Although the mission of many presentation pitch is to persuade the audience to understand your perspective or even adopt it, a presenter should strive to accomplish this in an ethical manner. This kind of ethical persuasion involves attaining an honest realization of the perspective of your audience, providing an explanation of yours, and resolving the disparity between the two viewpoints. So, is your message ethical? Conduct these two tests to find out:
1. TARES Test
Sherry Baker and David Martinson created the five-part TARES Test to assist individuals in producing ethical persuasive presentations or pitches.
A truthful message
The authors indicate that a truthful message requires more than steering away from lying. In fact, it demands that presenters provide non-deceptive information.
Presentation Tip:
As a presenter, there are many actions you can take to ensure the truthfulness of your message. It begins with analyzing a substantial amount of credible studies obtained through meticulous research, including accurate data, and remembering to cite your sources. If an explanation of an opposite perspective is warranted, configure a way to do that without diminishing your persuasive appeal. And if you engage in a selective information approach to your content, consider the reasons you are doing so – making sure that the deletions are not fueled by deceitful motivations.
An authentic presenter
In their study, Baker and Martinson describe authenticity with the following terms: integrity, personal virtue, sincerity, genuineness, loyalty, and independence. This principle requires that presenters be self-aware – able to recognize the factors at play in their persuasion and then rise above them.
Presentation Tip:
In addition to attaining awareness, a presenter should believe in their idea, product, or service. Not only will this improve the ethical foundation of your message, but it will also result in an audience that believes you, and that believes in you. That’s why displaying enthusiasm and exuding passion throughout your presentation is a crucial component of delivery.
“Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn.” – John Wesley
A regard for the audience
When step on stage, you want to take control of the room and position yourself as the leader. But you share a common characteristic with your audience. You are a human being. The craft of ethical persuasion involves looking at your message through the lens of your audience. Even physicians confront conflicts of ethical persuasion in their promotion of treatment or prevention options to patients. The authors of Beneficent Persuasion urge physicians to gain a better understanding of the cognitive biases or heuristics (i.e. availability heuristic, focusing effect/side-effect aversion, omission bias, etc.) that their patients may be subjected to during the decision-making process and persuade them to choose the best option for their health. Many of the persuasion tactics physicians employ can be utilized ethically by presenters.
Presentation Tip:
Reframe an issue to enhance the persuasive appeal of your message. For example, a physician might describe the benefits, then list the side-effects, and then circle back to the benefits. What would this look like in a presentation? Let’s say you are delivering a sales pitch about a new app for businesses. An ethical pitch might first acknowledge the positives, then discuss the negative aspects such as perceived market competition, and then conclude with the positives. It might be framed like this:
Our innovative approach to business through our fantastic app will maximize efforts and accelerate workflows – saving your company time and money. There are 4 similar apps in the market currently, but our expertise in streamlining processes across a wide range of industries allows our product to far surpass the rest in its time and money-saving capacities.
A fair persuasive call
According to this principle, a presenter should state their underlying motivations and provide clarity of their message and context for it.
Presentation Tip:
To do this, conclude a presentation with a call-to-action that will incite every member of the audience. Offer up a few call-to-actions to accomplish this goal if necessary. In addition, don’t just tell your audience to do something. Tell them why they should do it. The simplest way to do this is adding the word because to your call-to-action. For example, if your original call-to-action is a slide with a link to your website paired with you telling the audience to visit your website, try saying the following instead: I invite you to visit my website because you’ll find a wealth of resources to empower you during your journey of professional growth. This call-to-action does not manipulate vulnerable audiences, but it does give attendees a reason to act – fulfilling the fair and persuasive qualities of this aspect of ethical persuasion.
An aim towards the common good
For a presentation pitch to make the most impact on a particular audience, it has to serve their interests and address their needs. The presenter must only promote products, ideas, or information that support the common good.
Presentation Tip:
Through a storytelling technique such as a user experience story, visual metaphor, or hero’s journey, a presenter can illustrate the positive effect their product, idea, or service has on society. For example, TOMS built a business focused on a higher cause. Their brand narrative involves establishing the customer as the hero. In their One Day Without Shoes Instagram campaign, TOMS encouraged audiences – customers or not – to take a photo of their bare feet and post it to the social media platform. The company then donated a pair of shoes for every photo.
2. Fitzpatrick and Gauthier
In Kathy Fitzpatrick and Candace Gauthier’s Responsible Advocacy, they outline 3 questions a person should ask themselves to decide whether or not a persuasive pitch or presentation is ethical.
What is the purpose of your persuasion?
What are the end results and the consequences for others of your persuasion?
Does the persuasion help or harm the decision-making process of your audience?
Conclusion
These principles are not the end all, be all. They are merely guidelines to inform the structure and content of your presentations. Oftentimes, one principle will conflict with another in a particular situation. At that point, your distinct personal morals and values would help you determine the principle that you would adhere to in that instance. Test your next presentation with the TARES Test and answer Kathy and Candace’s questions to evaluate your persuasive ethical standing.
