Handling Difficult Audience Questions From Stage

In this episode, we discuss the common challenges speakers face when answering tricky, awkward, or tough questions from the audience. Hosts Dixie and Brad share strategies to stay calm, respond with authority, and turn challenging questions into opportunities to connect with the audience. They discuss techniques such as asking clarifying questions, simplifying responses, handling off-topic or high-level questions, and dealing with hecklers. 

The episode also touches upon how audience queries can reflect engagement and how prepared responses can enhance credibility. Perfect for speakers, authors, and experts looking to grow their influence and income.

The Expert’s Journey podcast is dedicated to empowering authors, content creators, experts and professional speakers worldwide.

Join hosts Brad Hauck, author of AI Powered Profits: Use AI to Automate & Accelerate Your Business in 90 Days, and Dixie Carlton, author of Start With the Draft: How to Easily Plan and Write a Non-Fiction Book, as they share practical insights to elevate your speaking career.

Each episode delivers actionable strategies to grow your audience, sharpen your skills, and increase your impact through speaking, publishing, and smart marketing.

Whether you're looking to boost your influence or explore new ways to share your expertise, The Expert’s Journey gives you the tools and direction to succeed.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Experts Journey Podcast, where we're all about creating your path to impact. Join your hosts, Dixie, Mary Carlton from Indie Experts Publishing, and Mr. Web Marketing, Brad Howe, as we look at how you can grow your business and influence by leveraging your knowledge for profit. Welcome to the Experts Journey Podcast, where we help speakers, authors, and experts grow their influence and income. In this episode, we're tackling a challenge every speaker faces sooner or later. Those tricky, awkward, or downright tough questions from the audience. Whether it's a skeptical comment or an unexpected curveball or someone trying to put you on the spot, how you handle these moments can either strengthen your credibility or shake your confidence. Today we're going to look at some strategies to stay calm, respond with authority, and even turn difficult questions into opportunities to connect with your audience. So let's get into it. Good morning, Dixie. Good morning, Brad. Sounds like a fabulous line of conversation for today. Ah, it is. It's one of those things. You're on stage and everything's going well, and then someone just throws a question at you and you, okay, are they serious or do they listen to what I just said? Or are they just deliberately playing devil's advocate? So many thoughts go through your mind. Yeah. And then there's the ones that ask a question and keep asking and want to actually take up almost the entire question and answer time. And you know that you need to move them on. And so there are some really good tactics for how to handle these. So let's start with you first. How do you handle it when someone, you're not sure if they're heckling or being obtuse or maybe they're just seriously confused? I think it depends on the question. I looked at some question types, and you've got skeptical challenges. Oh, what proof do you have those sort of ones? And personal credibility. There's so many angles people come from. And I think that's probably the first step is look at this question and think, okay, what have I just said? And what are they really asking? So often I'll ask a clarifying question because I think that's the first thing is put it back on them to be more specific so you can really understand where they're coming from. And I think also sometimes that shows the audience that you're willing to answer the question, but you're not willing to be treated like an idiot on stage. And I know in being in the audience, some people ask questions and you think, are you stupid? Like, they just said that. So I think by asking a clarifying question is Always a good one to throw it back. Gives you a second to think. Also, because you've obviously been in a train of thought and I suppose there's many ways to handle it. What would you do? I think it's always good to know that you are judged often by how you handle the reviews and the responses and the questions that you get asked and the feedback. So this kind of extends a little bit over to feedback that people give you as well. If someone's going to be public about something that they want to say about what you're doing or what you're. Or they want to question you or try and put you on the spot, your methods of coming back can mean the difference between when you get a great review for your presentation or not. So you are judged a lot. And so I think being prepared as a speaker for how you can handle some of these things is a really good idea. So I'm glad we're talking about this topic. As you say, the easiest thing to do to first buy yourself some time is to actually get them to clarify so that you've understood what they're really asking and that they've understood that you have heard them. That's the first thing. Because most of the time people in an audience just want to know that they've been hurt and that there's no, therefore, likelihood of argumentativeness. So that's a good way of just buying yourself some time and kind of allowing everyone to take a breath as well. And then you've