Tips for Selling Ideas

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Sam Harrison in Fast Company provides 12 great tips for selling ideas from his book IdeaSelling: Successfully Pitch Your Creative Ideas to Bosses, Clients and Other Decision Makers. Here’s a brief summary.

1. Collaborate with your clients and let them take credit for your ideas
2. Pitch ideas with a clear and logical flow
3. Pause before you start speaking to build anticipation
4. Never start your pitch with “You’re going to love this idea”
5. Help clients visualize
6. Keep it short
7. Skip handouts
8. Invest in leave-behinds
9. Tell stories
10. Make it personal for the audience
11. Create abracadabra moments (like Steve Jobs pulling the Macbook Air out of a manila envelope)
12. Once you’ve sold an idea, stop talking and leave

Written by

glen.mohr
Since 2001, Glen has designed and managed professional development programs that develop leaders and deliver innovative solutions simultaneously. Clients, including Citigroup (11 years), Merrill Lynch (5 years), and PNC (2 years), consistently achieve the goals of more self-aware and capable leaders, ongoing organizational capacity for innovation, and innovative solutions to client needs - of which a high percentage move forward to generate revenue. He has personally coached hundreds of teams and has recruited and trained a team of expert coaches. He holds a Masters from Harvard with a concentration in Technology in Education and a BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia.

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