Transcript
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we share three keys to finding the right decision maker in any system.
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So stay tuned.
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If you want to have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
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I'm Kath Patrick and I've helped dozens of progressive nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are.
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To have them seeking you out as an equal partner.
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And to have them Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode.
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As an advocate, one of your main goals is to get to the money and policy decision makers that have the power to make decisions that are going to affect your organization and the people you serve, right?
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This is the theme of our entire series of episodes, is how do you do this more effectively?
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And one of the things I hear a lot from nonprofit leaders is yeah, but like, especially with contracting and some agencies, it's not that easy to find who's really in charge and what's going on in there who has the power to make that decision anyway?
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That is not always clear.
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And what I notice is that a lot of folks spend way more time than they need, trying to get to the bottom of that.
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So what I want to share in this episode is three keys that will help you get to those answers about who's really in charge.
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Much faster, much more efficiently.
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So that you can get to the real work of engaging those decision-makers, and building a partnership and getting to the decisions you want.
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What would be really cool is if we had Google maps for decision-making.
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Wouldn't that be awesome.
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You plug in a destination.
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I want this decision-making result.
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In this organization or entity.
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How do I get there?
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And then up would pop directions, and you could just follow the little blue line and get there.
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With turn by turn directions coming out of your phone, telling you what to do.
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That would be really cool, but it doesn't exist.
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But what I do want to share is that there is in fact a roadmap for that decision-making structure.
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You just got to find it.
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So to help us think about that I'm going to use a mapping metaphor here that I'm going to go into some depth with.
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So stay with me on this because it's really going to be helpful.
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But you may partway through wonder why I'm talking about it.
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So I just want to let you know that there are actually really important parallels that I'm going to draw, but I want to set the stage with something that you know really well already.
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So here we go.
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So let's think about how you navigate in a town when you don't have Google maps.
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In your own town, where you already know where everything is pretty much right.
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You know where your grocery stores are, you know where the post office is, you know where your friends live and how to get to those places.
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And you don't really think about it.
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You go there so often that the route is already in your head.
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You might check Google maps just to check on traffic, but generally you don't need their help for a route.
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You know how to do it.
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And the reason you know how is that you've repeated this action multiple times, and you've built neural pathways in your brain that are now there.
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Once a pattern is built into your brain, you don't need to access your conscious thinking brain very much to get yourself to there.
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How often have you been walking or driving and found yourself on autopilot.
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And you just automatically going to a place and you get there and you're like, oh my gosh.
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My attention was elsewhere.
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I was listening to a podcast.
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I was doing whatever.
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And I'm here.
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Yay.
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So what happens when you're doing that is that your subconscious is using those established neural pathways to navigate for you, without needing to involve your conscious thinking brain.
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We have that capacity and we use it all the time when we're navigating in our own town, whether we realize it or not.
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Because we've built those neural pathways and we don't have to think, we don't think about all the patterns that are at work that make a town navigable.
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We don't really think about it until we go to a town that's not familiar.
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We've never been there before.
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And we're all confused because we don't know how the place is laid out.
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We don't know where things are.
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Where'd they put the post office?
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I don't know.
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Where're the good grocery stores?
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Where is anything?
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So the thing is when we're doing that, we just default to Google maps and it gets us there.
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And we just follow the little blue line.
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That's cool.
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But what is actually true is that every town, at least in the U S, is laid out in a fairly predictable way.
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There's a grid.
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And generally speaking, streets run parallel to one another on that grid.
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It's like a tic-tac-toe board only really big.
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One set of streets runs north to south.
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And another set of streets, the crosshatches, run east west.
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That is almost a universal pattern in how towns are laid out in the U S.
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Then you add the fact that many towns, especially older ones, are built around natural features.
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Water is very common, so there'll be lakes, there'll be rivers and streams and other water things that are built around.
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In other areas there may also be mountains or other natural features.
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And so the grid is there.
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But it will break the rules when it has to go around those features.
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But even that is an established pattern.
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What's interesting is that every once in a while you'll have a town that doesn't follow those rules.
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I've lived and worked in the Washington DC area for a long time.
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And there is a grid.
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But there are additional patterns that are very important to know about.
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And if you don't know about them, the city is incredibly confusing for people.
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So we have a grid.
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We have our north to south streets.
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We have our east to west streets and those are very clear.
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That's the same grid you have anywhere in America.
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But then we also have two other very important things going on.
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We have a hub and spoke system that is layered over that grid.
