This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Stand Up and – Toast! Can you Elaborate?

Q&A at the end of a presentation may be the final impression your listeners take away. Take control and make it an integral part of your talk.

Many meetings and conference presentations include question-and-answer (Q&A) sessions. Traditionally, the Q&A comes at the end of a lengthy presentation. In smaller meetings, especially with management, you may be asked questions mid-presentation.

Think of a Q&A session as a series of short, impromptu speeches. Keeping it short is the key; answering a question does not mean launching into a whole new lengthy presentation.

Preparation

Find out what's happening in Mountain Viewwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

To set the stage, let the audience know up-front whether you are willing to take questions during a presentation, or would like them to hold their questions until the end. For a presentation that covers a large range of topics, a few mini-Q&A sessions at the end of each section will be more beneficial than a Q&A at the end which jumps across too many topics.

Prepare for questions that you anticipate will be asked. Especially in internal meetings and reviews, these questions are easy to anticipate. Why were the project costs higher? How will you measure the results of a project? And sometimes you’ll be thrown a curveball. Instead of inventing an answer (which may or may not be accurate), offer the take the questioner’s contact information and get back to him or her.

Find out what's happening in Mountain Viewwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

To avoid an awkward silence, think about planting seed questions with a colleague sitting in the audience. Good examples of seed questions include asking for additional detail on a particular topic, or ask about reference customers who may be using new functionality of a product.

Presentation

Often, audience members – especially in a larger auditorium space – cannot hear the question. It’s best to repeat the question, paraphrasing it, which helps you verify whether you have understood the question correctly. Begin and end with eye contact to the questioner, but in between, go ahead and make eye contact with others in the audience to draw them in.

Keep control. There will always be that one person who asks a myriad of follow-up questions, to a very low level of detail – essentially looking for free consulting. While some speakers announce ahead of time that they only accept one question, sometimes a follow-up question is appropriate. However, some audience members just keep going with follow-up after follow-up. This is often the cue for other audience members to leave and you will have literally lost your audience. For these situations, mention that this situation being asked about is very unique, and offer an offline conversation after the presentation.

Finally, don’t end with a lukewarm statement, such as “there are no more questions, I guess that’s it.” Remember that your presentation should still leave your listeners with your main message, a take-away or a call to action. Present – or re-iterate – your conclusion to leave your audience with a last impression of you as a speaker.

 

Find out more about clubs in District 4 Toastmasters: http://www.d4tm.org  

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?