How to convince your management of your brilliant idea

• December 30, 2022
• sb2b
• no comments

So, marketer, you have this terrific, game-changing idea that in 2023, your business really needs to devote a good deal of time, budget and resources to strengthening, even repositioning, your corporate brand. You feel passionate about this, you’ve surveyed competition, you’ve analysed your own data, you’ve read your journals and market research. You are sure this is the direction to take to differentiate your business, gain customer loyalty and grow share of market.

But your idea is surely not top of management’s mind. They’ve already committed to more tech-based investments in 2023, and are looking to save as much money as possible everywhere else. Plus, you’ve been there before, face-to-face with ‘Mount Rushmore,’ or this is at least how you styled your stone-faced, un-moveable management team in previous petitions; the experiences were as painful, even soul-crushing, as you remember. So this time, you’re wondering, Why even remotely put my career on the line again, no matter how brilliant the idea? You ask yourself, Why bother?

I do urge you to bother. And I do urge you to do so by adopting a new mind-set, and likely a whole new approach, to moving the hearts and minds of your “Mount Rushmore,” to win them to your side. But this will require that of all the many hats you as a marketer must wear these days, I’ll urge you to don one more: that of an expert rhetorician.  

Harkening back to move ahead

Yes, rhetorician, in the classical sense of powerful advocate, exquisite defendant, arguer par excellence. Harkening, in fact, back to Aristotle (Rhetoric, Book I, Chapter 3.) (No eye rolls, please, I’m entirely serious). 

Aristotle famously taught that a rhetor’s, or speaker’s, ability to persuade an audience is based on how well the speaker appeals to that audience in three different areas: 

• Ethos: Speaker’s preparation, authority and character. 
• Logos: Your argument, content, logic.
• Pathos: Your sympathy with, impact on your audience. 

Considered together, these three modes of persuasion form what is called the rhetorical triangle, which speaks to the multi-dimensional, multilateral challenge of successful persuasion. And why it’s never easy. There’s no addressing just one or two legs of this triangle, it is always all three. All the elements will necessarily need to be integrated, aligned, complementary, mutually supportive and fully coordinated. If you can create something with Ethos, Logos and Pathos peppered throughout, and tie it all into your audience’s belief system, all the better. 

Hidden benefit: Considered together, these three modes of persuasion will help you project the arc of your argument – beginning, middle and end – as they require that you think comprehensively and holistically, right from the start. You will continue to bring the modes into sharper focus and more intense alignment through iteration and recursion as you develop your thinking and argument. And as for the mise en scène? Prepare to be the writer, director and actor of your own one-act play.

Intrigued? What’s involved in donning the rhetor’s hat and creating such a powerful, bespoke one-act play? How might Aristotle have counselled you to successfully argue for a corporate brand positioning initiative for your company, in spite of the odds against you? Let’s explore Ethos, Logos and Pathos, in more detail, seriatim.

Ethos: Speaker’s preparation, authority and character

This mode of persuasion is about establishing your authority to speak on the subject. Management knows you, they trust you, but this is about establishing their trust in the authority you bring to this subject. Bear in mind here the old adage, ‘people don’t buy the product, they buy the salesperson.’