There’s a famous Saturday Night Live skit called “Haunted Elevator” that sees a couple enjoying some sort of Halloween attraction/haunted house. They’re subjected to a variety of halloween-themed skits featuring actors dressed as stereotypical spooky creatures. Nothing is out of the ordinary until the doors open to reveal guest star Tom Hanks, dressed in a bright orange suit and dancing awkwardly alongside two rather jolly looking skeletons.
After a quick musical sting, the skeletons and Mr. Hanks pause to face the audience, before Tom declares, “I’m David S. Pumpkins. Any questions?”
The root of the humor of this scene is that we, the audience, have so many questions about the identity of Hanks’s decidedly unscary character and its inclusion in the scene that, when faced with such a broad question as “Any questions?” we don’t know where to begin. By asking the question, Tom Hanks’s David S. Pumpkins is acknowledging that he’s out of place, but putting the onus of burden to make sense of the situation on the viewer.
Chances are that you’ve been in a presentation, sales pitch, or lecture at some point that may have felt like this skit. After a lengthy and complex monologue, a speaker asks the audience, “Do you have any questions?” paralyzing listeners, forcing them to organize their thoughts around what they’ve heard to analyze where additional information they need. All of this happens in silence until the presenter interprets the lack of response as proof that their delivery was satisfactory.
“Okay, no questions then. Well thanks, everybody…”
“Any questions?” is code for, “I have finished speaking. Did I do a good job and do you understand what I said?”
Whether you’re a consultant, sales professional, or teacher, it’s your responsibility to make sure that your audience follows along with you and stays engaged. If you’re finding yourself talking for long periods of time and meeting a silent audience, chances are you lost them at some point along the way, either from confusion or disinterest.
Here are some tips to avoid this situation, keep listeners focused, and ensure that your tech demo, sales pitch, and/or training module land with a bang.
Simplify Your Content
“Do you have any questions?” can become a crutch for speakers who know they’ve lost their audience. Unfortunately, the prompt in itself is not going to be sufficient to restore engagement. So, to avoid falling into this trap, a good first step is to try to streamline your content so that you lower the risk of losing your audience in the first place.
Whether you’re a GTM leader building pitches and demo scripts, an analyst preparing a research brief, or an instructor speaking to professionals, start by asking yourself, “Who’s my listener, what do they need to know, and what don’t they need to know?”
This is especially vital in early stage sales conversations where building a rapport and motivation with a buyer champion is key to success. Products and services, especially those in B2B sales, can be quite complex, and there’s often a temptation to go down the rabbit hole by describing everything a product can do.
Unfortunately, the longer we spend describing features and use cases that aren’t relevant to an individual to whom we’re pitching, the greater the chance they’re engagement is going to wane. They’ll let you keep talking, but when you reach the end of your pitch, they won’t have any questions and may have already started answering emails on their other monitor.
Make Your Presentation a Conversation
Even if you do a fantastic job tailoring your content so that it is punchy and relevant to your audience, there’s a limit to audiences’ attention spans. People can only listen to another party speak for so long before their mind starts to wander to the myriad of other demands on their time.
As a rule of thumb, I advise speakers to utilize a question, prompt, or strategic pause about every three-and-a-half minutes during a long presentation. Audience members’ attention is quickly restored when they’re given a chance to share a perspective or consider a challenging statement. These prompts don’t always have to involve sharebacks–for example, you could ask listeners to imagine a scenario, and allow a short pause as they do, without necessarily asking them to share their thoughts with you or a group. The act of doing a brief creative visioning exercise will change up the pace of the presentation and create a mental break.
Importantly, as the speaker, it’s your job to proactively insert these pauses. Simply stating upfront something like: “I want this to be a question so interrupt me whenever you have a question” is not enough as it still puts the onus of burden on your audience to make things interesting.
Ask Powerful Questions
When you do ask questions, you need to make sure that they conjure the right pattern of thinking and help your audience get to the right answer. Powerful questions are non-binary (meaning they can’t be answered by a simple “yes” or “no”), are open-ended, and are specific.
For example, if your goal at the end of a presentation is to check that your audience really understands what’s being asked of them, instead of “Do you have any questions?” try:
- “What would you need to begin doing this right away?”
- “What is going to be the hardest part of this for you?” or
- “What did you find surprising about this?”
In each of these examples, we’re using a question to help our audience visualize themselves using whatever it is that we’ve presented–perhaps a new tech tool or a new way of doing work–so that they can help us surface what additional support or information they might need.
One of my favorite powerful questions to use when I’m trying to get a sense of how an audience really feels about a subject, or to generate healthy discussion, is, “What about this do you disagree with?”
As a final note, there will be times, for example during tech demos, where you may want to check that a listener understands a key point that you made. Here, instead of “Do you have any questions?” be specific with what you’re trying to find out. Try: “What can I clarify about this point/feature/service?”
There you have it! By simplifying your content, making your presentations more conversational, and asking powerful questions, you’ll never have to find yourself in the position of staring at a room of silent audience members, wondering if you landed your point.
If you have favorite powerful questions that we didn’t list, or other best practices to help others improve their craft, let us know! And, if you’re a leader looking to help your team communicate more effectively, drop us a line!
