When you’re giving a presentation – whether it’s for a prospect or for your own internal team – how do you manage questions from the audience? A common complaint of business executives is that presenters do not listen. If they ask a question, the presenter doesn’t address it clearly. I call this a “politician” answer… they come up with some response that is vaguely on topic but doesn’t address the heart of the question. They may even evade it altogether by saying, “We’ll get to that question later” or “We’re not going to take any questions until the end.”
A presenter should take questions as they come up and address them directly. If you’re short on time, a brief, concise, respectful answer is appropriate, so long as it is non-evasive. Why not save questions for the end? If a person has a burning question that fundamentally threw his train off the track, he’s unable to listen to the rest of your presentation. You risk losing the focus and attention of this audience member, and in some cases, this can cost you the sale. So you really need to be careful about how you answer questions and how you answer them in a non-evasive way.
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