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At some point in your presentation you will be expected to answer questions from your audience. They might have some burning questions that need to be answered before they buy into your message. Handling their questions with authority can make the difference for you between a successful presentation and a waste of time. This is the opportunity for the audience to test your knowledge on the topic and commitment to your message.
1. Explain at which points during the presentation you will take questions and how individuals will be recognized to speak. Point out the microphones they should use. State the rules that must be followed to ask questions.
2. Prepare how you will answer questions - especially the worst questions. Imagine how confident you will look when they hit you with the killer question - the question that is intended to skewer you to the wall. Instead you smile and calmly respond with a positive answer. Craft and rehearse the answers to these difficult questions before the presentation.
3. Maintain control of the questioning. Formally recognize the questioner before they speak and limit the number of questions. Allow only one person to speak at a time.
4. When listening to the question look at the questioner while moving away to include the whole group. Paraphrase the question for the group. State your answer to the group. Beware of answering only to the questioner.
5. Kick start the question period with, “A question I am often asked is, …”.Then answer your ‘question’. This helps to prime the pump and encourages others to ask questions.
6. If you don’t know the answer offer, “I don’t know the answer to that question but give me your card and I will get back to you.” Beware! You can only do this once or twice. Anymore and you will look dumb.
7. If you can’t answer a question but know that someone in the audience may know ask, “I know there are experts in the audience, how would they answer this question?” Only do this if you know there are experts in your audience.
8. When you get the person who strongly disagrees with you and refuses to shut up, respond, “Thank you for your opinion, I know there are different schools of thought on this issue - I am telling you what has worked for me.”
9. Avoid repeating, “Thank you that’s a good question.” after every question - the questions might not be good, and the audience will see through your insincerity.
10. Never end your presentation with a question period and closing with ‘no more questions? Well that’s all’. That is a weak close. Instead always finish with a closing statement that will resonate with the audience and reinforce your message.
Bonus tip: Plant the question you most want to hear. Before the program begins, ask someone sitting near the back to ‘pose’ the question on your signal.
Any questions? Contact George Torok, “The Speech Coach for Executives”, to deliver powerful presentations and handle questions with authority.
About The Author
© George Torok delivers inspirational keynotes and practical seminars. He specializes in presentation skills, creative problem solving and personal marketing. You can arrange for George to work with your people by calling 905-335-1997. For more information and to receive free tips on presentation skills and personal marketing visit http://www.Torok.com and http://www.SpeechCoachforExecutives.com
info@torok.com
I have always said that if I were to write a book on effective management principles, the first chapter in that book would be about the importance of pinpointing responsibility among an owner’s or a general manager’s reporting units. After all, one of the most popular definitions of management is getting work done through others.
#1 Management Pitfall: An unwillingness to delegate.
Many times the owner or general manager is the most knowledgeable and the most capable person in the company; he or she can perform many tasks better than anyone else. The problem arises when managers decide that they are the only people in an organization who can really perform a task “right.”
While this may be true, when managers feel a strong need to be in total control by personally taking charge of the company’s most critical tasks, they have made a very personally limiting decision. Why? Because any single person has just so many hours in a day. So managers who are poor at delegating are limited by their own personal mental and physical stamina.
A manager friend of mine recently told me a great story that I believe illustrates this point extremely well. This particular owner had founded his business almost 40 years ago and had designed the company’s first product catalog about 25 years ago. The catalog was highly successful, so he continued to hold on tightly to this task himself. No one else in the organization was as capable at selecting products for the catalog or laying out the product selection.
As the business grew, however, the owner became busier and busier with involvement in other critical management functions: Banking relations, negotiating insurance programs, strategic planning, estate planning, acquiring new locations, etc. So the most current catalog was neglected and pretty soon began to look outdated.
A key employee who had worked with the owner in implementing previous catalogues came to him and offered to assume responsibility for the project. However, the owner continued to sincerely believe that only he could do this job and do it “right.” But nothing happened.
Realizing that she was taking a risk, the subordinate took it upon herself to take a stab at laying out the catalog. Conscientiously working at home, she burned the midnight oil so the project didn’t interfere with her normal duties at work. Finally the project was finished and she presented the rough layout to her boss.
“Wow,” he exclaimed. “What a great job!”
The owner finally realized that while the catalog she had designed was not laid out as artfully as perhaps he could have done it himself, the project had gotten done.
What duties and tasks are you holding onto because you perform them better than anyone else? Are you assigning responsibilities to your people and holding them accountable for measurable results?
So ask yourself: Is the success of your business limited by your own personal physical and mental stamina? There’s just so much that any one person — no matter how talented — can do and do well.
#2 Management Mistake: Failure to hold your people accountable for measurable results.
Have you ever told a manager that the next time you walk into the area of the business he or she is responsible for that you want that area to be neat and organized? Most owners and managers certainly have. Well, how about this question: Have you ever returned to inspect the manager’s progress and been disappointed in what you observed?
