Taste Life Blog

This is a question I received from a dietetic intern about ‘difficult’ audience members during a presentation. Here’s what I wrote back:

Question: “Hi Chere! I just gave my first major presentation today… If you don’t mind, I’ll like to ask you about a presentation situation that I encountered today.  My topic was diabetes and the audience was a mix of people that have diabetes, senior center directors, and healthcare professionals. It was a small breakout session, so there were approximately 30 people in the room.

During the presentation, several people made comments or asked questions. At one point, one of the audience members spoke up and said that my information about sodium was wrong and that she did not recommend other members of the audience taking that point back to their senior centers. It totally caught me off guard and I took it really personally, since my presentation was based off of a reputable book on diabetes and the American Heart Association standards. At first my mind went totally blank, but I regrouped and it gave me a chance to sort of clarify what I was trying to say, but I felt the crowd really tuned me out at that point. She came up to me after and identified herself as a RD and that she realized what I was saying wasn’t incorrect, just that it’s easy to take it the wrong way and that I hadn’t finished making my point before she chimed in.
How would you handle that situation during a presentation? “

Answer: CONGRATULATIONS for doing a presentation. I am sure 99% of the audience loved you and the 1% bugged you. Happens to me all the time. There are always experts in every audience. Acknowledge the experts and embrace them.

Remember  you are in charge of the presentation and you MANAGE the presentation. Next time say, I have lots to cover and would be most happy to answer your questions after this talk. If this happens again, “Great to hear your thoughts my reference for sodium came from cite the book and the AHA Standards. I would be happy to share my references with you.”

So now you will expect a challenge and be ready with your credible references. You could go as far to type up your references and have them “just in case”.