got to look at. How do you simplify going back to. These are the points I was making, and this is a good media thing to do as well. If you are asked a question by someone that you're being interviewed by, for example, you go back and you say, this was the second point that I made. So if you are working on a process of talking through your content, go back to your own content first. And if someone asks you to quantify or clarify or comment on something that someone else is doing in the industry or an industry situation or a news story that's breaking, then you have absolutely every right to say, look, I'm actually not quite sure about that. I'm not up with that because that's not my specific area for today. So I'm going to maybe get back to you if you need me to, or you can have a conversation with me after. Yeah. And look, how you handle questions, as you said, really shows up your expertise a lot of the times, and also your people skills. People can be asking you questions from different perspectives, as in they're trying to show you up. Of course, there's one that I don't like. They're like, I know more about this than you. Yeah, but there's so many ways, once you've clarified it, you can handle it. For example. Oh, that's a great question. Actually, I'm going to cover that further on, which is a good one. To push it further down. Or if it's something where you get in those loops with people, especially in the Q&As at the end, you get in a loop sometimes you've got so many questions. But look, I really want to get some more questions from the room. Can I talk to you afterwards? You know, I'll be here for another hour. How about we catch up and have a chat and so you can pull them off to the side and then go. And because you've done that, you can literally then go to the next person and say, so how can I help you? Or what's your question? Because the rest of the room kind of goes, yeah, you button them up right now, it's okay for you to move on. It's not like you're being rude or anything like that. And look, there is always someone who wants more of your time. Sometimes more times than not, it's about. They really want help. Yeah, but the stage is not the place to give no personalized direct help. That's what you get paid for. Let's face facts. So you really want to pull that off to the side and take that separately. The other thing you can do is you can actually throw it back to the audience and say, that's a really good question. Is anyone else wanting to know about that? Should we go down this rabbit hole? Is this something that is concerning everybody else? It depends entirely on the topic and the question. Sometimes if it is like perhaps going down a really big long. That's a whole other side topic, then you can actually allow people to consider that this is a whole other big side topic. And do we really have time for that? But if you've got everyone sticks their hand up in the audience and everyone wants to know the answer, then you've got a really clear directive that, well, I'm trying to brush it aside. You need to in some way. Yeah, it's interesting. One of the questions I came across, I was doing a little bit of research and the types of questions and I'd never really classified them, but the one that got me more than anything is the gotcha question. Where didn't you say something Completely different. When I read this or I saw you here and deliberately setting you up basically to show you up. And sometimes that's jealousy, sometimes that's they're confused or whatever. But it's really funny because you've then got to deal with that one. And some people will freeze in that moment, those gotcha questions. So you walk into a room and I speak on AI and I speak on marketing, but there'll be other people in the room who might be AI specialists, as in they program AI. One room I was in, most of those people are really good. There's like, this is a different level of perspective. This is looking at it from a marketing perspective or whatever. But you always get the one. What about this? Did you realize that in fact you're like, oh, here we go, the professor's in the room and I'm about to get schooled. But it's one of those things that will happen to you and you've really got to think about it up front about, about how am I going to handle those sort of questions where you get that really high level sort of question and prepare yourself for that. Admit honestly. For example, that's really interesting. I actually hadn't read that or you know, I read a little bit about that. But I'm trying to keep on this topic like I'm working over here rather than in this area. And I think this just said a really important point. You need to be prepared, just like with anything. And we touched on this with networking as well when we did a session on that. If you have prepared yourself for the kind of things that might come up or the kind of questions that you even want to seed into the audience that might then generate something else, then as long as you've done your preparation and you've done your homework, then you've got a reasonable expectation of how you're going to handle that. I heard of someone a couple of years ago who was speaking on a particular topic. It was actually a safety thing. And there was a serious air traffic incident I couldn't use that morning. And so that was all everyone really wanted to talk about. And it was like, I don't really have. That is still new information that's still coming to hand