Don’t be a jerk when telling the audience to “hold questions till the end of my talk”, even if you are a jerk.

Background: I recently attended a conference by Grow Rich, Stay Rich (GRSR) with the intent not of making a fortune but of learning about speaking from a direct sales pro. This is part of that series, focusing on how to communicate your interruption policy. More background here.

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One of the coolest TV characters is Kojak, a tough detective played by Telly Savalas. I can’t remember all the details, but some stupid character once asked a really basic question. Kojak was busy on the case and so cool that he didn’t answer. Instead he told the fellow, “Get a library card.”

“Get a library card” is really cool when a TV detective says it. It’s really uncool when you say it.

Let’s say that you have a mountain of information to get through, as was the case with the Grow Rich, Stay Rich (GRSR) salesman. You have limited time and hey, you’re doing a hard sell here. You can’t get off track explaining how derivates work. So you’re going to ask for questions to be held till the end.

That’s exactly what the presenter at GRSR correctly did. But he did it rudely. It came out something along the lines of, “Don’t interrupt me with questions. If you don’t know something you go home and Google it, don’t ask me.” I don’t know whether this just came out wrong or if this dash of aggressiveness is part of the routine.

You’re within your rights to tell the audience, “Don’t interrupt me.” Just be super nice. You need to show humility, even if you’re a jerk and you think the material so easy only a moron would interrupt you. The easiest is, “I’m going to ask you to hold questions till the end.” Or if you feel apologetic, you can add, “I know the material may be difficult but I’m afraid we don’t have that much time.” If someone interrupts you anyway and especially if it’s a stupid question, politely remind them to save it until the end.

Ideally there’s time for Q&A. If not you should provide a better follow up than “go Google.” Ideally, stick around to answer questions. If that’s not possible, give an email/phone/website/book for additional information - more specific than something you can get with a library card.

Incidentally Telly Savalas played my favorite James Bond villain in my favorite James Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. If you’ve never heard of it - get a library card, baby!