How to Answer a Question You Don't Know the Answer To

Watch the accompanying video to this blog above!

There are very few moments in public speaking that create as much instant dread as being asked a question you simply cannot answer. You're standing up there, the room is looking at you, and your mind is either blank or running in five directions at once trying to find something — anything — that sounds credible. Most people either wing it and hope for the best, or they visibly fumble, which tends to stay with the audience long after the rest of the presentation is forgotten.

What most speakers don't realise is that this situation is both completely normal and entirely manageable — if you have a technique for it.

I've been asked questions I didn't know the answer to more times than I can count. Early on, I found it stressful. Over time, I developed three approaches that not only get you through the moment, but can actually strengthen the audience's trust in you if you use them well.

The first approach is to use the room. If you're presenting to a group and someone asks you something technical, financial, or outside your immediate knowledge, the answer may already be sitting in front of you. Open it up. Say something like — that's a challenging one, I'd love to hear if anyone in the room has a perspective on it. You'll almost always find someone willing to take a stab at it, and often someone who actually knows. You redirect, you facilitate, and you turn a potential weak moment into an engaging group discussion. That's not a deflection — that's good facilitation.

The second approach is the transparent guess. This works when you have enough context to say something reasonable, even if you can't back it up with precision. Be upfront about it — tell the audience you're not certain, that you're speculating, and then give them a broad answer that's grounded in logic or general principle. You can also try the inverse: rather than stating the fact you don't know, state the consequence of ignoring it. If someone asks you a specific statistic you can't recall, you can say — I don't have that exact number to hand, but what I can tell you is that businesses that don't address this tend to see X happen. That reframe shifts the conversation from what you don't know to what you do know, which is almost always more useful anyway.

The third approach is simply honesty — and in my experience, it's the one audiences respect most. If you don't know, say so. Not apologetically, not with a lot of hedging, but clearly and confidently. Something like: that's a great question and I want to give you the right answer rather than a guess — let me look into that and come back to you within 24 hours. Most people will genuinely appreciate that. Nobody wants to be sent off with incorrect information, and the fact that you'd rather take the time to get it right signals integrity, not incompetence.

The underlying point across all three of these is the same: not knowing something is human. What the audience is actually evaluating in that moment isn't your encyclopaedic knowledge — it's your composure and your honesty. A speaker who handles uncertainty well is far more credible than one who bluffs confidently and gets it wrong.