Here are the three least effective ways to ask for feedback after a talk or presentation:
“What’d you think?”
“How do you think I did?”
“Did you like it?”
And because you asked an empty question, you can expect an empty response…
“I thought you did a great job!”
“Loved it.”
“I really liked it.”
“Nicely done.”
Sure, the comment will make you feel good (temporarily), but you’ll walk away not knowing what you did that made you great or what you should have done to be even better.
And because you’re someone who wants to improve, I know you want to know how to get better feedback.
But before getting that feedback, you need to first consider who you’re going to get feedback from.
Here’s who I consider:
Someone who’s in my target audience. Meaning, the person I had in mind while I was writing my talk or creating my presentation.
Someone who I’ve told in advance that I’ll be asking for their feedback — and likely shared exactly what I want their feedback on.
Someone who isn’t too close to me personally, so their potential critical feedback doesn’t bleed into our personal relationship (this depends on the dynamics of my relationship with the person).
Someone who has experience giving talks or presentations.
Someone who uses the type of information I shared.
Someone I’ve paid to coach me (or a mentor).
Someone who isn’t overly complimentary (like my mom).
Once you know who you’re going to ask for feedback from, try one (or more) of these feedback questions:
How do you plan to use what you learned?
Where do you think I should have spent more/less time?
If I spoke again on the same topic, what else would you want to know about?
What are three words you’d use to describe me while I spoke/presented?
What do you think was my most memorable point or slide?
If there was one thing I could do to improve my talk or presentation, what would it be?
What specifically did I do that connected me or disconnected me from my audience?
What’s something you now know that you didn’t know before my talk or presentation?
What problem was my talk or presentation trying to solve?
What type of person would benefit most from hearing my talk or presentation?
At what point in my talk or presentation did you feel most/least engaged?
What do you remember about my body language while I spoke/presented?
What made you decide to attend my talk or presentation?
Was there anything you were hoping to learn that you did not?
If I had to remove one section from my talk or presentation, what would you suggest I cut out?
Feedback is only valuable when it tells you what you should start doing, keep doing, or stop doing.
When you ask for feedback, be intentional about who you ask, be specific about what type of response you want, and remember that just because they say it doesn’t make it true.
If you’d like to add a question to the list, drop it in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!