How to handle hecklers?

Hecklers come in many forms but they all want attention. Try 3 strategies to handle the disruption:

1. Don’t lose your cool! Your goal is to inspire/entertain/educate the audience, not to convert or convince hecklers. Once you get emotionally involved, it’s very hard to stay on your game.
2. Some hecklers are not malicious but simply clueless. You can poll the audience if you should skip the VERY interesting part of your talk so you can address the heckler’s comment/question/concern – make it a rhetorical question. Then suggest that you talk 1-on-1 with the disruptor after the event.
3. Don’t engage verbally. Stay silent and look their way. Your audience usually joins in to personify “if looks could kill” because most people are annoyed rather than amused with heckling and disruptions.

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