MoneyWatch

What If My Research is All Wrong?

By Geoffrey James

Updated on: January 23, 2009 / 2:54 PM EST / MoneyWatch

What if your carefully-prepared presentation contains bad information? Answer: give your presentation with humility and curiosity. And don't put unverifiable hard data on your slides.

A reader writes:

So what do you do when you collect critical information from a non-decision maker and the information turns out not to be accurate?? How do you recover from a situation like this? Respect is lost from both ends... You lose respect for the non-decision maker and the non-decision maker loses respect for you b/c your presentation doesn't meet their needs.

Great question. Here's what can happen if your research is all wrong:

SCENARIO #1:

REP: "We can reduce your inventory from 60 days to 10 days."
DM: "Who told you we had a 60 day average?"
REP: "Fred."
DM: (Turning to Fred) "Did you tell him that? Because it's not true."
FRED: (Turning Red) "Uhhh... No."
DM: (Back to the rep) "A solution to a problem we don't have?!?? Get out!"

Even if Fred cops to the mistake, you still end up looking stupid, and your relationship with Fred (for what it's worth) is in the dumper.

So, how to handle this situation? Easy. Give your presentation with a big dose of humility and a large dollop of curiosity.

Humility first. When you start your presentation, explain that you've done some research but admit that it's not perfect. Make it clear that you're not there to tell the DM how to run the business, but merely because you're an expert in a certain operational area (i.e. the area your product addresses.)

Then curiosity. If what you've learned proves inaccurate, ask the DM to provide better and more accurate information. Then, using what you've learned, adapt your presentation accordingly. Like so:

SCENARIO #2:

REP: "It's my best understanding that your inventory averages 60 days."
DM: "Who told you we had a 60 day average?"
REP: "My research must be wrong. Can you share the real average?"
DM: "It's about 45 days."
REP: "That's higher than the industry average. I can show you how reduce it."
DM: "That's why I'm here. Continue."

To do this effectively, though, you should keep your slides free of hard data that you can't independent verify.

But that's OK, because most presentations are WAY too information rich, anyway. In most cases, it's better to have a generic slide that says "INVENTORY PROBLEM" than a slide that's full of facts and figures

Of course, you'll may need to do some thinking on your feet. For example, when you get to your ROI slide, you might say something like: "these are based upon a 60 day average, but your ROI will still be almost as substantial. I'll get you the exact figure after I run it through our model with the new data you've provided."

READERS: You ever got caught in a situation like this? How did you recover?