7 Persuasion Lessons from Judging 12 Hard-Tech Pitches in 24 Hours

For the past three years, I’ve been a consultant with Innovation Crossroads, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Lab Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP). I work with the Fellows to develop their technologies, business models, and teams so they can help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. 

We just completed this year’s Leadership Council meeting where we heard from finalists invited to the lab to pitch their business opportunity. I was honored to be included among the stakeholders tasked with evaluating them.

Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur pitching your business to investors, you can appreciate that there are situations when you, too, are seeking support for your ideas. 

Maybe, you want to hire people.

Maybe, you want to purchase new equipment. 

Maybe, you want to get a new project or program launched.

Mastering the ability to present new opportunities persuasively is a critical skill for all technical leaders regardless of your industry or role.

A deep dive into the Innovation Crossroads finals will give you useful insights on how to do it well.

⭐Fortunately, you don’t need any details about the presentations to gain useful insights. (I’m not at liberty to discuss them, anyway). 

💡A critical analysis of the questions the evaluation panel asked reveals lessons about what decision-makers think is important.  

At this event, the stakeholders asked 86 questions. 

Luckily for you, I wrote every single one of them down. 

In this newsletter you will learn:

  • How to use the question bank technique to level up your powers of persuasion.  
  • The common types of questions stakeholders ask when considering investing in new opportunities.
  • Why stakeholders ask the questions they do and how to provide the best possible answers.

How to Use the Question Bank Technique to Level Up Your Persuasive Skills.  

The Final Pitch event agenda consisted of a 10-minute presentation and a 15-minute Q&A. 

That’s correct. MORE time was devoted to the Q&A than to the presentation itself.  

Q&A is important to decision-makers. 

It is in your best interest to invest time in preparing it.

A question bank is a powerful tool to help you do just that. 

Here’s how to make a question bank:

  • Create a list of questions from various sources:
    • Past presentations you’ve delivered.
    • Presentations you attend (peers and people in higher positions than you are great sources)
    • Interviews.
    • AI is also a great source.
  • Reflect on the motivation behind the question. Why would the stakeholders ask that?
  • Do your best to answer thoroughly.
  • When possible, embed the answer in the body of your presentation. Sometimes you don’t have enough time or space to answer everything you have considered. Prepare backup slides and concise verbal answers.
  • Periodically review and update your bank.

Here are the steps I took to create the question bank for the finals.

  1. I wrote down every question that was asked.
  2. I removed identifying information such as details about the presenter, industry, technologies, competitors, etc.
  3. I grouped similar questions.
  4. I created a high-level identifier for the groups of questions.
  5. I used my best judgment to describe the categories of questions and the motivation behind them.

The Common Types of Questions Stakeholders Ask When Considering Investing in New Opportunities.

The 86 questions asked during the event fell into 7 broad categories.  Here is a brief description of each one.

  1. Current Condition: What is the environment you are attempting to change and how well do you understand it?
  2. Target Condition: What is your vision for the new environment once your opportunity is implemented?
  3. Methodology: What critical decisions have you made and why?
  4. Results: How has your opportunity performed against benchmarks so far?
  5. Next Steps: What is your plan for meeting your goals?
  6. Strategic Fit: How well do you understand and align with the priorities of the stakeholders you are trying to persuade?
  7. Unforced Errors: I’m confused. What do you mean?

Below is a graph of how frequently the different questions were asked during the event.

Why Stakeholders Ask the Questions They Do and How to Provide the Best Possible Answers.

In this section, I share the topics addressed in each question, why stakeholders ask, and how to provide the best possible answers.

1. Current Condition

What is the environment you are attempting to change and how well do you understand it?

Topics addressed in Current Condition questions include:

  • The problem you are trying to solve.
  • State-of-the-art and emerging technological trends related to your problem and opportunity.
  • Regulatory environment.
  • Current solutions to the problem, their performance metrics,  advantages, and disadvantages.
  • Current players in the industry (competitive landscape and value chain).

Why stakeholders ask Current Condition questions:

  • To assess the rigor of your evaluation.
  • To determine if we have specific knowledge, experiences, or network members that we can bring to the evaluation of the opportunity 

How to answer Current Condition questions:

  • Good: You demonstrate depth and breadth of understanding of the state of the art, emerging trends, and relevant benchmarks through well-cited research. 
  • Better: Good + You have directly engaged practitioners in the industry and have data/ testimonials validating your assumptions. 
  • Best: Better + You have insider knowledge and can prove it. You have 5+ years of experience in relevant positions in the industry you are attempting to change. Or, you have direct and ongoing access to industry experts.  

2. Target Condition

What is your vision for the new environment once your opportunity is implemented?

Topics addressed in Target Condition questions include:

  • A description of the resolution of the problem you are addressing.
  • The new regulatory environment.
  • The new players in the industry (competitive landscape and value chain).
  • A description of your new business as it ramps up and once it achieves steady-state (size, impact on problem, revenue projections, etc.).

