Most of the projects I've worked on have had making money as a root motivation. "By doing X, Y and Z you'll make more money", with evidence and a reasonable pl

Most of the projects I've worked on have had making money as a root motivation. "By doing X, Y and Z you'll make more money", with evidence and a reasonable plan, is a decent argument. I've made these pitches as a leaf node in large companies and it's generally gone over well. It's the answers like "I will empower your organization to..." or "We'll leverage synergy and..." that you should avoid. I imagine the "make money" pitch will sound bad to a research group, or a governmental or quasi-governmental organization. But for many other places, assuming you're not blowing smoke, it seems pretty reasonable.