-proof. And that means that the story you are trying to tell should work even if a bad actor recites the line. This clip is the opposite. Tim Curry (and a number of great actors) played a part in a video game called Red Alert 3. And it is inadvertently amazing.
To be polite, I’ll say that the script wasn’t worthy of his talents. In fact, it was so bad that he couldn’t keep a straight face most of the time.Which somehow created this gem. Watching him struggle through and eventually stick the landing never gets old for me.
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