Faculty Tips
Current students say that getting buy-in from management is the most important factor in securing sponsorship. What's the most effective way to do that? We asked Professor Richard Shell, a renowned expert on negotiations and author of the recent book, "The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas," to weigh in on the question.
Relationships are the keys to persuasion at work. Start with your best and closest mentor relationship at work and then move toward your decision maker, step by step, using each person along the way to endorse the idea to the next one in line. The more momentum you build for an idea before putting it to the top people, the more likely it is to fly.
Passion matters. Show 100% commitment to returning to the firm — the greatest fear that companies have is losing you once you get your MBA. Find ways to make this commitment credible.
Set concrete goals for each interview you have to sell the idea — goals include:
- Educating your target person on the value of an EMBA using success stories from your own or other firms,
- Getting your target person to help you understand the decision making process for this sort of idea,
- Brainstorming how your job can be re-designed at no cost to the firm to make attendance at the program feasible,
- Obtaining an endorsement from this person for the idea,
- Getting this person to provide an introduction to the next person you need to speak with,
- Obtaining the resources and buy-in from the key decision maker.
Speak to people in terms of their interests and needs, not your own. People generally care more about their own problems than they do yours. Develop an ROI case based on some of the firm's most challenging issues.
Follow up once a favorable decision has been made to assure that everything is done to actually close the sale. Don't assume other people are as interested in this happening as you are!