■ 1. Tangential ■

In Colin Powell’s words, “There is no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid answers.” There is also no such thing as an irrelevant question—but there is such thing as a tangential question, such as:

How come your logo doesn’t have a space between the two words?

Unless your presentation was about logo design, this question is tangential to most common business subjects. The operative principle for handling this question is the same as it is for all questions: quid pro quo. Provide an answer—with one of two options. For both options, first Buffer (the logo design) to keep yourself from snickering, frowning, or rolling your eyes at your valued audience member. Also keep in mind Powell’s admonition to “never react that way or talk down to a questioner.”²

Option One: answer directly:

We chose that style as a branding decision because it a popular style among many companies in our sector, and we want to be current with them.

Option Two: take it off-line:

There are several reasons for our design that I can share with you after the presentation.

If the tangential question is clearly out of bounds, as in the Chapter Nine example of the DJ asking pop singer Ariana Grande—who came on his radio show to promote a song—whether her makeup or phone was more important. In such cases, you can do as Grande did: answer briefly and return to your own subject.

■ 2. False Assumption ■

In Chapter Ten, you read about the two false assumption questions that Colin Powell fielded. One reporter charged that “the U.S. has a plan to spread a set of values at gunpoint,” and another that the United States was acting as “the police of the world.” Because the U.S. has no such plan or policy, the U.S. Secretary of State promptly replied, “Of course not!” He was doing what Professor Ronald Hall of Stetson University and Andy Kessler in The Wall Street Journal recommended in the same chapter: rather than attempt to answer false assumptions, refute them.

Tien Tzuo did just that. I had the opportunity to coach Tien, the founder and CEO of Zuora, an enterprise software company for subscription-based services, for the Q&A sessions for his IPO roadshow. Then, as a public company, Tien had a quarterly earnings call during which Goldman Sachs analyst Chris Merwin asked a question that implied that Zuora was missing an opportunity in the financial services sector:

In terms of one of the questions I had was on verticals. I know that I think from a go-to-market perspective, there was an effort to focus on some of your core verticals. We’ve had a lot of success, but then obviously, we’re hearing about now, big deal in the financial services sector and which has not historically been as big a sector for you. So, can you just talk a bit about your vertical focus from a go-to-market perspective and how that’s playing out relative to your expectations?

Tien corrected the analyst:

Yes, just to be clear, we never said we’re going to limit ourselves with these three verticals.

But then Tien explained how Zuora did plan to enter new verticals—and to do so responsibly:

And so rather than saying, hey, let’s give the sales reps the phone book and have them call every single company, the company they want. Let’s be smart about where we’re seeing the strongest traction.…If we can focus our demand gen efforts in verticals that we believe are growing the fastest and are the most ready to move, that’s going to make us that much more productive.³

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and the CEO of Twitter, the social networking service, had to be more resolute when he was charged with a false assumption.

During a House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce hearing on the influence of social media, U.S. Representative Gus Michael Bilirakis (R–FL) accused Dorsey of being uncooperative with law enforcement’s efforts to protect children:

In a hearing last year, we received testimony that since 2016, Twitter has intentionally curtailed sharing threat data with law enforcement fusion centers. Here’s the question: you’re well aware that on Twitter and Periscope, that traffic has increased from bad actors seeking to groom children for molestation, lured females into sex trafficking, to sell illegal drugs, incite violence, and even threaten to murder police officers. Are you willing to reinstate this cooperation, retain evidence, and provide law enforcement the tools to protect our most vulnerable? Yes or no?

Following Professor Hall’s logic, if Dorsey were to answer “yes” or “no,” he would be admitting to the assumption in Bilirakis’s charge that Twitter was not cooperating with law enforcement. Instead, Dorsey refuted the congressman’s charge as categorically fallacious:

First, child exploitation has no place on our platform, and I don’t believe that’s true. We work with local law enforcement regularly.

