Entertain questions at the end of sections.

Your audience members want to ask questions any time during your presentation.  They prefer not to have to wait until the end.

You, on the other hand, may want them to wait because time is an issue or you are concerned about getting off track.

One possible solution—if your presentation has distinct sections—is to entertain questions at the end of each section. 

That ends the market research portion of my presentation.  Before I move on to our strategic options, are there any questions about the research?

This approach can be a reasonable compromise between your presentation-management needs and the audience members’ desire not to have to wait all the way until the end of the presentation to ask questions.

I’m not a big fan of speakers using jokes.  It’s too easy to either offend someone or—in an effort to avoid offense— to tell a joke that is so benign it’s lame.

However, if you have to tell a joke, please make it relevant to your topic.  It should have at least some connection to what you are talking about.

I once spent a day working with speechwriters who were on staff at a large corporation.  They talked about being frustrated by the CEO because he always wanted to start his talks with a joke.  They would prepare a strong, relevant opening and he would say: “I need a joke.  Give me a joke.”  If they resisted his request, he would come up with one from a book of jokes he kept in his desk.  The result was laughter (usually) but no relevance in how he was starting his message.

Go ahead.  Live dangerously.  Tell a joke.  But, use it to effectively tee up your topic.

I have had this experience countless times.

I finish delivering a successful talk and I want to give another one right away.  Instead of being glad it’s over, I want to re-experience that wonderful feeling of connecting with an audience.  The smiles, laughs, nodding heads and applause have filled me with confidence and enthusiasm.  Any anxiety I may have felt before the talk is a distant memory.

Unfortunately, opportunities to give an immediate second performance are rare.

So, years ago, I started the practice of visualizing the sights and sounds of success before I deliver a talk.  I take a page from the world of sports and make a point of “seeing” myself doing well before I go to the front of the room.  This mental exercise has the affect of bringing forward some of that extra confidence and enthusiasm I otherwise wouldn’t experience until the end. 

Try it with your next speech or presentation.  If you find it hard at first, mentally reach back to a speaking success you had in the past.  Relive it and re-capture some of that good feeling it gave you.  Then, visualize a similar experience with the audience you are about to face.  The confidence that comes with success will be with you when you need it most—at the beginning.

I haven’t listened to a State of the Union speech in many years.  I actually prefer to read the script the following day.

That sounds like a terrible admission for a speech coach, but something about the tradition that has grown up around this presidential speaking exercise makes it painful to listen to.

That something is the constant applause.  Every single, seemingly significant point that the President makes has to be followed by applause.  Interruption is the order of the evening.

The result is that any President, no matter how talented he may be, cannot establish a speaking rhythm.  A speech needs rhythm. 

William Safire put it this way: “A good speech has a beat, a changing rhythm, a sense of movement that gets the audience tapping its mind’s foot.”

A consulting team I worked with was getting ready to present at a convention.

The official purpose of the presentation was to educate interested listeners on a technology issue of growing importance in their industry. 

Of course, the underlying motivation for the team was to create an interest that might lead to new consulting opportunities.

The presentation they brought to our first session showed they had made a classic mistake.  They had created something highly complex with the belief that the audience would be: 1) impressed with their knowledge, and 2) convinced they should be hired because of the complexity of the technology.

This strategy is a mistake because it makes it hard for audience members to carry the message back to their respective companies.  The impressive complexity limits what they can confidently repeat.  Their time in the presentation doesn’t lead to a “buzz” outside the convention.

When you do a presentation like this you want your audience members to enthusiastically talk it up after they leave.  Instead of blowing them away with what you know, significantly increase what they know.  Then they will be able to lead others back to you.

The people in a presentation skills workshop who exhibit the most imagination are the ones who also exhibit the greatest ability to adjust how they are presenting.  They are helped by their ability to picture (imagine) themselves acting differently.  In contrast, people who say things like “I can’t imagine myself doing that,” tend to be the ones who don’t change what they are doing.

