Oh no. What if I'm asked a question by an audience member and I can't answer it. This is one of the most common fears speakers have all over the world. And it's a legitimate fear. If I'm speaking to 1000. People often ask people, how many of you fear not being able to answer a question, it's happened to you or you've seen other people not be able to answer a question at the end of a presentation.
And it was embarrassing, and out of 1000 people Sure enough, 300 hands will go up. So it is a real problem. But I always ask another question. And I say how many of you have seen someone present? And they were so incredibly boring and unmemorable that you didn't remember anything? They said five minutes later show of hands, guess how many hands went up?
Not 300 or 1000 hands went up. So I say this to remind Due to focus on the far greater problem, the far greater danger for most people is not that you're asked a question. And you don't know the answer. The far greater danger for most of us is we give a boring presentation. And people forget what we're going to say. So make sure you have an interesting presentation.
Now, when it comes to the questions quite often, it's not the fact that you don't know the answer that gets you into trouble. It's your reaction, your embarrassment, it's like it's becomes the most memorable moment of the entire presentation. You looking flustered, you looking scared. So number one, I certainly hope you know the answers to those questions you can but if someone does ask you a question. Don't act bothered by it. simply say, Smithers and our accounting department will know that I can find that to you and send it to you within the hour.
Or they're asking you a question that's unknowable, and you simply bridge to something that's relevant that is billable or you'd say I don't know and you bridge to something else that is in some way relevant. The key is you can't act flustered. You can't act as though you just got caught with your pants down. You have to look and sound relaxed and confident at all times.