I’m sold! But how do I convince my boss?

Here we look at the second of five frequently asked questions that the team at Elephants receive.

How often I have heard this or words to this affect! Rarely does one person make the decision to commission us alone. They almost always have to convince bosses, peers and sometimes even subordinates. 

So we consider the immediate client as an integral part of our own sales team. We need to give them all the tools, language, arguments, evidence, answers to the FAQs and the confidence to sway the jury. We imagine the client presenting our proposal over a coffee, or in a lift, or over Zoom, or if we are lucky using our PowerPoint. Can they sum it up in one sentence? Can they really express why we are better than other agencies? Or why we are worth that bit more than Acme? If they can’t, then that’s our bad not theirs.

It’s unlikely to be as open and transparent as each of the other steps are, but it is the crucial step. A withering look from the boss can kill months of preparation, can reduce all plans to tatters or can mean the presentation is never looked at.  

What can we do?

We can give recourse to answers, we can offer to come along ourselves but sometimes that is not practical or politically appropriate. So when we are not going to be there, we must work that bit harder…think, imagine, prepare, present, give all the ammo, all the evidence and then give the space to return.