When we are helping to lead and bring about change, we rule by consent not by command. We need the support of key influencers, early adopters, our colleagues and team members. Achieving their buy-in to the change or adoption of our product is clearly critical to success.

Too often however, we can find that the world does not beat a path to our door. It is said that ideas are like children: there are none a beautiful as our own. If our default style of communicating our ideas and pitching our proposals is to 'describe and defend', we are inviting challenge, which often we may interpret as attack. These conversations at worst run the risk of acheiving the opposite of buy-in.

Enrollment occurs when others understand our vision and can see their their commitments being fulfilled within it. The communication skill to cultivate involves going beyond describing the features and attributes of our solution towards identifying and helping others see the benefits to them.

In this podcast, I outline a pattern for making proposals, requests and offers that is more effective than 'describe and defend'. It involves making the  requested action explicit up front, providing supporting rationale, anticipating objections,  sharing concrete examples and stories to illustrate the benefit and closing with the 'ask'.

Having learnt to apply this structure, I use it daily. Perhaps you can experiment with it and see if it works for you?