Get the most out of Feedback

Getting feedback is SO important to your growth as a speaker, but sometimes it’s difficult to find feedback that will actually be helpful to you.

When you ask “So what did you think?” there are 3 types of feedback you’re likely to get…

1. Vague (usually in a positive way)
“Yeah, you were great” is lovely to hear, but not useful in any specific way other than being encouraging if you were very nervous or worried.

2. Irrelevant (often mostly negative)
This person might give you lots of details about things that bothered them, but they might not be relevant to what you want to improve, or even have anything to do with your competence as a speaker. (One of my favourite pieces of this type of feedback was something they didn’t like about the shape of my mouth… Still not sure what they expected me to do about that.)

A long list of what you did wrong isn’t necessarily good for your self-esteem or your speaking instincts. Especially if it’s something you can’t do anything about.

3. Specific and balanced
We’ve all heard of the sandwich technique, which is a great way to approach feedback, but either way, the most useful thing to hear is why something worked or didn’t. That way you can evaluate the feedback itself and decide if that person’s perspective is in alignment with your goals.

​The truth is that receiving useful feedback lies with you. And it starts before you even get on stage.

Before you start speaking, you need to know what success looks like for you. Define the specifics. (If you need a measurement system, you’re welcome to use my Charisma Checklist.)

When you ask for feedback: instead of saying “What did you think?” which might make even the most discerning audience member panic and forget anything useful to say, rather let them know your goal so that they can help you decide if you met it. For example: “I was really focussing on (X), how did I do?”

And don’t be scared to ask clarifying questions. The more detail you get, the more the feedback will help you to improve.

There’s something else you have to be aware of when receiving any feedback and that is how qualified that person is to critique you.

When I get feedback (especially if I find it odd or questionable) I ask myself 3 questions of the person who gave it to me…
1. Is this person in my target audience?
2. Is this person an expert in my field?
3. Does this person know me / my brand really well?
If the answer is “no” to ALL of those questions, I don’t put much stock in the feedback. You can’t please everyone and if they’re not your people or someone you want to emulate, they may not understand you or what will be effective with your audience.