Guest Post by Chad O’Connor, Communication Consultant & Adjunct Professor

Chad O'Connor

On a recent vacation in Mexico to temporarily escape the cold and dreary conditions of the Northeast winter, I drove past what seemed like 100 all inclusive hotels. While they all have their differences in tiers of amenities, or in the quality of their beach [...]

Step 4: Role play the other side – While it’s great that you’re confident in what you put together for an argument, now I ask you to put yourself in the boss’ shoes. Think about what he or she will say after hearing your argument. If there are things that clearly jump out at you, then it’s a safe bet that your boss will be asking you about those things.So think about the content you had put together, and make sure you can re-highlight some of those points when your boss asks questions, or consider what supplemental materials you might need to get your boss some answers. Remember, it’s better to give an honest “I don’t know that yet. I am in the process of looking further into it” than it is to simply make up answers that sound good but would later be proven wrong. [...]

Step 3: Doing It, Doing It, & Doing It Well – For those of you awesome enough to get the tangential reappropriation of content in this step’s title (hint: wait for the chorus), it really is all about practicing until you can do it right. Write an outline or a full script of your arguments (using the Motivated Sequence discussed previously, or some other organizational framework that makes you feel comfortable). Study what you wrote, reading it aloud so you can sense how it hears to an audience, and make tweaks to the content accordingly. Check a watch to make sure it’s not taking you too long to go through, as the important decision makers you will be convincing view time as their biggest asset and put it at a tremendous premium. [...]

Guest Post by Chad O’Connor, Communication Consultant & Adjunct Professor

Chad O'Connor

In continuing from the previous installments of my guest blogs for NPTB, we were in the midst of discussing a strategy for getting your boss to open the purse strings in a tough economy. Working under the hypothetical situation that the budget has already been [...]