Training Industry Magazine - Fall 2022 - 32

investigate what's been done before
and probe what they feel worked, what
didn't and the reasons why.
Once you've done the groundwork,
you're ready to establish the content of
your pitch. While you may have already
identified your preferred outcomes,
it's useful to be prepared with several
options and to remain open-minded
about the final decision.
During these phases, it's essential to grow
relationships with your stakeholders. Use
preliminary fact-finding conversations
to build rapport and trust. Consider
the following:
\ Ask questions to find common ground.
\ Listen to the words and phrases they
use and use them too.
\ Make small talk to get to know them
personally.
\ Leverage your network by asking
common contacts to help you with
background.
\ Refer to your previous experiences
and successes in this area.
Remember Ananya and her team? When
planning this year's initiatives for the
customer services team, they needed a
new approach.
They used the Navigate, Establish and
Grow relationships approach to help
them regain the customer service country
managers' trust and confidence. Firstly,
they leveraged their good relationship
with one of the country managers to gain
valuable insight into the reluctance of
another: He had been unhappy not to be
closely involved in decision-making the
previous year and had wanted to handpick
the trainers rather than the global
L&D team making arrangements.
Through well-planned questions, the
team also discovered that the country
managers were dissatisfied with the
previous
traditional
| 32
classroom-based
delivery. They needed more flexibility
Ananya and her team were able to
factor this into the planning and carried
out a more in-depth skills assessment
to compare individual levels with the
levels needed to provide customer
excellence. They prepared several
options for the program, proposing
a " menu " of microlearning combined
with trainer-led, small group sessions,
with freedom of choice for individuals
to create a personalized learning
pathway. They proposed that the group
sessions be led by more experienced
customer service executives, selected
by the country managers.
Collaborate with
Creativity: Pitch
and Reframe
Now that you've planned, grown
relationships and started to build trust,
you're ready to make your main pitch.
Budget-holders are more likely to agree
to your proposals if you can speak
calmly, clearly and without hesitation. To
build your confidence and demonstrate
executive presence when negotiating,
so the customer service teams could
upskill at the same time as working -
service standards had to be maintained
and teams couldn't afford to take time
out for training. They also felt that the
previous training was too generic and
only met the needs of those with lowerlevel
skills.
consider
practising
with
a
trusted
colleague and asking for feedback.
Try to arrange an initial pitch meeting
with your stakeholders. Face-to-face
negotiations typically end in mutually
beneficial agreements, with only 19%
ending in impasse as opposed to
50% of email negotiations. If hybrid
or cross-border working makes this
impossible, a video call works better
than audio or emails.
The biggest
hurdle is often
getting started.
Remember,
it's not just what you say
that's important. You should also speak
with varied pace and clear volume,
pausing to engage your stakeholders.
Investigate cultural expectations of eye
contact, gesture and facial expressions
to enliven your
messages in an
appropriate way for your context. Invite
questions and feedback as you go to
keep the discussion flowing. Treat this
meeting as a collaboration and avoid
pushing for an agreement if the budgetholders
aren't ready.
Review your initial pitch and decide if
you need to reframe before the next
meeting or emailing the stakeholders.
This may involve you adapting your
proposal, rewording your ideas, asking
more questions or identifying areas of
common ground.
Ananya and her team found the first
pitch meeting tricky. Even though they
had a range of options and felt confident
after practicing together, the meeting
was fraught and the country managers
terse. They weren't keen on the idea of
their teams creating their own learning
pathways - many of them lacked the
skills to select microlearning activities.
While they were critical of previous
external trainers, they pushed back on
the idea of using senior team members
to deliver the training due to lack of
resources. In fact, they were unconvinced
of the need to use trainers at all.
In
the
meeting
review,
Ananya
reminded her team to keep an open
mind and not take the criticism
personally. Once they took a more
objective approach, they realized that
https://hbr.org/2000/01/the-electronic-negotiator https://hbr.org/2000/01/the-electronic-negotiator
Training Industry Magazine - Fall 2022

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