**Get the guide for managing feedback at https://laurensergy.kit.com/feedbackguide
Ouch! You gave a presentation and received some less-than-complimentary feedback on it.
I receive the following question from Sunni:
Hi Lauren – how do I deal with bad feedback? I give lots of presentations at insurance conferences, and the organizers always sent speakers the feedback. I get lots of good comments, but there’s always a few people who are unhappy, who complain about my slides, say that it was confusing or not useful, or that the product I’m presenting on is bad, etc. Sometimes they just give a low rating and don’t say anything at all! Most of the feedback is positive, but these comments really eat at me. Any advice for how to deal?
Thanks,
Sunni
Getting bad feedback sucks, whether you’re a seasoned presenter or a complete newbie on the stage. But not all feedback is created equal. So what should you ignore, and what should you take action on? Learning how to tell the difference is critical to your success – and sanity – as a presenter. Watch the video for my advice on handling negative feedback after your presentation.
If you have a presentation coming up, you might find this guide to managing bad feedback useful: click here to get your copy.
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Prefer to read rather than watch? Scroll down for the full video transcript.
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TRANSCRIPT
Feeling a bit raw thanks to some bad feedback? Here’s how to deal with it.
Hello, my name is Lauren Sergy, I’m obsessed with public speaking and communication, and this is communication Q&A.
Getting feedback is part of giving presentations, but no matter how experienced a presenter we may be or how much effort we put into our talks, bad feedback is inevitable. This episode’s question from Sunny is about handling those feedback blues
but before we get into it, please help out the channel by liking this video, subscribing, and sharing it with others who might also need some help managing presentation feedback.
Now for the question:
Hi Lauren – how do I deal with bad feedback? I give lots of presentations at insurance conferences, and the organizers always sent speakers the feedback. I get lots of good comments, but there’s always a few people who are unhappy, who complain about my slides, say that it was confusing or not useful, or that the product I’m presenting on is bad, etc. Sometimes they just give a low rating and don’t say anything at all! Most of the feedback is positive, but these comments really eat at me. Any advice for how to deal?
Thanks,
Sunni
Sunni, this is a great question. Dealing with bad feedback is about more than just growing a thicker skin. Instead, you need to be able to decide what feedback is valuable and whether it’s worth doing anything with it.
Here’s the first thing I want you to understand: Not all feedback is created equal. Not everyone’s opinions are valuable, and not every complaint is valid. For someone like Sunny, who presents frequently, it’s important to be able to decide what feedback is worth paying attention to and what isn’
Let’s start with the stuff that you isn’t worth paying attention to:
First up, ignore feedback that doesn’t give you any information. Short comments like “Uninformative.” “Wasn’t for me.” “Didn’t like how the presenter spoke.” don’t give you anything to go off of. Why wasn’t it informative? Why wasn’t it for you? What was it about the way I spoke that you didn’t like? Good feedback will contain something specific that you can respond to.
Next, ignore feedback that is mean, irrelevant, or overly picky. These are comments about things like your clothes, or the temperature of the room, or the company branding on your slides, or that they were expecting a talk about critical illness insurance and instead got a talk about commercial insurance…even though the presentation title clearly said “commercial insurance”. I once gave a presentation at a business school conference, and got lots of great feedback, except from one person who said “I found her laugh to be jarring.”
Sometimes irrelevant comments can seem relevant at first glance. You said that one comment you sometimes get is that the product you’re presenting on is bad. Well, was the point of the presentation to educate the audience about the pros and cons of a particular product, or was it a pitch to get them to buy the product? If it was an educational presentation, then it doesn’t matter whether the person liked the product, it only matters if they now understand the product. So the comment “the product is bad” is irrelevant.
These sorts of mean or irrelevant comments frequently pop up in conference feedback forms. Maybe the people writing these things are having a bad day, or are tired, or simply feel the need to dunk on others. It doesn’t matter…ignore them.
Finally, I tend to ignore “outlier” comments. If you get a large number of people commenting that the presentation was informative and useful, but only one person saying they found it confusing, than the “confusing” comment is an outlier and I wouldn’t spend time worrying about it.
So with that said, what kind of feedback should you pay attention to? When going through presentation feedback, I ask myself 5 questions:
Are there any patterns in the feedback?
If several audience members have similar comments with a presentation, or if you’re getting the same sort of feedback in several of your presentations…then you need to pay attention to that feedback. If a number of people said that you went too fast. If there were four comments from a single session that a certain concepts was confusing, then you need to work on clarifying that section or making your explanations easier to understand. If you received negative comments about your slides in the last three presentations you’ve given…then you really should work on making your slides easier or more attractive to look at. Whatever the issue is, if it’s something that comes up again and again, then it’s something you need to address.
Does the comment resonate with something I was worried about?
It’s normal for presenters to feel like certain aspects of their talk aren’t quite up to par. Sometimes we’re being overly picky with ourselves, but sometimes that hunch is right. If you’re worried that you go too far into the weeds on one concept, or that you sound too “techy” when explaining something, and you get additional feedback that says the same, then definitely pay attention and work on fixing that in your next talk.
Does the feedback come from someone who’se opinion I value and respect?
There are people in your professional circle who have excellent insight and experience, people whose opinions matter. Ask them for their feedback, and if they make suggestions for improvement, listen to them. Feedback like this from trusted sources who you know have good insight is extremely valuable, so don’t discount it (even if the feedback itself stings a little).
Can I take action on this feedback?
This is a great question to help you figure out if the feedback is relevant or just circumstantial. For example, you can’t change things about how the conference is run, or how long the time slots are, or how hot the room is. That isn’t actionable feedback. But if, for example, a couple people complain that you spent too much time talking about compliance, you can try to shorten or simplify the compliance stuff to make it easier to listen to.
Is it worth the time it will take to take action?
This last question is all about managing where you’ll spend time and effort responding to feedback. Sometimes we get feedback that is relevant and actionable, but the payoff isn’t worth the time you’ll need to put in. Let’s say that you get some suggestions for how to improve your slides. The suggestions are doable, but really fiddly; it’s going to take a very long time to put in those effects or animations, and the payoff isn’t that huge. Plus, you had other feedback that shows you need to work on a different part of your presentation. So while the feedback on the slides is relevant and it’s actionable, doing anything about it wouldn’t be the most valuable use of your time.
This process of deciding which feedback to ignore and what to take action on will make it much easier to deal with those conference surveys. You’ll be able to view the comments much more objectively, tease out what’s valuable, and then make strategic decisions about to act on. That combination of objectivity and positive action will help you stop the negative (or just plain stupid) comments from getting under your skin. After a few rounds of this, Sunni, you’ll find a shift in your whole mindset towards the conference feedback surveys and they won’t be nearly so onerous or disheartening to deal with.
It can be hard to remember all this when you’re sifting through lots of feedback at once, such as when you receive post-conference survey results. To help you out, I’ve put together a guide that will help you evaluate your feedback and decide what to take action on. You can get it at https://laurensergy.kit.com/feedbackguide .
Thanks for the great question, Sunni, and thank you to everyone who watched this video! Do you have a funny or surprising feedback story you’d like to share? Post it in the comments below! And if you’d like more resources to improve your presentations and communication, head to my website at laurensergy.com and sign up in the pop up. You’ll get my newsletter with my latest videos and resources I only share with my email subscribers.
Once again, please like this video and hit that subscribe button – it really does help me out – and I’ll see you on the next Communication Q&A.
