15 top tips on handling questions during presentations

One of the services Rough House provides is presentation training and last week I attended a session run by one of presentation trainers, Sue Carruthers.

One of the areas she covered was how to handle questions and it struck me that the techniques for dealing with them are remarkably similar during presentations and in media interviews.

Among Sue’s key pieces of advice about handing questions during presentations was:

1.  Prepare very carefully

Anticipate the questions which will crop up and think in advance about how you might respond

2.  Be ready for a ‘googly’

Be up to date on current issues in your area of expertise – including those in the news that day – as questions might be asked about anything remotely related to it

3.  Give yourself thinking time

Use techniques such as repeating the question & and asking the questioner to clarify what they mean to give yourself thinking time before answering

4. Use bridging phrases

Have a stock of handy phrases you can use to move from uncomfortable questions to ones which you are happy to answer and which deliver your key messages (eg: that’s a very interesting question, but the most important thing is ….)

5. Offer opinion not fact

If you are asked questions which require a factual answer which you can’t give, offer an opinion instead to avoid admitting you don’t know – but be sure to flag it up as such

6. Be truthful

Never make something up, guess, or speculate

7. Admit you don’t know

Don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know an answer – unless of course it will make you look stupid or incompetent. If that’s the case, resort to
number 5

8. Be yourself

Self-evident!

Some of her other tips about handling questions during presentations included:

1. Plan when you will take questions – throughout the presentation, in the middle or at the end, and tell the audience, so they can be prepared
2. Keep control – if several people ask you a question at once, then ask them to repeat them one at a time
3. Repeat the question so that everyone in the room can hear it
4. If a question is rambling, summarise it and break it down into components if it’s a multiple question
5. Involve the audience or another presenter – ask them what they think the answer to a question might be
6. Limit the number of questions – be ready to say: ‘we’ve just got time for one more question’
7. If someone persists in answering questions and monopolises time, offer to speak to them afterwards

If you have any other tips for handling questions during presentations, then we’d love to hear them.

Sue runs a variety of courses for Rough House Media, including presentation skills training. For more information about how she could help you, contact us. 

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