Bilirakis restated his false assumption:

So, you’re saying this is not true? What I’m telling you? Are you willing to reinstate—reinstate—in other words, it’s not going on now—reinstate this cooperation with law enforcement, to retain evidence, and provide law enforcement the tools to protect our most vulnerable?

Although he tried to be cooperative, Dorsey would not accede that Twitter should start doing what they were already doing:

We would love to work with you in more detail on what you’re seeing, but we work with law enforcement regularly. We have a strong partnership.

Dorsey’s strong assertion caught Bilirakis up short. After a beat, he recovered and, rather than restate his own false assumption, he repeated—and validated—Dorsey’s position:

So, you’re saying this is not true what I’m telling you?

Despite Bilirakis’s concession, Dorsey graciously repeated his willingness to cooperate:

I don’t believe so, but I would love to understand the specifics.

Trying to rephrase his demand, Bilirakis twisted his words into a tangled knot:

Will you commit to—to doing what I’m telling you you’re not doing—ah—in—in the future? Work with me on this?

Dorsey stood his ground:

We will commit to continue doing what we are doing.

Unable to find another way to phrase his demand, Bilirakis finally capitulated:

And what is that?

Dorsey reaffirmed his stance:

Working with local law enforcement.⁴

By holding the line against five iterations of the same false assumption, Jack Dorsey asserted the complete control and resolve that every presenter must demonstrate in Q&A.

■ 3. Unknown ■

If you are asked a question that is outside your wheelhouse, or if you are asked about some miniscule detail and you do not know the answer, say so. No audience can reasonably expect you to be a walking encyclopedia. But, after you say you don’t know, promise to get the answer from the person in your company who does know and to provide it at a later point in time. To support your intent, ask for a business card.

But if the question is in your wheelhouse, you must answer it directly.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepared to do just that when he was invited to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the controversial Cambridge Analytica scandal. In advance of the hearings, Facebook engaged WilmerHale, a prominent Washington, DC law firm to coach Zuckerberg on how to respond to the legislators’ questions. Additionally, as a New York Times story reported, the Facebook communications team set up mock sessions with:

…a team of experts, including a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, to put Mr. Zuckerberg, 33, a cerebral coder who is uncomfortable speaking in public, through a crash course in humility and charm.⁵

Zuckerberg got the humility part right: he began most of his responses to the questions that U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY) asked him by addressing her respectfully as “Congresswoman.”

His answers were another matter.

Ocasio-Cortez asked:

Mr. Zuckerberg, what year and month did you personally first become aware of Cambridge Analytica?

Zuckerberg replied:

Ah—I’m not—not sure of the exact time—but it was probably around the time when it became public, I think it was around March of 2018. I—I could be wrong, though.

Ocasio-Cortez took another angle on the question:

When did Facebook COO Cheryl Sandburg become aware of Cambridge Analytica?

He responded:

I—I don’t know off the top of my head.

Ocasio-Cortez reacted:

You don’t know. Did anyone on your leadership team know about Cambridge Analytica prior to the initial report by The Guardian on December 11, 2015?

Zuckerberg replied:

Ah—Congresswoman, I—I believe so. And that some folks were—were—ah—tracking it internally.

The Congresswoman was about to ask another question when Zuckerberg suddenly remembered:

I’m actually—I do, as you’re asking this I—I—I do think I—I was aware of Cambridge Analytica as an entity earlier I—I don’t know if I was tracking how they were using Facebook specifically.

Ocasio-Cortez took yet another angle on the same question:

When was the issue discussed with your board member Peter Thiel?

Again, the CEO claimed not to know when the issue was discussed with a board member:

Ah—Congresswoman, I don’t—I don’t know that off the top of my head.

The Congresswoman was incredulous:

You don’t know? This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company that had catastrophic impacts in the 2016 election. You don’t know?⁶

Perhaps the most infamous example of evasive answers occurred during a public earnings call in 2001 by Enron, the energy company that eventually crashed and burned in an outrageous accounting scandal. The company’s stock had fallen from around $90 per share to just $60 in the six months prior to the earnings call. A big part of the drop, according to a report in Yahoo! Finance, was due to “hounding” by Highfields Capital analyst Richard Grubman.⁷

During the earnings call, Grubman continued his hounding by asking Mark Koenig, Enron’s EVP of investor relations this question:

Can you tell us what the assets and liabilities from price risk management were at quarter end, what those balances were?