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And so throughout the city, there are these roundabout hubs that have diagonal streets radiating out from them.
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And those diagonal streets span the entire city.
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And those roundabouts and those hub and spoke set up confuse the crap out of people because they aren't familiar with it.
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And then one more key to the puzzle in Washington is that we have the US Capitol.
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Of course everybody knows we have the US Capitol, but what most people don't understand is how it affects the grid.
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If you've ever been to Washington, you know that all streets come with one of four designations.
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They are labeled either Northeast, southeast, southwest, or Northwest.
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Because the center of the grid is the U S Capitol.
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All the streets lying to the north and east of the US Capitol have a Northeast in their address.
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And so on.
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Four quadrants each with its own designation.
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So if you see an address that says XYZ street Northwest, you know that it is in the Northwest quadrant, radiating from the capital.
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And if you go one layer deeper on how this is all organized.
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And I promise you, this is going somewhere that's very important.
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This is a rather elaborate metaphor.
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But where it's going is to help you understand how decision-making structures follow these same kinds of rules and patterns.
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If you know they're there.
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So to continue this just one more layer.
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There are a set of naming conventions for how the streets are labeled.
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And at the most elementary level, it's very helpful to know that all of the streets that run east to west are a, letter of the alphabet or a word beginning with a letter of the alphabet in order.
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So you've have, ABC D and so on.
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With some exceptions.
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There are few letters of the alphabet that get left out.
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And then all the streets running north to south are numbered.
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And they do this on either side of the Capitol, just to make things more interesting.
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So on the north side of the Capitol, you have streets in the alphabet going up, ABC D et cetera.
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And south of the Capitol, you having another set of lettered streets going ABCD to the south.
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And how you know which is which is based on the quadrant they're assigned.
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If they have a Southeast or a Southwest, you know, that that is a lettered street on the south side of the Capitol.
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If it has a Northwest or Northeast, you know, that it is north of the Capitol.
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Similarly with the numbered streets, they go in both directions.
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So you have a first street on one side of the Capitol and a first street on the other side of the Capitol.
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And the only way you know which one is which, is again by its quadrant designation.
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So you can see why this is insanely confusing for people who don't understand how it's organized.
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Because if you say to somebody I'll meet you at the corner of 19th and M, and you don't say which quadrant.
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They could wind up in three other possible corners of the city.
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So it becomes very important to know this basic logic that undergirds the entire system.
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And then the other thing to know is with all those hub and spoke systems, all of the streets that radiate out from a hub and spoke are named after states.
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So maryland, Virginia, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and so on.
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So if somebody says to you this building is on Maryland avenue.
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You immediately know that that is a diagonal street.
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Now until they give you which quadrant you don't know what part of the city it's in, but at least you know it's a diagonal street that radiates out from a hub and spoke somewhere.
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Now that's probably way more than you ever wanted to know about how Washington DC is laid out.
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But my point is, every additional layer of knowledge you have about how grids are structured gives you a fast track to understanding how to navigate them.
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So, okay, great.
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Kath, you've been yammering about streets and towns for a while now, what does that got to do with advocacy?
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And why am I listening to this?
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I'll tell you what.
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All of those patterns, all of those structures are built around a common set of rules.
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The exact same thing is true for decision-making structures.
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In whatever entity you're dealing with.
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So when everything feels confusing and opaque in a decision-making structure, what's super important to understand is that underlying that confusion and opacity, there are patterns.
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There are common structural elements, common system elements that exist in all of them, or at least within groups of them.
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And the more you know about how those are built, the easier it is to find out who's actually the decision maker you want to get to, and how to get to them and where they're located in that structure.
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And that's the reason I took you through this very elaborate metaphor, because it's one that you have experience with every day of your life.
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So the three keys that we're talking about here.
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Number one is, for every decision-making system or structure or process that someone has created, there is a roadmap somewhere.
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There is a design underpinning that, and there is a roadmap to that design.
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With the town grids, those are laid out with the overarching purpose of ease of navigation.
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That is their primary job is to make it easy to get around and to make it be logical and clearly understandable about how to navigate.
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Unfortunately most decision-making structures are not organized around that principle.
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They're instead organized around how to get work done.
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You know, these decision-making structures exist in some sort of organizational entity.
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Whether it's elected governmental bodies, or a government agency, or whether it's private enterprise or a nonprofit or foundation, whatever it is.
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Each of those decision-making structures are organized around getting the work done.
