How to Sell Your Project through the Power of Context

Do you have to sell a project to promote your company’s digital or cultural transformation or improve your department’s performance?

Then your best friend is the word “context.”

Your best ally to sell your projects at work

Context is the circumstances surrounding a situation without which it is impossible to understand it clearly.

And since information is power, context gives you power.

Want to become powerfully influential and get buy-in from others?

Answer these six questions.

Six questions to analyze the context and sell your project

Question 1: Who is the audience you are addressing? 

Example: your boss.

Question 2: What is your idea?

Example: reorganizing shift schedules.

Question 3: Why should they listen to your idea?

Example: you have identified inefficiencies in a process, and you can help improve it.

Question 4: What for?

Or the potential benefit of implementing your idea. 

Example: increase productivity while staying within budget.

Question 5: How to implement your idea?

Example: the boss approves the plan, you then dedicate two hours of your time, oversee a pilot test, and present preliminary results.

Question 6: How much?

This one is tricky, as it applies not only to the investment or cost associated with taking action but also to the estimated return and the opportunity cost associated with doing nothing. 

Example: 

• Required investment: 500 euros of implementation cost
• Estimated return: savings of between 500 and 700 euros per month, which means recovering the investment in one month, adding up to between 6000 and 8400 euros per year of benefit, money we can use in other areas.
• Opportunity cost: overspending at least 500 euros per month.

Note: 

These figures may not mean anything if your department handles tens or hundreds of thousands of euros or dollars. 

But the same principle applies if you add one or two zeros to each amount.

Getting buy-in from others

The key is that for someone else to say yes to your project or idea, they must first understand what’s at stake. 

If you answer these six questions clearly, the chances of them saying yes to your proposal will increase dramatically.

And that in itself is a superpower that will take you far.

Are you looking to sell a big project at work? 

Click on this link and I’ll help you make it happen for free.