Selling Creative Ideas – the Second Half of the Equation

New ideas and new decisions. You’ve made both.  Time to sell your idea to your boss, clients or other decision makers.  There’s a book to help you be a success in creating an exciting new future.

Even though it seems to target “creative” professionals in design and advertising IdeaSelling will be helpful for creative folk in other arenas as well. Its author Sam Harrison provides 12 points for prepping your idea’s presentation in his Fast Company write-up.

What I really like is that he shows examples of using creative thinking to sell creative thinking. It’s targeted though.  So to be inclusive I’ve added annotations in italics for creative professionals in non-advertising related fields, like the government, health care or finance.

“If they feel they birthed it, they can’t kill it.” David Schimmel touts this tenet at And Partners, his New York design firm. “If you truly collaborate with your clients and let them take credit for ideas,” says Schimmel, “there’s a good chance you’ll sell your strongest ideas without having them watered down.” Meaning, involve your stakeholders in the creative process of developing the new idea to meet their need for participating in the final outcome.

Leave creative chaos at the door. The route for discovering an idea is usually a winding, twisted path. But the way we present that idea should be a straight and narrow road. That’s not saying pitches should be dull and didactic. Be bold. Rouse the room. Playing it safe is for wimps. But pitch ideas with a clear and logical flow. Meet clients on their mental turf. Gently guide them to your world. Remember your audience by all means, be appropriate and surprising.  If they have asked for creative ideas, you need to show them how yours fits that criteria. How you present your idea will speak volumes.  If it’s a staid group, use creativity quotes to start your presentation to prepare their thinking to consider something new and different.

Pause before you start. A few years ago, Edward Norton and four other actors participated in a discussion at the Directors Guild in Manhattan. The panel quickly adopted a rotation, with each actor commenting on film-related topics. When Norton’s turn, he would always pause before speaking. The audience awaited his words. Norton’s comments were no more profound than those of fellow panelists, but the pauses positioned him as the group’s sage. For your next pitch, pause before starting. Lock eyes with audience members. Build anticipation. Capture their complete attention–then begin. You may not be in the position to ask they put their BlackBerries away, still, there must be something you can do to focus their attention.  Maybe you can show examples of creative ideas other companies have used as a beginning point to drive their attention to yours.

One opening line never to use. Never start your pitch with “You’re going to love this idea.” Kick off with that line and you’ll kick-start skepticism. The decision maker will think, “Oh, yeah?” or “Wanna bet?” I learned this lesson on my first job out of college. To help roll out a new corporate identity program, I was dispatched to tell a plant manager he would need to replace his facility’s signage. In my youthful exuberance, it didn’t occur that the gruff, overworked manager might have other priorities. “You’re going to love these signs we created for you,” I said. Looking up from a mess of thick reports, he stared at me for a long time. “No,” he said, “what I would love is to send you back to headquarters with those fancy signs stuck up your tail.” Last time I used that line. A line I’ve found useful over the years is …”Would you be open to consider another way of accomplishing x?

Help clients visualize your ideas in living color. Lexington, Kentucky asked design firm Pentagram to develop an identity reflecting the Bluegrass Region’s personality. Partners Michael Bierut and DJ Stout took Edward Troye’s portrait of the great racehorse Lexington, changed its color to blue and named it Big Lex. “When we showed city leaders Troye’s horse colored bright blue, their initial resistance was evident,” says Stout. “But then we displayed ads and billboards. We also presented a small model of Big Lex for gift shops and showed Big Lex as a mascot, with a person wearing a blue horse suit and educating school kids. Before long, everybody in the room was tossing out ideas on how Big Lex could promote the city.” If advertising isn’t your game, how might you show tangible examples for your proposal? Futurists anticipate intended and unintended consequences of new actions.  You can do that too. Prepare a short piece using the following thought triggers.  If we adopt this new idea then here’s what might happen if things stay the same…, get better…, and get worse….,  If disaster strikes…. or if a miracle occurs….  Remember to engage them to express their opinions too – you’ll help them to appreciate the value of your idea to move things forward.

