What do you say when you don't know the answer?

What do you say when you don't know the answer?

I was coaching a CEO for TV interviews and one of his biggest fear was

“What if I get asked a question that I don’t know the answer to?”

Because of this, he would either refuse to do interviews altogether or he would want the questions sent in advance so he can script out each answer.

To deal with this, I helped him tackle this situation using the following framework and it helped him tremendously.

No matter how knowledgeable you are, at some point in your life,

you WILL not know the answer.

It’s important to be prepared for what to do when this happens.

The framework you’ll see below,

You can use this in important corporate meetings, corporate presentations, or anywhere else where saying “I don’t know” is not the best idea.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with not knowing the answer,

but saying the words “I don’t know” can lower your credibility.

Let’s say you can’t say the usual “I don’t know but I’ll get back to you”

In that case,

Here’s how to answer:

Step 1: You acknowledge the question or use a keyword from that question,
Step 2: You tell them you don’t have enough information to give the answer,
Step 3: You pivot and tell them what you do know.

Example

Let’s say in a live interview, you’re asked a technical question and you’re not the one who knows all the technicalities.

Instead of saying “Uhh I don’t know actually…”

Here’s what to say in the following situations:

1) You’re not the best person to answer that question:

“That’s a great question for our CTA, but what I can say is …” (then say what is important for you to highlight)

2) You don’t have all the details:

“While I don’t have all the specifics, here’s what’s important to know … “(Say what you want to say)

or

“The specifics are unclear, but what is clear is that …”

3) You can’t reveal the details:

“I can’t speak to ABC but what’s important to highlight is ….” (Then you highlight what you want the audience to know)

The goal is to acknowledge the question, not dodge it completely, and then pivot to what you want the audience to know. You can use whatever phrasing works best for you for you.

Hope this helped!

P.S I’ll be doing 3 LIVE trainings on September 16th to help you become a confident speaker,

This is training I only teach my highest-level clients and you’ll get it for free for being a part of this newsletter. Stay tuned!