To truly resonate with an economic buyer, align your solution to the specific KPIs they are personally accountable for. These metrics often differ from those of your champion or general corporate objectives like revenue and cost savings, requiring tailored messaging.

Stop trying to convince executives to adopt your priorities. Instead, identify their existing strategic initiatives—often with internal code names—and frame your solution as an accelerator for what they're already sold on doing. This dramatically reduces friction and speeds up deals.

To effectively influence partners, you must understand their priorities. A scrappy research method is to watch their executives' public interviews or internal all-hands meetings. This reveals their strategic goals and allows you to frame your proposal in their language, increasing its resonance.

To effectively lead through influence, go beyond aligning on shared business objectives. Understand what personally motivates your cross-functional peers—their career aspirations or personal goals. The most powerful way to gain buy-in is to demonstrate how your initiative helps them achieve their individual ambitions.

Instead of pitching a new idea in a vacuum, connect it directly to a leader's existing priorities, such as market disruption or a specific annual goal. This reframes your idea as a way to achieve their vision, increasing the likelihood of approval.

In enterprise deals, discovery shouldn't stop at company objectives. Ask your champion about a key stakeholder's personal career goals. Are they newly promoted and need to prove themselves? Are they aiming for their next promotion? Aligning your solution to their personal ambitions creates a much stronger motivation to buy.

Instead of 'selling' product management methodologies, influence other leaders by understanding their incentives and goals. Frame product initiatives in terms of how they help other departments succeed. This requires product leaders to be deeply commercial, not just feature-focused.

To get a major initiative approved, don't just pitch the vision. Interview key decision-makers beforehand and ask for every possible objection. Then, build your pitch around a mitigation plan for each concern, removing every reason for them to say 'no' before you even formally present.

When pitching a long-term strategic fix, regional leaders prioritized immediate revenue goals. The product team gained traction not by dismissing these concerns, but by acknowledging their validity. This respect builds the trust necessary to balance short-term needs with long-term investment.