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Stop Ending Your Speeches With 'Any

Questions' and End With This Instead Don't let your
audience decide how you're going to end your presentation
BY DEBORAH GRAYSON RIEGEL, KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND LEADERSHIP CONSULTANT @DEBORAHGRIEGEL

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You have a big presentation to make to your client, your funders, or your boss. You've spent
hours developing a deck that's concise, crisp, and visually stunning. You've practiced the
delivery so that you speak with clarity, calm, and confidence. You've tested to make sure your tech is
glitch-free, proofread the printed materials, and developed an opening statement that's sure to capture
the hearts and minds of your listeners.

You got this...

Until the end.


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If you're planning to wrap up your presentation with a half-hearted call for "any questions?" followed
by a "thank you" and a quick exit, then you haven't planned your whole presentation.
In fact, you're missing out on a critical opportunity to reinforce your key message, offer a final appeal to
gate keepers or decision makers, and make yourself and your pitch memorable.
The principle of recency states that people remember most what they learned most recently. In other
words, your audience is likely going to recall how you ended your presentation more than they will
remember how you started, or even much of the content in the middle. And if they're going to
remember the end, you need a finish that's bigger than "any questions?"
Too many people end their presentations with a call for questions, which is a mistake. Why? Because it
leaves the audience in charge of your ending, when, in fact, you want to be the one who decides the last
words the audience hears. Think about it--what if the last question someone asks is irrelevant or hostile
or bizarre? What if there are no questions at all? Is that what you want your audience to be thinking
about when they make their decisions about whether to invest in your offering, move your agenda
forward, or advance your career?
I bet not.
Here's one more possibility to consider: What if the question that someone asks is so helpful and
insightful that it actually changes your planned conclusion?
So, you may be asking yourself, "If I don't end with Q&A, how do I end?" (Great question!)
If you're not planning to take questions throughout your presentation, here are the final four steps you
need to end your presentation memorably (in a good way):
1. Recap your main points
After you've covered your content, sum it up for the audience so that they remember what you've just
told them. (Remember the old saying, "Tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then
tell them what you told them"? This is the "tell them what you told them" part.) No matter how
compelling you were, you still need to assume that people's attention spans are short. A quick review of
your main points will help your listeners lock in what they've learned.
2. Invite questions (and mean it!)
While you may wish you could avoid this section at all costs, you need to give people an opportunity to
clarify anything they didn't understand, seek additional information, and even challenge your proposal.
You might even find that an audience member's question brings up a novel idea or thoughtful approach
you hadn't considered, leading you to draw an updated conclusion.
3. Share your conclusion
Don't get complex or fancy. It can be a simple restatement of your objective, with a few observations
thrown in that you collected during the Q&A. Or, if the Q&A didn't yield any new insights, you can
skip the observations. The point is to remind your audience of the key message you want to reinforce.
(This is also a useful technique if you're dealing with a hostile audience, because the person who
 summarizes the discussion, no matter how tense the discussion may have become, stays in control by
having the last word.) 

4. Close memorably and meaningfully

Perhaps no section of a presentation is as important as the closing, since that's the last thing your
audience will hear. And because it's so critical, your closing must be prepared and practiced. What are
you preparing and practicing? A powerful quotation from a business leader, a relevant song lyric or
movie line, a rousing call to action, a concise story, a rhetorical question, or (for bonus points) a link
back to your opening statement. 

You never get a second chance to make a last--and lasting--impression. Make sure that your
presentations end positively, memorably, and with you in the driver's seat.

APR 10, 2018

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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Samsung, McDonald's, and More When Erik Rico's young son joined a travel baseball team in 2016, the former minor leaguer was
shocked to see the price of youth baseball bats. Many were $200 or more -- for a product his son might
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While hanging out with his childhood friend Oscar Llarena, Rico lamented the high cost of playing the
sport. The two thought back to their middle-income childhoods in the Miami area and considered the
burden such prices would have placed on their families. "We never would have been able to afford it,"
says Llarena. Together, they tried to come up with a solution.