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And with the goal of having the decision-making flow be as logical and as efficient as possible.
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So the work can get done.
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There's always logic behind it.
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And there's always a roadmap to that.
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The accessibility of that logic and roadmap will definitely vary by type of organizational entity.
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The more accountable the entity is to the public, the more transparent their decision-making structure will be.
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So like with elected officials, if you think about city councils, county boards, state legislatures, Congress.
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You can go to any of those websites and it'll show you all the committee structures and all the who's in charge of what, and it'll give you a pretty good roadmap of that kind of basic structure.
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Most governmental agencies at least have an org chart somewhere.
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If they're big enough, if they're big enough to have enough people, then they've got an organizational chart somewhere.
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But when you get to foundations, They probably have an org chart, but they may or may not make that public.
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But they will generally have information on their website in their about section, about their leadership and staff, from which you can start to build a rough org chart on your own.
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Now private enterprise.
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Which for those of you who are interacting with private companies for contracting or for other partnerships.
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They're not accountable to the public in the same way.
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Their primary accountability is to either their owners or their shareholders, depending on whether they're publicly traded.
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And so their decision-making roadmaps are available to the people who are inside that organization.
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But they have no particular incentive to make that information available outside the organization.
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Other than the very top.
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Like for SEC reporting stuff.
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They have to say who the executive officers are.
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But in a larger company that doesn't really help you.
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Because you're probably interacting with people who are mid tier decision-makers.
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And they're not going to show up most of the time.
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So those require quite a bit more detective work.
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But whichever one you're dealing with, it's really helpful to understand that they're all organized around the fundamental principles of getting the work done, trying to have clear lines of authority and accountability, and to be as efficient as possible.
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So your first task, when encountering an unfamiliar decision-making system or process or structure, is to find the roadmap.
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Cause it's there.
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And once you find it.
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Then the next most important thing to realize is that the map itself is incomplete information.
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So once you get the roadmap, you look at that to get a general picture of how things are set up and where things are.
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It's going to tell you, like, what roles there are in the organization.
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Now this might be an org chart.
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It might be an index with titles of who works there.
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It depends on the entity.
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So you're going to gather as much of that as you can.
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But that's what you're going to have.
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You're going to have some names.
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You're going to have their roles, their titles.
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Maybe something about the function of those roles.
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And then there you are.
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So the second key is, you're going to need a local guide.
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You're going to need somebody to fill in the missing information for you.
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And so the simplest way to do that is to find a local guide who can tell you.
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Just like visiting a new town, most reliable source, always, of what's really going on is somebody who lives there.
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So similarly you want to know, either from someone who works at that place or someone who has done business with them who can tell you what's up.
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You want to know what's really going on.
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Now depending on where you are in your process.
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If you're just at the beginning, you might just need an overview.
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You might want the gossip.
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You definitely need to know whether the people listed as being in charge are actually in charge.
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Or whether there are unnamed gatekeepers.
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There almost always are.
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Other internal politics going on in that system or structure that really change how you get something done within it.
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All of that is information that is not going to show up in print any where.
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No matter how good a web researcher you are.
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That's not going to be written down.
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So that is the stuff for which you need a local guide.
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And let me just say a little more about gatekeepers because they're huge.
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There's almost always somebody who's gatekeeping for a decision maker.
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Now they may be a very aggressive gatekeeper, or they may be gatekeeper lite.
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And that's again, intel you're going to need to know.
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Because here's why.
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If susie Smith is the decider for say, contracts.
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In an agency or in a private entity.
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And she has total authority.
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Once she decides to do a contract, to do a deal, then it's happening.
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Problem is you can't get to Suzy.
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There's somebody in between whose job it is to vet all of the things, all of the requests, all of the desired deals coming in the door.
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And you got to talk to that person first and win them over.
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And if you get their recommendation, then you know Susie is going to be an easy sell.
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But you're never going to get to Suzy if you don't talk to Mary Jones who's in between.
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Those kinds of things are not going to be written down.
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You just have to ask somebody.
00:19:10.465 --> 00:19:19.346
And like I say, the two most reliable sources are somebody who works there, or somebody that you know in your circle of colleagues, who's done business with that entity as well.
00:19:20.016 --> 00:19:21.185
There are other sources.
00:19:21.215 --> 00:19:22.806
I mean, obviously you tap your network.
00:19:22.855 --> 00:19:23.756
You ask around.
