How to Deal with Audience Questions

After you’ve given your presentation, your audience will probably have questions. That’s a good thing. What you don’t want, however, is for one person to dominate the entire question-and-answer session. How do you move on but still encourage questions from the rest of the audience?

rrIn their book, Visual Selling, authors Paul Leroux and Peg Corwin provide four techniques to keep the presentation on track while still encouraging questions:

rr1. Return eye contact to the group. After the person who asks the question stops talking, the authors say it’s important to move your eyes away from the speaker; otherwise, it’s possible that you will lock eyes with the questioner and start a one-on-one conversation (not something you want to do in a group situation.) Instead, shift your eyes to the person farthest away from the questioner.

rr2. Repeat the question. This is usually a guaranteed way to draw attention back to you as the authority. Repeating the query also ensures that everyone has heard the question and allows you to hear the question again and think about it. “Repeating the question often causes the seller to respond with a more correct or appropriate answer, rather than blurt out an emotional response,” say the authors. It also offers the opportunity for you to shorten or rephrase the question in a positive tone. This works very well when the question is negative, such as, “Why should we spend that much?” or “Why does it take so long for you to deliver the product?” In the latter case, you can respond with something as simple as “Delivery time?” or “The question is, the time needed to tailor your system before we ship?”

rr3. Answer the question with your eyes and a pause. You know how important body language is, so don’t forget that your eyes can tell a lot. Again, it’s important to turn your eyes back to the audience rather than look directly at the questioner. While eye contact is extremely important in one-on-one conversations, it’s not considered rude when speaking to a group of people, because everyone should know that your responsibility and communication should be to the group as a whole. After you initially look away, you can look at the questioner again. Pausing offers you time to think and your questioner time to add another thought.