The breakthrough came when they began to think about baseball gear as something people could
subscribe to if they didn't want to purchase it outright. In 2016, Rico and Llarena co-founded Miami-
based baseball equipment retailer Bat Club. The company offers an online subscription service starting
at $20 per month through which customers can rent baseball bats, gloves, and other equipment, with
the option to switch gear if their children outgrow it -- or simply don't like it. The company, which also
lets customers purchase equipment outright, generated $3.1 million in annual revenue in 2020, with a
three-year growth rate of 1,425 percent. The fast growth was good enough to claim the No. 326 spot on
the 2021 Inc. 5000 list -- and No. 1 among Florida retail companies.

Rico is CEO of the 12-person company, while Llarena is chief marketing officer and continues to work
full-time at IBM. The startup is growing through word of mouth and partnership programs, according to
Rico. It offers brand ambassadors and batting facilities affiliate fees for getting people to sign up through
unique QR codes and links.

For the co-founders, the digital business model made perfect sense for the modern world. "You don't
buy DVDs anymore," says Llarena. "You don't buy music. So why should you buy a bat -- something
your kid is going to outgrow soon anyway?"

Leveling the playing field

The costs of playing youth sports have soared in recent years, as equipment has advanced and travel
teams have become the norm. Recent studies have found that American families spend from $100 to
$500 per child per month on sports, with one Utah State University survey determining that some
families spend as much as 10 percent of their income on their children's sports. And kids from low-
income families are six times more likely to quit sports because of costs than kids from high-income
families, according to the Aspen Institute's Project Play initiative.

Rico and Llarena are determined to change those statistics. Rico, who also coaches at a baseball
academy near Miami, has a connection to a sports equipment wholesaler, which allows the pair to buy
equipment in bulk and resell it at the lowest possible price. After the pair reached out to the parents of
children in Rico's academy to ask if they'd be interested in renting new bats on a monthly payment
plan, 15 families quickly agreed. Word of mouth led other parents in the area to ask how they could sign
up.

Llarena, a computer engineer who still works at IBM, designed a website for their new venture, which
they called Bat Club. In the summer of 2017, the duo filled Rico's van with baseball bats and drove to
Central Florida for an annual baseball and softball tournament that draws in teams from all over the
country. They set up a tent on the grounds of the complex and signed up dozens of parents on the spot.

Within months, Bat Club's customer base grew from 15 to 1,500. The co-founders soon expanded the
startup's offering beyond bats, adding products like gloves, catching gear, helmets, and spikes. Today,
customers can opt to pay for their equipment over the course of six, 12, or 18 months. With online
memberships, customers can trade in pieces of equipment for new ones at any time. Llarena says the
company has over 6,500 active subscriptions.

While Bat Club isn't drastically reducing the annual price of playing sports that require significant
equipment, the company is helping mitigate the up-front cost, which gives families the financial
freedom to get their kids the latest equipment, according to Llarena. El Paso-based softball coach Susan
Avena says that Bat Club has freed up money for her team to play in more tournaments. It also ensures
that her players can have new gear each season without having to front the cost of softball bats or
catching gear, each of which can cost $500 or more at the high school level.

"Before, the girls would show up at these games against teams that had all new equipment, and it was
intimidating," she says. "This levels the playing field."

Later innings

Rico and Llarena are currently in talks with institutional investors, having raised all of the company's
nearly $1 million in investment capital to date exclusively from friends and family. 

The co-founders' long-term plan is to expand Bat Club's offerings into other sports with expensive
equipment, such as hockey or lacrosse. For now, though, they're excited to see their product offer new
possibilities to families. They think about all they gained from playing baseball -- confidence, teamwork
skills, and each other's friendship, to name just a few -- and hope others can experience it too.

"It hurts to hear about kids not being able to play this sport because of the cost," says Llarena. "To help
people afford to play this game, get the equipment they need, and not feel like they're at a
disadvantage, it makes the hard work worth it for us."

FEB 2, 2022

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