How to Successfully Manage Up: Tips from the Team

After scaling an ABA therapy franchise from zero to 100+ locations across Hawaii in year one, I learned that managing up requires making leadership’s job easier, not harder.

The toughest instance was when our founder was hesitant to pivot our marketing spend toward women-focused franchise expos — he didn’t see the ROI. I pulled our internal data showing female-owned concepts had 18% higher completion rates and stayed engaged 3-4 months longer post-launch than our average client. Then I connected him directly with three of our female clients who explicitly said they chose us because they saw me speaking at industry events.

I didn’t ask for a budget increase or a philosophical debate about inclusivity. I showed him we were leaving money on the table by not doubling down where we were already winning. Within two quarters, women-owned businesses went from 12% to 25% of our client base, and those clients brought higher lifetime value.

The lesson: bring data that connects to what leadership already cares about (revenue, retention), and remove friction from their decision-making. Don’t make them work to understand why your idea matters — hand them the business case on a silver platter.

I learned managing upwards at Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine in my twenties. Andy didn’t operate like traditional publishers — he valued relationships over resumes, and getting his buy-in meant showing him how something served the broader cultural conversation, not just the bottom line.

When I wanted to shift my focus from covering celebrity parties to profiling emerging artists and philanthropists, I didn’t pitch it as “my idea.” I brought him to three events where the real power players were writing checks, not just posing for photos. I showed him that these people were actually shaping culture — they just weren’t famous yet. He gave me the green light because I made it visual and experiential, which was his language.

Years later in my PR practice, a major museum client was hesitant about a controversial contemporary art acquisition that could’ve drawn negative press. Instead of arguing about artistic merit, I compiled coverage showing how their competitors were getting massive attention and donor interest from bold, conversation-starting acquisitions. I framed it as a visibility and fundraising opportunity they were leaving on the table. They moved forward, and the exhibition became their most-attended in five years.

The pattern I’ve seen work: don’t ask for permission, show them what they’re missing. Speak in outcomes they already care about, not the outcomes you want them to care about.

When I joined my dad’s vending company in April 2020 right as COVID hit, our OCS business basically evaporated overnight — offices were empty and locked. My father was exploring pivots, but I saw we needed to push harder into micro markets for warehouses and essential facilities that stayed open.

The challenge was convincing him to shift marketing spend and inventory investment away from our bread-and-butter office coffee service (which had been 60% of revenue) toward micro markets in industrial settings. I pulled data from our existing accounts showing that our warehouse clients had actually increased usage 40% during lockdowns because workers couldn’t leave for lunch. Then I mapped out 50+ distribution centers and manufacturing plants within 20 miles that were hiring like crazy to meet pandemic demand.

I didn’t just present the opportunity — I offered to personally handle the cold outreach and site surveys so he wouldn’t need to pull existing sales resources. Within 90 days we’d landed six new micro market installs in facilities with 200+ employees each. That pivot kept us growing when most operators were panicking, and micro markets went from 30% to over 50% of our business by end of 2020.

The key was showing him I’d done the homework and was willing to own the execution risk myself. Numbers plus skin in the game beats abstract strategy every time.

When a senior executive wanted to cut the budget for a client analytics project I was leading, I realized the team’s work would lose visibility unless I reframed its value. Instead of arguing to keep the funds, I focused on showing how the project directly supported the executive’s own targets for revenue growth and client retention.

I gathered a short summary of early data that linked analytics insights to higher upsell rates and presented it in a quick, visual format that fit his communication style.

The key was understanding what mattered to him — speed and outcomes, not necessarily technical details. I avoided jargon and showed how the project could help his quarterly goals look stronger, and once he saw the alignment, he approved the funding and even asked for updates in leadership meetings.

That experience taught me that managing upwards isn’t about persuasion; it’s about translation. The more clearly you connect your team’s work to leadership priorities, the easier it becomes to gain support without a long debate. It’s less about pushing an idea and more about framing it in a way that resonates with how decision-makers measure success.

I had to manage upwards when our clinical team needed protected supervision time that leadership initially saw as “non-billable hours.” The concern was that dedicated weekly supervision would reduce client-facing capacity and impact revenue.

I reframed it by tracking burnout indicators — we had three psychologists request reduced hours within two months, and I showed how replacement costs and client disruption from turnover far exceeded the supervision investment. I presented it as retention infrastructure, not lost productivity. The data showed one psychologist leaving costs us roughly 3-4 months of their annual output when you factor in recruitment, onboarding, and relationship-building with new clients.

I also positioned it as a competitive advantage for recruitment since quality supervision is what experienced clinicians look for. We implemented mandatory weekly clinical oversight and peer supervision, which became one of our sustainability pillars. Within a year, our retention went from concerning to stable, and we actually attracted more senior clinicians who valued the structure.

The approach was simple: show the cost of not doing it, tie it to existing pain points they already felt, and demonstrate how it solves a problem they didn’t realize was solvable.

As a growth architect, I’ve often needed to influence leadership to see strategic functions as revenue drivers. Securing investment for marketing programs that eventually generated 20% of total ARR required a clear, data-backed case.

My approach was to implement robust attribution models, directly linking specific demand generation campaigns to pipeline creation and ultimately, closed-won revenue. This allowed us to quantify the precise return on every marketing dollar invested.

Presenting this undeniable evidence shifted the executive team’s perception, changing marketing from a cost center into a primary growth engine. This enabled my team to secure the substantial support needed to hit ambitious revenue targets.