Question and answer sessions. Arrrrg! If it’s a live in-person presentation, sooner or later we all have to do them – tacked on to the low energy end of an hour-long presentation.
You have wound down your talk, given your three closing points, put up the slide with your contact information and then opened up the floor for disaster.
Oh, the first two questions are ok. Usually specific, direct and on point. Then there is always a guy (no gender intended) who wants to tell you a long story their brother experienced that is just slightly relevant to your topic. Or there is the guy who wants to pick a philosophical fight about the tiniest part of your presentation.
Then there is someone who wants to tell you about their cat. (This has never really happened, but it could)
When you are in front of a live audience, question and answer sessions are where your well-planned presentation goes to die a slow, miserable low-energy death.
I am sure you can just see all the attendees streaming out of your presentation as the room drains of its life blood.
In an online talk, the effect is even worse. No one has to sneak out. They just leave. In droves.
There is a very cool way to not only negate this but use Q&A time to your advantage when you are online: Sprinkle some mini Q&As throughout.
Every 5-15 minutes when you make a shift, finish a section or just change your pace think about pausing for a quick question and answer session.
Marketing note: This is just the type of actionable, ready-to-go techniques and ideas I offer in my latest online 4-Day Crash Course: How to Present Online (see below).
There are a bunch of ways to manage and fine-tune this technique for online presentations that we will dive into. But in your quest to keep everyone on their toes and involved with your presentation, this idea is a million times better than that stampede-inducing closing Q&A deal we all hate.
To your success,
Tom, Ready2Speak.com
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