To counter a bad decision, it is incredibly important to learn how to sell your ideas like a pro! This took me testing many different ways before I finally settled on a method that helps me get what I want from a conversation. Last week’s episode discussed how bad decisions can be imposed on you, often in your workplace because people will try to centralize decisions to benefit from economies of scale. In today’s episode I want to dive deeper into this discussion by sharing a story of getting extra money for a platform I wanted to build.

When selling your ideas to headquarters, your boss, colleagues, or even at home it is really important that you nail it! If you can manage to get what you want from the conversation this could give you more autonomy, a possible salary increases, access to my course :-), or in my case extra investments for my project.

So, what is the TRADE Method?

Timing

Some people may not want to have this conversation during a meeting with colleagues around. Often, people will have the conversation they want to have right before or after the meeting. This is not the right time for either party involved to get the outcome you are wanting. Pick the right time to have your discussion, as well as the right place. For my example, I went to dinner with my boss the night before letting us have a nice atmosphere and more laid-back feel. This allowed us to both have a time and place to be in the right mood for the conversation.

Results

What results are you trying to achieve? A lot of people make the mistake of entering into a conversation or meeting knowing what they want to say but not want they really want to achieve. Sit back and think about what you really want. In my example, I wanted to be able to build a platform to get extra revenue which would lead to more satisfied customers and allowing us to deliver on our promise to our customers.

Action

Think of what each party is trying to achieve in the situation. I knew that my boss had a lot of pressure from the shareholders and I knew that increasing my project budget was not an easy feat. I vocalized this while also sharing what was being asked of me was not possible without the proper amount of money, it was not a realistic task. The action that helps both parties was to propose getting the investment for my project and then we would be able to build part of what was necessary for other branches of the company.

Desired outcome

To achieve your desired outcome, you must make sure you are in the best physical and emotional disposition for the conversation at hand. If you are frustrated or stressed, you will not be in the best disposition to put the action in place that will lead to the result that you are trying to achieve. I suggest paying attention to your body and being empathetic of the other party in the conversation. Before your conversation, do something that will help let out frustrations such as going on a walk, meditation, or hanging out with your children.

Envision your result

The last step of the method is to envision the result you are wanting to have. It’s a great practice to run through the outcome you want to achieve and the process you will have to take to get there.

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