One thing I hear all of the time from my presentation training clients is "I'm not great at the prepared section of my speech, but I feel I truly excel during the question and answer session. I feel more comfortable then and people tell me that I seem exceptionally strong and convincing during question time."
This is a common speaker malady. Ideally, you are no better at answering questions after a speech than you are in giving your prepared speech because you are EQUALLY excellent during both parts of the presentation. There is nothing inherently harder or easier about answering questions or delivering the structured part of your speech. It is not as though someone in the audience is requiring you to deliver the first half of your speech with a mouth full of marbles and then you are allowed to spit them out before taking questions.
All of the conditions are exactly the same in the room and for you physically. This means that anything you do well when you are answering questions can be replicated during the prepared part of your speech.
Once I explain this, the typical response is "but it's much easier during the question and answer session because I'm not dealing with a script, I can give examples and it's a chance to be more conversational."
In which case I respond "EXACTLY! Now do that all the time."
These are the same elements you should strive to incorporate in every aspect of your presentation, from the moment you stand up, through your prepared presentation and the Q&A session until you sit down.
What kills many speakers' effectiveness during the prepared portion of their speech is an overly long, elaborate and abstract outline that features one mind-numbing fact after another. It is impossible to talk in a conversational way while using such a poor speech structure.
The simplest way to make the prepared part of your speech as strong and comfortable as the Q&A portion is to simply steal the format of the Q&A session and use it in your prepared speech. Rather than write out your speech in the traditional manner, write out the 10 or 20 questions you think your audience would want to ask you about the subject if you were having a one-on-one conversation with a single audience member. And it's OK to literally speak out the question to yourself and your audience during the speech and then answer your own question, using examples, stories and facts that answer the question fully. Then, in a conversationally way, move to the next question.
While especially applicable to the question and answer session of a presentation (because for many people that is the easiest) the focus for any presenter who wishes to improve is to isolate examples of when he or she does particularly well in any speaking opportunity. Once you have identified the situation (for example: speaking to small groups vs. large, standing versus sitting) the task is now to identify the precise elements of what you are doing that makes you do well in this format. Then, the trick is to force yourself to do that exact thing in every speaking environment, no matter how many factors have changed. For example, if you always answer questions that people put to you when you are speaking one-on-one with real life example and stories about your own work and theirs, but when giving so-called formal speeches, you always speak at the abstract-30,000 feet-in-the-clouds-level, then you have a problem. Fortunately, this is a problem with an easy solution that does not require the learning of difficult new skills. Instead, it just requires you to do what works well for you when speaking one-on-one, providing content with lots of personal examples that relate to you and your audience members.
Then you can be consistently good from the moment you stand up to speak until you sit down.
The real danger of speaking in a dull, flat and boring manner during your prepared presentation and then being great in the Q&A session is that most of your audience will have tuned out or fallen asleep before you get to question time. And then it won't matter how brilliant you are. Your audience is gone for good.
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