Playing the Long Game — a Framework for Getting Your Ideas Adopted

Years ago I was at out for a happy hour with some of my coworkers. We were talking about big companies and lamenting. They failed continuously failed to adopt the digital marketing advice we were giving them.

Suddenly I blurted out something that had been bothering me for a long time. Something like:

“Companies that built their brand before the Internet don’t give a shit about the Internet”

Everyone (including myself) was stunned by that statement.

It was a revelation.

That short statement summarized all our frustrations to that point. No matter how much passion we had for digital marketing, big companies did not always care to hear our opinions. At the time it seemed like they would never care.

When I reflect on this years later, my opinion proved to be short-sighted. I was able to get some of the big companies to care about digital marketing. The rest of this post will share insights from that experience.

How to get a company to adopt your ideas

Many companies are 5 to 10 years behind when it comes to adopting the latest trends in digital marketing. Today’s bleeding edge may focus on dynamic remarketing. Or attribution modeling or omnichannel marketing strategy. Or a similar buzzword. Most companies are far from the bleeding edge.

They may still be trying to figure out the best way to get content on their website.

They may have just selected an email marketing platform after a 3 year vendor RFP process.

They may be piloting a program to use Google AdWords for the first time.

This may seem elementary compared to what you read in industry publications. But the reality is that most companies are anywhere from 5–10 behind the latest trends in the industry.

How do you get them into the current century?

Why are they behind in the first place?

First of all, we need to be clear with what we are trying to do: change the culture of a company.

It doesn’t matter if the company has been in business for 100 days or 100 years. Changing the culture of a company is hard to achieve.

It is exponentially harder when you are not an employee of that company.

Why? Because you have no skin in the game with this company. Your recommendations won’t resonate until you can prove that you can add value to the organization.

Next, understand that there is a reason why this company is 5–10 years behind the curve in digital marketing. It is likely the result of internal conflicts and discussions that you won’t be involved with.

There are power struggles. There are politics. There are agendas. None of these will be immediately visible to an outsider.

It could be that the director of marketing is nearing retirement age. Maybe they are hoping they can continue to ignore the Internet until they can retire.

It could be that the CFO is blocking marketing investment because their past 20 marketing initiatives failed.

It could be that the company CEO doesn’t believe in the Internet because of a bad experience they had at some point.

It could be a turf war between sales, marketing and IT for who should own the web.

Whatever the reason, it predates you and will likely be there after you are gone.

Earning trust over an extended period of time

Trust must be earned, and this takes time. You need to be ready to play the long-game with the individuals in a company to gain trust incrementally.

Often that means finding a department that is willing to give you a chance to try something new. Assuming you do a good job, more opportunities will come to light.

Small projects become bigger projects.

Your single point of contact spreads to contacts in several departments.

People within the company get used to seeing your name.

They start to trust you.

Some will even vouch for you. I call this finding your champion — someone with high status who can bring your ideas to the forefront. Once you have found your champion things start to get easier.

Find a champion to fight your battles for you

Understand that the relationship with your champion is symbiotic. They want something from you — results that they can use to further their career.

In exchange for those results, you will receive trust. You also increase your billings and get an opportunity to change an organization.

Once your ideas start to reach the top, you start to see real change in an organization. That is when a company becomes receptive to change. That is how you close the gap with companies.

Playing the long game is… a long term commitment

Unfortunately, this is not a short investment of time and resources. Playing the long game takes several years to achieve and will meet resistance along every point.

But it is the only way that I have ever known this to work.

Without skin in the game you will never earn trust with an organization.

Without trust, you will never get people to step outside of their comfort zone. If people never step outside of their comfort zone, being 5–10 years behind will soon become 10–15 years behind.

Playing the long game creates exponential wealth opportunities

I have played the long game many times in my career. With big companies and small. Each time it works the same way: small project leads to success.

Success leads to more trust.

More trust leads to greater responsibility.

Greater responsibility leads to deeper exposure.

Deeper exposure leads to a bigger audience.

A bigger audience gets you noticed by the right people.

And when the right people notice, you can start to close the progress gap.

When all this happens in concert, you have created an opportunity to create exponential wealth.

Wait a minute — how does this translate to wealth?

I will use myself as an example. Playing the long game — earning trust and changing the culture of a company has been the most lucrative thing I have done in my career.

First of all, it is how I was able to gain an ownership stake in a company that I helped grow. If I would have asked for equity in the company before helping them grow, I would have been turned away on the spot. Instead, I delivered so much revenue for the company that equity became a natural conversation.

This also created wealth through incremental revenue for the company. Convincing big companies to adopt more digital marketing programs created a significant new revenue source. I created a bigger pie and carved out a small piece for myself.

Is this a guaranteed recipe for success?

If you follow the rules outlined in this article, will it guarantee success?

No.

When it comes to changing an organization, especially a big one, there are many variables at play. You can’t control for every single one of those variables. Not everyone will cooperate with your plan. The economy may impact company revenues at the wrong time. Your CMO friend may get fired. Your champion could move on.

With that disclaimer in place, I will conclude with this:

The long game is the only path that I recommend when it comes to advancing your career. It is the only way to get companies to adopt your ideas.

Original Cover Photo Credit: hellosputnik