The bucket model for answering questions is simply thinking of all the hundreds of questions that you could be asked to answer and then sorting them into common themes or buckets. It might be questions about price, planning, quality, time frames, contingency plans, return on investment etc. You sort these key themes and place each theme in its own bucket and then prepare an eloquent and succinct answer for each bucket. You then listen to the questions being asked of you, for those key words which tell you the essence of the question and which bucket you will take the answer from. So whatever question that you get asked, you can then pick the answer from one of the buckets with your prepared answers. Henry Kissinger used to say “What questions do you have for my answers”. He would listen and then roll out his prepared answer on that particular question. If you start to get questions that you have not had before, or do not have a prepared answer for, then get back to them, find out the answer and create a new bucket.
