The Fundamentals of Influencing Up

Whether you are trying to help your leadership see what you see or are trying to sell to the C-Suite, you are influencing up. If you are in sales, you may want to be better at both. Regardless of your exact goal or situation, these fundamentals need to be remembered.

Remember They Are Humans

While we can get distracted by their position (and our lack of perceived power), it is best to remember that these people with significant power and responsibilities are still people. Or as my dad said, remember that everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time. Since I’ve never seen anyone jump into their pants with both legs at once, I think my dad was accurate. Of course, you need to respect their positional power and influence but treat them as humans too. Remember they aren’t perfect and that they will appreciate your authenticity in trying to connect with them beyond their position.

Do Your Homework

Because of their positional difference from you, it might be harder to get to know their likes, passions and hot buttons. But time spent learning those things can be helpful. Don’t treat these facts as chits to play in a conversation but use them to more deeply engage with them when possible. Perhaps more importantly, learn their major organizational goals. If you want to have a chance to influence them successfully, you must know what their biggest concerns, challenges and goals are. Consider this job one.

Do the Work for Them

Once you know their goals, concerns and chief challenges, it is your job to connect the things you are selling or proposing to them as solutions (or partial solutions) to their problems. This may be obvious to you, but they aren’t thinking about your ideas and solutions all day. The more effectively you can connect your ideas to solving their problems or reaching their goals, the more attention you will gain and the better chance you have in successfully influencing them.

Be Prepared for Interaction

C-suite and senior leaders are busy, which is why so much advice centers on being brief and concise. While that is useful advice (especially if the person you are trying to influence has more directive and decisive traits), it is incomplete. While you should be ready for the short interaction, be prepared for a more lengthy and perhaps more human one. If you have done your homework well, you may well engage them in a longer conversation that even they expected. Be ready with additional questions – not just about your subject but about them and be ready to go deeper into the topic that you might expect they will want.

Make it Easy to Say Yes

Be prepared to show how your idea can be implemented and how you can help make that happen. When you make it easier for them to see how we can get from idea to impact, you will be more successful. All of us are more likely to say yes when we see the implementation plan clearly laid out (and when it doesn’t take too much of our time to get there!)

Before you can get to specific tactics or use specific tools, you need to remember that all those things rest on these profound truths. Ignore them or skip past them at your own peril.