How do you influence the C-Suite to get more resources?

I think the first thing to acknowledge is — the C-suite doesn’t have infinite resources. At BILL, we’re growing fast, and that means there’s always a long list of valuable things we could do. But the executive team’s job is to focus the company’s energy on what will drive the highest impact — and that often means making really tough tradeoffs. So when you're asking for more resources, it’s not just about saying “we’re stretched”, it’s about making a clear, compelling case for why your initiative ...Read More

Start with the customer and business problem you are trying to solve and get alignment on the priority to solving this problem. Oftentimes, the root cause of the disconnect is the timing on when to solve the problem. Get alignment on the business impact for solving the problem (revenue, market share growth, geo-expansion, operational efficiency etc) Get alignment that this is a priority to solve now. Don't proceed if this alignment is not achieved first. Spend the time to build the case and get ...Read More

By bringing clear plans, having a track record of driving results, and not being known as a person who asks for resources to "build an empire".  - I expanded on what a "clear plan" means in other answers to this AMA. To recap, it is a plan that is driven by global optimization, is data-aware, actionable and specific about results that will be achieved through execution on this plan. - Having a track record of hitting goals and driving results in the past helps, but it is not a must for junior fo ...Read More

Here’s where you need to shift into an executive mindset. Good executives think in terms of costs and benefits and business outcomes they want to drive. And I’m not just talking about people in finance, sales and marketing – at the C-level EVERYONE thinks business outcomes -aka dollars and cents. If you want more resources for something, presumably it because it’s something that’s going to provide benefit to the business. Perhaps it’s a new product, or commonly requested feature, a new module, a ...Read More

Before asking for more resources, you should wonder if you really need it? Usually we think we believe that with more resources we will achieve more, but I truly believe that we achieve better outcome when we have more constraints. You don't always need more resources, most of the time you just need to have the right resources. In my experience I had way better products created by teams of 5-6 people that were really focused, rather than teams of dizains of people. So before asking for more reso ...Read More

Ultimately c-suite needs to allocate resources that generate business value. So I think the best way to influence that is to make sure what you are working on produces the desired customer/ business outcome, and/ or financial value. Based on my own experience, we can do a few things that help influence the decisions our way. Good writing to clearly articulate your product vision/ strategy. When we tried to convince leadership to invest in a new 0-to-1 product, we wrote a short proposal that focu ...Read More