I thought about this need to “see” change in order to make change as I read about Professor Jeremy Bailenson’s work at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab.  He and his colleagues are using state-of-the-art (read: expensive) technology to study, among other things, learning in an immersive virtual reality.

It would be interesting to take people who have trouble imagining themselves as better speakers and give them an opportunity to be speakers in a virtual reality (i.e., a technological supplement to their imagination).  Not only might it help them break through to some needed change, they might also gain new confidence if highly-supportive, virtual audiences are included.

You can’t always be sure how audience members are going to react to your humor.

You can use a line or a story with one audience and everybody laughs.  Another audience, a week later, just sits their giving no sign that anyone realizes you were trying to be funny.

I have some favorite lines I use that generate laughs almost every time.  I say “almost” because every so often one of them will fall flat.  Nobody even smiles. 

Years ago I gave myself a rule: The audience laughs first.  

If the audience laughs, I can smile or laugh.  Otherwise, I just move on as if no humor was intended.

That way I don’t get embarrassed by starting to laugh and not having the audience join me.

My last post talked about one of the most common questions speakers ask: Can you put your hands in your pockets? 

In workshops I often get asked a second question as soon as I finish answering the hands-in-pockets question.  That second question is about holding notes: Is it okay to do so?

As with the “pockets” question, the answer is usually “No.”  Notes in the hands of a speaker can become a distraction.

Speakers will unconsciously play with their notes, waving them about or rolling them into a tube and tapping their leg.  They will nervously fold and unfold them or, worse yet, drop them.  Some speakers hold them tightly with both hands and never gesture.  And, of course, there is the problem of nervous, shaky hands being made more obvious by the paper shaking.

However, there will be times when you have no choice.  You have to hold them because there is no place convenient to put them.

In preparation for such situations, practice speaking while holding notes.  Get so you can calmly hold them at your side and reference them only as needed.  Use your other hand for gesturing so that your nervous energy has an outlet and you’re less inclined to wave the notes about.  Watch television hosts and note how they do it.  Study the hosts that are the most polished and use them as a model.

So…hold them if you have to, but remember, empty hands are the best for public speaking.

This question comes up regularly in public speaking workshops.

Traditionally, the answer is “No.”  Some speakers will distract the audience by playing with change in their pockets.  Others will stop gesturing and become less dynamic.  Still others will risk coming across too laid back and casual for the occasion.

For these reasons and others, a no-hands-in-pockets rule is generally a good idea.

I say “generally” because this rule, like many speaking rules, can be broken for good reasons.

If, for example, you want to deliberately affect a casual demeanor, putting one hand in your pocket for short periods of time is effective.  I’ll do this sometimes when I am facilitating a discussion as part of a presentation.  I want everyone to feel comfortable and participate, so I make a point of acting relaxed and comfortable myself.

Just remember when you break this “rule” that it’s best to limit yourself to one hand in a pocket and then only for short periods.  Gesture with the other hand and then get back to two-handed gesturing in short order.

When an audience member asks a question and you don’t know the answer, it’s okay to say you don’t know the answer.  Even if you are a subject matter expert, you can’t be expected to have every specific piece of information that might be requested.

Of course, you can’t just say you don’t know.  You need to include a promise that you will get back to the person with the requested information.  I don’t know the answer to that, but I will find out and get back to you.

In recent years I have noticed speakers putting a twist on this “get back to you” promise.  They ask the audience member to e-mail them with the question.  Would you do me a favor and e-mail that question to me.  I don’t want to forget it.

This e-mail request is transparently self-serving.  Instead of taking responsibility for the question, the speaker is pushing the responsibility back on to the audience member.  Clearly the hope is that the audience member will not follow through with an e-mail and the speaker can forget about it.

Do the right thing and maintain responsibility for the questions you get.  It’s okay to ask an audience member to write the question on the back of his or her business card (re: contact information), but you should follow through.

You’ve heard of customer service.  This is audience service.