Stop Pitching - Focus on the Q&A

In baseball, a pitch goes fast and tries to fool someone.

You are not a great salesman. You're not a salesman - you’re an Innovator.

This is not Shark Tank. Shark Tank is a game show - more performance than reality.

Your great presentation will not make it rain money. How you come across in the Q&A might get you a followup meeting. Investment decisions get made in followup meetings. Usually the 2nd or 3rd or 4th meeting. Rarely the 1st or the 5th.

So Focus on the Q&A.

Two things to encourage in Q&A: Innovators’ concision and collaboration.

• Concision means answering the question in as few words as possible.
• Collaboration means answering the Investor as well as the question.

Two things to avoid in Q&A: Investors’ curiosity and competitiveness.

• Curious Investors pick at something they know about - don’t indulge them.
• Competitive Investors try to top each other - don’t indulge them, either.

Here’s how.

1) Know Your Audience

• Research the Investor(s) you’ll be presenting to. Look at their backgrounds and portfolios. Study their headshots, so you can address them personally.
• Know the answers to Frequently-Asked (Innovator) Questions ahead of time: Investors’ dealflow process and timeline, yield rate and check size.?

2) Lead

• Set the pace - resist the urge to answer questions quickly. Answering quickly only indulges your desire to show off - and your performance anxiety.?
• Instead, pause and acknowledge the question, verbally or non-verbally. Use this time to come up with a Concise and Collaborative answer to the Investor’s question.

3) Show Humility

When you don’t know the answer to a question, say so. This is not weakness, it's authenticity. Use Reflect-Deflect-Defer to deal with tough questions:

• Reflect - Is that something you could help us with?
• Deflect - Here’s how we’re dealing with a related challenge.
• Defer (my fave) - Let’s get together next week to work on this (boom, you just got a followup meeting).

4) Avoid landmines

• Don’t “convince.” You’re not out to win an argument. Don’t “educate” the Investor - that just makes you look haughty (or insecure). Inquire instead on the source of the Investor’s question (i.e. Reflect-Deflect) - What are some of the risks you’ve seen in this area?
• The answer is the answer. Don’t break concision by over-answering a question. And when a Team presents, never ever re-answer a question that a Teammate has already answered - even if they got it wrong!?

So Stop Pitching. All the action is in the Q&A. The Q&A gets you the first followup meeting. Continue your Q&A mastery in that first meeting to get a second or a third meeting: That's where Investors decide whether to join you for the next several years to help grow and exit a venture.

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