What do you have to do to articulate the business case?

Design is the easy part. Coming up with the better solution is EASY. For content, it’s the same thing. Content creation is the easy part. What’s hard is making things happen in an organization. Organizational change. You have to go out and get a whole bunch of people who care about different things and persuade them. That’s a life’s work. That’s really hard.

McGrane showed off a funny chart (I’ll try to find it and link to it later) that essentially connects three steps in the process: We have to figure out what the hell we’re going to do, then some stuff happens, then money pops up at the end of the other side if we’re successful.

1. You’re not selling content strategy. You’re a problem solver.
   You are a detective, your ears perk up when someone bitches or when people say there’s no value in this. How can I use the tools that I have, contextualize the work that I do, as a solution to the problem? Identifying problems in other lives and positioning yourself as the solution to it. You don’t even have to find problems – you can invent them by asking, “Hey, have you thought about what this will mean in the future?”
2. You speak the language of all the seats at the table.
   You have to be sympathetic with the needs of everybody in the table: stakeholders, departments within creative, etc. They don’t want you to be at the table but you want to get a seat at that table. It can’t just be because you don’t want their job to be harder. You have to be able to articulate what your doing that provides business value. In other words, how are you going to show that you deeply, deeply rock?
3. Like a spawning salmon, you propel yourself further upstream.
   If someone says “I want to be more strategic” – that says that I don’t want to do anymore work. It means I’ve found that I don’t do work and want to just have big ideas. If you’re not getting involved in those early meetings, you need to ask: what am I doing wrong? (Hint: You’re probably not good at strategic thinking, not good at ideas or perceived as sharp.) If you do get involved with those meetings: for the good of the industry, you have go to knock it out of the park. Make sure you are the nicest person in the room. You must be seen as a STAR that is going to help them avoid the shit storm but also create a lot of value in a unique way. Your perspective is going to help them do things they couldn’t do before.

1. You’re changing work habits.
   People HATE THIS. People have entrenched processes, their own patch of turf, and they will defend it to death. For you to get in there and push things a little bit – it takes time. All kinds of things you need to understand – agile or waterfall process? Multi-disciplinary skill sets? Understand the culture and values of an organization. Why is it this way, and are there any downsides? There is no one perfect process or org structure.
2. You’re selling a process.
   Be very careful about balancing the strategic and factual. Get at the right level of granularity when you scope projects. Process is not destiny in terms of how you structure, but if you’re doing your job right – audits, analysis, etc. – that really does define the way people write contracts, stack projects, and scope work in the future. Make sure you have enough stuff at a high level of granularity so that you have freedom and flexibility to do what you need to do—but also get specific so they know what you’re going to do. (Personal note: I think this is called managing expectations.)
3. You’re scoping the work.
   Get some time parameters in advance and figure out what you’re realistically able to do. You are never going to have enough time, and there is never a perfect scope of work. You have to say: “Given the constraints, here is what is realistic for me.” This is why when you write contracts, you should not document at too fine a level because then you’re on the hook. You need to sell to the client and offer a certain level of confidence to them, but don’t go overboard.

1. Your goal is to create business value.
   You have to understand how that business makes money and how they value what you do.
   Profit is not the goal of the business; profit is the yardstick. Creating a customer and creating value is shown whether they have a profit. My job is to understand what my business is doing to create customers and success.
2. Businesses want to make money. Period.
   Reducing costs often reducing headcount and no one wants to suggest that, so you have to talk about what you’re doing to make this company money. How are you going to reach sales? Don’t explain it as an efficiency or pain point story, but as something that will achieve monetary value. For example: If we fix the CMS, we will fix X, and then we make money.) That;s the simplest argument you can make.
3. You’re talking about ROI. Whatever that means.

1. Cost analysis:
   Do post-mortems and get real numbers.
2. Usability Testing:
   This is the most profound way to convince people. Show a video of someone struggling, and you’ll get a powerful reaction.
3. Analytics and KPIs:
   This can often be just a pat on the back tool, but this is also a DIAGNOSTICS tool. Use it to figure out measurable problems and to suggest measurable solutions.

1. Lunchtime Sessions:
   Do a brown bag session with people at your organization. Have food, invite everybody to it, and talk about why it’s important. You can also have one-on-one sessions, and take people out to lunch. You have to keep that conversation going instead of writing those passive-aggressive e-mails. Is someone resistant? Why?
2. Manage Up:
   What do you have to do to manage a boss? Executives are terrified because they don’t understand web or digital. Focus on that relationship.
3. Build a Public Profile:
   Attend Meetups, LinkedIn, blog posts, write books.
   Persuade without offending. Be the leader. Be the change agent.
4. Content Strategy is Change Management:
   How do you get them to start thinking in their business about users, not just customers?
   We have customers, but those customers are users and what does it mean to design and create digital projects that meet user needs? Usually, your content person is at the bottom of the org ladder, but your content problem is at the top. Digital is often not incentivized properly.

1. Evangelizing It:
   It’s probably tempting to think that you are going to be treated like the Second Coming of Christ. But really, you are a Jehovah’s Witness and the door will get slammed in your face. It is going to be a long road.
2. Selling It:
   Connect up. Tie content strategy to business goals and values. Articulate your case.
3. Promoting It:
   Promotion means persuasion. Great at framing the audience. Think of yourself as a persuader.
4. Championing It:
   That means change management. And people do not like change.
   What does it take to understand the human side?