In the last email, we talked about sketching out your UX strategy. Not a polished final document, but a draft that clarifies your direction and invites collaboration.

But that strategy is only useful if people buy into it. And that means you now need to switch hats: from strategist to storyteller.

That's what this week is all about: how to present your vision in a way that gets your colleagues and leadership on board.

Don't Just Present. Involve.

The biggest mistake I see people make is showing up to stakeholders with a "here's what I'm going to do" approach. Instead, try:

Here's what I'm thinking. What's your take?

That small shift does two powerful things:

• It invites others into the process, giving them a sense of ownership.
• It makes it harder for them to say no later because they helped shape it.

A strategy that's co-created is much more likely to be supported and championed. But to create something together effectively, you need to truly understand who you're working with.

Understand Your Stakeholders Like You Understand Your Users

We're great at user research. We'll run interviews, analyze data, and build personas to understand end users.

But when it comes to internal stakeholders? We often just... guess. Or worse, we get frustrated when they don't see things our way.

So flip the script: do your research. Talk to stakeholders one-on-one. Ask them what their priorities are. What challenges they're facing. What success looks like for them this quarter or this year.

Then map your strategy to those things. This leads us to an important realization: your strategy needs to be flexible enough to speak to different audiences.

One Vision, Many Versions

When it comes time to share your strategy, don't use the same pitch for everyone.

A marketing lead wants to hit quarterly targets. A finance director cares about cost savings. A project manager is drowning in dependencies and missed deadlines.

So don't talk generically about improving the user experience. Talk about:

• Reducing churn (for marketing)
• Cutting support call volume (for finance)
• Smoothing collaboration (for project management)

Make your strategy speak their language. The more personal the value, the more likely they'll back your plan. And speaking of personal value...

Solve Their Pain, Not Just Yours

Another powerful approach is to speak directly to pain points.

If your UX team is seen as a bottleneck, talk about how your strategy empowers others to take on basic UX tasks themselves. If product managers are stressed about missing targets, show how better UX will help users complete key tasks faster.

The question to answer is: what's in it for them? And sometimes, the best way to answer that question is through storytelling.

Tell a Story That Sticks

Let me give you a quick example. I once watched a waitress struggle to take our order on a clunky app. It took ages. So I started calculating: how many seconds lost per table? Per day? Per restaurant? Across the entire chain?

It added up to hundreds of thousands in wasted wages.

That's the kind of story you can tell. You're not just saying "bad UI wastes time." You're showing how much money is on the table.

If you can connect your UX strategy to tangible outcomes (even if they're estimates), it will land so much better with management. But remember, while stories are powerful, timing is everything.

Mix Short-Term Wins With Long-Term Value

Let's be honest. Most leaders are focused on next quarter's results, not next year's vision.

So give them both.

Yes, your UX work might improve retention or reduce churn, but also talk about what you can do now. Can you run a quick usability test that reduces support tickets? Can you tweak a key flow that lifts conversion rates?

Make it clear your strategy delivers both immediate impact and long-term value. Now, let's put all of this into action.

Your Action Step

This week, identify 2 to 3 key stakeholders.

Book a quick chat with each one. Ask what they're working toward. Listen for pain points.

Then write down:

• What they care about
• How your strategy helps
• The best way to frame your pitch to them

We'll build on this next time when we dive deeper into how to present your ideas to management effectively, especially when things get political.