Why stakeholders ask Target Condition questions:

  • To determine if your vision for the future seems plausible.
  • To determine if your end state matches our goals.
  • To assess that you have thought about potential problems that arise from the new reality and how to address them.

How to answer Target Condition questions:

  • Good: You can clearly articulate an end state from the point of view of those impacted by your change.
  • Better: Good + You can define what changes must occur in the current environment to fully realize your vision.
  • Best: Better + You articulate challenges and risks associated with your vision.

3. Methodology

What critical decisions have you made and why?

Methodology is a broad category and can include decisions about:

  • Experimental design 
  • Analytical approaches
  • Manufacturing methods
  • Go-to-market strategy
  • Business model
  • Customer acquisition
  • Partnership strategy

Why stakeholders ask Methodology questions:

  • To determine if the results you share match what they would expect.
  • To assess your ability to explain your decision-making processes.
  • To assess your ability to make sound decisions in the face of uncertainty.

How to answer Methodology questions:

  • Good: You can describe your choices for each area described above and how they relate to industry standards.
  • Better: Good + You can explain why you made those choices. 
  • Best:  Better + You created models to facilitate data-based decisions about future strategic choices.

4. Results

How has your opportunity performed against benchmarks so far?

Topics addressed in Results questions include:

  • Data you have collected relative to your opportunity and your interpretation of what it means toward your progress. 
  • Results topics include but aren’t limited to:
    • Technical experiments
    • Manufacturing 
    • Customer acquisition
    • Partnership strategy
    • Funding strategy

Why stakeholders ask Results questions:

  • To assess your ability to execute on deliverables.
  • To evaluate the potential of getting the desired outcome.

How to answer Results questions:

  • Good: You have data on key performance metrics and can show how they compare to benchmarks. 
  • Better: Good + You had logical interpretations for your results based on sound analytical frameworks.
  • Best: Better + You collected enough high-quality data to leverage results for predictive models. 

5. Next Steps

What is your plan for meeting your goals?

Topics addressed in Next Steps questions include:

  • Detailed plans for what will be accomplished and when.
  • Estimated results to be obtained.
  • Resources required to achieve the desired results.
  • Timeline of return on investment.

Why stakeholders ask Next Steps questions:

  • To assess your ability to estimate actions and timelines.
  • To determine if your project fits with their target investment priorities and timeline.
  • To determine if they have specific knowledge, experiences, or network members that they can bring to the next steps should they engage with the opportunity any further.

How to answer Next Steps questions:

  • Good: You have defined a clear project plan with milestones, timeline, and resource requirements for the major phases of your project. 
  • Better: Good + You have created contingency plans for possible positive and negative outcomes of critical path items.
  • Best: Better +  You have dynamic models for action and mitigation strategies and the resources available to execute.

6. Strategic Fit

How well do you understand and align with the priorities of the stakeholders you are trying to persuade?

Topics addressed in Strategic Fit questions include:

  • Which of our stated priorities does this opportunity relate to?
  • What aspects of the program resources will you leverage?
  • Who from our organization have you consulted?
  • Who from our organization/network has agreed to work with you, should we pursue this opportunity?

Why stakeholders ask Strategic Fit questions:

  • To determine if you have attempted to analyze our priorities.
  • To ensure that supporting your proposal maintains consistency with our stated priorities of the organization.

How to answer Strategic Fit questions:

  • Good: You can articulate the direct match between what you are proposing and the publicly stated priorities of the stakeholders (found on the website, application, etc). 
  • Better: Good + You have directly engaged people in the stakeholders’ ecosystem to validate your strategic fit assumptions and can name them. 
  • Best: Better + You have enthusiastic support from experts and/or decision-makers in the stakeholders’ ecosystem. They proactively shared their enthusiasm via a letter of support, phone call, or meeting attendance. 

7. Unforced Errors

Um…I’m confused. What do you mean?

Topics addressed in Unforced Error questions include:

  • What does that acronym stand for?
  • What are the units on that graph?
  • Is that picture to scale?

Why stakeholders ask Unforced Error questions:

  • Something on your slides was confusing.
  • Something you said in the presentation was confusing.

How to answer Unforced Error questions:

Good: Answer it immediately and to the best of your ability. Don’t profusely apologize or justify your lack of attention to detail

Better:  Avoid these questions through meticulous proofreading and practicing your presentation.

Best: See above 

You now have a core set of questions and answer strategies that are nearly universal to any investment proposal. If you were just able to answer each of these with the “Good” option, you would be ahead of the majority of people.

You can do even better by (1) working towards the “Best” option for each of these questions and (2) customizing the question bank based on your experience and the stakeholders in your ecosystem. 

TL;DR

Mastering the ability to persuasively present opportunities is a critical skill for all technical leaders. One powerful, and often overlooked, strategy to leverage is focusing on stakeholder questions by building a question bank.  In this newsletter, I showed you exactly how to build your own question bank through my creation and analysis of an 86-item question bank from a recent pitch event. I revealed the 7 common types of questions asked by stakeholders considering investment opportunities and how to provide them with the best possible answers.