The Problem

You’ve spotted a huge gap at your organization, identified a solution, and you're fired up about rolling out a new initiative that you believe will transform the company. You know this upgrade will be amazing — improve efficiency, elevate impact, and ultimately drive growth. All you need is buy-in from your leadership teammates.

So why, then, does it seem like every time you bring up your great idea, it gets met with lukewarm responses? People brush it off, or say “sure!” without any follow-through. Your follow-up meetings get rescheduled, or worse, ignored. Why isn’t anyone taking your idea as seriously as you are?

The Insight

Here is the biggest mistake I see senior leaders make when trying to influence their peers:

You spend all your time talking about your great idea instead of discovering your teammates’ idea of great.

I’ve made this mistake too.

In sales, there’s a term for launching right into your pitch without understanding your audience’s needs first: pitch-slapping

It looks something like this:

Me: "Let me introduce this great idea to you! It’ll improve efficiency, save costs, and drive impact in five different ways. See these bullet points? Trust me, it’s a game-changer. Are you on board?"

Teammate: "Hmm, I’m not sure it’s the right time for that."

Me: "But, look! Bullet point #4 is particularly amazing – it’ll really make a difference. What do you think?"

Teammate: "I’m pretty booked with meetings. Let’s revisit this later."

Me: “But I’d really love your thoughts on how good this is and when we could start implementing.”

Teammate: “Yea, sure - send me a note and I’ll look at it later.”

Sound familiar? I used to focus on that one big ask and anxiously anticipate whether or not I’d hear a “yes” — without thinking about what my teammates actually needed to say “yes” in the first place.

What I didn’t realize until I went into sales is that there are dozens of smaller asks you need to make before you ever earn the right to make the big ask for the business.

So what are these small asks that prevent pitch-slapping and make all the difference?

The Experiment

When you want to influence your teammates, put your sales hat on. You are the seller, your teammates are your buyers. That’s why influence is called getting buy-in.

Here are a few things I asked buyers before I shared the great idea I was selling, and how they apply to you selling your great idea to your senior leadership teammates.

What Metrics Matter?
Understand what metrics matter to your teammates — what they are measuring themselves on organizationally and personally. Organizational metrics may have to do with revenue growth, customer satisfaction, or number of IT tickets. Personal metrics may have to do with visibility, protecting time, or autonomy.

For example: I’ve been thinking a lot about how how our systems are impacting our workflows. I know you’ve been working on XYZ and I’m wondering what, if anything, has been causing friction there when it comes to using our system?

[Listen to the response]

What’s going on for your team that’s making that the case?

[Listen to the response]

Which of your metrics is suffering most because of it?

What’s The Status Quo Costing Them?
Very few processes are perfect as is. Learn about your teammates’ current approach and what it’s costing them — it might be costing them time, accuracy, or transparency. Once you hear some type of pain, follow the breadcrumbs. Asking your teammates to share their pain is 1000x more powerful than you telling them about it.

For example (again, listen between each question): I hear how frustrating it is to use our system right now. Can you give me an example? How long has this been happening? What have you tried to solve it? How did that work out?

What Are Their Evaluation Criteria?
Before presenting your idea, it’s crucial to understand what criteria your teammates will use to evaluate it. Evaluation criteria go beyond business metrics and includes things like technical requirements, budget constraints, personnel needs, or timelines. Uncover the key factors they need to consider before committing to a new initiative.

For example: I’m hearing the current system is making you spend a lot of time on manual data entry and reporting and causing mistakes that are eating up even more of your team’s time to fix. Like a few hours a week per person. If we were to entertain updating the system, what would be important to consider to make the update as easy as possible for you?

Are You Talking To The Decision-Maker?
Sometimes you waste time asking a person to make the call when they don’t have the authority to. In a leadership team, think about the person who has the power to push an initiative through or to veto an initiative.

For example: I hear you that it’s got to integrate with what you’re already using and the learning curve can’t take up too much time. Who else is this system issue impacting?

Who’s Your Co-Conspirator?
A co-conspirator is someone with influence who can champion your idea alongside you. When others hear someone else they trust beating this dream, not just you, it carries more weight. This is especially important if you’re trying to influence a group or gain buy-in across multiple stakeholders.

For example: You mentioned IT and Finance are also impacted by this. Any idea of who might be particularly excited about a system upgrade?

What Is The Decision-Making Process?
Every leadership team has a different way of making decisions, and understanding this process is critical. You’ll likely have a sense already from being on the leadership team whether the team requires consensus, majority vote, or if one person has the final say. Then again, it’s prudent to confirm that this decision will follow the same decision-making process as prior decisions (not always the case).

For example: Have you, Finance, and IT made this kind of switch before? How do you all typically decide on these types of updates?

What’s Your Competition?
Understand what you’re selling against. Often the competition is the natural tendency to keep things the same. Other times the competition is other initiatives vying for the same pool of resources. When you know what you’re selling against, you can better frame how your idea has a greater positive impact on the metrics that matter.

Example: I’ll have a convo with Finance and IT too to see where they’re at. I know there’s a ton of projects on your plate coming up. How critical is this to address relative to what else you’re working on?

Imagine being equipped with all this data from all your stakeholders so you can position your great idea in terms of what’s matters to your buyers right now. As a reminder:

• Important: what matters

• Relevant: what matters to your buyer

• Urgent: what matters to your buyer right now

People move for urgency, and not much else.

The Takeaway 

When you want to get an initiative off the ground, don’t pitch-slap your teammates — it neither builds trust nor encourages buy-in.

Instead, focus on the small asks you make along the way to learn about your teammates’ priorities, challenges, and perspectives. Your teammates will feel more understood and you will be positioned to share your great idea in terms of what your buyers think is great.

Asking these questions is what maximizes your chance of earning the right to make the big ask. And when you get there, that big ask won’t feel so big anymore for you or your teammates. It’ll just be the natural next step.

2. The Goings On

Inner Radio turned 3 this year. I celebrated a birthday somewhere in there too. Coming back from parental leave in the spring was a bit of a blur, a whirlwind of resetting. I didn’t really know what a hard stop was until I came back to coaching trying to get a grip on time. There’s no "just 5 more minutes" when the baby’s crying or the nanny is heading out the door. My new time constraints forced a kind of focus I hadn’t experience before. And with that focus came clarity.

I got clearer on who I want to coach, what I want to coach on, and how I want to do it. One theme that’s been showing up more and more is the connection between sales and coaching. The skills I honed in sales — listening, empathizing, challenging assumptions, shifting perspectives, generating new options, and holding people accountable — are the same skills I use every day in coaching. And I get to share these sales skills with my clients, helping them build trust quickly, influence without authority, and quiet their inner critic to ask for what they want, just like I did.

One of the things I often work on with my clients is helping them focus on only doing the things only they can do. I’m finding peace in each step I take toward building a coaching business that only I can build. Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. Here's to the next chapter!

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