Sometimes your mind purrs along like a well-tuned engine. Other times it coughs up thoughts, feelings, and anxieties that are worse than useless. Flashes of insecurity are human and inevitable. But when negative thoughts pop into your mind, it’s all too easy to freeze up, sputter, or panic. For many of us, this happens when we’re asked a question that Read More
Q&A
Public Speaking Tip 45: Why You Should Answer the Question First (and Then Decide How Much More to Say)
I wrote an entire book about answering questions (and all other things job interview-related), and one of the most important ideas in it is this: Answer the Question First. Why? you may wonder. Because You’ll Relax Your Listener Have you ever asked a question and had to wait a long time before the other person got to their answer? Read More
Public Speaking Tip 81: Giving a Speech? Close With Your Key Message. And if Your Speech is Followed by Q&A, Do It Twice!
What does it mean to close with your key message? Well, a client who’s speaking in Budapest next week asked me how she should walk off the stage. She wanted to know if, following her Q&A, she should: Say goodbye? Wave? Just smile and exit? What I told her is that any of these three options are Read More
Public Speaking Tip 40: How to Answer Questions Without Boring Your Listener (a/k/a Know When to Stop Talking!)
Stop Talking Early and Often Recently, I happened to overhear a job interview being conducted in my local bakery. (What can I say; it’s Brooklyn!) And what caught my ear was that the job candidate talked about herself for 10 minutes in response to her interviewer’s first question! She didn’t know when to stop talking, even Read More