What’s your relationship with the question-and-answer session that usually follows a speech or presentation? Perhaps you fit into one of these two camps concerning Q & A:

I Love It! — I relish the opportunity to finally engage the people in the room. Now at last we can have a real dialogue about my topic!

I Hate It! — I'm confident enough about my presentation. But I dread what follows, since I can’t anticipate the questions that will be coming my way!      

Whichever of these two camps feels like home to you—even if neither of them does—remember that a Q & A session is a golden opportunity for persuasion and influence. You might even call it the perfect strategic tool for effective public speaking. See our cheat sheet "5 Ways to Captivate an Audience" for more on how to connect with and influence your listeners.

Speaking with Style and Grace

Q & A offers you a platform for stating your message again, an important part of an effective strategy. But it also gives you a chance to showcase yourself at your professional best. Anyone can give a good speech if they know their topic and they’ve prepared sufficiently. But few speakers can handle themselves with complete grace in the rough-and-tumble of audience reactions to their views and performance.

You need to be one of those speakers.

To understand how even challenging Q & A sessions work to a speaker's advantage, picture the following:

You’re an audience member who’s just listened to an excellent presentation by an authority on this topic. Now the speaker announces that he or she will take questions. Immediately, one of three things happens (or they all happen):

(1) An audience member asks a devilishly difficult and insightful question, one so good you wish you’d thought of it yourself;

(2) Someone stands up and begins pontificating at such length that you’re embarrassed for the speaker;   

(3)  The person right behind you starts attacking the speaker personally, while you attempt to dematerialize out of sheer embarrassment.

How this speaker responds in each of these scenarios depends upon many factors. These may include the topic and speaking situation; the speaker’s reputation and personality; the make-up of the audience; the level of intimacy of the talk, and so on.

One fact, however, remains constant: the person who handles himself with professionalism and aplomb in each of the three scenarios above will grow in stature and credibility with the audience.  

The Unique Opportunity of Q & A

Like that speaker, you have a priceless opportunity during Q & A to shine in ways that your presentation—where you basically interact with no one—simply doesn’t allow you to do.

Let’s look at some of the specific opportunities for effective communication afforded by Q & A:

• It allows you to strongly reinforce or amplify your message.
• It’s your last chance to make a positive impression on your audience.  (This is especially important if you’ve encountered difficulties in your presentation itself.)
• It allows you to provide essential information that a) wasn’t included in your presentation itself, or b) wasn’t sufficiently clear to the audience. And remember, if one person doesn’t understand something and asks you a question about it, there are probably more people who are also unclear but don't have the courage to speak up in public.
• It gives you the opportunity to issue your “call to action.”

So whether you’re a Q & A lover or hater, remember that the question-and-answer session isn’t just the tail-end of your presentation. It's a way to demonstrate truly effective communication skills. Best of all, it's a quiet but effective strategic tool for persuasion and continuing influence.