You can be the smartest person in the room and still walk out without the decision you needed.
Most people assume that if the thinking is sound, the room will come along. In my experience, that is one of the more expensive assumptions a professional can make. The quality of the idea matters, of course. But what gets it across the line is how it is structured, how it is delivered, and how well the person presenting it has read the people they are presenting to. That is what this program works on.
WHY THIS PROGRAM EXISTS
Good ideas fail when they are badly explained.
I have watched genuinely brilliant people present recommendations that went nowhere. Not because the thinking was wrong, and not because the stakeholders were unreasonable. Because the way the idea was structured, timed and delivered did not give the people in the room what they needed to say yes.
Internal influence is one of the most underrated skills in any organisation, and it is almost never formally taught. People receive training on technical skills, tools and processes. Very rarely does anyone teach them how to walk into a room full of sceptical stakeholders with competing priorities and come out with alignment.
That is the gap this program fills, using real content from participants' own work, real practice under pressure, and direct coaching feedback throughout.
"Good ideas fail when they are badly explained."
THE PROGRAM
Influence, Alignment and Internal Buy-In
A two-day program for marketers, communications professionals and anyone who regularly needs to present ideas, recommendations or strategy to internal stakeholders and actually get them across the line.
Day one builds the framework. Day two is practice with real content, real feedback and real pressure. Participants bring a recommendation they are currently working on and leave having actually presented it, refined it and understood what landing it properly will require.
Can be tailored for intact teams across marketing, communications, HR or finance, or for mixed cross-functional groups where the common thread is the need to influence without authority.
Who this is for
Marketers & Communications Professionals
People who know their area well but struggle to get stakeholders on board, handle pushback in the room, or walk out of a meeting with the outcome they came in for.
Project and Program Managers
People who manage cross-functional work and need to align stakeholders who have competing priorities, different communication styles and widely varying levels of interest in what is being proposed.
HR and People Leaders
Leaders who regularly need to present people strategy, change initiatives or capability plans to leadership teams who are sceptical, time-poor or already committed to a different point of view.
Anyone Who Needs to Influence Up
Professionals at any level who have strong ideas and find that those ideas keep not getting through, and who are ready to understand exactly why and do something practical about it.
WHAT WE COVER
Two days of framework, practice and honest feedback.
Why good ideas do not always win: The real reasons internal influence fails, and why it is almost never about the quality of the idea itself.
Know your stakeholder: Four practical lenses for understanding any stakeholder before you walk into the room, covering what they want, what they fear, what they already know and what will actually convince them.
Building your message with the Logical Planner: How to take a complex recommendation and shape it into a clear, sequenced message with a single destination, so the audience always knows where they are being taken and why.
Communicating under pressure: How to stay composed, credible and in control when you are challenged, interrupted or pushed in a direction you did not expect.
Running meetings that actually move decisions: A simple, repeatable structure for planning and facilitating meetings that have a clear purpose and end with someone doing something.
Two rounds of real practice: Participants present their actual recommendation twice, with structured coaching and peer feedback between rounds, so the improvement is visible and felt rather than just noted.
WHAT YOU GET
Participants will learn
01
A repeatable framework for any internal communication
Not a presentation template. A way of structuring any message, whether it is a recommendation, a strategy update or a request for budget, so it lands with the specific audience in front of them.
02
A presentation they have practiced under pressure
Built from their own real content, delivered twice and refined with direct coaching. Not a rehearsal in theory. A genuine run at the real thing with someone in the room who will tell them the truth.
03
Strategies for handling pushback with composure
The specific language and techniques to stay in control when someone challenges, redirects or tries to pull the conversation somewhere else entirely.
04
Confidence that only comes from having done it
Not a mindset shift. The practical confidence that comes from having stood up, said the difficult thing, handled the pressure and come out the other side with something worth building on.
THE DETAIL
Influence, Alignment and Internal Buy-In
Delivered as a two-day face-to-face program for groups of 5 to 12 participants. The two-day format is deliberate. Day one builds the thinking and the structure, and day two is entirely about practice, feedback and refinement using real content from participants' own work.
Pre-session: participants are asked to bring one real recommendation, project or idea they are currently working on. This becomes their practice vehicle across both days, which means the coaching is always grounded in something that actually matters to them.
A one-day condensed version is available for teams with limited time. Available in Melbourne and across Australia. Virtual delivery available for distributed teams.