00:19:23.786 --> 00:19:25.435
But I would start there.
00:19:26.185 --> 00:19:28.195
So you're going to need to have both.
00:19:28.236 --> 00:19:29.016
You need the roadmap.
00:19:29.375 --> 00:19:43.383
But then you also need the local guide who tells you what's really going on and how the official structure actually works, what those unofficial rules are, what those unofficial barriers and gatekeepers, what all of that looks like.
00:19:44.123 --> 00:19:49.613
And then once you have that, now you've got the beginnings of a roadmap you can actually use.
00:19:49.823 --> 00:19:56.482
And you can begin to plot a strategy for who do I need to engage on my way to getting to that decision maker.
00:19:57.429 --> 00:20:11.384
The third piece, the third key is to understand that within categories of systems like elected government, government agencies, contracting with government, contracting with private enterprise.
00:20:12.044 --> 00:20:21.727
That all those categories of entities have systems and structures that tend to be similar to their counterparts in other places.
00:20:22.336 --> 00:20:24.400
So let me make that a little more concrete.
00:20:24.400 --> 00:20:28.104
So like, if we're talking about a state department of labor.
00:20:28.433 --> 00:20:30.653
Or a state department of health.
00:20:31.084 --> 00:20:39.874
They're organized in very similar ways to say the county department of labor or the county department of health or to the corresponding city department.
00:20:40.084 --> 00:20:42.574
They tend to have similar structures within them.
00:20:43.084 --> 00:20:50.644
Now, very broadly, state government agencies, county, city, government agencies all tend to have similar structures.
00:20:51.034 --> 00:21:00.453
But when you become more topic specific, then you will get even more clarity about how the structure is set up, based on what they're focused on.
00:21:01.144 --> 00:21:12.186
And a lot of the reason for that is because a lot of government agencies have somewhere at the top of their funding stream, they've got federal funds coming through.
00:21:12.186 --> 00:21:17.287
And that the flow of federal funds tends to dictate to some extent how they're structured.
00:21:17.707 --> 00:21:23.794
But there's also just given functions for a health department, or given functions for a labor department that they have to do.
00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:28.529
And so you know that those functions are going to be there, and they're going to be mapped out.
00:21:28.529 --> 00:21:34.079
And then there are subsets of those pieces that all have to get attended to.
00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:38.183
And so structures evolve to get the work done.
00:21:38.473 --> 00:21:39.913
And the work is the work.
00:21:40.003 --> 00:21:53.173
So once you understand that, then you can kind of apply what you know about say, if you've done business with a city department of health, and now you want to do business with the state department of health.
00:21:53.653 --> 00:22:00.517
You can take a lot of your knowledge about how that city agency is structured, and apply it to the state.
00:22:01.146 --> 00:22:02.977
Now there will obviously be differences.
00:22:03.426 --> 00:22:08.497
But you already have Intel if you've done business with something in that tier.
00:22:09.477 --> 00:22:15.794
Similarly, if you've done business with one type of private enterprise contracting entity.
00:22:16.259 --> 00:22:17.700
Whatever issue you're dealing with.
00:22:17.779 --> 00:22:20.660
We'll stick with healthcare since that seems to be in my head today.
00:22:21.369 --> 00:22:28.416
If you're dealing with hospitals or you're dealing with managed care organizations or you're dealing with insurance companies.
00:22:28.980 --> 00:22:34.727
Each of those are going to be structured similarly to others of their ilk.
00:22:35.044 --> 00:22:35.433
Right.
00:22:35.720 --> 00:22:43.894
So it would be unusual to find hospital A with a completely different management and decision-making making structure from hospital B.
00:22:44.609 --> 00:22:51.099
Again, systems and structures and decision-making are organized around the work of the entity.
00:22:51.767 --> 00:22:55.847
The work is organized in fairly logical ways most of the time.
00:22:56.288 --> 00:23:05.760
And so once you understand what that type of entities way of organizing around their work is, it's likely to be similar in other entities.
00:23:06.421 --> 00:23:07.800
I hope this is making sense.
00:23:08.682 --> 00:23:09.184
Folks.
00:23:09.305 --> 00:23:14.375
struggle so much with untangling the decision-making structures in any given organization.
00:23:14.948 --> 00:23:21.394
And my goal here is to help you see that there are a lot of replicated similarities.
00:23:21.394 --> 00:23:27.065
That there's a lot of overlap and similarity in in structures within a particular type of entity.
