This is Steveer Robbins. Welcome to the Get It Done guys quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

You have the world's best proposal, but the people you're giving it to won't accept its brilliance.

You know there has to be something you can say to someone to get your deal through the door.

Genius alone won't cut it. You need to make sure your sale is a win for everyone. First, know who

the real decision maker is. Of course, by everyone, I mean everyone in charge of accepting your

proposal. Your first step should be to find the real decision maker in the room. But looks can be

deceiving and so can behavior. The person who speaks 80% of the time might only hold 20% of the

power. Pitching to them might send you down a wormhole, never to escape. The decision maker

might also get annoyed by you ignoring them, and boom, deal dead. I've had this happen to me.

That's why it's crucial to find the real decision maker as soon as you can. Say you own an interstellar junkyard in a galaxy

far, far away. You want to sell spare spaceship parts to the Rebel Alliance. You sit down for a

holographic meeting with some loud-mouthed, scruffy-looking guy, and a woman with two buns in her

hair who calls herself a princess. You aren't really sure at first who the decision-maker is,

so you decide to ask a few rapport-building questions that might give you some sort of clue. You start with,

So, how long have you two been with the alliance? Scruff Boy answers immediately, and he jumps in.

I only started fighting for the rebels a few weeks ago. I'm a rogue pilot and thought that I could

make more money with the alliance than the empire. In a more collected tone, the princess says, I've been committed to leading

the rebel forces my entire life. I've risked everything I have for over 20 years to make sure

the alliance runs smoothly and carries out my orders. Plus, I'm royalty and have total authority

over the sourcing for spare spaceship parts. Clearly, the decision-maker is the

princess. Start your pitch with questions that might yield clues to the real decision-maker.

Once you know who wears the pants suit in the relationship, you can adopt your pitch to them.

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