Tell us about a time when you generated support from others for an idea or initiative.

Sample One

It was my third year as an analyst in the business development group at StarTech and I started to hear a repeated complaint from the sales team that some clients were not treated fairly by our pricing model. The sales team was divided into corporate level sales people and small business sales people, but the rates charged for our database management software package varied little by the size of business. The small business sales team was suffering as a result, because we were seen as a high priced product for a small company. My manager had formulated our pricing model based on the number of employees at a given client company, and we only targeted companies with an estimated annual revenue of over $5M.

While upper management had heard many of the complaints raised by the sales team, the response was always that we did not want to erode the value of our product. I knew that our analytically driven executives didn’t value relationships as much as the sales team, and was going to be convinced of any new solution only with data. I decided to take some time to see if I could crunch the numbers and come up with a data based solution.

I consulted with the sales team to understand which specific companies were not being reached with our current pricing model. After discussion and data gathering, I reviewed the information on 25 possible targets for the sales team. More than 80% of the companies were small professional services companies with less than 20 employees, but over $5M in annual revenue. Our pricing model started at 100 employees and most of our clients had over 2000 employees. We had not considered that a small company could be meeting our target revenue number, yet have a far smaller employee base than our typical client.

I met with my boss to discuss my conversations with sales and my idea to change our pricing model to one that would allow pricing tiers for companies with less than 100 employees. He was interested, but wanted to see financial projections for a proposed change, and I was assigned a deadline to present to upper management the next week. Collaborating with another analyst from my department and the sales team, we formulated a high, medium and low financial projection for the new model and put together a presentation for the meeting with upper management. The sales team took the lead in putting together a strong case for the new model, and we backed it up with the numbers. Through this collaboration we had both qualitative and quantitative arguments for our proposed change.

After the presentation the new pricing model was approved, and our team worked to implement it. As a result, the sales team was able to bring in ten new accounts (driving $1.2M in incremental business for our company) and we heard that our company was recommended repeatedly among professional services firms.

Sample Two

When I joined Mendonca Propriedades as the Vice President of Business Development I was tasked with researching new ideas for our family business, specifically beyond apartment development which was our core business. I was also suddenly the leader of a small team, including two Directors who were far senior to me in terms of work experience. Juliana had about ten years of experience and had joined the firm several years ago. Lucas was newer to the company, but arrived with over fifteen years of experience.

I knew that the success of any project would depend upon the buy in of my team, both of whom had the respect and sponsorship of the C-level executives, including my father. Before we started on our growth plans, I wanted to ensure Lucas and Juliana would embrace my leadership of the team. To begin, I had lunch with each Lucas and Juliana to talk to them about their career goals and their key strengths. I remained open and spent most of the lunch listening and asking questions to learn more about each employee’s personality and approach. Juliana wanted to learn more about Operations and be involved in the execution of our proposals. Lucas enjoyed a customer facing role and did not want to be in the background of our transactions and projects. With their strengths in mind, I called on both Directors to assist with the development of a business plan for starting an expansion into hotel development. I knew that our company was excellent at construction, but we likely needed help managing a property once we built or renovated it. Lucas pulled on his vast network to learn what we would need in a management company, and investigated potential partners. Juliana helped me plan the timeline and execution of the project, examining our current resources and what we would need in terms of budget and personnel. With the assistance of Lucas and Juliana, both pulling on their key strengths, we developed a detailed business plan for our foray into hotels.

Our business plan was received well by senior management and we were given approval to proceed. Currently we are in the process of renovating a small apartment building near the museum district into a boutique hotel. This project is the test bed of my idea to expand the company into the hospitality business after I return with my MBA, and an important first step for the company’s growth.