No surprise here, but most people in the executive chair don’t always read all of their own email, mail, or memos. Yet, you’ve got a pitch/ approach/idea/project that you just *know* will be valuable.  What do you do?  Here are 4 steps we’ve found to getting past the gatekeeper (without treats and bribes) and into the conversation with your chief decision-maker:

1. Get personal. Start by addressing him/her personally, few things get people’s attention more than their names or images. Relate your pitch to a public statement they’ve made. For example, “John, you’ve shared that 15% growth is our goal for this quarter, here’s how…” Don’t make your pitch generic, make it personal and specific. Forget the theoretical, show you’ve done as much of the upfront research to assure what you are presenting is achievable and valuable.
2. Say what’s in it for them. Share how your approach/skills/idea/project will make their jobs easier rather than talking exclusively about what you will do.  When planning, think about “what’s in it for [executive’s name]? When you ask that question, you’re better able to create a pitch that has relevance to the person you’re most hoping to influence.
   

   Sometimes you only need the right keys to unlock access. Source: Jovino on Flickr

3. Create urgency. The pitch must catch the gatekeeper and/or the executive’s attention and include a specific next step.  Create an offer that’s appealing to the point where, if the boss didn’t hear it, they don’t want to be the one who threw it out or deleted it.
4. Keep it brief. Don’t oversell the virtues of the product or service.  Be brief and give your executive a place where they can go to find additional information (if they want it) or even an opt-in to hear more.  Bonus is you can create a mobile site they can access from a smartphone during their busy day.

Tell us, what’s worked for you?

Inspired by Mashable’s 100 Upcoming Social Media and Technology Conferences list, we cracked open our planners and decided where we could invest our time in learning this fall. We decided on a few national conferences, opted for a few marketing, technology, and PR meetings, but when we got to the topic of social media, we were nearly crushed with the options. While we’d like to go to BlogWorld and APPNation, we needed to consider just how much time we could spend out of the office and our carbon footprint (Jenny’s traveling to speak in Houston at IS Conference and in San Diego at LavaCon). To save on time, we considered only social media conferences and events in Atlanta. To our surprise, we found a dozen* (this post started as 12, but with your input, it’s now at 17) social media conferences and meetings in Atlanta happening before the calendar flips to the new year. What’d we find? Take a look:

 While we’re narrowing down our options, reviewing speakers, and the value we’d get for our time out of the office, tell us how you decide on what conferences to attend? If you are coming to any of these conferences or headed to Atlanta for the first time, let’s be social and connect while you’re here. (Know about a conference we missed? Send us an email and let us know.)

*Thanks to Scott Lockhart (@scott_regator) for sending us the info on Mashable’s Atlanta event on Sept. 30; to Lane Bailey for sending us info about REBarCamp on Oct. 1; to Brandy Nagel (@benang) for the info on TedxPeachtree; to Stephen Boyd for sharing more about the digital/social media track at the IABC conference.

 We knew this town was busy.

We’re big advocates of finding ways to visually tell people your stories. Why? Because most of us learn and retain information better when it’s presented visually (and reinforced with spoken word). Kelsey Ruger at Moleskin (@moleskin) has a great way of sharing the importance of visual story-telling.  To help those of us who might be art-challenged, Kelsey offers this terrific presentation on how to reconnect to the creative, drawing parts of your brain. Knowing their audience, they’ve laid it out in easy-to-understand, step-by-step process.  You know, for those of us who are more linear and left-brained. Or for any of us who ever got a “D” in art class.  Ahem.
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This fall, I’ll be speaking at LavaCon in San Diego on generations and the social experience.  The popular conference is focused heavily on the digital and social media experience. The way they phrase it, they’re focused ‘on how to develop, manage and publish digital content that enhances the customer experience, reduces production costs and promotes your online brand.’  Who’d the conference really for? Marketers, public relations pros, brand managers, project managers and anyone with a hankering to learn more about making digital and social media work well for their brand.

And here’s the better part: you can save $50 off of registration by using the discount code CLOUDSPARK. Register by July 9 and take advantage of early registration rates. (Psst, wanna know what we’re doing with our $50? Sneak a peek!)

If you decide to go, let us know, we’d love to meet up in beautiful San Diego.

I’ll admit it, we tend to like the technical, complicated, and nerdy parts of our world. It’s a great communication challenge to take something incredibly complex and be able to explain it simply and concisely. We keep a regular mantra of simplicity behind all of our communication efforts – it’s even the subject of the first book we recommend to all of our clients. 

But even the best communicators can get “lost in the details” or get caught ”over-explaining” a particular idea. So when we came across this quote from @eskimon on Twitter, well, we just had to put it on our team’s whiteboard and share it here:

So take this quote and keep it where you need it most.  And if you have a great tip for keeping it simple, feel free to share it here. We may just put in up on the team’s whiteboard.