When you’re on stage, it’s important to keep a level of control in the room.

You want to graciously command your audience so that you can get through everything, give what you came to give, serve people at the highest level and get great results.

Here are two ways to set great boundaries during presentations.

1. When Taking Questions
You need to set boundaries around questions, but first you should consider whether to take any questions at all.

Unless you’re an expert at turning questions into sales opportunities, I don’t recommend taking questions during introductory sales presentations, because answering questions can relieve the tension in the room, and nothing will kill your sales faster.

If you do decide to take questions during your presentation, do keep these points in mind.

• Manage your time. Nothing kills your timeline more than getting on a roll with questions. You have to manage your time. Also, build in more time than you think you will need. If you think ten minutes will be enough, give yourself fifteen.

• Frame the questions. Unless you set up guidelines, people are just going to follow the lead of whatever is going on in the room.

For instance, I might say, “I can see there are some questions. I’m a little bit ahead of my timeline here. I can take some quick, clarifying questions.” Notice that I don’t say, “What questions do you all have?” I limit the scope.

• If limiting the scope doesn’t work. If you frame the questions and someone still asks something unrelated, try saying, “That’s a great question, but it’s outside the scope of what I’m covering here, and I have so much to give you. Write it down so we can catch that a little bit later.”

Or, you could say, “That’s outside the scope of what we cover in this class. We do, however, cover that in depth in our XYZ program. I’ll tell you more about how to access that a little later today.”

2. Dealing with “Blurters”
If you decide that you aren’t going to answer questions, you may have to set boundaries with “blurters.” That may sound derogatory, but I can say that because I am one. It takes a lot to control myself!

You want to find a graceful way to let the blurters know that what they’re doing doesn’t work for you without embarrassing them.

For instance, rather than calling them out personally, you can say to the room, “I love how involved you are with this presentation. But I have so much to give, I just can’t take any questions or comments. Just stay with me. I’m going somewhere with all of this.”

That way, they’ll work harder at controlling their outbursts without feeling bad about themselves — or mad at you.

Boundaries are a crucial part of the design of your presentation. They’re your cozy container. And the great thing about cozy containers is that once you make them, you are then free to fly within them, and be your authentic self.

How do you manage boundaries? Let us know below.