This deep dive discusses how to handle audience questions. What you do … and don’t do … with them has a critical impact on your results, often more than the overall message content itself. Here are some ‘Do & Don’t’ Best Practices to help you Survive and Thrive during the Audience Q&A.
Presentations
Slay the Impromptu Dragon!
Has this ever happened to you? Maria arrived at work early, got a cup of coffee and settled into tackling her highest priority task of the day. When, out of nowhere, her boss Tony approached her cubicle and asked the question that strikes fear in the hearts most of employees, ‘Hi Maria … you busy?’ Without … Read more
The Fear Factor Revisited
(As an executive presentation coach, the most useful and valuable skill I can share with anyone is how to manage their Presentation Anxiety. So, consider this KISS version of a longer piece a holiday gift from me to all of you.)
How many of you experience pain when you deliver presentations at work? How many hate speaking in public? I see a lot of hands up, so let’s briefly discuss five simple strategies for managing your Presentation Anxiety.
Surviving Q & A
As workplace presenters, you have two basic strategies for handling audience questions – holding them until the end or handling them anytime. Both approaches work, but each has some disadvantages.
There also are two hybrid strategies that involve the best features of both approaches. So, here’s how you can easily survive Q&A and even enjoy the process.
Speak Up … I Can’t Hear You!
An easy way to make your workplace presentation more interesting is simply to speak louder. Really. That’s all it takes to become a more engaging presenter. Speaking up can significantly impact your audience’s attention, interest in your message … and positive impression of you, the messenger.
Loud is Good
In our culture, we tend to interpret a soft-spoken voice as coming from a person lacking confidence or credibility. Not good reactions for your audience to have about you. Even on a microphone, the soft-spoken voice delivers that weak impression loud and clear. It doesn’t matter if these reactions are valid – remember that Perception is Reality. If you sound weak to the audience – you are.
Give ‘Em That Old Power Look!
Ready for a deep dive into Power Eye Contact? Great, because it can really project confidence, credibility and competence … take a look.
If I could only enhance one presentation delivery skill with my executive coaching clients, it would be to help them maximize the impact of their eye contact. Properly done, it produces several positive results for your audience and for you. Nothing says more about your credibility, power and confidence than what you do – and don’t do – with your eyes. They are the mirror of your soul. Everything else is a ‘B’ priority.
Slow Down … You Talk Too Fast!
(Now that many organizations have returned to in-person presentations and pitches, it’s time to polish up those delivery skills that may have gotten rusty with lack of use during the pandemic. So let’s consider that most workplace presenters talk to fast … )
That’s right, it’s time to slow you down. An important component of vocal delivery, your pace or rate of speaking can impact your audience’s attention, interest and opinion of you along with your ability to pause effectively.
Slow Down
Just as audience members tend to perceive a soft-spoken speaker as lacking in confidence or credibility, they react similarly to a fast-talking speaker. It doesn’t matter if this perception is accurate or not, because their perception is your reality. You are what they think you are.
Each of us has a normal comfort zone range of speaking rate, influenced by varying physical, psychological and cultural factors. And for some people, that comfort zone is too fast for the typical audience. It makes listeners work too hard to keep up with them. Since they don’t like to work hard, they often tune out and turn off. They also can perceive fast-talkers as insincere, nervous or inept.
End Strong
Last month’s piece on presentation intros generated some gratifying positive buzz and requests for more. So, let’s go to the end of the message and ‘tell ‘em what we said.’ Audience-Centric presentations should end, not just stop. And they should End Strong. Your intro is critically important, but so is your summary or conclusion. You can also ‘Get Them at Goodbye!’
While the audience may be influenced most by what they hear first, they usually remember most what they hear last. So, a powerful ending can ‘close the sale’. You can quickly restate your Main Point in terms of audience-centric value, remind them of the Sub-Points you shared to ‘prove’ your Main Point and let them know what’s next. Just as with your Introduction, that’s a lot of important work to do in a very short time, so every word must count here, too. What follows are 10 Best Practices for your Power Ending:
Get Them at ‘Hello’
The first few minutes of any presentation are most important minutes. Start strong, powerfully, engaging and immediately so you don’t blow your intro. And never start with a joke unless you were hired as an entertainer and the only goal is to be humorous. Jokes rarely work in typical workplace presentations.
What does work is thorough planning and careful crafting of your opening comments. Introductions should generally be 10 % of the running length – or less – and accomplish a lot of important tasks:
- Engage the audience immediately with a question, fact, stat, quote, etc. Stories work, but they have to be very short and connect directly to the message … and most aren’t.
The Fear Factor Revisited
(We draw to an end this year of revisiting content from ‘Phil’s All Time Hits,Volume #1 with more very popular pieces. Consider them my holiday gift to you. We’ll start with my favorite rant about Presentation Anxiety)
How many of you experience pain when you deliver presentations at work? How many hate speaking in public? I see a lot of hands up, so let’s briefly discuss five simple strategies for managing your fears and your Presentation Anxiety.