How to say you don't know

- Unpopular opinion. Admitting that you don't know something actually makes you more of an expert, not less. So here are five ways to say you don't know when an audience member asks you something that you don't know. The first one is a classic, "Let me get back to you on that." Now, you've heard this all the time, but the key is to actually get back to the audience member. You have no idea how impactful this will be because people never expect the speaker to actually get back to them. Two, "This is not my area of expertise but perhaps you can look up the work of X, Y, Z." You are the expert in your particular field, it's not your job to know everything. Three, "I haven't come across this yet. Would you mind sharing it with me?" Be transparent about your lack of knowledge and show curiosity to know more. Four, now, what if your boss's boss or a board member asks you about something that is still in the works? "The team and I are working on this. We will share updates as soon as we can." There's no need to actually divulge information that you are not really comfortable sharing yet, but at the same time, don't burn your bridges. Five. Now, what if someone in the audience asks you about something that is completely distracting from the track that you want to go down on? You can say, "I appreciate you asking me this but what I actually want to talk about today is this."