Preparation in Action

Aaron Skonnard, the co-founder and CEO of Pluralsight, a provider of technology skill development and engineering management solutions on a cloud-based platform, did all of the above in preparation for his company’s IPO roadshow Q&A sessions. Aaron solicited tough questions from his executive team, his investor relations and communications teams, and the investment bankers at Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan. From the extensive lists they sent him, Aaron distilled a very short list—not of questions but of about a dozen or so Roman Columns of the Universal Issues, along with some that were unique to Pluralsight. Then he added a brief positioning answer, selective evidence to support the answer, and Topspin that related back to the Roman Column.

In Figure 15.1, you can see the answer, evidence, and Topspin that Aaron created for one of Pluralsight’s Roman Columns: “Business Model.”

When Aaron and James Budge, his CFO, rehearsed for their roadshow, they could glance at this concise view and get simple prompts for their replies—for any variation of a question that related to the Pluralsight Business Model.

When Girish Mathrubootham, the founder and CEO of Freshworks, a company that provides SaaS customer engagement solutions, was preparing for his IPO roadshow, he asked his team to prepare a talking points document based on the Suasive Q&A Cycle. Jayne Gonzalez, the company’s Senior Director of Corporate Communications, led the task and came up with a grid similar to the Pluralsight document. And then Jayne took it a step further by adding an extra column with different Topspins for media interviews—as every presenter must do for every unique audience.

In Table 15.1, you can see how the Freshworks grid positioned replies for two questions.

Girish, along with Tyler Sloat, his CFO, then proceeded to rehearse their Q&A sessions by having the Freshworks team fire questions at them. With their succinct, compact grid at hand, they got their prompts at a quick glance.

Take a lesson from Freshworks and Pluralsight’s 35,000-foot views and create your own 35,000-foot view of the potential challenging questions you might be asked—before your next Q&A session.

Take a lesson, too, from how the Freshworks and Pluralsight C-level teams—and countless other teams at countless other companies at all levels of management—rehearsed for their high-stakes events using a special practice technique called Verbalization.

Verbalization in Action

Several years ago, I coached Mike Salameh, the CEO of PLX Technology, an IC manufacturing company, for his IPO roadshow. Throughout the program and particularly in the Q&A session, I stressed the importance of Verbalization. Mike took my advice, and the roadshow and offering went off without a hitch, culminating in a successful launch of PLX as a public company.

Three months later, Mike called me, sounding troubled. He had just had his first quarterly earnings call, during which he announced positive results. But he mishandled a couple of the analysts’ questions, and after the call, the company’s stock took a hit. I asked him what went wrong, and he said he did everything he’d learned and Verbalized extensively using flash cards.

That was indeed what went wrong. Questions written out in full sentences on flash cards are likely to be very specific and straightforward, without the randomness of spoken questions. This is the same point I made in Chapter Four about lists of questions: audiences do not ask questions as written but as long, random, nonlinear Fast Thinking rambles. If you have not practiced listening to unstructured speech in real time and deciphering the Roman Column, you can get caught up in the ramble and stumble in your answer. But if you’ve distilled your questions, you’ll be able to identify the key issue in the ramble and then respond with your prepared talking points. Look at how concise Aaron Skonnard made his notes above (see Figure 15.1).

To prepare for the next earnings call, Mike Salameh had several prep sessions with Scott Gibson, PLX’s CFO, and Mike Hopwood, the VP of Sales. They asked each other spontaneous rambling questions and helped each other improve both their answers and delivery. The next earnings call and the following ones went much more smoothly.

In preparing for your Q&A sessions, enlist members of your team and/or your colleagues and have them fire tough questions at you—as rambles. (It will not be difficult; most people ramble quite naturally.) Practice listening for the Roman Columns. In short, you need to hear the questions Verbalized—as much as you need to Verbalize your responses. As Rachel Brand said, “over and over and over.”

Think of Verbalizing as volleying to perfect your tennis game.

Several years ago, I coached the CFO of a software company for her appearance at an industry conference in which presenting companies were asked to deliver their company pitch six times in one day. This format gives the many conference attendees—prospective investors, partners, and customers—several opportunities to see many different companies. At each of the six sessions, the presenters deliver their company pitches and then open the floor to questions. Given the Seven Universal Issues, most questions are variations of the same themes.

After the conference, the CFO called to give me feedback. One of the most interesting points she made was that there were far fewer and less challenging questions in the afternoon sessions than in the morning sessions. She attributed the difference to the Verbalization that came about from her three iterations in the morning sessions; when the afternoon audiences observed her respond with greater assurance, concision, and control, they backed off the challenging questions.

Legislators, unlike prospective investors, partners, and customers, do not back off when they ask challenging questions. Google CEO Sundar Pichai was fully aware of that challenge when he was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. He prepared for his testimony by having multiple mock hearings in California and Washington.

Pichai’s preparation paid off. The Washington Post reported that:

…after nearly four hours of rambling questions and partisan bickering, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai emerged on Tuesday from his first-ever testimony to Congress almost entirely untouched.⁴

You may not be a CEO preparing for a congressional testimony or a CFO preparing for an industry conference, but your Q&A session is just as important for your cause. Your company can perform as well as Google, and you can deliver a compelling narrative with poise and assurance, but if you mishandle a zinger from your audience, your “stock” may take a hit.

In the next chapter, we’ll culminate all the techniques you’ve learned in this book with a positive role model from an expert in the art of war.