Westside Toastmasters is located in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California

Ask for Feedback as the Session Ends

Brad: In terms of asking the participants for salient feedback as they leave the session, I have never seen anyone do it as well as Janet Laap. As I was in line waiting to congratulate Janet on her phenomenal presentation, I couldn't help but notice that she asked the people who were waiting to talk to her how they liked the presentation and what she could do to improve it. The amazing thing was that Janet really meant it. For her, it was not just a perfunctory remark; she deeply and sincerely wanted their feedback on how to improve the presentation. Remember that a vague comment like, "Should there have been more examples?" is not as helpful as asking specifically what kind of examples the person would like to see in the presentation. Also, ask the person's advice as to what should be taken out. Lastly, you can't incorporate everyone's feedback. By trying to please one person, you many displease three others or as David says, "If you try to please everyone, you'll please no one." Therefore, all of this feedback needs to be balanced.

It is also important to find out what the audience liked about the presentation and to note what you should do more or less of. These evaluations can also be used to start off the next day's session or your next presentation to the same group as a review, by highlighting items that the participants thought were particularly important and clarifying or discussing those items that needed further explanation.

In addition to maximizing their use of salient feedback, there are two last characteristics that differentiate Master_Presenters from their less accomplished counterparts: 1) knowing the deep structure of your presentation, and 2) stage presence or command presence.