Koenig replied:

We don’t have the balance sheet completed. We’ll have that done shortly when we file the Q. But until we pull all that together, we just can’t give you that.

Grubman was not pleased with Koenig’s answer:

Well, can I—can I ask you—I mean that’s—I’m trying to understand why that would appear to be an unreasonable request in light of your comments about daily control of all your credits. I mean, you’ve got a trading desk with a $21 billion matched book that’s two times your book value, and you can’t tell us what the balances are?

Koenig danced away:

I’m not saying we can’t tell you what the balances are. We clearly have all those positions on a daily basis, but at this point we will wait to disclose those until all the proper netting and the right accounting is put together. But…

The analyst was incredulous:

But you’re the only financial institution that can’t produce a balance sheet or a cash flow statement with their earnings.⁸

At that point, Jeffrey Skilling, Enron’s CEO, joined the call and hurled an expletive at Grubman. The notorious incident only accelerated the collapse. Four months later Skilling resigned, and, by the end of the year, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The incredulity that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Richard Grubman expressed was based on their reasonable expectations that the information they were seeking belonged directly in Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Koenig’s wheelhouses. A CEO would reasonably be expected to know the details of a major involvement of his company, and an EVP of investor relations would reasonably be expected to have balance sheets at his disposal. To feign not knowing, ignore the question, or decline for no reason are all unacceptable responses to audiences.

What’s in your wheelhouse?

Quid pro quo.

■ 4. Forward Looking ■

Public company management teams are careful not to make forward-looking statements unless they are official revisions of their formal guidance communicated to the entire market at one time. There is always a risk that even the best-laid plans will fail to materialize. As a protection, public companies include a boilerplate “Safe Harbor”⁹ statement in all written documents and oral presentations, as required by the SEC. If you get a question about the future potential of your business, follow the policy of publicly traded companies: provide guidance but not forecasts. Even if your company is private, maintain credibility and trust by avoiding promises in your presentation and when you answer questions about the outlook of your business.

You can protect yourself and your company with a simple grammatical technique: rather than use verbs in the future tense—”will” or “shall”—use the conditional mood: “expect,” “estimate,” or “anticipate”—words that don’t predict but provide a positive outlook.

■ 5. Downstream ■

If you get a question about content that you will be covering later in your presentation, you have two options for how to respond, depending on the circumstances:

Option One: If the question is independent of intervening information, answer the question in full.

As an example, the content of this book forms the basis and sequence of our Suasive programs. If, while I was discussing Active Listening during a program, I were to get a question (as I often do) about what to do if one does not know the answer to a question—because this a straightforward question—I would promptly give a complete answer:

Say you don’t know but promise to get the answer to them at a later point in time.

Option Two: If the downstream content is dependent on material that you haven’t yet covered, give a partial answer and forward reference the balance of the answer.

Again, using my own material as an example, if, while I was discussing Active Listening during a program, I were to get a question about how to handle a hostile question—not having covered the Buffer yet—I would respond:

The way to handle hostile questions is to neutralize the question, a subject we’ll be covering in detail right after Active Listening.

“Neutralize” is a partial answer and “right after Active Listening” is a forward reference. Both elements give the questioner assurance that their question will be answered.

Contrast this approach to presenters who, in response to a question about downstream content, say:

I’ll get to that later.

“I’ll get to that later” is a brushoff. Never brush off your audience. Respect them and they will respect you. The alternative in unthinkable.

■ 6. Guilty as Charged ■

If a startup company is entering a sector dominated by a larger company, the CEO is likely to be asked this hostile question from Chapter Eight:

There are dozens of startups doing exactly what you’re doing! And then there are all those big companies with their entrenched market share. It’s a jungle out there filled with 800-pound gorillas, and you’re only just getting off the ground! What on Earth makes you think that you can survive?

