Buy-in: Something you earn
Buy-in isn’t a checkbox. It’s currency.
You earn it over time, and when you have it, you can move mountains — with or without a title.
I’m proud of how my teams use data and customer insight to drive decisions. But I’ve learned that how you bring colleagues and leaders along the journey is just as important as the decision itself.
Buy-in is what keeps priorities aligned, prevents last-minute derailments, and builds the kind of trust that makes work faster (and more fun). Here’s how to earn it:
Start Where the Business Is Headed
Work is easier to champion when it’s clearly tied to company objectives. I ladder product strategy to business goals — or, if those goals aren’t yet defined, I help shape them. Outcome-driven roadmaps make it obvious how research, experiments, and launches connect to impact.
Keep the Vision in Sight
A clear product vision isn’t just a North Star — it’s a buy-in magnet. When people understand the “why” behind your choices, they’re more willing to follow you into the “what” and “how.” It turns prioritization debates into alignment moments, because everyone can see how a decision serves the bigger picture.
Bring Internal Experts In Early and Often
Sales, CS, Ops — they’re on the front lines with your product every day. I invite them into discovery and definition, not just delivery. This builds trust, surfaces edge cases, and gives us smarter decisions before we’ve committed resources.
Make Agility Visible
Adaptability builds credibility — when stakeholders see you learning, iterating, and improving in real time, they trust the process more. Invite them into that loop: share what you tested, what you learned, and what you’re changing as a result. It proves you’re not just chasing ideas, you’re managing risk and steering toward the best outcome together.
Communicate Like You’re Narrating the Movie
No one should be surprised by what’s shipping. Proactive updates prevent HiPPO-driven pivots, equip Sales and CS to leverage new features, and create an internal story about why our choices make sense.
Show the Numbers (and the Stories)
We can’t build trust that we’re impacting business goals and meeting user needs if we can’t prove it. Dashboards and KPIs are your receipts. They prove the work is making a difference. But share the qualitative side too — customer quotes, trends, interview snippets. Together, they can even influence the business goals themselves in a virtuous feedback loop.
The Bottom Line
Buy-in isn’t granted because of your title or years of experience or just because you’re in the room. It’s earned because you consistently connect the dots — between vision and execution, between customer and business, between today’s work and tomorrow’s strategy.
That’s influence! And it scales.