MASTERING TEAM Q&A – Sales Presentation Skills In The Moment

Tensions build as a business development team anticipates questions that might follow their pending interview. One by one, they toss out questions the prospect might ask, and it becomes clear that not everyone knows all the details of the project they’re pitching.

Tim admits he hasn’t had time to fully study the budget. Terry voices she’s on three different interviews and can’t keep them separate. Questions about team readiness grow as accusations fly about who has and hasn’t done their homework. Q&A practice is getting snippy, and people are picking each other apart.

People seem to be targeting someone specific when they toss out a question, pointing it at whoever they suspect won’t have a good answer. Jerry points one at Tom, who starts to speak, but is immediately interrupted.

JERRY
Tom. No. Whatever you do, don’t say that.
That’s the last thing I’d want them to know.

Tom tries to defend his answer, but the rest of the team pounces on him.

My previous post about mastering Q&A described a process that uses story to structure every answer. Story structure transforms answers into a journeys, from challenging situations the asker is in now, and toward better situations they’d rather be in. Your answers can take prospects from somewhere negative to somewhere positive.

In this post, I want to talk about how to hold your team together through the team-pressures of Q&A prep. The scene described above was an actual interview prep I recently helped with. As I coached the team, I saw people preying upon each others’ weaknesses. They were each driven by a fear that someone else would blow the interview by answering a question wrong.

Minutes before, I had insisted that they run through the mock Q&A without interrupting each other, but they couldn’t stop themselves. The stakes were high and they didn’t have much time to prepare. Then one person snapped. His name was Will, and he wasn’t the best at answering questions. But he definitely hit this nail on the head.

WILL
Guys, none of us are affirming anything that
any of us is saying. We’re supposed to be
practicing to get better. But I’m getting worse.

Will was right. He was getting worse, and so was everyone else. They were second-guessing themselves, editing their words as they spoke. Confidence and stage presence were plummeting.

Unable to stop them from correcting each other, I developed a new practice technique that transformed the session from bar-fight to ballet.

First, a myth had to be dispelled: “Q&A is not strictly about giving the right answer.” Answering right is often less than half the equation. Usually, the larger portion relates to presence in the hot-seat, and how the team collaborates across the Q&A process. (I hope you find some relief in the fact that you don’t need to find some elusive magic words in order to succeed.)

You can also release some of the pressure by recognizing that in team Q&A, you’re not limited to only one answer. You can “hop-on” and elaborate, or share the answer with someone.

“Team answering” makes the Q&A more exciting. If only one person talks at a time, the experience is like a “relay race.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but if people hop on – within reason – it can be more like a “hockey game,” where people take the puck, and pass!

If someone gives the “wrong” answer, you can add, amend, and even correct it. That is, as long as you say, “Yes and… ” instead of “no, but.” Let’s look at an improper attempt to correct someone, followed by a more constructive approach.

ROBERT
I’m sure we could deliver the proofs daily, at the end
of each shift.

DON
No, that’s not right. The printers are too loud, so we’d
have to do that part with the night crew.

Here, Don gives a “no but” sort of answer, which nullifies everything Robert says, and creates the impression that the two team-members are clearly out of sync. “No, but” casts doubt about the team’s ability to collaborate.

Here’s the same exchange, using the affirming, “Yes and…” approach:

ROBERT
I’m sure we could deliver the proofs daily, at the end
of each shift.

DON
Yes, and because the printers are so loud, we could
even assign that to the night crew and look at an eight
o’clock delivery at the start of each day.

This time, Don affirms Robert, even though he basically counters him. “Yes, and” positions the team better than “no, but.” Nobody gets discounted, and the second answer appears to build off of the first. What begins as a correction is transformed into an assist!

Now here’s the magic, in the form of a practice activity I created on the spot for my frustrated pitch team:

COACH
We’re going to run through a Q&A simulation for
fifteen minutes without stopping. When someone
answers a question and you’re not satisfied with
their answer, it is your job to use “Yes, and” to add
to, or amend, the person’s answer. This is the only
way that you can correct someone else.

What happened was instant, and remarkable. Questions were thrown out, and people answered them. When someone didn’t like an answer, they said, “Yes, and… ” before improving it. This process allowed everyone to share multiple perspectives on the subject without any accusations. More importantly, the group came across as a team of collaborators, working together.

Here it is in review – the best sales presentation skills training I know for team Q&A:

1. Set a time-frame for the exercise (15 or 30 minutes).
2. Establish the rule that answers can be amended by anyone, or they can be left alone, but the only way a team membercan comment on someone’s answer is to say, “yes, and,” before adding to it.
3. After the exercise, give people a chance to share what they learned from the hop-ons.
4. Remind everyone that the goal is to affirm each team-member as they go, so everyone on the team looks good, as the whole team tries to help the decision-makers by sharing their insight. Have your team play hockey: Take the puck, pass, and assist with their answers and hop-ons.

This approach works, and it teaches as it shares knowledge throughout the team. Give this some practice, and let us know how it works for you!

In my next post, I’m going to expand on how to improve the challenge of wrangling who answers which questions, so your team knows how to divide up Q&A to its advantage. In the meantime, be sure to sign up on our book-release notification list, as our first SagePresence book is nearing release.