Stand tall, talk short. President Abraham Lincoln and orator Edward Everett spoke at the dedication of a cemetery for soldiers killed at Gettysburg. Everett talked for two hours, delivering more than 13,500 words. Lincoln spoke for two minutes, delivering 272 words. Nobody remembers Everett’s talk, but Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is celebrated as one of America’s finest speeches. When picking between a longer or shorter presentation, choose shorter. “I wish you had talked longer” are words you’ll never hear from clients. Totally agree with this one.  No argument here.  Get to the point when you are talking. Make room for your client, boss, or decision maker to ask questions and give ideas or thoughts. You might ask them to say what they like about the idea before they begin to criticize it or list their concerns.

Throw out handouts. Handouts are those ubiquitous pages distributed before pitches. The intent is for decision makers to follow along as you explain each point. But people follow handouts about as well as cats follow tour guides. They’ll jump ahead. Double back. When you’re on page one, they’re on page six. When you’re at page six, they’re back at page three. And pray for mercy if you include project costs on the last page. That’s the first place clients will go. They’ll scan the numbers and shake their heads. Then they’ll tune you out and turn on their BlackBerries. If you don’t want audiences to skip past your ideas, skip the handouts. On the other hand, if technology should fail, as it sometimes does, the handouts could offer a good fall back. Some people like to write on them during the presentation.  Totally a judgment call on your part. Worth considering.

Bank on leave-behinds. Leave-behinds are for after the sales pitch. Clients review them later to dive deeper into content. Leave-behinds also serve another powerful purpose–decision makers use them to sell your ideas to their bosses. So invest in leave-behinds, not handouts. Include samples, photos, examples, and case studies–anything to ignite the selling of your idea. Before starting your pitch, let clients know you’ll provide ample content once you’re done. Watch them sit back and absorb your pitch. Leave behinds offer a great opportunity for personal review. You might want to ask some questions on them to invite further conversation later on.

Stop selling, start storytelling. Storytelling is jet fuel for presentations. “There’s something primal about stories,” says Lisa Maulhardt of Stone Yamashita Partners. “They help us make sense of our world. By using stories in pitches, we’re enticing people to follow along. Stories say, ‘Come this way, take that hill, believe in something better.'” Storytelling is gaining in popularity as a communication method for connecting with the audience. You don’t have to start with ‘once upon a time’ though you could make your numbers come alive though talking about a person in the situation and how your idea would remedy their challenge.

Get personal. In the TV show Mad Men, ad man Don Draper advises Kodak executives on introducing the firm’s new slide projector. Kodak calls the projector a “wheel.” But Draper suggests the name “carousel,” describing it as a childlike time machine. With family snapshots and soft words, Draper pitches his carousel idea. “This device…lets us travel the way a child travels,” he says. “Around and around and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.” Do you have an idea with emotional pull? Share personal episodes to connect with your audience. Using analogies and metaphors to highlight the essence of your idea is another successful sales technique.

Create abracadabra moments. Remember when Steve Jobs introduced the remarkably thin MacBook Air by sliding it out of an ordinary manila envelope? Truly an abracadabra moment–as memorable as a rabbit pulled from a hat. Look for ways to create dramatic, abracadabra moments in your pitch. Pitching his home-office products for our direct-mail catalog, a supplier opened his briefcase and dumped its contents–notes, receipts, pads, pens, paper clips, business cards–on my desk. He then grabbed a leather organizer and, in less than two minutes, placed everything in its proper place. Abracadabra. You can make the abracadabra moment a little less showy by sharing how you are challenging a long-held assumption that is no longer relevant.  Something akin, perhaps, to ‘the only way to use a phone is by dialing it.”

Once you’ve sold an idea, don’t buy it back. “I have watched creative people destroy their own work–after the client buys into the idea,” says Brian Collins, CEO of Collins:, a New York design firm. “They blab themselves right out of the client’s approval. For goodness sake, if the client finally says yes, then say thank you and leave the room with your idea sold. Tell them you will pick up the conversation later or call on the phone or send an email or telegram. But whatever you do, bolt.” Totally agree with this one too.  Once the decision maker says yes, say thank you. That’s it.

Sam Harrison is author of the newly released IdeaSelling: Successfully Pitch Your Creative Ideas to Bosses, Clients and Other Decision Makers. He is a speaker on creativity-related topics and also the author of two other books, Zing! and IdeaSpotting. His Web site is zingzone.com.

Thanks to Robert Alan Black for linking me to this article. Comments?

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