This one’s a little different than most of my posts but it’s been on my mind since TwitchCon. My awesome panel went a little longer than we intended (totally my fault) so I felt as though we didn’t have enough time for questions. Part of the problem was that we didn’t get effective panel questions. Let’s jump right in to how to ask better questions!
Have a Clear Goal
What is it you hope to learn from your question? Hopefully you know that before getting up to the mic.
If you’re not certain what it is you want to learn in the moment or have a very involved question it may not be appropriate to ask it at a panel. After all, the panelists are having to interpret what you’re asking and come up with an answer of the fly. If you’re giving them a lot of things to take a stab at they might miss the crux of your question.
Please be Concise
You need to be concise. If your question starts with your entire life history then it’s far too complex to ask at a public panel. Generally panelists will stick around afterwards and you can dive more in to specifics there. Or, if it’s a panel of professionals most offer complimentary consultations that are one on one and they can be a little more specific.
Additionally, the more you put into a question the harder it is to get to the heart of what you’re asking. I’ve seen several questions where the panelists didn’t actually answer what was asked because they got lost in all of the context. Yes, I know this is a repeat point but it’s an important one.
Follows the rules
On my panel we had two professionals (Joel Liu and me) who cannot give specific advice without exposing ourselves to liability risk. It’s not that we insist on getting paid for any advice (though that’s nice) and it’s not that we’re mean. We would be risking our businesses and therefore our ability to help others.
So when we ask to please stick to general questions and say we can’t provide specific advice we mean it. You’re much, much, much more likely to get helpful information from us if you give us a chance to actually answer instead of making us pass.
Be considerate of other audience members
There are likely other people in the room with questions. Additionally, if it’s something like TwitchCon there’s a livestreaming audience. You need to make sure that you’re letting others also get to ask what they want.
This means that in addition to following the above guidelines you should limit yourself to one question. If you’ve got more questions you should wait until after the panel’s officially over. It’s not that we don’t want to hear your question, it’s that we want to help as many as possible in the limited time we have for the panel.
Conclusion
Panelists generally love getting questions. It’s much easier to answer what someone else has asked than it is to present to an audience. However, it’s important that you give them a question they can actually answer. If you follow these guidelines you’ll dramatically increase your chance of getting your question answered!
You don’t have to figure this out alone. This is what we do- help streamers make great money decisions. If that’s something that sounds interesting to you reach out me or schedule some time for a free consult. You can check out what I do here.
