Everything is set for your presentation. You have prepared yourself well and good for it. But when you are faced with a tough audience, how do you deal?

Dealing with a tough audience can be very tough. Other members of the audience can be distracted when someone, say, is being disruptive, makes snide remarks or interrupts at the wrong time. Moreover, you can also lose pace in your discussion as well. If you find yourself in this situation, there are some things that you can do to deal with a tough audience without losing your cool as well as in order to still go on and carry out a smooth presentation.

At the beginning of your speech, you may request the audience to raise their hand if they have any questions or comments as you go along with your discussion. Or, you can allot a specific time in which they can ask questions or express their comments and viewpoints, such as after your speech.

If someone in the audience starts to interrupt by making snide remarks, sarcastic comments or unnecessary noise, remind them politely again of your opening remarks. Your audience will usually respond to this.

While you are discussing and someone says that s/he totally disagrees to your point, you may want to refute them in a cool, calm and collected manner or open the topic up for a debate to the majority of the audience. More often than not, the others are more likely to take your side since you are the speaker.

Keep in mind that your role as speaker is mainly to present information, ideas and perhaps even your thoughts in a compelling manner and not to get into a heated argument with members of the audience at the expense of other people. After all, you want to create a connection with your audience, and to engage in a spat with any one of them can break your ties with them, and thus defies the purpose of why you are speaking to them in the first place.

If someone asks you a question and could not find the right answer to it, admit that you do not know. Just because you are the speaker does not necessarily mean that you have to know it. Besides, nothing can get any worse than for a speaker to pretend that s/he knows everything or feed his/her audience false statements or information fearing that s/he might be embarrassed for not having an idea to a particular question. However, you should promise that you would find it out for them and tell them that you would really like for them to return to the said point.

If time does not permit you to go further with entertaining their questions, politely tell them of your time constraints and that you still have a lot of material to cover. You can ask them to see you after the program for further discussion. You can ask them to see you after the after the program for further discussion

Moreover, always stick to the key points of your presentation. You do not necessarily have to answer questions right away or on an audience member’s terms. They can do sideline during a break or afterwards, so as not to break the pace of your speech.

Dealing with a tough audience is not about proving yourself to your audience or showing who’s boss. They also account for half of the responsibility for situations such as this. They are encouraged to listen and learn, ask questions relevant to the topic and should observe manners. After all, you as a speaker can only do so much.