A presentation is a good chance to share some thoughts. The presenter will deliver the topic with the whole materials in words or graphics, meanwhile, the audience is listening. After it ends, there is usually a Q&A session. Sometimes, this session is a presentation problem for some presenters.
Why does it become a problem? Some presenters might be ready to deliver the topics, but they don’t know how to share their thought well with the questions. Audiences might ask some killer questions that make the presenter nervous and confused. Here are the tips to deal with it.
How to Overcome Presentation Problem during Q&A
1. Listen to the whole question
The first thing you have to do is listen to the question. If you don’t listen fully, then you will get lost in the context. It will ruin the answer you will prepare for the audience later. They will not be satisfied with the answer, and you have to repeat the same thing for the answer.
Let the audience ask the question until they finish. If you don’t understand the context, you can ask further about the context and be more specific. It is not embarrassing if you ask them back. It saves more time because they tend to stop questioning when they get proper answers.
2. Ask other audiences
If you don’t know the answer, you can ask other audiences if they can share a feedback about the question. It’s not the step of saving your face in front of an audience, but it gives you a chance to interact with them better. Example, “I wonder if the audiences have some thoughts about this”.
Some audiences may know the answer better, but you shouldn’t be jealous of the knowledge they have. After all, a presentation is a way to share thoughts and you can gain more knowledge by interacting with others. Let the audience answer if they know and you can puzzle the answer.
3. Give a thought
It’s okay if you want to give a thought to the questions you get from the audience. You can simply say that it’s based on the knowledge you have, not exactly the answer to the question itself. Giving a thought is a gesture of offering a new perspective to the audience and not a problem during presentation.
Or else, you can open the opportunities for other people, in this case: your audiences, to share their thoughts about the question. In the end, you can infer the gathered perspective and may discover the whole answer to the presentation problem itself.
4. Recheck
It’s always wise to check the answer before you give your answer to the audience. After you listen to the full question, you can start to check the answer on your source. Not answering immediately is not a shameful attitude. It means you want to share what the correct one is.
5. Avoid the attack
Don’t attack the audience who asks you the question even though the question sounds so hostile. You have to stay professional and make sure you are on the right path during the Q&A session. The first priority is respecting the audience. Stay calm and be a good listener to the audience.
6. Keep the argument at the end
Another presentation problem is when your audience asks you killer questions to annoy you. This is happening in some presentations and you should be prepared for this problem. If they keep answering you with hostile answers, you can stay professional and ask them to meet separately after the presentation.
You should be prepared for the presentation problem such as hostile or killer questions. Some audiences usually want to make you feel down with their difficult questions and thoughts. Try the steps above to maintain your professionalism until the session ends.