I have discovered during my ten plus years of public speaking Q&A sessions, that there were many occasions where admitting, “I don’t know,” would have proved far more beneficial than producing an eloquent response on the go. This is often a hard pill to swallow as it is a bit of painfully earned wisdom.  

Increasingly, Q&As are the highlight of any given public speaking event. People who commit time and money to hear you speak on some given topic desire an opportunity to personally ‘pick your brain’. If you’ve already given speeches before, you know first-hand that the 20 minutes, or even 45 minutes, allocated to you may only be enough for a superficial analysis of a topic. It is simply impossible to cover everything in such a short period of time. That’s why people love Q&Rs. They think, “Okay, I’ve heard your main points, arguments, and ideas. Now I want to hear what you think about this particular nuanced or troubling component.” Many questioners are quite genuine in their inquiry. For others, however, this is a test to see what you know. It is a test to see if you truly are a credible, thoughtful, and caring voice (and, yes, some have more nuanced agendas like seeing what camp of thought they can place you into).

This is the reality of what we do as public speakers. And we try our best, though not perfectly I admit, to handle questions with tact, wisdom, and grace. If the following scenario has not happened to you, then you’ve either never done a ‘time of questions’ post-speech (which is fine) or this scenario is forthcoming so consider this a friendly heads up!

The scenario is: an audience member who listened to your talk deploys that one question during Q&A that you desperately hoped no one would ask. As they begin, you know exactlywhere this question is heading. Now you're sweating, there is a deafening silence as they finish, and there is no escape. As your heart pounds you wonder, “what on earth do I do now?!”

I have been in this situation several times, and so I’ve picked up some practical strategies that possess the potential rhetorical power of transforming an embarrassing situation into something that adds to your credibility. The following three points are not an exhaustive list, but at the very least, are a great start point for such situations. 

1. First, take a few deep and controlled breaths whilst the question is being voiced. Physiologically speaking, flooding your body with fresh oxygen is only going to help you remain calm and poised. Controlled breathing will help your thinking, as well as your stage presence.
   
   
2. Second, if you feel confident in taking a shot at that dreaded question, but need a few more moments to think, then buy yourself time. Here are three ways to do that: 1) thank the questioner, 2) ask the questioner their name, and 3) ask them to repeat or rephrase the question. Asking a questioner to do this is helpful to you and the audience. Sometimes a question can be messy in its articulation, and so instead of immediately responding, ask the questioner to repeat or rephrase their question. Moreover, you’re going to win over some audience members by the fact that you care enough to make sure you’re responding to the right question and that you understand. Asking them to repeat can buy you an extra 30 seconds or so of thinking time.
   
   
3. Lastly, and this is the main point of this blog, if you do not know the answer or do not have a substantive response then just admit it. It is an unrealistic expectation to place on yourself to know every single answer to every single conceivable question. If you did, you’d be omniscient, and I only know one person who fits that description. Now, this potentially embarrassing situation is actually an opportunity to demonstrate authenticity. When you admit to not knowing, the audience sees you’re a human. And, more importantly in my view, that you’re an honest person. From an audience’s perspective, it is so refreshing to hear a speaker say this nearly magical phrase. Have you ever heard a speaker give a response and everyone knows that they have no idea what they’re talking about? I have! I've also been that person and it's awful because you can easily lose your credibility that way. Rather, I encourage you to be honest. Be free to say, “You know what, I’m not sure about that,” or “I’ve never thought about that before. Maybe we can exchange contacts so I can get back to you on that because I take it seriously”. My dear fellow speaker, in the long run, this humble posture will do far more for you during a Q&A than pretending that you know when you honestly do not.