that's not laid to rest yet. I can't possibly comment. Sometimes you actually need to step back and say from an industry perspective, I'm not in a position where I can even talk about that yet. But hey, let's come back to this in a couple of weeks time if you'd like. To join me on a webinar and we can maybe unpack some of this and we can explore some of those things if there's current stuff happening. And that's a really good way of getting people to think about, oh, he's not just going to be here for this morning. There is going to be a follow up opportunity if I want to dive into that. So that's a good way of seeding that idea too. Yeah. And that leads me to another one that I've seen happen and it's quite annoying if you're in the audience, if it's not done right. And that is where you don't really answer the question. So you're on stage and someone asks a question and you avoid it, you don't answer their question. Now, there's reasons for not answering questions, but you can't leave it, just hang and go, and the next question please, because everybody goes, okay, that's interesting. Politicians, of course, do this all the time and they don't actually answer the question they've been asked. They literally say something different. They start off with the same words but end up in an entirely different spot. And all that does is really annoy the audience. So if you're going to get a question you don't want to answer, you really need to think about, okay, how am I going to handle this? And honesty is the best policy in my opinion. For example, your crash sort of situation, look, that's only just happened this morning. There's obviously a lot to be learned about that. I'm just going to have to wait and see what the outcome of that one is and then move on. But you definitely have to be prepared for that. There is going to be questions, there always will be. From people who ask you a question you just don't know the answer to. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's one of those things. So making sure you're on track that way always helps. Off topic questions are a killer. Don't you love those ones? I'm talking about how to grow your social media. So what do you think about the changes in Google this week? Hello, we're talking about social media. Yeah. You can refer people back to your blog posts or your own information that you've been sharing or your books or whatever for some of those kind of things. The other thing too though is that you can say to someone that asks a question, and again, this is about buying yourself time on the stage to have a bit of a think about it as well. You can ask them to give you an example of how that would apply. For example, someone wants to know if you were going to talk about social media, how would you approach doing your search engine optimization if you were targeting 10 year olds? I don't know, you could actually say to them, can you give me an example of what you're talking about? And then while they're saying, we've got this new toy that's launching at Christmas time, how would you do that? That still gives you time to just think back about something that you can be more specific about. Your answer. Yeah, and it gives you context to their thinking too. And that's really important when it comes to answering questions. The big one you've got to watch when you do go that way is that when you try to give them an explanation, you don't end up going down the rabbit hole. A different topic because you're giving them a private lesson almost, which is natural. You do tend to run with the case because you think, oh, this is a great example to show people how they can apply and it may not be the time again. It might be. Okay, quick answer. And if you want to talk about that, why don't you jump on a call with me or something? I've come up with a really good idea that I think we should consider for this particular one, and that is that we have lots of speakers and people that deal with media listening to our podcast all the time. Why don't we run a poll, ask people to actually send in some of their ways of handling difficult questions and difficult audience members and actually post a short 10 point checklist on how to do this and see what else comes up. Because I'm sure that there are a number of ways that you could tackle this kind of situation because it happens all the time. And unless you're a comedian who is absolutely used to having vehicles from an audience, you don't necessarily have an arsenal bag of tricks that deals with that. You raise a good one there too. They're heckler, you're going to get them, they're going to be out there and they ask these loaded questions like, so when did your company stop taking advantage of customers and things like that? It's like, what? What are you talking about? I've never taken advantage of everyone. I met this one person one time and they told me their brothers, sisters, mothers, unc was taken advantage of by your company. I was like, really? You look like a stunned mullet because it's like someone's whacked you in the face with a fish and you don't quite know. So I'd like to invite listeners to actually send in how they might deal with that sort of thing. Some new, fresh ways of being innovative and handling hecklers and answering questions from the stage. And let's put a check sheet together and share that with our listeners. Yeah, exactly. So, yes, so we can send some feedback in. That'd be awesome. If we can get some