Difficult Audiences: The Sidetalker

Public speakers, facilitators, and trainers are often challenged by disruptive audience members. One of the most irritating disruptions is side-talking.

You have an important message you prepared and while you're delivering your presentation, you're competing with the chattering in the room. It may be a couple of people having a side conversation or there may be a buzz in the audience because the group discussion went off track. What do you do? How do you handle a difficult audience when the issue is side-talking? When should you ignore it and how should you intervene? Watch this brief video to find out.