00:23:27.424 --> 00:23:36.994
And that once you get a feel for that, you can be a lot faster and more efficient in untangling what's going on in any specific individual organization or entity.
00:23:37.174 --> 00:23:41.315
Because you already kind of have that essential roadmap.
00:23:42.214 --> 00:23:47.194
And then it's just a matter of finding out what does that roadmap look like inside this entity?
00:23:47.404 --> 00:23:49.085
How does it differ slightly?
00:23:49.505 --> 00:23:52.174
But it's not going to differ wildly, typically.
00:23:53.115 --> 00:24:00.077
So basically if you learn the structure of one, you have less work to do to learn the structure of another of its similar kind.
00:24:00.738 --> 00:24:02.057
That's the basic concept.
00:24:02.748 --> 00:24:04.218
And when you do this enough.
00:24:04.545 --> 00:24:14.025
Like anything else with repetition over time, you begin to get to the point where you know exactly what roadmap questions you need to ask.
00:24:14.540 --> 00:24:18.830
And you already know how a lot of the decision-making is probably structured.
00:24:19.131 --> 00:24:26.721
And so you can start to ask much higher level questions that will get you to the next level of knowledge you need, much faster.
00:24:27.050 --> 00:24:28.250
And that's my goal for you.
00:24:28.250 --> 00:24:33.708
Is that you get really adept and efficient at your detective work on this.
00:24:34.095 --> 00:24:37.515
So that you can get to the heart of it quite quickly.
00:24:39.020 --> 00:24:39.830
This is a skill.
00:24:40.154 --> 00:24:43.184
So the more you do it, the better you're going to get at it.
00:24:43.214 --> 00:24:45.407
The more efficient you're going to get at it.
00:24:46.381 --> 00:24:53.111
And you know, I've been doing this forever, both for for organizations that I've worked with, and also for my clients.
00:24:53.451 --> 00:25:01.045
One of the big value adds that I bring to my private clients that I work with one-on-one, is that I will sometimes facilitate this for them.
00:25:01.505 --> 00:25:06.005
Very often a client will call and say, I can't figure out who's in charge of this thing.
00:25:06.484 --> 00:25:07.654
It's driving me crazy.
00:25:07.894 --> 00:25:09.275
What do you know about it?
00:25:10.174 --> 00:25:19.480
And because I've been doing it for so long and because I've worked with so many different kinds of decision making systems and structures at all levels of government and all levels of private enterprise.
00:25:20.201 --> 00:25:26.780
I've got basically a roadmap bank in my head of what it's likely to look like for any one of these things.
00:25:27.290 --> 00:25:29.631
So I can skip that part and go right to the.
00:25:29.750 --> 00:25:30.050
Okay.
00:25:30.080 --> 00:25:31.520
Well, what does that look like locally?
00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:32.510
What's going on here?
00:25:32.691 --> 00:25:35.451
These are the three questions you should ask of these people.
00:25:36.141 --> 00:25:37.191
Go find this person.
00:25:37.221 --> 00:25:40.275
That will be how you get to your next level.
00:25:41.451 --> 00:25:48.498
When you develop the skill to a high level, you now know which two or three questions are the core ones you need to ask.
00:25:49.066 --> 00:25:57.789
And you get right to the heart of it instead of Poking around and trying to figure stuff out and maybe not getting to the right person for quite a while.
00:25:57.789 --> 00:26:00.609
And, you know, just not being able to find your way.
00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:03.519
Because you haven't learned the patterns of the maps.
00:26:03.789 --> 00:26:14.970
And this is the thing to understand is that these maps, once you interact with these long enough, you realize that there is more in common across these roadmaps, than there are differences.
00:26:15.435 --> 00:26:17.445
It's just a matter of getting those patterns in your head.
00:26:18.202 --> 00:26:23.022
And it may be helpful to find a way to capture those patterns, to help them stick.
00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:24.329
Draw a map.
00:26:24.792 --> 00:26:26.502
or some other visual that works for you.
00:26:27.056 --> 00:26:33.715
Or if your brain works this way, you might want lists of key decision maker types and titles.
00:26:34.135 --> 00:26:35.155
Whatever works for you.
00:26:35.705 --> 00:26:37.536
But find a way to capture those patterns.
00:26:38.432 --> 00:26:38.883
So.
00:26:39.049 --> 00:26:42.289
The reason you're doing all this is because you want to influence the decision-making.
