We’ve all had the experience. You or your team dream up the most inspiring idea. The one. It couldn’t possibly fail. It is certain to take the brand and business to the next level. And so, you present it, full of joy, ambition, and confidence, and the client says, “That’s a really great idea, but … no.”

You could be forgiven at this point for walking away and trying something different, but this is definitely not your only available move. “What?”, you say. I know. But lean in and listen up.

Throughout my entire career – and possibly as far back as college, I’ve found that the most powerful, unconventional, inspiring, game changing, and frankly worth-doing feats of creativity always encounter strong objections or moments of doubt and lingering gloom – before they eventually get made. In short, nothing that ever changed something happened without someone, somewhere, declaring a defiant “No!”

So how do you keep an idea on life support until the client’s ready for it? If you keep bringing up the same idea again and again after rejection, you can come off as arrogant and annoying. But by their nature, many innovative ideas are unusual and sound risky. That makes them hard to sell and easy to reject. But you can successfully reintroduce them if you follow a few simple rules.

NANA KOROBI, YA OKI

This is a Chinese proverb of resilience that translates as ‘fall down seven times, stand up eight’. It means choosing to never give up hope and to always strive for more. This is the best advice for those ideas that you believe in. Remember that “no” doesn’t mean “never”; it’s not the end, just perhaps “not for now”.

We talk a lot about creative bravery, but too often we think that means coming up with the wackiest possible idea and then pursuing it against all rational push back.

Bravery actually lies in continuing to believe and push on with your dream when all the signals and distractions around you try to blow you off course and tell you to turn back. Find a way to keep moving forward and adjust accordingly so that when the right moment appears you can go full throttle once again. It’s about belief and persistence – not risk and obstinance.

REFINE AND IMPROVE

Don’t spend too much time and effort on an idea that’s been rejected, but do take the time to question it, stress test it, and see if there’s some way that it could have been presented better.

Does it really suit your client’s culture and objectives? Is there a good reason they rejected it besides its novelty factor? Your idea has weaknesses – all ideas do – so take some time to find them and make it stronger. Removing as many of the barriers and reasons for any client to say no is as important as the idea itself.

BUILD A PROTOTYPE

Really confident in your idea? Build a prototype. A working demonstration of a story, idea, or experience is especially useful with innovation that no one has ever seen before. When clients can see and feel something, it’s much better than looking at it in a PowerPoint or listening to a protracted, drawn-out explanation.

Building prototypes is not necessarily as onerous and large an investment as it once was – lo-fi, functional mock-ups of Post-it note schematics can be enough. If you put something in their hands that they can see and feel, you’ll have a much better chance of getting it made.

A further benefit of prototypes is that you see your idea for the first time too. That further allows you to understand its strengths and weaknesses on a deeper level, and how you can make it work even better.

SHOP AROUND

Don’t continually return to the same people with the same idea. Look for different contexts or teams to present it to. If you have a big account, you may be able to sell it to a different geography or a different product in the brand portfolio. If you are a smaller agency, there may be a non-competitive client that could use a modified version of the idea. A change in context could be all you need to sell it through the next time.

Our industry has long laboured under the notion that great ideas are instantly recognisable by everyone and that great ideas sell themselves. The reality is that they often take years to find a good home. Some of our own most awarded and inspiring solutions have taken two or three years to get made.

So, if you can give your terrific idea the small amount of life it needs to stay alive in your organisation, using any of the tactics above, you will eventually find a place for it to grow beyond the “no”, influencing and impacting the lives of the millions it was focused on addressing.

Daniel Bonner is Global CCO at Wunderman Thompson; wundermanthompson.com; Top image: Shutterstock/Alphavector