Nothing sends chills up the spine of a presenter more than the prospect of giving a presentation and then being asked a question that he or she can’t answer. Ugh! The humiliation! The shame! I’ll have to resign my position, leave the industry, move to North Korea, and become a subsistence farmer!

Hold on. Don’t jump off the cliff just yet. Anytime I give a presentation to a large audience, I’ll often ask: Who here can personally remember a time in the past month where you or someone you saw give a presentation failed to answer a question correctly—and it was horribly embarrassing, and everyone knew it? Sure enough, at least 10 percent of the hands go up. So, yes, this is a legitimate concern. But then I’ll ask the same audience another question: “How many of you remember seeing someone give a presentation in the past month, and it was so boring you didn’t remember a thing the presenter said five minutes after the speech was over?”

This time, about 100 percent of the hands in the room go up. So, if we are going to worry about potential problems, we might as well play the odds and worry about having an interesting presentation in the first place, not the relatively small odds that we can answer a question smoothly.

Nonetheless, at some point in your career, you will be asked a question you can’t answer. Here are some things you don’t want to do:

- Apologize.
- Laugh nervously.
- Wear an expression on your face that says “oh sh*t!”
- Complain that it’s a tough question.
- Look away awkwardly and start fumbling through notes as if the answer will mysteriously appear in front of you.

Here is the little-known secret to giving a pretty good presentation: it is unlikely that people will remember you not knowing the answer to a question. However, it is highly likely that people will remember you not knowing the answer to a question if you appear embarrassed, frustrated, angry, or disappointed. Since many presentations in business and life are somewhat dry and factual in nature, you run the risk of drawing massive attention to your mistakes if they happen to be the only part of your presentation where emotion is displayed.

When asked a question you don’t know the answer to, consider the following guidelines:

- Act completely poised, calm, and confident at all times (even when you’re not).

- Act genuinely happy to receive the question (especially when you’re not).

- If the question is one that is easily obtainable—say, sales figures last quarter broken out by product line for South America—simply reply, “Sally, I will have Jaime send you those sales figures within one hour from now.” Stop. Smile. Don’t act embarrassed. And act like this is the most obvious and rational way for information like this to be shared. Don’t act like you feel incredibly stupid for not knowing the answer now.

- You might be asked a question to which someone else in the room does know the answer. Don’t fumble around awkwardly for minutes, and then sheepishly and meekly ask for help from a colleague. Simply turn as soon as the question is asked, and say something like, “We are fortunate to have Shana, who’s an expert on the subject, with us today; I will pose that question to her. …” Now you have made the smooth transition to facilitator instead of just the presenter. The audience member gets the information; Shana gets positive public recognition; and in the process, you look like a smooth class act who knows how to bring out the best in a whole team. Everybody wins.

- Occasionally, you may be asked a hypothetical question that is essentially unknowable or something that is knowable to which you just don’t know the answer. For example, “If the recession gets worse and unemployment grows to 14 percent by the end of next year, isn’t that likely to destroy your company’s profits and force you to go bankrupt?” Since no one really knows what unemployment will be at the end of next year, it is perfectly okay to respond, “I don’t know.” But the trick is to say “I don’t know” without a trace of embarrassment or bother. Next, try to answer some part of the question even if it is tangential, for example, “What I do know is that we work hard on improving our product line and our customer service every day so that we can continue quarterly growth regardless of the macroeconomic outlook.”

- Don’t BS people. If you don’t know the answer to a question that you should know, don’t make up stuff. Tell them what you do know that is relevant, and get back to them in a timely manner with other info that you can provide.

If you follow the preceding rules, your question-and-answer session in your presentations will be consistent, positive elements in helping you create the overall impression of being a pretty good presenter.

This article was taken from my new book “How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation” You can order a copy from Amazon.com or from your local bookstore.