How to Handle Hecklers and Other Difficult Situations


You may have spent adequate time preparing, rehearsing, and designing the perfect presentation, but it only takes one rude heckler to turn your masterful presentation into a disaster. A heckler can come in many forms, from someone calling out and interrupting your speech to someone who wants to ask questions to stump you just for fun. Fortunately, you have the power to take control when you are rudely interrupted. If you want to remain unshakeable the next time you present, prepare yourself with these techniques for handling the occasional heckler. 

Manage Your Emotions

The last thing you want is for the heckler to get an emotional reaction out of you. If you react with anger or frustration, you are giving in to the heckler and you will likely lose your focus. You will also lose the attention and respect of your audience. The best way to combat a heckler is to be aware of and stay in control of your emotions. 

Don’t Stop Your Presentation

What a heckler wants most is to turn the attention on them so don’t reward their behavior by stopping your presentation. The best course of action is to simply talk over them and ignore them. 

Address Them Kindly

It’s easy to let someone get under your skin and it’s much harder to react with grace. That’s why your audience will respect you so much more if you address the heckler with kindness. If you must address the situation, do so by being courteous and polite. Acknowledge their feelings and respectfully ask that they do the same for your audience. Then, redirect your audience back to the presentation. 

Let Them Talk

In some instances, the heckler simply wants a chance to enjoy the limelight. Ask the audience an opinion question and give the heckler a chance to answer. This allows them to speak in a more controlled environment and oftentimes once they have spoken and their opinion has been validated, they will be quiet. 

Ask Them to Leave

If all else fails, remember that you are in command of the audience you are speaking to so if someone is being disrespectful to you, don’t hesitate to ask them to leave. You might feel a little uncomfortable doing so, but your audience would agree that you don’t deserve to be interrupted and they would probably appreciate the removal of such a distraction.