Should You Allocate More Time To Your Question And Answer Portion When You Make A Presentation?

Usually, when people make their presentations, they usually concentrate on maximizing their time delivering their speech, sales pitch and so on. Usually, they spend only a few minutes for the question and answer portion of their presentation which leads to their failure.

If you are doing a presentation you could have one of these two attitudes towards the question and answer portion of your presentation:

1. “I hate the question and answer portion of my presentation. They are time wasters and expose my limited knowledge of my topic. Either the audience ask totally irrelevant questions or ask questions that is beyond my knowledge and expertise.”

2. “I love the question and answer portion of my presentation. The questions from my audience would tell me that they’re totally engaged and interested in my presentation. They would also provide me feedback on what points I need to improve in my future presentations.”

So, which one are you? Do you belong to camp one? The one who dreads question and answer portions, or do you belong to camp two? The one who looks forward to the question and answer portions of their presentation.

Like it or not, the question and answer portions of your presentation are a significant part of your presentation. In fact, a presentation is often considered a failure if no one asks a question after your presentation.

Why is this so? Isn’t the lack of questions a sign that I have successfully and clearly delivered my message to my audience? This is because if there is no response to your presentation after you’ve delivered it, it could mean either of the following:

1. The audience already knows all about your presentation: You have nothing more to add to their knowledge. You might even consider your presentation as common knowledge already. If someone asks a question, this just means that you’ve given brand new information to your audience.

2. The audience doesn’t care about your presentation and might just be going through the motions: This is very apparent for example in presentations given to a captive audience who have no choice but to sit through your presentation.

3. Lastly, the audience simply doesn’t care about your presentation: This might mean that whatever subject matter you are talking about is of no interest to your audience. This is especially noticeable if you see a lot of blank stares from your audience.

A question and answer portion can be your gauge in measuring the success of your presentation. For example, if a sales presentation is made and the audience afterwards ask where the product can be bought, this would mean that the sales presentation worked.

But it’s not only the positive questions that are important to a presenter, it’s also the negative questions. This is because most people are too considerate to give another person a negative response.

According to a study by the Harvard University, one of the most respected if not the most respected university in the US, people are twice likely to give out a positive comment than a negative comment.

This means that people don’t give out a negative response unless they have to. This means that if someone gives out a negative question/comment during your presentation, it is more likely to be more important than the positive questions/comment you are getting.

Negative questions/comments means that you have a more than usual engaged audience. These negative questions/comments would also enable you to identify the weak points in your presentation.

If you just deliver your presentation without encouraging the participation of your audience, you’re just basically speaking and doing nothing else. This is one sure way of making your presentation a forgettable event to your audience.

This is because your audience have done nothing memorable when they sat through your presentation. Compare this to a presentation where there is significant participation from your audience.

For example, Gary Vee, the famous digital content producer and marketer, makes it a point to elicit frequent responses from his audience. His question and answer portions are also significantly longer than most online media personalities.

He even has presentations where his question and answer portion is way longer than his actual presentation. You be the judge if his strategy is working. He even publicly stated that most of his presentations convey the same message but are just delivered differently.

Is he successful with his presentations? So far, according to wealthygorilla.com, his net worth is approximately US$ 200 million dollars which he amassed by creating a few business which includes his digital media marketing company of which he spends a lot of time in.

If you’re in the camp which hates question and answer portions, you are right in your reasoning why you hate it: people ask unrelated or questions beyond your expertise and knowledge. But of course you need to understand that even if you hate it, you still need to do it for your own benefit.

So, how do you address people who ask unrelated questions? Firstly, you need to understand that you cannot expect people to behave the same way as you do. Secondly, try to answer their question as direct and short as you can and then stop and answer the next questioner.

But what about the questions that you cannot answer because you simply lack the knowledge to answer such questions? Be honest and tell the person asking the question that their question is beyond your knowledge.

But are you worried that you and your presentation would be questioned because you are unable to answer a question given by a member of the audience? But what is your option, fabricate an answer?

In the long run, you are better off being looked at as a honest person who knows their limitation. It would be much worse if your audience leave your presentation with an image of you as someone who is arrogant.

It is important to realize just how important it is to improve your presentation skills. Did you know that according to marketresearch.com, an industry reports firm, the professional speaking industry in the US alone would be worth US$ 2.30 billion by 2025.

According to them also, the average professional speaker has an annual income of roughly US$ 106,000 while senior-level motivational speakers earn a minimum of US$ 217,872 per year.

This is how valuable presentation skills can be. We also need to consider that million or even billion dollar deals are won or lost based on the strength of a business presentation. Even a speaker with one audience could be worth billions of dollars depending on what’s at stake.

The question and answer portion of a presentation is not something that presenters should hate. Instead, it must be something that presenters look forward to and at times consider more important than their actual presentation.

This is because the question and answer portion allows the presenter to build rapport with their audience which enables them to gauge if their presentation was a success or a failure. It could even happen that the question and answer portion is the actual presentation itself.

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