Lead from Any Chair: The Lone Evangelist

Leadership doesn’t always come from the top. You can show leadership no matter what chair you sit in for the organization. Below are some tips.

If you’re the lone evangelist in your organization, the person who wants to experiment with social media, or wishes for a website redesign to increase usability, or needs tips for talking to the boss about why online marketing is important, you are not alone.

There are lots of lone evangelists out there who can clearly see what needs to be done and should be done to positively affect the organization. Your job is not the description you have for your performance review, your job is to work as if you have the title you want and the position you want. You can lead from anywhere.

Here are my tips.

Know what the top cares about.
Regardless of what’s painfully obvious to you, regardless of what you think the C-suite should care about, you need to show how your idea meets their business needs.

Don’t be defensive.
Take all criticism as passionate interest in what you have to offer. Use that criticism to refine your arguments. Try again.

Build momentum.
Make sure you’re talking to the right people, in the right order. You have an idea, have you talked to the people who would directly benefit? For example, if you have an idea that would make the website better for visitors, have you talked to those visitors? Do a survey. Call them on the phone. Talk to your customers, pitch them the idea, get feedback, learn and improve.

Once you’ve got user buy-in, build your requirements list. What technically needs to happen for this to succeed? Who in the organization would need to be involved? Pitch the idea to IT, finance, purchasing, whoever would be involved from a technical, or logistics, stand-point. Pitch them the idea, get feedback, learn and improve.

Now you have the business case (user buy-in), you have the technical requirements (tech/logistical buy-in), you’re ready to pitch the idea to management. These are the big picture folks in the organization, and the folks who hold the purse strings. 

Getting economic buy-in is always easier when you have buy in, contribution, and commitment from other links along the chain.

Tell stories.

Facts and figures are great, but don’t lead with those. The townsfolk followed the Pied Piper because he was playing music, not waving a laser pointer at a flip chart. (Don’t go any further with that metaphor! You’re not luring people off to meet their demise, but you do want their attention. You do want your story passed on through the organization.)

Stories help us understand the world. What’s the story behind your great idea? How did you come to this understanding?

Know what you need.

Once you have their attention, know what you need and how to ask for it in the most simple, direct manner.

I believe that (business case)
should be able to (objectives that have a positive impact for customers/for the organization)
by (measurement, key performance indicators)
through the ability to (actions required)
as a result of (differentiations that will be created)
for ($).

Example: We believe that we can improve the user experience on our site by adding clearer calls to action, which should increase our sales and optimize the user experience, which we can measure by monitoring cart abandonment, time on site (and common paths) and sales. The ability to design and add these buttons requires some design and development time from Marketing, IT and our outside vendors that’s beyond the scope of what they do today. Based on industry standards and our internal testing, we anticipate a 50% drop in cart abandonment, time on site to decrease since users are no longer lost in the process, and sales to increase by 20%. The cost is $3,000, which we anticipate recovering in the first month after implementation. What questions can I help answer?

Be brief. Be brilliant. Be gone.

State your general position. Identify the specific segment or target market that will be affected. Propose the value proposition. Provide proof. Start a dialogue.

Don’t have specifics?

If your business case lacks the logical justification that comes from facts and figures, then you need to appeal to emotion.

Go for forfeiture vs. aspiration (what are they missing out on, giving up or losing vs. what could be gained):

• saving time
• immediacy, convenience
• making easy money
• comfort
• scarcity
• belonging
• reputation
• fun

Be ready to fail.
Set many small goals early. Break big tasks into smaller pieces. Start with small experiments, filter out failure, expand upon success. Report often. Keep people in the loop.

Have a sense of humour.
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Bill Gates

Seeing the humour in any situation allows you to also see the lesson.