The Presentation After the PresentationWritten by Stephen D. Boyd
Allowing audience to ask questions after your presentation is an excellent way to reinforce your message and to continue to sell your ideas. In addition, because listeners can ask for clarification, audience members are less likely to leave your presentation with misconceptions about concepts you delivered. Because of these benefits, question and answer period is actually another presentation and vital to most speaking situations. Here are some suggestions to more effectively handle question and answer period. Create right mental set among your listeners by telling them early in presentation that you will have a question and answer period at end of your speech. If you have an introducer, tell that person to mention your willingness to answer questions at end of presentation. People are more likely to ask questions if you tell them at beginning that they will have this opportunity. Show that you want queries. Say, “Who has first question?” Look expectant after you ask question. If no question is asked, “prime pump” by asking a question. Say, “A question I’m often asked is….” Ask question and then answer it. If there are then no questions, you can finish with “Are there any other questions?” Some of enthusiasm for your presentation is lost if you have no questions from audience. Usually, “priming pump” will motivate audience members to ask questions. Look at person asking question, and repeat it, especially if there is a large audience or if you need a moment to think. By repeating question you also insure you understood what person asked. However, do not continue looking at person once you start to answer question. Remember that you are still in a public speaking situation and that whole audience should hear your answer—not just person who asked question. In addition, continue to stand where you are equally distant from all members of your audience. Avoid temptation to move directly to person who asked question. Visually this will make rest of audience feel left out. As you end your answer, look back at person and his/her facial expression will tell if you answered question satisfactorily. Keep your answer concise and to point. Don’t give another speech. The audience will be bored if you take too long to answer a question. In addition, possibly only person interested in answer is one who asked question! If you can answer with a “yes” or “no,” then do so. This keeps tempo moving and will help keep audience’s attention. One of toughest challenges is loaded question. Don’t answer a loaded question; defuse it before you answer. Before answering a question such as, “What are you doing with all money you are making from increased prices?” defuse it by saying, “I understand your frustration with recent rate increase. I believe what you are asking is, ‘Why such a sudden increase in rates?’” Then answer that question. You only get into arguments when you allow yourself to answer loaded question. If person is not satisfied with changing of question’s wording, tell him or her that you will be glad to talk about it following question and answer period and move quickly to next question.
| | The End is the BeginningWritten by Stephen D. Boyd
People remember best what you say last. In a presentation, what people take with them to put into action or to connect with what they already know depends to a large degree on how you end presentations. So in one sense, end of your presentation is beginning for audience. Speakers often reach their momentum in middle of presentation and lose contact with audience by end. One of ways a speaker can ensure beginnings for an audience is by having a strong ending; this article will provide a few simple tips to achieve this concluding spark. First, focus on general purpose of your presentation. Are you moving audience to action? Are you helping your audience to understand? Are you attempting to change viewpoint of your audience on a particular issue? Or are you simply entertaining? The purpose will determine how you end presentation. Some speakers lose sight of this, their endings do not fit their purposes, and audiences leave without knowing where to begin. If your purpose is to move audience to action, then your conclusion should in some way answer question, “What do I want my audience to do as a result of my presentation?” What action do you want people to take? The conclusion should state specific action to be taken. A presentation on donating blood individually as a part of company goal for community service would need to end with time and location for giving blood. An even more effective ending would be to obtain some kind of commitment. Ask for a show of hands: “Raise your hand if you are going to give blood when Bloodmobile is here next Monday.” If your purpose is simply to entertain, then conclusion should be light and send audience away with good feelings that laughter and humor provide. A second method for enhancing your conclusion is to summarize…PLUS! Certainly you want audience to take with them major theme or main points of message, but in addition you should give them a phrase or quotation to connect with summary. This is exit line. An exit line is a short saying, profound idea, or clever line that compels audience to think about main theme of speech. The exit line will increase likelihood of audience’s remembering what you want them to do as they begin after presentation. When I stress value of preparation, I often end with remark by former Senator Bill Bradley, “When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing…and when you meet him, he will win.” In talking about power of developing language skills, I like quotation by Mark Twain: “The difference between right word and almost right word is difference between lightning and lightning bug.” To punctuate summary with a thought-provoking idea usually helps audience members to know clearly where to begin as they leave your presentation.
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