Hello again. Earlier we talked about some ways that you can respond to objections during or after your presentations. In this video, I want to share some more Q & A best practices. Let's go back to our world happiness presentation example. Imagine we finished preparing for a Q & A, and it's time to actually answer some of our audience's questions. Let's go over some ways that we can be sure that we're answering questions effectively. Will start with a really simple one: listen to the whole question. I know this sounds like a given, but it can be really tempting to start thinking about your answer before the person you're talking to has even finished asking their question. On slide 11 of our presentation, we outline our conclusions. After explaining these conclusions, one of our stakeholders asks, "How was happiness measured for this project?" It's important to listen to the whole question and wait to respond until they're done talking. Take a moment to repeat the question. Repeating the question is helpful for a few different reasons. For one, it helps you make sure that you're understanding the question. Second, it gives the person asking it a chance to correct you if you're not. Anyone who couldn't hear the question will still know what's being asked. Plus, it gives you a moment to get your thoughts together. After listening to the question and repeating it to make sure you understand, you can explain that participants in different countries were given a survey that asked them to rate their happiness, and just like that, your audience has a better understanding of the project because you took the time to listen carefully. Now that they know about the survey, they're interested in knowing more. At this point, we can go into more detail about that data. We have a slide built in here called the appendix. This is a great place to keep extra information that might not be necessary for our presentation but could be useful for answering questions afterwards. This is also a great place for us to have more detailed information about the survey data so we can reference it more easily. As always, make sure you understand the context questions are being asked in. Think about who is your audience and what kinds of concerns or backgrounds they might have. Remember the project goals and your stakeholders' interests in them, and try to keep your answers relevant to that specific context, just like you made sure your presentation itself was relevant to your stakeholders. We have this slide with data about life expectancy as a metric for health. If you're presenting to a group of stakeholders who are in the healthcare industry, they're probably going to be more interested in the medical data and the relationship between overall health and happiness. Knowing this, you can tailor your answers to focus on their interests so that the presentation is relevant and useful to them. When answering, try to involve the whole audience. You aren't just having a one-on-one conversation with the person that's asked the question; you're presenting to a group of people who might also have the same question or need to know what that answer is. It's important to not accidentally exclude other audience members. You can also include other voices. If there's someone in your audience or team that might have insight, ask them for their thoughts. Keep your responses short and to the point. Start with a headline response that gives your stakeholders the basic answer. Then if they have more questions, you can go into more detail. This can be difficult as a data analyst. You have all the background information and want to share your hard work, but you don't want to lose your audience with a long and potentially confusing answer. Stay focused on the question itself. This is why listening to the whole question is so important. It keeps the focus on that specific question. Answer the question as directly as possible using the fewest words you can. From there, you can expand on your answer or add color, contexts, and detail as needed. Like when one of our stakeholders asked how the data measuring happiness was gathered. We started by telling them that a survey was used to measure an individual's happiness, and only when they are interested in hearing more about the survey did we go into more detail. To recap, when you're answering questions during a presentation Q & A, remember to listen to the whole question, repeat the question if necessary, understand the context, involve your whole audience, and keep your responses short. Remember, you don't have to answer every question on the spot. If it is a tough question that will require additional analysis or research, it's fine to let your audience know that you'll get back to them; just remember to follow up in a timely manner. These tips will make it easier to answer questions and make you seem prepared and professional. Now that your presentation-ready, it's time to wrap up. We covered a lot about how to consider questions before a Q & A, how to handle different kinds of objections, and some best practices you can use in your next presentation. That's it for now. See you in the next video.
