Many executives under-appreciate the work operations leaders perform.
How do you communicate the value of your work and get buy-in from company leaders on your proposals?
Share a story or technique in the comments below!
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We have found that bringing together key stakeholders is key to implementing change. So often marketing, sales, and customer success are overburdened with administrative tasks. More often than not you will be able to find someone in the department who would happily have ops help. By involving stakeholders across a plethora of departments in the process of developing an operations solution, we have seen a significant increae in board approvals.
As explained in this lesson, visual communication is key. I have found that my most effective communication with leadeship is mostly with visual aids and summarized bullet points of an already summarized idea or plan. If you are able to articulate the topic / problem / solutiuon with a few words then you are already on your way to solving the issue at hand.
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I’ve found that creating a shared language for what matters most and what that effort looks like is key to creating alignment on goals and measuring success. Too often [insert marketing terms] get bundled together as if all those words and efforts are the same thing, but actually you do them for different reasons and you don’t need to do them all at once. For example, people will spew words like “social media” and “branding” but not really know how those things are connected. If they have visuals to separate the problems, they can more easily pinpoint those problems, then you can work better together to solve those problems in chunks.
Love the focus on shared language, often in sales and marketing, we can get caught up in our own lingo which excludes others and senior leaders from fully understanding what we have to say.
Prepare beforehand an effective attention statement that catches their attention based on their previous experiences that also relates to the ask.
My current techniques is a bit elementary. I normally send a slack or email after preparing a slide show or data charts.
I am a Senior Executive that as discussed in these lessons speaks the language of business (accounting, finance, kpi’s, strategic planning, etc.). I am finding these lessons and topics to be very informative and encouraging. There is nothing like cotinuing education. My approach to fostering a harmonious and low friction organization has always involved making sure we all understand the various languages spoken throughout. It is imperative to me that all team members understand profit and loss, cash flow and balance sheet statements. Additionally, the goal is to make sure each employee understands the role they do and can play in moving levers in the business to impact the results measured and tracked on these statements. At the same time I want to make sure all managers understand the language spoken in all the functional disciplines such as Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, production (in manufacturing environments), HR, outside services (legal, accounting, etc.). Good planning, communication, clearly defined roles and responsbilities, career path development, etc. supported by trustworthy and actionable data can be powerful.
I have yet to achieve or experience perfection but the tools you are sharing are great. I am especially enjoying the Revenue Ops section.
Thank you.
Doug H
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- I enjoyed the recommendation of Prewiring. I didn’t have a specific term for this but I definitely enjoy doing this and giving the relevant person a snapshot and getting their prior buy-in
- Visualizations - are awesome, especially if they are based on clear data and how reasonable & informed assumptions can remove friction and simulate force.
Basically, I start with a one on one meeting with my managers to get a feel, so that i can prepare for the criticisms or any shortcoming they must have found in my idea. There is a Yoruba adage that says “Oju loro wa” meaning “convincing is better done in a face to face discussion”. I explain the vision or solution discovered to the team. After my presentation to them, i will put together all input i feel is beneficial and then present it to the larger team. One medium i avoid using completely is the use of text messages for such, this for me is arguably the worst form of communication yet can be the fastest. This is because text msgs can be easily misunderstood.
Hearing them out and seeing whats stressing them
Putting their weakness in a scentence (could be positional weakness or professional or personal)
Putting the headline of my perspective as a casual response and hearing their take
Then enhancing and editing their current approach and and make them feel supported
lead to a “but” and point out a pitfall - Make them see it infront of their eyes
then after closing the doors of their invalid solution
I talk about how an alternate solution can be best and discuss the benefits of an alternate solution until they get my point and sometimes make them feel it was their idea and add on it an important detail they missed out on (since i’ve been working on the numbers for a much longer time)
and vuala ! we have a plan that was approved because it was “their idea” and they appreciate me for adding a practical solution the problem. (sometimes they get shocked thinking I came up with it on the spot)
I would give give the CEO/COO a one line announcement, like:
> Store xyz broke the weekly sales record over the last weekend.
or
> Branding team have just killed the completition in abc area.
The gives them a subject to think and based on their reply, I add more info.
I’ve alway found that communicating effectively to leaders and reports alike and getting buy in is rooted in being able to articulate the how the request or change will benefit that individual and/or the company. Solving the the “what’s in it for me” at the beginning of the conversation, primes the pump for acceptance.
For example: “If we institute this form at the service level then the accounting department can save over 20 hours per week looking up the information in the ERP (5 minutes per look up over 250 service calls per week).” People want to know how what you want to do will benefit them or one of their stakeholders.
I’m the type of person who loves to reference films - in other words I’m super visual and I think now a days most people respond best when they’re visually engaged. Oftentimes, when I have an idea and I need to present it to an executive team, I try to use as few words as possible - as much fact-based detail (numbers or super infomrative graph(s)), but try to include videos or meems when possible. I have found human connection is easiier when I inject something funny - usually most people won’t even bring up the fact based stuff even though the $ is usually the biggest priority, they remember the funny video.
How would I as RevOps manager communicate with company leaders?
I nest my agenda within theirs. For example, one of their problems could be that they need to predict and forecast revenue for the next two quarters.
I will propose we need to ask the sellers if they feel like they have quality pipeline coming from marketing? And How do sales and marketing coordinate their pipeline generation responsibilities? And How are they currently forecasting? Is it bottoms up, where sales and sales mgt tells finance the numbers? Is it top down, where RevOps and Finance tell sales the number. Or hybrid, where Finance and Sales agree?
What’s the current sales process? Is it segmented by customer size? Customer vertical market? Customer function in the account? Have we product-market fit?
I would begin a series of conversations with peers, and counter party management team, A3 style developing the plan. VP of Sales, CMO, Customer success leadership, Product Development owners, and their referred direct reports.
I’d ask an analyst, illustrator, or graphics person to assist with the numbers and I’d edit the written the plan or proposal to move from current state to future state, to build the business case.
I’d be ready to make my pitch to the board or executive team.
Prior to entering the RevOps space. I would contrivance a reduced version of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.
- ACTION; I would connect with upper management with an engaging opening.
- NEED; Connected Physiologically, but not emotionally.
- SATISFACTION; Liased potential resolutions except overcommunicated.
- VISUALIZATION; Positive Outcomes.
- ACTION; Asked leaders to partake in the Plan-to-Action approach actively.
If we look at my previous technique, we’ll see a few flaws in the connectivity; To combat these shortfallings, I have learned how to perform an objective root clause analysis with internal teams and then present findings and solutions to those teams to gain feedback before submitting to stakeholders; To appeal to stakeholders, I not only take into account everyone’s workload but how each individual contributes to the team.
I do this to connect emotionally and use technical jargon sparingly while not overcommunicating ideas.
Los latinos somos poco concretos al decidir y comunicarnos. Necesitamos sentir afecto y enganchar con lo que nos dicen.
Por otro lado, países como Chile tienen un estilo Europeo, pero extrañan el poder generar la cercanía con los demás países. En ventas, se les dificulta entrar a concretar porque pueden pasar por “rudos”.
Así, en el contexto que trabajo, depende mucho de la cultura de la persona. En general, trato de copiar su estilo de expresar y muestro las ideas con preguntas, llevando el hilo con las respuestas.
Normalmente me funciona, pero al conocer el Monore’s Technique, me falta muuucho por aprender
Get agreement that there is a problem and that problem needs to be solved. Present root cause, solution, cost and value.
By being respectful and polite to the company leaders.
Thank you very much.