So how do you handle questions from an audience when giving a speech or presentation? First of all, you need to take the attitude that someone wants to ask you a question. Great. That's fantastic. Too many speakers take the attitude of, oh, they might ask me something I don't know or they're interrupting my presentation. It's not your presentation.
It's the audience's presentation. So anytime someone wants to ask you a question, that's generally a good thing. It means a they're listening to you. Be they're trying to understand you see, there may be a hole in something you've said that other people are confused by and if you answer this person's question, you'll help everyone. D by definition, whatever you say next and answer their question is going to be interesting to that person right there. So many good things happen when someone wants to ask questions now.
Sure, there are times if you're Speaking to 5000 people and you're given an exact 15 minute time limit. It's not practical to answer every question or even any question, but for many of us in the business world, the political world, you've been asked to speak, there's 2030 people in the room. And there's no strict strict time limit. I would have them ask questions right then I would not ask people to hold their questions till then they're going to forget. It's frankly a lot more interesting to have this dialogue going on. It shows people you can think on your feet you're not rattled.
It shows you being completely responsive to your audience, or why in the world, wouldn't you want that? It's basically a softball thrown your way. So I love it. When someone asked questions. It's variety for people's ears, they can now hear two voices instead of just yours. And that's not saying your voice is bad.
It's just More interesting to the audience. And remember, it's not your presentation, maybe they're asking you about something that you're going to talk about five minutes from now, change the order unless it profoundly messes up everything you're doing, then you can politely tell them that you are going to talk about that in five minutes and you ask for their indulgence. But it's crucial that you act like you're happy to have questions that you want to answer them, and that you answer it fully without going on and on and on. I would start answering the question by looking at the person who asked it, then look to other people in the room, and then finish by looking at the person who asked the question do that and your audience will reward you