How to get people to buy in to your big idea

So you’ve got an awesome idea - you’ve thought it through from every angle and you just know that it’s going to make a massive impact and make life easier for lots of people around you. You work tirelessly with your team to prototype something, gearing up for the big reveal and then…. Crickets. I mean, you probably weren’t expecting a parade, but still the response is underwhelming.

What went wrong?

Well, as it turns out this is one of the most common problems in innovation. But the good news is, there are some simple things you can do to turn this equation around and get people to jump on the bandwagon. So in this article I’m going to share some tips to help you get people to buy into your game changing idea.

Let’s go.

“What else can I do to get leadership to invest?”

A client recently sent me an email asking for help. He works for a global financial services company and has recently moved to a new market where he’s been trying unsuccessfully to introduce a new product. The line that jumped out to me was this:

I've outlined the strategy, done the cost benefit analysis and shown how it will deliver impact for the business over the next three years… What else can I do to get my leadership team to invest?

Here’s the thing… One of the biggest myths in the world of innovation is that it just takes one great idea to create a breakthrough. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case. Especially in our sharing economy where freelancers and Fiverrs abound, ideas are more democratised than ever. Ideas are cheap - without execution, they are nothing. And of course the first step to making your great idea a reality is getting people to believe in it, commit resources to it, and come along for the ride with you. But that’s where the problem lies - we assume that if an idea is good enough, people will naturally want to get involved. The truth is even if you can show someone that a new idea is in their best interests, there is a switching cost that creates friction and stops them from taking action. That’s why we see people sticking to their patterns and routines - it’s just easier to keep doing what you’ve always done. That’s human nature.

So to help my client with his dilemma, I shared two stories where a team had successfully gotten people to buy into their idea. Here they are.

Convincing the consultants to get digital

When I first joined Deloitte Digital as one of the first few employees in Southeast Asia back in 2015, we were a tiny startup sitting within the belly of a huge global consulting firm. We found ourselves quickly painted into the role of misfits: those kids with the loud music walking around in jeans and sneakers amongst the suits and ties. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise then that the consultants didn’t exactly warm to us immediately. We knew our survival depended on being accepted by the broader global organisation of Deloitte, which led me to make a bold proclamation to the team:

If digital methods are still only contained within the four walls of this studio in three years time, we will have failed

Over the following months, we tried lots of different tactics - we held “Digital 101” sessions to educate them on what we do, we turned up to their industry team sessions to talk about digital trends in banking, and even volunteered to host internal Deloitte events. After months of trying, we weren’t making a lot of headway. Eventually the lightbulb moment came from a conversation with my dad. He asked me to explain what I actually do for a living. Now, it’s rare for him to show any kind of interest in my work, so seizing the opportunity I launched into a long winded explanation about business transformation and how we help companies innovate in order to thrive in a rapidly changing digital economy. Dad paused, and then after a beat he said: “Oh right, so you make websites!” That’s when the problem statement immediately clicked into focus: the barrier between us and the consultants wasn’t that they didn’t like us - it was that they didn’t understand us. Just like my dad they didn’t get what we do, and even worse they didn’t really know how to ask.

Our chance to change some minds came at the end of year Christmas party where we were given a slot to play a video on the big screen to the entire firm. Over the next two hectic weeks, the team pulled together to use every spare moment producing a parody music video. Inspired by The Lonely Island, we decided to have a little fun at our own expense. Rather than trying to preach our gospel, we leaned into the memes about us: “Yeah yeah we’ve heard all the jokes about Deloitte Digital: we’re hipsters, we sit around designing pretty slides, we’re a glorified IT department, and yes - at the end of the day all we do is make websites”

The result was a two minute shot of comedy that pulls no punches - and the good news is it’s on YouTube so I’ve embedded the video below. And of course, the title of the song was “We Make Websites” - thanks dad.

Now of course a comedy video wasn’t what turned the business around, but it did put us on the map. The video won an award that went out to the entire global Deloitte Digital network. But even more importantly, it made it ok for people to not know what we do and to ask questions. The morning after the screening, a consulting partner who had never ventured into our digital space came in to have a chat about a client he was working with. By not taking ourselves too seriously, we started a conversation - and that lit a spark that helped make the rest of Deloitte Digital.

A stroke of genius at Mars put them lightyears ahead

The second story I shared with my client came from the innovation podcast that I host on the Tigerhall app. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Ashley Walton who is Director of Digital Transformation at Mars - yep, that’s the company that makes Mars Bars and other delicious treats. One of Ashley’s roles is to help improve the roll out of enterprise technology tools within Mars. Despite new digital tools promising improved productivity, they were seeing low numbers of employees adopting the new tech.

The problem really boiled down to the familiar way we’re all used to this process working - someone sets up a 1 hour zoom call to introduce the new tool, which is inevitably dull, one-sided and probably sandwiched in between two urgent client calls which is really where your attention is. It’s also usually held at a time that’s not relevant, walking you through the intimate details of a travel expense system that you won’t actually have a use for until next month, by which time you’ve forgotten everything.

Ashley and his team thought there might be a better way. Rather than the dreaded training call, they organised interactive sessions that included a product demo, a real peer who’s been using the tool to share their tips and tricks, and live Q&A to troubleshoot real world scenarios. And rather than doing it via a one-off zoom call, these sessions were run on a regular ongoing basis, allowing people to opt in at a time that suited them and was actually relevant to when they might need to use the system. Think of it like the Apple Genius Bar for work.

The result of this new method was immediate, more than doubling the percentage attendance of employees at these new onboarding sessions as compared to the old way. That’s a pretty sweet result in anyone’s book.

Three tips to get people to buy into your idea

What are some actionable tips we can take away from these stories? Here are three things I shared with the client who emailed me, you might find them helpful too:

1. Understand what the blockers are
   What is stopping your audience from getting on board with the program? Is the problem really that you’re facing detractors? Or is it actually that you’re facing indifference? Once you understand what’s stopping people from making the change, it becomes a lot easier to understand how you can begin to influence them and show them how your idea is actually in their best interests
   
   

2. Free your mind and your audience will follow
   In the Deloitte example, we had to be willing to accept that our message was coming off as a bit lofty and poke fun at ourselves to make it ok to engage with us. In the Mars example, the team needed to accept that the way they’d always done things was not necessarily the way to get the best results.
   
   Ironically, when we’re trying to convince people to change their mind about something, we often become the ones who are inflexible. By loosening up, listening, and adjusting our approach accordingly, we can become much more influential
   
   

3. If you see a good idea, steal it!
   As Picasso said: Good artists borrow, great artists steal. At Deloitte we stole the idea of the parody music video from the world of comedy. The Mars idea was directly inspired by the Genius Bars found in Apple Stores. Think outside of your own company and even industry, and see if there are experiences in your everyday life that could be applied to the problem. You might be surprised at what you find.

What do you think - do you have any tips on how to get people to buy in to your idea? I’d love to hear any other actionable tips or stories you have to share. Also if you have a question you’d like answered by an innovation coach, leave me a comment or send an email - it might show up in a future episode.