Write Powerful Communication to Get Your Stakeholder's Attention by Andrea Holmes
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The document provides tips for writing powerful communications to get stakeholders' attention. It recommends including the ask in the subject line, such as "[Post to Chatter] Lightning Go-Live". It also suggests including a timeframe, like "[Post to Chatter by Oct 11] Lightning Go-Live" to increase urgency. Finally, it advises putting the ask at the beginning of the message, followed by next steps, importance, and background details. The goal is to get straight to the point and ask to maximize the chance stakeholders will take the desired action.
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Write Powerful Communication to Get Your Stakeholder's Attention by Andrea Holmes
- 1. Write Powerful Communications to Get Your Stakeholder’s Attention aholmes@salesforce.com @TheAndreaHolmes Andrea Holmes Director, Technology Communications & Readiness
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- 5. How many unread emails do you think your CIO has each day?
- 6. Idea 1 Idea 2 Idea 3 Set expectations with the Subject Line Include a Timeframe Put Your Ask First
- 7. Subject Line Best Practices – Include Ask Tip Example Include project title Lightning Go-Live
- 8. Subject Line Best Practices – Include Ask Tip Example Include project title Lightning Go-Live Include ask [Post to Chatter] Lightning Go-Live
- 9. What are other asks do you have for your stakeholders?
- 10. Idea 1 Idea 2 Idea 3 Set expectations with the Subject Line Include a Timeframe Put Your Ask First
- 12. Subject Line Best Practices – Include Timeframe Tip Example Include project title Lightning Go-Live Include ask [Post to Chatter] Lightning Go-Live Include timeframe [Post to Chatter by Oct 11] Lightning Go-Live
- 13. Subject Line Best Practices – Follow-Up Tip Example Include project title Lightning Go-Live Include ask [Post to Chatter] Lightning Go-Live Include timeframe [Post to Chatter by Oct 11] Lightning Go-Live Follow-up [John, Reminder to Post to Chatter by Oct 11] Lightning Go-Live
- 14. Idea 1 Idea 2 Idea 3 Set expectations with the Subject Line Include a Timeframe Put Your Ask First
- 15. Get to the point.
- 16. Hi [Exec], Ask Next Steps / Why this is important Background / Additional Details / Resources
- 17. Hi John, Please post the following to the x Chatter group by Oct 11 [Actual Chatter message already written] I’ll @mention appropriate groups after and can start scheduling training [Next steps / why this is important section] Want more details on Lightning? [Background / Additional Details / Resources section]
- 18. Hi John, Can I setup 30 minutes for us to chat about the Lightning kickoff? Hi, I’m Andrea, our admin excited to roll out Lightning for our Sales users, to allow them to sell faster and smarter. Before hosting our formal kickoff, I’d love to meet with you to understand any concerns you’d like covered in our kickoff meeting, so we can use everyone’s time wisely. What is Lightning? [Background / Additional Details / Resources section]
- 19. Idea 1 Idea 2 Idea 3 Set expectations with the Subject Line Include a Timeframe Put Your Ask First
- 20. Thank Y u
Editor's Notes
- Hi! I’m Andrea Holmes. I’ve been with Salesforce for over 8 years now, always in a pretty traditional program manager role. For the past 4 years, I’ve been focusing on being an advocate for all of you admins out there, as Salesforce performs changes or maintenances where you may have to take action. As an admin advocate, there are lots of deliverables I need to get executive approval on, and it used to be a pain. Until my team and I stumbled upon a breakthrough. I’m excited to share with you our best practices so you can get your stakeholder’s attention, too!
- Anyone’s first Dreamforce here? You’re going to see this slide 100 times. It’s just going over our reminder to keep your purchasing decisions to what Salesforce has available today, not what we’re discussing for the future.
- You have a great idea to get your end-users working faster and smarter. You want to turn on Lightning. You’ve done your research, you know what needs to happen, you’ve met with all the right people and even have stakeholder approval. Any change management experts out there? For those who don’t resonate as an expert yet, trust me when I say that messages resonate better when the message comes from an executive whom those going through the change respect. Due to this, we want our exec, John, to make a Chatter post announcing this change. You’ve set expectations with him that he needs to post. But you sent an email to him 2 days ago, and you haven’t heard a peep from him. You don’t want this to impact your project timelines, and you feel stuck. How do you get his attention to just do this 2 minute task for you?