The reason many times is because the owner’s or manager’s idea of C-L-E-A-N is substantially different from that of the subornate.
Try this: Prepare an inspection checklist. Describe clearly what your definition of clean is so that the person you’re holding accountable will know in no uncertain terms what is expected of him or her.
So often managers are guilty of saying to a subordinate manager: “I want you to reduce expenses out here.” But they never suggest how much or expressing the request in measurable terms.
I suggest to my clients that they hold their managers accountable for controlling operating expenses to a specified percentage of sales and pay the manager on his ability to meet this goal.
Management mistake #3: Failure to establish minimum conditions of employment.
In other words, make sure all employees understand in measurable terms what they have to do — at a minimum — to keep their job.
Examples:
How many new customers and how much sales volume must a salesperson attract to the business in a given period of time?
What inventory turnover must the buyer achieve at a minimum?
What collection days must the credit manager achieve at a minimum?
How much net margin must the general manager achieve at a minimum?
Bill Lee is a sought after business consultant and seminar leader. He is author of Gross Margin: 26 Factors Affecting Your Bottom Line ($29.95 Plus $6 S&H) and 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot ($21.95 plus $6 S&H) http://www.BillLeeOnLine.com Email: blee@BillLeeOnLine.com
Perhaps you have never taken a stock of the most valuable and precious wealth of yours. Every person possesses it since the day of birth. This wealth is our life, its minutes, hours, days and years. Proper planning starts when we begin to take stock of this wealth. So, we should make the most efficient use of every minute to preserve and multiply this wealth. The initial stage of planning is identifying and setting your major life goals.
One way or another, deliberately or not, but we speculate on our life goals. More often we don’t even call them goals, they are just obscure and unshaped dreams, which exist only in our imagination. But to speculate on them and to write them down on the paper are different things. Goals which weren’t written down remain only Utopian and vague dreams, which aren’t likely to be accomplished.
How to make your dreams come true? To begin with, transform your dreams in the shape of the written goals and quit formulating your goals using the subjunctive mood. Never write: “It would be great to travel to Italy” or “It would be nice to buy a car”. Erase these statements from your memory and start writing your goals in such a way: “I’ll buy Jeep Cherokee in two years time”.
“Start from wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got.”
Actually, goals are the tools on your road to success. You should know the secret of their correct utilization. This secret is the materialization of your goals on the paper. When you see your goals in a written form you make a new glance on what you really want. Writing your goals will help you make a sense of what you want to achieve, analyze your goals, elaborate on their perfection, maybe even to revamp them somehow and single out specific standards and means for their achievement.
Committing your goals to a paper is a great success strategy, which delivers big results. All successful people use this strategy for achieving their life goals. They take advantage of this strategy and keep writing their goals repeatedly and persistently.
Writing down and examining your goals means creating a set of concrete and determined instructions for your subconscious mind. In such a way you give your subconscious mind a set of instructions to work on. These instructions must be filled with positive and well - disposed emotions. The more positive instructions you give to it, the better results you get. So, write your goals only in a positive way.
The key force that drives you towards your goal is a thorough and detailed description of everything you want. You can go into details and particularize all the slightest minutiae. But at the same time your description should be per se. You should draw a clear - cut picture of your goal rather than vague and indistinct image of what you want to achieve. Be unwavering to decide what exactly you want to attain.
Accompany your written goals with visual pictures. Visualize each goal of yours. Close your eyes and imagine a car you want to buy. Get on this car, feel the softness of the new seats, the smell of the leather in the passengers compartment. Let your imagination draw a vivid picture of your goal and embellish it with bright details. Don’t neglect this method. Remember that the visualization of your goals keeps your motivation up and stimulates your desire to reach your goals.
An effective goal setting system can’t go without frequent review of your goals. The revision of your goals will help your analyze them more thoroughly and, perhaps, to revamp them slightly. Be flexible and have courage to change your goals. To change your goal doesn’t mean a failure, it is a victory as you have realized in time that something was different.
Keep in mind that the more concentrated you are on your goals the more likely you are to achieve them. Let’s take Brian Tracy, one of the most successful and productive people, for instance. He began his way as an apprentice on the ocean - going ship. Only his perseverance and discipline helped him develop an effective goal setting system, which led him to success in life. Now he is one of the most high - paid and successful businessman.
“Discipline is the bridge between your goals and their accomplishment.”
You can compose the whole Declaration of your life goals. This document will come into force only when you write down all your goals. It’ll be confirmed by you and the control for its accomplishment will lie on your conscious. From this moment you and nobody else take the responsibility for your life.
Try this success strategy of writing down your goals and be sure that it won’t let you down. Remember a saying: “If you don’t have a target, the arrow will hit nothing.”
Yuliya Muravey is a self-employed entrepreneur and co-owner of the http://www.GoalSettingForms.com. She believes passionately in the enormous power of the goal setting and its impact on the short-term and long-term success in life.
For more information, please go to: http://www.goalsettingforms.com