The way you handle questions and answers can have a huge impact on your presentation. Perhaps you share two complaints that often come up in my presentation workshops:

1. You can never follow your planned presentations because people keep interrupting with questions that pull you off track.
2. You invite questions at the end, nobody asks any and you fade back to your seat in silence — not the rousing finish you had hoped for!

Here are my suggestions for handling both these situations.

1. Right at the start of your presentation, tell them you will have a Q&A session at the end and you will take all the time necessary then to answer all their questions. Then, any time someone interrupts to ask a question, you can politely say, “I’m glad you asked that question, and I do intend to answer it. However, the details fall more naturally into a later part of my presentation, so please bear with me until I reach that part. If you’d like more details, I’d be happy to fill them in during the Q&A session at the end.” This is a very reasonable request and most people will go along with it. Adapt the words to suit your own style as well as the situation and audience, and be prepared to use them consistently.
2. When you have finished delivering your content, but before you do your “big close”, say something like, “And now, just before I bring my presentation to a close, I’d like to invite any questions you may have.” Complete your Q&A, and then close with your planned “big finish”. If there are no questions, just smile, slide easily into your planned close and leave the platform or the front of the room with your head held high, a smile on your face and the confidence that you have left your listeners with the final thoughts that YOU want them to have.

Remember, it’s your show, and you must control as much of it as possible — and that includes Questions and Answers.

If presentations are an important part of your job, you’ll love my upcoming Wilkie Webinar. It’s on March 18 and the topic is Helen’s 9 Rules for Pithy Presentations. I’ll have more tips and techniques on Q&A as well as how to handle handouts, visual aids and presentation nerves — oh yes, and more about that important “big finish” and why you need it. Details at http://www.mhwcom.com/wilkiewebinars.html