Part Two: How to Get People to Back Your Ideas

By Poornima Vijayashanker

Last week I talked about the importance of finding people who will back your ideas, and shared what Erin, one reader was going through. I provided 3 strategies: start with people who already support you, reach out to people whose mission is aligned with yours, and don’t just ask them to back you, present them with an offer.

It was great to read through people’s responses, and as I engaged in conversations a number of you asked me the following questions:

• “So I just need to keep practicing my pitch a bunch of times until I get it right?”
• “Oh it’s just a numbers game? Great, I’ll just go out and meet a bunch of people, and then it will all work out!”

Yes you need to practice and yes it is a numbers game. BUT, that alone isn’t enough.

If you try to take a brute force approach you run the risk of burning out. What you instead want is to develop a feedback mechanism where you learn from each conversation and then refine your pitch.

To help you devise that feedback mechanism I’m going to do a deeper dive and share some of the common mistakes people unknowingly make and 7 strategies that will help you overcome them when getting others to back your ideas. I’ve tested these strategies out with engineers who were looking to lead projects, founders who were looking to raise money from investors, and even entry-level employees looking to get their first job!

1. Take the time to get to know the backer instead of jumping into a pitch about yourself.

I’ve noticed that many people just sit down and start talking about themselves, and what they need. They don’t take the time to thank the other person for their time, and get to know what their interests are.

Start by giving the other person 3-5 minutes. Let them speak and share their background.

Here’s a simple script you can use:

“Thanks for taking the time to meet with me. Before I dive into telling you about myself and what I’m working on, I’d like to get to know. I know you’ve done a lot, but I’d like to know what your current interests are and what you’re working on?”

Yes it may lead you off topic!

The goal of having them talk first to is have them clear their mind of everything else that’s going on. When you ask someone to talk about themselves, you’re sure to discover the following:

• They’re actually going to pay attention! You’ll notice that they put their cell phone down, they pause to reflect and then speak. They’re opening up to you, because you asked them to.
• They’re going to tell you what matters to them and what doesn’t.

2. Talk about what you’re capable of doing or creating, not your exact skill set or solution. Give them a vision.

I’ve come across many engineers who say, “Oh I’m a Ruby on Rails developer.” Instantly the person on the other ends think, “Oh too bad I was looking for a Python developer, moving on…”

The engineer should have instead said, “I’m a backend engineer, who has built web applications for growth stage startups. I pick up new frameworks pretty quickly. In fact, here’s an example of a time I had to learn iOS within a weekend for a hackathon…”

3. Showcase your unique expertise.

If you are a domain expert, highlight that, and give clear examples. And if you don’t have any yet go out and get some! It’s helpful to talk to teammates and supervisors, but you also need to think about your own experiences and how that has led to you have a particular expertise.

I just met with a founder yesterday, who told me that everyone on his founding team had worked for at least one of the competitors. Talk about unfair advantage!

4. Take the time to build trust.

I cannot emphasize this point enough.

People are concerned about their ass being on the line if they back you in any capacity: hiring, financing your idea, even working with or for you. So you need to take the time to mitigate any concerns they have about risk.

The good news is that there are different ways to build it.

You can have a set referral customers, highlight where you went to school, past employers who are reputable, tell them about awards you’ve received, showcase things you’ve built, even writing and speaking builds trust!

My best backers show up to a meeting or call having googled me, read a post, or watched one of my YouTube videos. They already have a solid impression of me before I’m in front of them!

5. Call out the competition.

If you’re doing something that everyone else is doing that is OK. It’s not about being original, it’s about how you’re better than the other person, and better also means highlighting how you’re different.

For example, when I was hiring an editor last year for my first book, I met with a handful of editors. Most told me: I do grammar edits, I cost $75/hour, and my turnaround time is usually 48 hours.

The editor that I ended up hiring took the time to tell me how she was different. She explained her process, she asked me questions about my audience, and she even gave me a sample edit of a chapter so I could get a taste of what the finished product would look like.

It was a no-brainer for me to choose to hire her versus the pool of candidates who all sounded the same.

6. Present a clear and succinct plan with some room for experimentation.

I mentioned in #2 that you need to present a clear vision, but you also need to bring it down to reality. Show how you are going execute. It’s OK to present people with a plan, and make it specific, even include what you need help with.

It shows them that you have foresight!

7. Tell them why it’s important for them to act now, not 5 months or 5 years from now. Present them with a clear ASK.

Don’t end the meeting wishy washy. Tell them why you need their backing now!

AND for those who aren’t interested in backing you ASK for intros to others. Just because they aren’t interested doesn’t mean their friends won’t be.

I had an investor who once didn’t understand my space, he referred me to his friend. His friend was psyched after our meeting, invested, and then convinced the original investor to put in capital along with another!

Interesting things happen when you ASK 😉

Setting Expectations from Meetings

Most people are going to say nice things to your face, because they don’t want to be the person who crushed your spirit. But if they aren’t asking to follow up, asking insightful questions, then they aren’t interested.

DO NOT USE THIS AS A SIGN OF FAILURE.

This is just the beginning. You will need sometime to find your turning point. My sincere advice would be to think of this as practice.

If you keep at it, you will face a turning point. It might happen after 5, 15 or 50 meetings. It all comes down to:

• Staying self-aware and reading their cues. If you don’t know how to or get too engrossed in the conversation then get someone to accompany you, and say they are just there to take notes.
• Taking the time to process feedback, and address what you think is relevant to future meetings.

Now I want to know, which of these strategies you’ve tried or do you have others to add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!

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