You put a lot of work into your presentations. It’s aggravating when a disrespectful and unthoughtful audience member tries to run the whole thing into a ditch by constantly disrupting your presentation.

You know the person. They clear their throat too loudly when you make a point they disagree with, they talk too loudly to the person next to them, they try to steal the spotlight without actually getting to the front of the room.

You can’t control when the disrupter will show up in your presentation but you can control what to do about it. The key is to make the disrupter part of your presentation. Make the disrupter feel like your wingman or wingwoman and before they know it, you will have just enough of the spotlight to slip over them to make them invested in the success of your presentation instead of the failure.