Get Used to Answering Questions
For many speakers, the major source of nervousness about making a presentation is the fear of questions—worse, the fear of not having answers. We show these fears when we use any of these defensive tactics.
DELAYING We say, for example, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please hold all of your questions to the end.”
Since we know we’ll never get to the end, we don’t have to handle the questions.
CONTROLLING When someone asks a question, we say, “I’ll get to that later,” or, “I’ll get to that in a few minutes.” Those are the words we use, but what we communicate is, “Please stop interrupting me; I’ll address your question once I’m comfortable that I have an answer.”
In effect, we’re telling the audience that what we have ...
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