Four Tips for Nailing the Pitch Q&A

It’s pitch season in most entrepreneurial education programs, and I’ve been coaching and giving feedback to some amazing teams at Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts University (DEC) and MITdesignX . Even with the vast assortment of excellent content online about how to craft a great pitch, there’s no substitute for practicing in front of real humans and working through feedback.?

But one element of pitching that I feel is grossly under addressed in most content meant to help you deliver a great pitch is the Q&A.?

You may be pitching your startup in a competition where a formal Q&A with the judges is part of the time slot you’re allocated. Or you may be pitching investors who will certainly pepper you with questions after. Either way, most entrepreneurs I speak with don’t invest much time or energy into planning their Q&A. They figure, “we’re experts in our venture, we won’t have any trouble answering questions.”

But everyone who’s attended or judged a pitch competition can give you examples of incredibly smart entrepreneurs giving unclear answers, or rambling on through the entire QA period on a single answer, or co-founders stepping on each others’ words trying to frame the answer perfectly. It’s sad, frankly, when a team nails the pitch with crisp messaging, clean slides (no 10-point font!), and a tight delivery, only to go through five or ten minutes of “um”s and weakly formed answers to judges’ questions.?

You wouldn’t pitch your venture without a lot of preparation and practice, so why wouldn’t you prepare and practice Q&A?

Here are my four tips to help you prep for a successful Q&A session of your pitch:?

1. Workshop anticipated questions in advance
2. Assign ownership of question categories among team members
3. Keep it brief
4. Trust your team!

The Q&A Workshop

I always encourage teams to have a brainstorming session where you write down every question you can imagine being asked by an investor or judge. Sticky-notes on Miro are great for this. Keep your board current by capturing any questions that you are asked when practicing with mentors. Cluster the questions together - they’ll likely fall under major sections of the pitch (problem, solution, GTM, competition, etc.). You’ll use these groupings in the next tip. Now, try to craft a brief clear answer for each and write them down (see tip 3 below).?

Assign Answer Owners

When a pitch is given by multiple presenters, I often see entrepreneurs looking from person to person asking “do you want to take this one?” “want me to take this?” - often followed by two presenters both starting to speak at the same time. It’s like the slapstick meme of two people in front of a door, both saying “after you…” and then crashing into the door together! If you’ve clustered your anticipated questions well, divide the categories among those who will be participating in the Q&A. That avoids this whole “me or you?” shuffle. Revenue related question? Jean always takes them. It also lets each presenter prep deeply in advance for any questions in that category. Tim can go really deep on any questions involving how the product works and leave anything about GTM to Louise. You'll appear more confident to the audience and judges when as soon as a question is asked, one presenter steps right into a crisp answer (that you already thought through in advance).?

Keep it Brief

Having a chance to take and answer questions is gold! It helps you learn where your pitch is strong and where it needs to be improved. And it’s really bonus time for your pitch - it gives you an opportunity to expand on points that you worked so hard to squeeze into the five minutes (or whatnot) that you were allotted. You don’t want to squander that bonus time by giving a long and rambling answer to only one question before your time is up. If you plan and practice answers in advance, you can keep it pithy - it makes you sound more confident and assured. But crisp brief answers also mean more time for additional questions. Provide just enough of an answer, then move on. If the person asking wants to follow up, they will.??

Trust your Team

When I hear an answer to a question followed by another member of the team saying “might I just add…” or “yes, and…” it gives the impression that the follow-on speaker was unsatisfied with the answer given by the teammate. This, in turn, makes me think that the team is either not on the same page, or they don’t trust each other.?

One person should answer each question.

I know this may be controversial. It's certainly not easy. But I encourage you to do it. Trust your teammates and their answers.?

I know it can be difficult. When I’m part of a Q&A, I often hear an answer and think “I’d answer that slightly differently” or “I wish they had included this other angle.” But if every question gets a slightly different answer by every member of the team, adding their own twist or additional commentary, two things happen: 1, it leaves less time for you to field more questions, and 2, it makes it feel like you’re not speaking as one team. If you categorize your questions and assign each category to a team-member in advance, you can trust (but verify through practice!) that they will give a strong correct answer to the question. Might they leave out a detail or come at the answer from a different angle than you might? Sure. But take that up once you’re offstage. I don’t want to see it in the precious time you have for Q&A onstage.?

A five minute pitch with five minutes’ Q&A is a ten minute presentation. You wouldn’t practice the first half of your slides and just wing it for the rest. So treat the Q&A with the same level of preparation and care as the pitch itself.?

Good luck and I’ll see you all at the pitch!

Other entrepreneurial educators, investors, or entrepreneurs - share your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear from some of my friends in the VC or angel investing space. What do you look for in a Q&A session? Any other tips?