Here’s what I want if I ask you to make a presentation. Sit down, distribute your materials in advance, and let’s go through them together. Don’t lower the lights, put up your slides, stand up, and walk me through your canned speech. It makes me feel like I am being lectured to. If I want to ask about something, don’t say “we’ll get to that.” It makes me feel that you’re inflexible.

If I interrupt you, deal with my question. I want to see how you handle yourself when I ask a question, not judge how practiced you are at your standard spiel. Most of you rehearse your presentations, but rehearse the wrong things. I’m not looking for how smoothly you can get through your practiced presentation. That’s not what influences my decision. Rather, I give great weight to how flustered you get when I ask hard questions. Flunk that test, and I’m not sure you’re the one I want to trust. What you should be rehearsing are your responses to my questions.

I want you to prove that you can listen, by picking up on my comments, adapting, in real time, what you say to what I’ve just said. Involve me. Ask what I think. I know someone’s listening to me when they show the ability to depart from their prepared scripts and base their subsequent comments on what I’ve just said. If you don’t have the talent to depart from your script when I throw a curve ball (and I’m going to), then why should I believe in your abilities?

When I challenge you with an objection, hear it out, don’t interrupt. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t be concerned about that. I’ve just told you I am concerned. Acknowledge what I said as a valid concern. I’ll let you rephrase and soften it, but make sure you check for my acceptance of your rephrasing. Then give me an answer, and ask me whether I accept your answer. Don’t try to “survive the moment” by waffling and moving on. You may get out of an uncomfortable moment, but I’m going to be left with the feeling that you didn’t answer my question – and that means I don’t trust you. I’ll be impressed if you’ve clearly anticipated me and thought of that objection or concern before it shows me that you’ve taken the time to see things from my perspective. So predict my objections and practice your responses as part of your preparation – on such things are sales won or lost.

Excerpted from ‘Managing the Professional Service Firm’ by David Maister, page 119