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There are times during a presentation when you really don’t know the answer to a question that has been posed to you. What do you do for a living? Do you look at the person with murderous eyes? You sweat and say errrrr…
Right now, the key is to be honest. However, admitting “I don’t know” in response to a direct question from the audience can screw you up right away. What we want to do is maintain credibility and integrity. Remember, no one can know the answer to every question. The public does understand. It’s how a situation like this is handled that separates the great presenters from the amateurs. I’ve identified the following seven strategies you can follow to handle even the toughest questions with confidence. In the Part 1 article, I will refer to three of them.
1. Pull it back
Repeat the question again and return it to your audience: “Good question. Does anyone here have any experience with that?” When you allow the audience to help you, it will save you without even realizing it. This is not passing the buck, but harnessing the knowledge and energy of the audience. Apart from the experience, the audience loves this because they like to get involved and some of them love to show off their knowledge. After you get input from the audience, be sure to summarize the discussion. Always add your own ideas so that you continue to present yourself as the expert on that topic (you should use the brief moments when the audience is expressing their ideas to generate ideas quickly). Done correctly, it will help you maintain control and authority.
2. Let me check and I’ll get back to you
This is the most common protector and it works well if you do three things. First, write the question. Show them. Make sure everyone knows you are writing the question. Second, tell the interrogator exactly when you will contact him. Give them the exact time and date. Can you go back to them at the end of the day? Can you come back to them after lunch? You must and I stress that you must contact them at the promised date and time. Or else, there goes your credibility. Third, make sure you get the interrogator’s contact information if he doesn’t have it. Again, write it down and make sure everyone sees it. These three actions make this strategy very powerful. It is not about putting up a “smoke screen”. What we want to do is show that we too want to learn more and in the process impress the audience.
3. An eye for an eye
Ok, what I mean by Tit for Tat is that you answer the question with another question. Yeah! Sometimes the questions are too narrow or too general to answer. Reserve the right, as an expert, to open a question or close it by asking a question in response. Questions like “What do you gain from knowing this?” “What is your goal with this question? If you require a certain feature, product, (fill in the blanks), I can help you this way.” Such questions usually dilute that difficult moment you are facing.