…moving forward without them is a bad idea.
If you can’t unite your colleagues around the value and potential of a community, what makes you think you can persuade your audience?
The same objections they raise will be the same objections your audiences will feel.
Treat persuading colleagues as a testbed for getting the appeal, language, and motivational hook right. You get to test your pitch and see which has the best impact:
- Do you sell the vision and potential of community?
- Do you highlight the risk of not doing it (or a competitor doing it first)?
- Do you make them feel part of an elite, forward-thinking tribe who can pursue opportunities like this?
- Do you highlight the value to their careers? The organization? Or to members?
- Do you focus on this being the first community of its kind or not getting left behind?
There are plenty of approaches to take and ways of telling the story.
Going over someone’s head (or moving forward without them behind you) should always be a last resort, not a first option.
Your engagement skills will only take you so far. If you want to really make the big bucks, you need to invest the time and effort to master persuasion.
p.s. Begin by asking how the community can support them, sketch out ideas in case nothing comes to mind, and collaboratively try to identify opportunities. Think of senior colleagues as expert advisors.