00:26:42.923 --> 00:26:47.873
You can't do that until you know who the heck is in charge, and what they're in charge of.
00:26:47.873 --> 00:26:51.022
And who the gatekeepers are and what their function is.
00:26:51.232 --> 00:26:54.853
You have to be able to identify the key decision makers.
00:26:55.306 --> 00:26:59.746
Figure out the shortest pathway to direct communication with them.
00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:05.319
And then begin your strategy of, okay, how are we going to engage them?
00:27:05.500 --> 00:27:07.029
What is our messaging going to be?
00:27:07.460 --> 00:27:10.380
All of that, that then becomes the next step in the process.
00:27:11.113 --> 00:27:23.269
But my goal for this episode was really just to help you simplify the process of figuring out who the heck is in charge of the decisions that you need made in order to get the result that you want.
00:27:23.869 --> 00:27:24.945
It is that simple.
00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:35.019
And then as you do this repeatedly for different types of entities, What you're going to discover is that basic roadmaps aren't that different across entities.
00:27:35.542 --> 00:27:38.782
Especially if they're in the same niche, but even across niches.
00:27:39.414 --> 00:27:43.365
Most entities in the U S have a hierarchy of decision-making.
00:27:44.055 --> 00:27:50.714
And within that hierarchy, there are certain types of decisions that have to go all the way to the top.
00:27:51.285 --> 00:27:54.404
And there are certain types of decisions that don't have to go all the way to the top.
00:27:55.055 --> 00:27:57.755
That'll depend in part on the size of the entity.
00:27:58.144 --> 00:28:02.315
In a small entity, it may be that most of the decisions are made at the top.
00:28:02.974 --> 00:28:07.295
In a very large entity, very few of those decisions are going to be made at the top.
00:28:07.505 --> 00:28:11.585
Particularly the types of decisions that are going to be affecting the work that you're trying to do with them.
00:28:12.208 --> 00:28:16.107
If you're trying to get a contract and you're dealing with a federal agency.
00:28:16.528 --> 00:28:19.827
The head of that federal agency is not involved in contracting decisions.
00:28:20.335 --> 00:28:21.325
That's delegated.
00:28:22.015 --> 00:28:29.414
But in a city department focused on the same thing, the head of that agency may very well be involved in contracting decisions.
00:28:29.865 --> 00:28:30.404
It depends.
00:28:30.555 --> 00:28:31.815
Depends on the size of the city.
00:28:32.115 --> 00:28:33.315
It depends on a lot of things.
00:28:33.785 --> 00:28:37.355
But you'll begin to get a feel for all of these elements.
00:28:38.001 --> 00:28:48.632
And as you do, it will allow you to ask more targeted questions, become more efficient at gathering the intel you need from your local guides.
00:28:49.164 --> 00:28:53.275
To pretty quickly get to the answer you really want.
00:28:53.892 --> 00:28:57.642
Which ultimately is who is in charge of the thing that I want.
00:28:58.092 --> 00:29:00.281
And who are their gatekeepers.
00:29:00.582 --> 00:29:06.612
And what is the shortest most direct efficient path to engaging that decision-maker.
00:29:07.224 --> 00:29:08.484
That's what you really want to know.
00:29:09.358 --> 00:29:11.489
So get your initial roadmap.
00:29:11.989 --> 00:29:16.128
Get your local guides to tell you the details of what goes on in that town.
00:29:16.654 --> 00:29:22.648
And then start to learn the patterns that happen across entities within a specific niche.
00:29:23.038 --> 00:29:25.229
And then entities more broadly.
00:29:25.798 --> 00:29:31.368
Until you have clarity about how decision-making structures tend to work.
00:29:31.848 --> 00:29:40.765
And begin to build that library of decision making structures and systems in your mind or on paper, whatever works for you.
00:29:41.424 --> 00:29:50.308
So that you can pull from those as needed when confronted with a new entity that you haven't dealt with before.
00:29:51.075 --> 00:30:00.144
When you have those three keys in place, you'll find it's a lot faster and easier to zero in on the relevant decision makers in any setting..
00:30:00.755 --> 00:30:04.055
The ones that are actually in charge of the thing you need.
00:30:04.654 --> 00:30:16.115
And then you can get to work on engaging them and building those relationships, confident that you're investing your energy in the relationships that will actually get you results.
00:30:16.861 --> 00:30:19.441
Thanks for listening and I'll see you in the next episode.
00:30:19.711 --> 00:30:22.080
Right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
