3 types of Questions

Questions can be the best part of any presentation. 

Or the most frustrating.

I have picked three common situations:

1.

One guy won’t stop asking questions

How can you prevent it?

The general rule is that people raise their hands with questions, and you pick who gets to speak. If you keep calling on the same person, whose fault is it? If people are yelling out questions or comments, ask them to first raise their hands.

How to respond:

Realize the audience hates these people. The sooner you quiet them down, the happier the audience will be with you.

Just because a question is asked does not mean you are obligated to answer.  Ask the audience, ‘’How many people are interested in this question?” If only a fraction of the audience raises their hands, tell the asker to come up afterward and you’ll answer then. 

During a break, talk to the person in private.  Thank him for his contributions, but ask him to hold off on asking more questions so others can have a chance to contribute.  Give him your email as an alternative way to ask questions.

2.

There is a rambling question that makes no sense and takes three minutes to ask

A good warning sign of this is a question that has a 60-second preamble.  Whoever is asking a question this long hasn’t thought about it enough yet to even form a question.

How to prevent:

This is tough. Warning people to avoid rambling questions tends to intimidate them from asking anything at all. It’s much better to respond when and if it happens.

How to respond:

Ask a clarifying question, ‘’Do you mean X or Y?”

Interrupt people if necessary.  

If they seem lost, ask them to rethink their question while you answer the next question.  Then go back to them later.  This is pushy, but if you do it with charm, the audience appreciates it.

Realize the audience hates these people, too. They didn’t come to the session to hear someone’s rambling, poorly formed pseudo-question. If someone is 30 seconds into a question, and you think he’s going nowhere, you’re the only one in the room who can do anything about it.

If you do cut him off, remind him of your email address and mention that longer questions are fine—just not in real time.

3.

You are asked an impossible question

There is nothing wrong with a tough question you can’t answer.  

There is no law that says you as the speaker must know everything.  If you are speaking on an interesting topic, of course there will be questions you can’t answer.  There were plenty of questions Einstein couldn’t answer either.  

How to prevent:

The only solution is to have a talk so boring, or so obscure, that tough questions are impossible because the audience doesn’t know what the hell your point was.  Don’t do this.

How to respond:

Learn to say three words: ‘’I don’t know.’’ 

They are easy to say.  You will not die instantly if you say them.

Write down the question or ask someone to email it to you, and promise you’ll post an answer to your blog.

Offer the question to the audience. Maybe you’re not the only one who can’t answer the question. If no one in the audience knows, they seem at least as dumb as you do.  And if someone does know, you’ve helped the person who asked the tough question get an answer, even if it’s not from you.

***

What difficult questions or people do you have to face?

PS
Notes are adapted form an excellent book Confessions of Public Speaker by Scott Berkun.