- Let’s put yourself in an exec’s shoes. Executives are in meetings all day and bombarded with email. How are they supposed to know that your email needs an immediate response?
- 100s, 1000s hahaha yes. Way too many to possibly get through them all each day. Take this hike with me as I teach you the ways to get your emails responded to quickly.
- We’re going to walk through three different tips to grab your stakeholders attention and expedite response times. 1. Leverage the subject line to immediately set expectations with your audience 2. Include a timeframe that you need a response by. Follow up. 3. Organize your message so they can easily read the information they care about.
- Traditionally, people use subject lines to add in… the subject of the message! In order to start with a succinct message, let’s start with the first part they see – the subject line! Put your ask right in there. For our example, you’ve already had the conversation with the exec about the Lightning Go-Live, and he is aware that he just needs to post to Chatter.
- We’re going to have the ask right up front, post to chatter, and follow it by the project name.
- Let’s take a quick break and make sure all of you know how to relate this back to problems you need to solve. What are other asks do you have for your execs or stakeholders? Approval Requested, Feedback Requested, Budget Approval, FYI Only, Brief Intro, Attendance Requested
- Great job everyone, it seems like you’re really getting this. Let’s move on to the next tip, where we want to include a timeframe.
- Do we have any procrastinators in here? That’s ok, the rest of you can raise your hand later. My change management experience has proven time and time again that people typically don’t take action right away, unless they have a deadline. And I get it, people have their own list of priorities they’re trying to get through. How are they supposed to prioritize if they don’t have a deadline? Let’s solve that problem right up front, by putting the deadline in the subject line.
- Look at that! Crazy, right? It just takes a couple of characters though, and it’s so impactful. Now, this trick may not always work 100% of the time. There may be an email chain with multiple execs that you need to get approvals from, and 3 out of 4 of them have responded. You need to follow up and get this resolved ASAP. What’s a girl to do?!
- Call the exec out. I know it seems intense, but it gets their attention. This has never failed for me. Never. And that’s a strong word. But people read emails with their name in it, especially if it’s from someone they know. Remember, they’re not trying to be rude, they’re just busy.
- Alright, so we’ve discussed the importance of putting the ask right in the subject line, including a timeframe so they can prioritize when it needs to happen, and following up with execs, as needed. Lastly, let’s talk about organizing the meat of an email to make sure your busy exec understands what you need to move forward.
- Be straight and to the point. Their time is short. Just like you need the right level of detail to understand what workflows to build. An email asking an exec to take action isn’t the place to become super polite. Remember, they have 100s of unread emails. Get to the point. Put your ask up front, and provide additional details for them to read through in an organized fashion.
- This is my typical format, where I put the ask immediately. The first line should be bold and get to the ask right away, and you can expand into more details in the next line, unbolded. The second section can go into why this is important, or next steps that will happen once this is done. Lastly, you want to provide any additional details or background. Remember they’re busy and have lots of other projects going on, so be kind and give them context here for when they need it. Let’s walk through 2 examples
- Going back to our ask to the exec to post the Lightning announcement on Chatter, we have our subject line we discussed right at the top. Then our ask, “Please post the following to the specified Chatter group by October 11.” Then we move into the what happens next section. This is where you want to provide details so they understand that they’re a blocker if they don’t get this done. Lastly, provide the context so if they have additional questions, they know where to go. I always like to sign off my emails with, “Please let me know what further questions, comments, or concerns you have.”
- But this doesn’t always have to be so business focused. Let’s talk about how you can use this for networking, going for coffee, etc. I know I said emails aren’t the place to be super polite. But if you do need to make a quick intro to an exec asking for their time, here’s another format that’s worked great for me. I’ve thought about why he would care about this email, and formatted the email to capture these areas appropriately.
- That’s it! Now you have my 3 tips for writing powerful communications to get your stakeholder’s attention. Go put it into action with your next email send!
- Thanks everyone! What questions do you have for me? Any general scenarios I can talk through?