Are You Prepared for Q&A?

Has this ever happened to you? You spent the last week preparing for an important business presentation. You did your research and you designed beautiful, high-impact slides. You practiced the night before and now you think you know your stuff. Your delivery is excellent and the audience pays attention. They give you an appreciative round of applause. Then, during the question and answer session, your audience asks you challenging questions. Your confidence cracks, you stammer through your answers, and you leave your audience with the impression that you don’t know very much after all.

If this has never happened to you, congratulations. You’re doing something right. But you’ve probably seen it happen to someone else. It’s not uncommon to see someone deliver a beautiful presentation only to have everything fall apart in the Q&A session. Why does this happen and how can you prevent it from happening to you?

Preparing for your delivery is easy and straightforward, but you never really know what questions your audience may ask you afterwards. You can prepare yourself better for your Q&A session, however, by following just two simple guidelines.

First, really know your stuff. This is rule number one when it comes to delivering presentations. When you stand up in front of an audience, their immediate perception is that you are the expert. Why? Because they’re sitting down, and you’re standing up. Now it’s your job to fulfill their expectations. Learn your content backward and forward. Know which slide comes next before you project it on the screen. Learn relationships between your key points. Just like acting on stage, it’s more than just learning your lines. You’ve got to become the part.

Second, anticipate questions. Once you’ve mastered your content, make a list of the questions that your think your audience might ask you. If you have a partner who can help you rehearse, ask him or her to watch your presentation and ask you some questions afterwards. Practice answering them. Even if your audience asks you questions different from those you’ve rehearsed, you’ll feel more confident about fielding questions and project more credibility as a result.

Your question and answer session is as important as the content of your presentation. That’s why it’s useful for you to be as prepared for questions as you are with your information.

Know Your Strengths & Weaknesses

When you prepare for negotiations, your greatest strength is knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are.

When you know your strengths in advance, you can maximize them at the negotiating table. You might have a list of options available to you making this particular negotiation only marginally necessary. You might have the power of the law behind you. You might even have a reputation as a risk-taker or a tough negotiator. Knowing where you are strong helps build confidence.

When you know your weaknesses in advance, you know where you are vulnerable. It’s like a line of defenders blocking the goal for a penalty kick. They cover up where their are weaknesses lie. You can cover up as well and maintain confidence if you know your weak spots in advance.

Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, however, is just the first part. Knowing your counterpart’s strengths and weaknesses gives you an extra advantage. Prepare in advance how you will respond if they play their strengths at the negotiating table.

As you assess strengths and weaknesses on your side and theirs, remember to be objective and honest with yourself. Don’t overestimate your strengths because of your counterpart’s weaknesses. Don’t overestimate your own weaknesses because of your counterpart’s strengths.

Assess your counterpart analytically rather than emotionally. Their company may be bigger, but yours is probably more versatile and flexible. Their company might have been around longer, but yours may be more in tune with current trends and demands. Intimidation is only a perception. Let the facts speak for themselves and use them to build your confidence.

Knowing strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the table is being prepared. Spend more time preparing and you'll spend less time negotiating. And you’ll also find it easier to get both of you the best agreement possible.

Set Your Negotiating Deadlines -- and Know Theirs!

Just about the same time that the Japanese economy started to bloom in the early 80s, Herb Cohen, one of the world’s best negotiators, wrote a classic bestseller called You Can Negotiate Anything. In it, he told his story about his first encounter as a young negotiator with the Japanese.

Arriving in Tokyo for the two-week negotiation, he was met by two Japanese gentlemen who escorted him through customs and immigration and loaded him into a plush limousine. During the ride they asked him two questions. Do you speak Japanese? No. Would you like us to arrange your limousine back to the airport? Well, that would be nice, and he handed them his return ticket. Now they knew his deadline and he didn’t know theirs.

For the next ten days, Cohen’s Japanese hosts accompanied him on cultural tours, golf games and elaborate dinners. They even enrolled him in a course to help him understand Japanese culture and traditions. Whenever he brought up the negotiation, he was told there would be plenty of time. Discussions finally began on day 12, but were cut short for a golf game. They resumed on day 13, but were cut short again for the farewell dinner. Just when he seemed to be getting somewhere on day 14, Cohen’s limousine arrived and the final deal was cut in the back seat on the way to the airport.

How well do you think he did on that deal? Because they knew that Cohen wouldn’t allow himself to go home empty handed, the Japanese held off making concessions until the last minute. How did they get away with this? Again, they knew his deadline and he didn’t know theirs.

