How To Manage Question & Answers When Speaking In Public

If you are like most professional business speakers, then you know it can be challenging to handle the back and forth with your client when trying to coordinate the Q n A portion of the seminar or conference which is why you have a public speakers bureau do that for you. So in this article, we are going to offer some advice on how to approach this situation with finesse.

After Your Speech

You have just finished giving your powerful speech to an audience and you hope that what you have said has been well received. The only problem here is there is no way to fully believe that this is the case.

Now then if several members of the group who has heard your words comes up to you to offer their thanks or to discuss a point then you will at least understand that these people were at least listening. However, if this is important to you as a public speaker then the best that you can do is plan for a question and answer section for when you have finished.

Preparing Your Topic

The topic that you are speaking on truly touches your heart. You have spent weeks doing research so that you will be very informed on this topic. You have spent hours upon hours writing your speech and you actually believe that this will be your best performance to date. Now you need to have a question and answer section so that you can obtain the feedback that you desire.

While in principle this sounds easy to accomplish, without some fore thought this section could fall flat on its face with little to no hope that it can be revived. To ensure that a successful Q & A will follow your speech you should have a few questions in your mind. This can be achieved by asking yourself questions as you do your research.

Announcing Your Q & A

One thing that you will need to include in your speech is the announcement that following there will be a Q & A period when you finish. Actually this should be done prior to your introduction to the speech. If you are not comfortable with making this known then by all means make sure that the person who introduces you to the group makes this known.

To ensure a successful Q & A you must make sure you can answer each question. Again this takes you back to your research. A good answer is one that is not a restatement of what you have already said. To simply repeat various parts of your speech will not only not usually answer the question it will normally cut off any additional questions.

Preparation

To be able to conduct a good Q & A session it is advised that you have as much of your research information available so you can give thoughtful and concise answers. Here you can use note cards but these have a tendency to get in the way and possibly confuse you. It is recommended that you use good short notes, listed in an outline form, so that you can look at what you have and put these thoughts into good, informative sentences.

A good question and answer section to any public speaking event does not just happen. It must be planned for and prepared for. If you know your information, have done quality research, and have good notes to fall back upon then your question and answer section should be excellent. You need to realize that failing to be prepared will not only ruin a good speech but will cause you to look unprepared and having a total lack of knowledge. It is up to you to prevent this from happening and it truly is not that difficult to do.