Who says no

Every plan I have ever presented had a person who could kill it, and that person was almost never in the room.

The room is full of people who can say yes. The marketing director, the brand team, the agency, sometimes a founder. They nod, they ask good questions, they approve the deck. Then the plan goes out into the building and meets the person nobody invited.

Sometimes it is finance, who was told a different number in a different meeting. Sometimes it is legal, who has a view on the word "guaranteed". Sometimes it is the franchise partner who holds the P&L in the market you are launching in, and who was not on the call because nobody thought of them as marketing. Sometimes it is the operations lead who knows the kitchen cannot do what the campaign promises, and who says so in week three, after the media is booked.

None of these people are obstacles. They understand a constraint the room did not. The mistake is not that they said no. The mistake is that they said it last.

So now, before the deck exists, I ask one question: who can stop this, and have they seen it? Not who approves it. Who can stop it. Then I go and find them, on their own, with a rough version, and I let them say no early, while no is still cheap.

Most of the time they do not say no. They say "yes, if", and the "if" is something I would never have thought of, and the plan is better for it.

The person who can kill a plan is worth more to it than anyone who can approve it.