When you’re preparing for negotiations, setting a realistic deadline for yourself will allow you the time you need to establish your position with your counterpart. More importantly, finding out your counterpart’s deadline may give you an edge. Whoever has the tightest deadline is at a disadvantage if it’s known by the other side.

If you know that your counterpart is flexible about their deadline, you can begin planning some strategies in advance to get them to create one for themselves. Let them know that their delay tactics are not going to force you to soften your terms. Lead them to believe that further delay may even result in some of what you’ve already conceded being taken off the table. Send a subtle message that your last offer is preferable to no agreement at all.

Delay-busting tactics like these are useful, but you can only deploy them if you’re prepared in advance. Every negotiator has deadlines. To ensure that you’re adequately prepared, find out what they are.

Discover the Interests behind Positions

Here’s one of my favorite negotiation stories:

Two sisters were in the kitchen fighting over the last orange in the refrigerator. The battle became so intense that their father finally had to intervene. He offered to cut the orange in half as a compromise, but this just provoked more fighting.

Finally, he asked the girls why they each wanted the orange so badly. “I’m hungry,” said the first, “and I want a snack.”

“I’m baking a cake,” said the second, “and I need to grate the orange peel into the batter.”

When the father understood the interests underlying his daughters’ positions, the solution became obvious.

Similarly, knowing your counterpart’s interests in your negotiations are what you need to get past what seem to be immovable positions. And that’s why, in addition to finding precedents and alternatives, finding interests needs to be an important part of your pre-negotiation preparation.

Negotiation has been defined as taking and giving up a series of positions. Positions, however, are often defined by dollars. Interests give you insight into the real reasons behind your counterpart’s positions. Understanding their interests in advance, therefore, can make you more successful in moving them from one position to the next.

Here’s an example. Suppose you’re negotiating with your landlord over a substantial unexpected increase in your office rent. The extra money defines her position and may be difficult for you to accept until you learn that her interests lie in paying for renovations in order to attract prestigious tenants to her building. Knowing this gives you leverage. In lieu of paying the extra rent, perhaps you could call in some of your own contractors to help do the renovations more cheaply for her.

Sometimes you may discover that your counterpart’s interests are the same as your own. Maybe you’re both looking for ways to cut costs or increase efficiency. Maybe you’re both interested in expansion. Maybe you’re both just in need of a successful deal to help your careers. In any case, it’s good to know your common interests in advance. Beginning with what you have in common is a great way to start negotiating.

During your preparations, make sure you discover the interests behind your counterpart’s negotiating positions. In addition to giving you more leverage, you’ll ensure that both you and your counterpart get the deal that you both want.

Be Prepared with Alternatives

Preparing for your negotiations with precedents, or previous negotiation outcomes, can help increase your leverage when you’re seated at the negotiation table. A second important addition to your preparation is creating alternatives.

It’s been said that going into negotiations without alternatives is like going into battle with only one weapon. I’ve seen this happen – not in real life, but in a comic strip: Hagar the Horrible. He and his invading army couldn’t knock the down the castle doors with the battering ram they had brought, so they had no alternative but to turn around and go home.

In any negotiation, there are always alternatives and the more alternatives your counterpart thinks you have, the greater your negotiating leverage. One way to create the perception of having many alternatives is to evoke the competition. Suppose you’re looking for a low-rate mortgage on a shophouse you want to purchase for your business. You meet with one banker who offers you reasonable rates, but before signing on, you make it clear that you’re going to shop around. You step out, maybe visit another bank or two (or not) and return two hours later. By simply stating, “I think you can do better on your interest rate”, you’ve told the banker that you have alternatives and if he or she really wants your business, those rates will come down.

Sometimes, however, you might be in a situation where you’re negotiating with a sole source of some product that you require. “What can I do?” you might ask. “I have no alternative!” Being in this situation can create feelings of powerlessness and dependency.

So let’s suppose, after you look around, you find that there is only one source. Are there no alternatives? Well, could you redesign around this product or come up with a replacement? Possibly. Could you make the product yourself? Since you’re dealing with a sole source, there are doubtlessly other companies in your position. This might be an opportunity for profitable competition. And even if these options seem extreme, you still have alternatives in your attitude towards doing business with this sole source. The way you feel about doing business with them will have a direct effect on how they do business with you.

Dependency reduces your negotiating leverage. Being well prepared with a list of alternatives, however, gives you independence and helps you to negotiate with more confidence.