Establishing Credibility as a Presenter

One of your first presentation strategies should be to establishcredibility. Without appearing self-serving, find ways to increaseyour perceived credibility. Use the presentation to show yourthorough understanding of a business issue. Frame your ideas inways that show clear benefits to your company, its employees, andits stakeholders. In every way, display honesty and openness.

During the presentation, you establish your competence byshowing that you know the content well. You show your caring byconnecting emotionally with audience members and adapting to theirneeds. You show your character by being open and honest. After yourpresentation, following up as appropriate with audience membersshows your caring and character as well. Some audience members mayraise issues for you to look into or ask for additionalinformation. Comply with these requests promptly and you willestablish a reputation for responsiveness.

In this exercise, you will evaluate how your actions andstatements build your credibility in terms of competence, caring,and character.

Read the case below and answer the questions thatfollow.

You are a marketing specialist at a media company. Over the pastfew years, you have been researching how TV viewers use mobilephones and other devices while watching TV. You have found thatviewers increasingly expect to engage via mobile devices with TVshows and their audiences while watching TV.

About one month ago, you and your colleagues gave a presentationto executives at your company regarding some of your surveyresults. The executive team members were generally impressed withthe information, but they also seemed skeptical that your companyneeded to make any major changes. These executives made variousstatements referring to using mobile devices while watching TV as"largely a fad" or simply "non-monetizing." They also expressedconcern about making major changes to cater to the youngest viewers(under 25 years old), who they feel are not their most importantdemographic. However, they were impressed with your presentationenough that they wanted you to dig deeper into the data and come upwith some recommendations.

After a month of deeper analysis of your data, you've found evenstronger evidence that viewers under 40 use their mobile devicesfrequently while watching TV. You thought this data helped bolsteryour argument that younger TV viewers expect an interactiveexperience while watching TV programs—using mobile devices tointeract with TV hosts, actors, and other viewers; participate incontests and games; and interact in other creative ways with theprogramming.

With more and more TV viewers recording shows and watchingcommercial-free later, you thought that adopting an interactiveapproach to many programs could counteract this trend and getviewers excited about watching programs live. In fact, you thinknow is a great opportunity to develop a new business model thatembraces interactive programming.

Now, you've returned to make a presentation to this same groupof senior vice presidents (SVPs): Katie O'Harrah, SVP of marketing;Jake Ecksberg, SVP of programming; Sam Clawson, SVP of interactive;Marco Feinstein, SVP of communications; and Peter Orwell, SVP ofbusiness development. You know most of these executives areskeptical of major changes to the current business model, but youalso expect them to listen objectively to your views. You willrecommend that the company aggressively pursues programming with aninteractive component. In particular, you will suggestpilot-testing interactive features for three shows that are mostpopular with your 31-to-40-year-old demographic.

References

Case AnalysisDifficulty: 2 MediumLearning Objective: 15-01Describe how presentation delivery impacts your credibility.

1.

value:
14.28 points

Which of the following statements is most likely to raise yourcredibility through competence?

"We've provided the original data from the survey on thecorporate intranet so you can access it yourselves."

"I do think we should let our creative teams worry aboutthat."

"In addition to these survey results, we've found from manysources—in our viewer labs, with focus group research, and withinterviews of dozens of industry experts—that viewers expect moreinteractive TV."

"We've done all of this research to help us gain a competitiveadvantage—to gain insights about where the market is going so thatwe can focus our efforts in the right direction."

References

Multiple ChoiceDifficulty: 2 MediumLearning Objective: 15-01Describe how presentation delivery impacts your credibility.

2.

value:
14.28 points

Which of the following statements is most likely to raise yourcredibility through caring?

"I do think we should let our creative teams worry aboutthat."

"We've done all of this research to help us gain a competitiveadvantage—to gain insights about where the market is going so thatwe can focus our efforts in the right direction."

"In addition to these survey results, we've found from manysources—in our viewer labs, with focus group research, and withinterviews of dozens of industry experts—that viewers expect moreinteractive TV."

"We've provided the original data from the survey on thecorporate intranet so you can access it yourselves."

References

Multiple ChoiceDifficulty: 2 MediumLearning Objective: 15-01Describe how presentation delivery impacts your credibility.

3.

value:
14.28 points

Which of the following statements is most likely to raise yourcredibility through character?

"In addition to these survey results, we've found from manysources—in our viewer labs, with focus group research, and withinterviews of dozens of industry experts—that viewers expect moreinteractive TV."

"I do think we should let our creative teams worry aboutthat."

"We've provided the original data from the survey on thecorporate intranet so you can access it yourselves."

"We've done all of this research to help us gain a competitiveadvantage—to gain insights about where the market is going so thatwe can focus our efforts in the right direction."

References

Multiple ChoiceDifficulty: 2 MediumLearning Objective: 15-01Describe how presentation delivery impacts your credibility.

4.

value:
14.28 points

By showing a thorough understanding of your survey results,organizing your content in a clear manner, and generally showingyou are prepared for this presentation, you are most demonstratingwhat aspect of credibility?

Caring

Character

Competence

References

Multiple ChoiceDifficulty: 2 MediumLearning Objective: 15-01Describe how presentation delivery impacts your credibility.

5.

value:
14.28 points

Each of the SVPs has many questions for you. You give each timeto ask the questions, and you take time to answer each questioncarefully. In each case, you acknowledge the importance of thequestion. In most cases, you provide a thorough, compellingresponse. In a few cases, you promise to find a good answer forthem within a week. What two aspects of credibility are you mostdemonstrating?

Competence and character

Competence and caring

Caring and character

References

Multiple ChoiceDifficulty: 2 MediumLearning Objective: 15-01Describe how presentation delivery impacts your credibility.

6.

value:
14.28 points

Before introducing the results of your survey, you explain indetail how you collected the data and the possible limitations ofthis survey. You also tell the SVPs where they can get all of theraw data on the corporate intranet. What aspect of credibility areyou most demonstrating?

Character

Competence

Caring

References

Multiple ChoiceDifficulty: 2 MediumLearning Objective: 15-01Describe how presentation delivery impacts your credibility.

7.

value:
14.32 points

After the presentation, you discover that you provided someinaccurate figures. In a few cases, you inadvertently overstated bymore than 50 percent the use of mobile devices while watching TV.You immediately email the SVPs with the correct figures and explainwhat you think this implies about your recommendations. What aspectof credibility are you most demonstrating?

Character

Competence

Caring