feedback. We're always looking for what people think. And certainly when it comes to questions, I bet you that there's many speakers out there have great stories they can send us. Yes, no doubt about that. There you go. Listeners. Oh. So let's have a look at a different type of question. Demand for guarantees was one that came up. Can you promise this will work for me no matter what sort of questions? I love that question. I love guarantee. I worked in marketing for many years and the guarantee was always one of those things that people wanted to be able to offer a guarantee but then would be quite shy about doing it because what if everybody comes back to me and they all watch and then I'm suddenly down the tubes for $30,000 on this $5,000 campaign because everybody bought into it and said, how wonderful. What I love, particularly about people asking for guarantee is that you can say to them, if you follow the process exactly, then, yes, you can have a guarantee, because I believe in my product. Now, if someone says to you, but can I get a guarantee that, you know, even in these circumstances, every guarantee that you give should have its own set of rules and regulations, so you make those. So if someone says, if you're going to say to someone, I will guarantee that this works for you, then one, you'd better be able to back that and prove that it will do. If they follow the process or if they do what you are asking them to do, there is no point in offering a guarantee that is just blindly and blanketly open for anyone to take advantage of you. You actually have to put some thinking into that. So if you're going to offer a guarantee, it's got to be for a limited period of time. It's got to be based on. Yes, as long as you follow the instructions or whatever the version is that you want to say of that. And that, yes, all things being equal, I 100% guarantee this is going to work for you. And the reality is that you'll barely ever get 1% of the people that buying your product that want that money back. Unless, of course, you've got real issues with it. And then you shouldn't be offering the guarantee. In the first place or offering the product, probably. Yeah. And look, in case of this question, I'll often say, look, I've used this with the people in this sort of line of business and this line, and it's worked very well. Your case is unique, so try it out step by step and just see how you go. And if you have any issues, shoot me an email and I'll see if I can solve that problem for you. I know that, you know, for example, in marketing, some things work really well across the board and other things are more specific to industries. But generally what we teach on stage is about what works across a whole industry or across a whole platform. And so therefore it's not so much of a problem guaranteeing that it would work. But it's always that thing. I know some speakers in their contracts or in front of their workbooks say, this is an educational section. The things that I'll be teaching will work in many situations, but may not work for everyone. There's actually a little clause that's supposed to be in there and that's part of your liability. Realistically, letting people know what I'm teaching has worked, and it may work for you, but it might not. And you've got to understand that's the truth of the matter. Just because you think you're the best in the world at this topic and you're speaking about it doesn't mean it will work for everybody. Cover yourself in the way you deliver it. Yes, absolutely. And again, like I said before, that comes down to preparation and doing your homework and being ready and thinking about what people are going to want to know about your guarantee or what are the provisions for the guarantee. Yeah. Faced, I reckon, thousands and thousands of questions over the years. And most people are actually pretty good. They're asking for more definition about something or they're asking for a little bit more information about a specific tiny point just to clarify what they're thinking, or they're trying to get a little bit of feedback that they might be able to apply in their own business. Most people aren't malicious. And I think that's the key thing you gotta remember is that they're not really trying to be malicious and they're not necessarily trying to be difficult. It's just that you've actually raised something in them and they've gone, oh, I wonder. Just like sometimes that happens to you. It's fine when you're sitting in front of a computer, you Google it, but, you know, if you're in a room full of people and you're watching a speaker, you'd ask the speaker. So don't feel like someone's attacking you when they ask a question. Think of it that they're actually engaged with what you're teaching them and you've actually piqued their interest a bit. Yeah, absolutely. But it comes down to the fact that you've got to remember why you're standing on stage in the first place. Yeah, you're there to educate people. At the very least, you're there to educate people. You might be there to motivate them and do all other things, but the baseline is you're teaching people something about themselves or a topic. And we all know that to learn is to ask questions. So be prepared for it and take your time. I think it's always a good idea to make notes after when you do a presentation. If there's been some good questions, make notes on them and you can build those into your presentation. And that's something