Engaging Your Audience: The Power of Questions

During presentations, the biggest challenge is to maintain the audience's attention. The quality of your content isn't enough. You must fight to keep your listeners' interest alive, and the weapons of distraction are potent: email, WhatsApp, Instagram, phone calls, etc.

Asking questions is an effective way to win the battle for attention. This way, the audience becomes actively engaged in the presentation (or meeting) and avoids getting distracted by participating through their responses.

Here's a problem, though: not answering a question is considered impolite, but the problem is that people in the audience can "hide" and avoid responding by continuing to look at their phones. This is why it's essential to know what kind of questions to ask (open or closed) depending on the context (meeting or a large audience).

Open Questions

Open questions allow for a wide range of responses (e.g., "How are you today?" "How was your weekend?" "Do you like this project?"). When using open questions, remember to ask one question at a time. Asking two or three questions in a row generates confusion in the audience, resulting in silence because they don't know which question to answer.

For the same reason, the question must be clear, concise, and specific to ensure a simple response. Use a short sentence and avoid subordinates. Get straight to the point: "Has anyone found a solution to this problem?" "How do we increase sales?"

Remember, the audience doesn't react immediately when you ask an open question. They need time to reflect on their answer to avoid making mistakes in public. Patience is crucial. Stay silent for a few seconds (I know it feels like an eternity in a speech) and make eye contact with the audience to encourage them to respond.

The correct formulation of the question is just as important in obtaining a response. It's different to say, "Do you have any suggestions for the project?" compared to "I'd like to hear a suggestion from each of you to improve this project." The second formulation is more inviting and explicitly conveys that you want to hear everyone's opinion. Using this construction will yield more responses from the audience because everyone knows they have to respond and will pay more attention.

Open questions have the advantage of engaging the audience by creating a dialogue. I recommend using them in meetings and when the audience is smaller. Smaller groups allow for a more intimate relationship and will enable you to "encourage" people to respond directly (What do you think, John?). On the other hand, in larger audiences, there's a risk that no one will answer because people can hide without feeling the embarrassment of not responding. In these contexts, it's better to use closed questions.

Closed Questions

Closed questions have a definitive answer (yes/no, true/false, etc.). In this case, involving the audience is easier because they don't need to articulate a complex response. Most of the time, the audience responds in unison with a chorus of "yes" or "no," which reduces the social fear of making a mistake.

Another support for closed questions can be asking the audience to raise their hands. For example, if I say, "How many of you have given a presentation in the last two months?" and at the end of the question, I raise my hand, I will implicitly encourage the audience to do the same and provide a response (raised hands) to my question.

Closed questions and raising hands are particularly effective when you have a large audience because they allow you to immediately get feedback on how many people have or haven't done a certain thing. Just like in this video by Garr Reynolds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia_dGze0HZ4&t=2s

Questions guarantee the audience's attention because they make the audience part of the presentation and stimulate them to provide answers. Answering correctly makes us feel good, and we find satisfaction from our school days. Knowing what type of question to use and how to formulate it correctly is essential.

I always try to start my presentations with a question to engage the audience right from the start. And you? What trick do you use to capture the audience's attention?