Welcome to the Dreamit Dose. In the next five minutes, let's talk about
how to actually answer questions that customers and investors ask you
when you're presenting or pitching. Believe it or not,
many times people never actually answer the question asked.
It's really easy to fix. So let's dive in
so you can nail this and close more deals
Many times I see startups and entrepreneurs asked questions at the end of
customer and investor pitches and they immediately launch into an answer.
What's the problem? They actually never answer the question asked.
So what happens at that point? Their credibility wanes.
They lose the opportunity. Momentum drops.
They've lost credibility.
Why does it happen?
It seems a lot of entrepreneurs are just nervous and they lack confidence in answering it.
They don't fully hear the question because they're so busy thinking ahead of the answer.
They get ahead of themselves, don't fully hear it,
and then lose the complete opportunity.
So how do you fix it? It's actually pretty easy.
First, you need to identify if this is happening to you.
So how do you know if this is a problem?
One of the big tells, is you answer a lot of questions asked with I'm not sure
if I actually answered the question asked, because I don't even remember what you asked.
That's a big sign that you're having a problem.
The next thing that happens is the person who asked the question outright says,
you didn't answer my question asked. Now usually people are too polite.
That doesn't happen very frequently and again you missed the opportunity
to answer a question or deal with an objection.
The final thing can be, if you have a co-founder in the room or somebody
that's friendly to you, after you go through one of these sessions
ask them did I answer all of the questions asked?
Ask them for their honest opinion and the feedback
to figure out if it's a problem for you.
So how to best fix that? There's two easy steps.
One's BLUFing. And the second one is a technique to practice
that will make the issue completely go away.
I'll tell you more in a moment, but first I know I'm going quickly so please
make sure to leave your questions in the comments section and subscribe.
We have a lot more coming.
OK. BLUF. Practice. What are you talking about?
When you hear a question asked, the first thing I want you to do
is I want you to hit the Bottom Line Up Front.
I want you to come straight out of the gate and answer the question asked.
Get straight to the point. Later on you can add color.
Don't take this long circuitous route going into some explanation,
getting lost in the explanation,
and then not even remembering the question asked.
So hit the bottom line up front. Go directly at it.
Then you can add color. Crush it first, then add color.
Great recent example of where a startup completely dropped the ball.
More about dropping balls later.
Anyway they were asked, what's your current MRR?
They come back with, well before we answer exactly what our MRR is
we want to tell you a couple other things first.
Warning Will Robinson,
you start your answer that way you're absolutely going to sidetrack yourself.
They go off on a riff about, hey we want to tell you about the two pilots that we're doing,
a couple of marquee customers that we have,
we want to tell you a little bit more about the pipeline.
Two to three minutes later they completely distracted themselves,
never answered the question, and completely lost momentum.
What they should have done instead
is come out of the gate straight away and BLUFed it.
They should have started with, well currently we have three hundred
and fifty thousand dollars a month of monthly recurring revenue.
That represents a 10 percent month over month growth rate.
By the way, we have two current active pilots,
we have a much bigger funnel, and if you'd like
we'd be happy to tell you more detail.
That's BLUFing. That's getting to the bottom line up front
then adding color after the fact and not forgetting what the question was asked.
Let's talk about how you can get really good at this.
Practice.
I like to think about it like a baseball player practicing.
It's a little bit like, question comes in from the audience boom I catch it in my mitt.
I look at that question. Think about it for a second.
Pick it up and I throw it right back.
I go right to the bottom line up front. I don't add color in the beginning.
I hear that question. I answer directly back.
If you have a co-founder, or somebody that's friendly with you, practice catching.
Have them ask you questions and go back and forth and do 10 to 15 minutes
of back and forth and then ask them for the critical feedback.
If you're directly answering the question upfront and then adding color after the fact.
That's how you do it. You BLUF. You practice BLUFing.
You get great at this. And from now on when you meet with customers and investors
every single time you're going to nail it and close more deals
because you're answering that question right out of the gate.
That's it. That's how you make sure you're actually answering the question asked.
BLUF. Make sure to get that bottom line up front.
Directly answer the question asked.
Then add color later. And practice just like playing baseball.
Work with your co-founders. Ask hard questions back and forth of each other,
and practice this skill so you get really great at it.
That's it. That's how you do it.
That's your Dreamit Dose in about five minutes.
I look forward to answering your questions in the comments.
See you next time.