Bulletproof Your Story to Gain Funding

When companies undergo transformation, a lot of time and money is typically spent trying to quantify the return on investment—how operating costs could be reduced or how the transformation would position the company to stay competitive in the future. 

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive, but those who can best manage change.”

— Charles Darwin

These metrics matter to companies’ leaders and decision-makers. If you have an idea for company-wide change, you’ll need to show its worth. Afterall, without buy-in from an organization’s leaders, even the most beneficial ideas never become true transformation. Many changemakers have felt the frustration of having an idea that would positively change their organization, but not enough support from leadership to get started. 

You’re stuck. We’ve seen it countless times, and we know where it leads — a low-impact, mass email and questions like “Why didn’t it work?”

According to a 2018 study by McKinsey, this change failure happens 70% of the time, so you’re not alone. What if we told you you could flip that metric upside down?

It’s not that leadership doesn’t agree with your approach. But they need to defend their investment decisions to the stockholders and beyond. They need to be armed with a compelling, undeniable argument — a bulletproof story — to confidently say “Yes, let’s do this.”

What is a Case for Change?

Requesting support and budget from leadership can be daunting. It’s often difficult to justify the need for a change, and why it should happen now. That’s why LOCAL created an approach for crafting stories that increase understanding and adoption of a change. 

The Case for Change is a persuasive storytelling tool for stakeholders and an alignment tool for project teams. It garners adoption by clearly outlining the challenge at hand, offering a solution backed by insights, and appealing to the audience’s needs. It’s our go-to tool when your Building the change.

The Case for Change involves insight-gathering through intentional conversation, narrative-building with key messaging, and a clear vision of the path to adoption. Deliverables often take the form of an executive-level presentation with supporting assets and coaching moments.

After project planning is complete, LOCAL’s Case for Change is the key tool for Building Change. It helps get the right people behind your idea. It guides your team at the beginning of a project and is a point of reference throughout the change journey. 

Do I need a Case for Change?

The Case for Change is our go-to tool when your Building the change. If you’ve asked yourself these questions in the last 30 days, you may need a Case for Change:

• I have a solution, but how do I gain support and adoption for the investment?
• How do I convince my leaders that this initiative is worthwhile and will drive business results?
• How do we link this change initiative to our company vision and strategic imperatives?
• We have all this data pointing to the need for the initiative. How do we package the data in a persuasive, elegant way so people can say “Yes”?

Ready to get started? Let’s Talk. Need to hear more? Keep reading.

Building the Case for Change 

A Case for Change tells a story of successful transformation, and in any organization, the success or failure of a transformation is determined by its people. To make a change stick, we need to understand our audiences and meet them where they are. 

Some employees are instant Believers, people whose enthusiasm for the change can be amplified. Most will be Swayables, people on the fence, who are waiting to see evidence that the change is worthwhile. Then some will be Drains, or unconvinced detractors, who may need to be shown the potential downsides of rejecting the change. 

With a foundational understanding of your audiences, you can build a Case for Change using a simple framework:

• Want: Every story starts with what your audience desires. And everyone wants to shine. Putting the business aside for a moment, how does each stakeholder personally define success? 
• Need: Now think about what the business needs to achieve. What are the company’s goals? What did we promise to stakeholders? What capabilities do we need in order to get what we want? 
• Problem: What barriers are in our way? Financial. Operational. Cultural. Don’t just focus on putting a band-aid on the symptoms; rather, focus on the root dysfunction. Be ruthless and speak truth.
• Solution: How can we overcome present barriers to initiate our change effectively? What people, process, programs, and technology do we need?

Ultimately, decision-makers are shown insightful approaches to overcome obstacles and achieve the promised return. 

Case Study: Transformation Inside Financial Services

Here’s an example of this framework in action:

The marketing team at an international financial services organization has worked hard to attract the right customers and offer them the right products for their financial needs. 

However, with today’s ever-evolving industry and the onset of contemporary marketing tactics, the marketing team realized their associates lacked the tools, resources, and knowledge they needed to do their work successfully. 

So, they set out to “upskill” their associates with the vision of becoming a customer-centric, data-driven, modern marketing machine. But they can’t initiate this learning and development program without buy-in from leadership. 

• Want: To become a customer-centric, data-driven, modern marketing machine that drives the company’s key performance indicators and increases value.
• Need: To get the right offer to the right customer at the right time in the right way. 
• Problem: Marketing associates lack the tools, resources, and knowledge necessary to achieve the team’s vision. They’re stuck in old ways of working that used to be effective but no longer deliver returns. 
• Solution: Invest in an upskilling program made by the marketing team for the marketing team to identify top performers, encourage them to share their experiences, and share these learnings with curious employees who need evidence to jump on the bandwagon.

The Case for Change summarized above (along with a projected ROI) successfully acquired budget and support from leadership, and the client was able to establish a new learning and development program for her employees.  

"Local Industries is an unparalleled team of subject-matter experts, plain and simple. Let’s face it: you likely already know what needs to change, but maybe you can’t quite communicate why — or maybe the team isn’t too moved by the why. If that’s even remotely relatable, you’ll soon find yourself facing a locked door. On the other side: a world of untapped potential… but LOCAL has the key. They open the door on Day One, and, from there, tremendous transformation immediately becomes possible."

‍— CEO, AI & E-commerce Software Company