The underlying issue in this question is essentially the same as the question Marisa (Hall) Summers asked President Bush:

How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives? And if it hasn’t, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what’s ailing them?¹⁰

Both cases are uncomfortable but true. Startups do have a significant challenge going up against an 800-pound gorilla, and millionaires such as George H. W. Bush do not have any personal experience in what is ailing people caught in an economic downturn.

However, neither the CEO of a startup company nor the President of the United States has to plead guilty to the charge and surrender.

Here is how the startup CEO could respond to the “What on Earth makes you think that you can survive?” question above:

• Buffer: Let me describe our competitive strategy.

• Agree: You’re absolutely right… (then, using the questioner’s words) …it is a jungle out there. (Transparency)

• But…: Don’t agree too long. Step on the brakes by saying: But…^*

• Pivot: …that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for a new player.

• Evidence: Those large companies are top heavy, with multiple lines of business, while our pure-play focus and agility have netted us 15 major customers in our first year of operation.

• Call to Action/Benefit: We’re confident that we can not only compete effectively but will succeed in this market—which makes us a solid investment.

By agreeing to an uncomfortable but true charge, you immediately achieve transparency—a rare quality in this day and age of rampant evasion by so many public figures. Once you have achieved transparency, the pivot then returns control to you and enables you to present your own point of view.

Here is how President Bush could have responded to Marisa’s question:

• Buffer: How can a person of means help/find a cure for… (restating Marisa’s own words) …those who are less fortunate.

• Agree: You’re absolutely right… (then, using more of her words) …the national debt hasn’t affected me. (Transparency)

• But…: Don’t agree too long. Step on the brakes by saying: But…

*   There is a proverbial story about the 1,000-word sentence in which the 999th word is “but,” which invalidates the previous 998 words. In the case of guilty as charged questions, the “but” either diminishes or counterbalances the admission of guilt.

• Pivot: …that doesn’t mean that I don’t care. Everybody cares… (This is where Bush began his answer)

• Evidence: As a matter of fact, I care so much that, during my first administration, I initiated an X, a Y, and a Z program to help people who are less fortunate than I am.

• Call to Action/Benefit: If you’ll elect me to a second term, I’ll initiate even more such programs.

Merely admitting to the charge and leaving it at that would be complete capitulation and surrender. Offering negative information voluntarily puts you into a counterproductive practice known as “Breaking into Jail.”

■ Point B^SM and WIIFY^® ■

The audience enters the room for any presentation at Point A: uninformed, unconvinced, and not ready to act. The presenter’s objective, goal, or message is to move the audience from Point A to Point B^SM: informed, convinced, and ready to act. This dynamic shift is the art of persuasion. Point B is the call to action.

WIIFY^® is an acronym (pronounced “whiffy”) that stands for “What’s in it for you?” based on the more common axiom “What’s in it for me?” The shift from “me” to “you” is deliberate, not just to leverage the power of “you” as a direct connection with the audience but to shift the focus from the presenter to the audience. This shift gives the audience a benefit, and a benefit gives them the reason to move from Point A to Point B. People need a reason to act, and it must be their reason, not yours. The WIIFY is their reason.

A simple way to look at these terms is that Point B is what you want your audience to do, and the WIIFY is why they should do it. In Presenting to Win, I urge presenters to state their Points B and/or their audience’s WIIFYs often throughout their stories.

■ Topspin^® ■

By stating Point B and/or a WIIFY at the end of your answer to a challenging question, you produce a strong and confident conclusion. At Suasive, we call this endgame Topspin^®. Topspin is a competitive tactic, similar to the tennis term. In tennis, a player adds topspin to a stroke to create forward motion, forcing the ball to bounce sharply, making it difficult for the opponent to return—a power play that gives a player a winning advantage. In Q&A, Topspin is a power stroke that gives a presenter or speaker a winning advantage.

In the next chapter, you’ll learn all about Topspin, the culminating step in the Q&A cycle.