that I've done in the past where I've had a presentation and I've noticed there's been these same questions coming up. So I've actually gone back through. It's a bit like writing a sales letter where you put the answers in the sales letter, go back through and actually add in a little bit more information. Because obviously my presentation was missing something, maybe I jumped a step, whatever. It's actually really useful to get some questions. That is a really good point. Yeah. And often you can kill a lot of questions with a good story. Yes, you absolutely can. And the other thing you can do is if you get a lot of questions and you've got a lot of hands up at the end, you can say to people, look, we're running out of time for questions, but I will be hosting a free follow up webinar in two weeks time where you can bring all of your questions. Make sure you contact me on this, however, and we. I'll make sure that you get the invite for that because we obviously have touched on a lot of things that a lot of you want to know more about. Yeah, it would be interesting to think about actually having a place that you can send people to that's always there. So like a Facebook group or something like that, where anyone's in the room can go there and add a question, you can answer it. It doesn't matter where you're presenting. You just send people back to that same page rather than necessarily maybe say, send me an email. You can really use that. If you wanted to create an ongoing group where people can ask questions and everyone can learn from each other. A bit like a Discord server or something like that, where people chat. That's about having a forum. Back in the day, we used to have lots of forums and comment sections on our websites and we stopped using them because we used to get scammed and spammed so much. Having something that is a sign in or a part of a membership through your website is probably a really good way of tackling that. Yeah. And it allows you to build a resource and that also gives you ideas for other speeches and also workshops, as you've just mentioned. As I said, I think questions are a great part of speaking. Yes. It takes a little bit of getting used to because it's quite confronting. When you first start speaking and you get those questions, you feel like someone's questioning you. And some people do take it personally. I think that's a huge mistake. Thinking about it, making sure you're prepared and knowing that there's going to be questions, if anything, I'll be honest with you, it scares me when I get off stage and I don't get a question. I think I've done a bad job. Yeah, that's the point. Yeah, I don't like that at all. There's nothing worse than when they come to the end of it and the MC gets up and says, so Brad's finished. Has anyone got any questions from the room? And it's crickets like that to me. I always thought that was bad, but funnily enough, afterwards I've been talking to people and they go, oh, that's a great speech. Oh, I learned so much. You covered quite a bit. So my brain was really ticking. So at the time, I think sometimes it's about the fact that their brain's full, not that they don't have questions and give them 10 minutes. The next thing you know they're coming up and talking to you and asking you questions. There is one thing that's worse than no questions. It's having everyone sit in the front row with their heads down, half asleep and arms folded. Of course, yeah, come in the after lunch sessions. I've gone out and I've had lunch. I once got offered a gig after dinner and I just said, no, thanks, that's for a comedian or a singer or something like that. There is no way I'm doing that gig. But what you can do to get around that is you can actually seed a couple of people in the audience and say, look, when time comes to ask questions, would you. Or while I'm going through this. I need someone to raise their hand and ask this particular question to open this part of what I want to also talk about. So you can seed a couple of people with questions in the audience, which is always helpful because sometimes people just don't want to be the first person. Yeah, and look, if you get there 15 minutes early, I generally get there before you're speaking. I'll go around the room and talk to a few people and if I find someone that really interesting, get on quite well with, I'll just say to them, hey, look, during the speech, you know, can you see if there's something you want to ask a question about? And just start the questions at the end for me please, because you've got lots of interesting points of view and I think it'd be interesting to answer one of your questions. You don't even need to know anyone in the room to start. I think we've just about covered that topic for today. Yes. Well, thank you for tuning in to the Experts Journey podcast. If you picked up some useful tips today, take a moment to subscribe and share this episode with a fellow speaker or expert in your network. It really helps us reach more people. And don't forget to check out our books on Amazon. Dixie's Start with a Draft, how to Easily Plan and Write a Non Fiction Book and my book, Microcourse Profits Build a Seven Figure Income with Bite Sized Courses. Both are packed with practical tools and tips to help you grow your business faster. And we'll catch you next time. And remember, every tough question is a chance to show the depth of your expertise. Yes, I love that. Thanks, Brad. Thank you.