In Master Your Timing Part 1 I spoke about the importance of a speaker or presenter to stay true to their time allocation. However there will be situations that occur where you will find yourself running out of time. You know that you will go over. It could be a result of audience interaction. It could be your first time delivering the material and you underestimated the time required. In these situations it is important that you let the audience know well in advance and ask for their permission to address it.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when you do this. First it shouldn’t be an exorbitant amount of time, 10 – 15 minutes maximum. If you require more than that you should consider setting up a followup session to finish the material. If you do get their permission remember that there may still be participants that have other commitments and have to go at the original finish time. Make sure that you allow them to exit gracefully. Give them permission to leave when the original time is up. This should be announced to the group. For example: If any of you are unable to stay on for the extra time please feel free to leave at the scheduled time.
It is their time, not yours, so it is important that you honour it.
Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!
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I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.
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