Building Genuine Credibility: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Manufactured Status

SUMMARY

In this episode of 'Present Influence,' host John Ball discusses the difference between genuine credibility and manufactured status for speakers, coaches, and expert business owners. He warns against the allure of fake status symbols like rented Lamborghinis and pay-to-play magazine features, emphasising the importance of authenticity and ethical authority. John shares a three-point credibility test to help listeners audit their own credibility signals, ensuring they are earned, relevant, and verifiable. He also highlights the role of passion, honesty, and real-life testimonials in building sustainable influence. The episode ends with a challenge to audit and share a credibility marker you're proud of.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction: The Real Threat to Your Credibility

01:10 Understanding Credibility: Ethos and Authority

02:08 The Pitfalls of Manufactured Status

03:00 Ethics and Manipulation in Influence

06:19 The Power of Authentic Stories

08:26 The Three-Point Credibility Test

11:59 Building Genuine Credibility

17:56 Conclusion: Your Challenge for the Week

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What if I told you that the biggest threat to your credibility

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as a speaker isn't a bad talk?

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It's looking like one of those guys

leaning on a rented Lamborghini.

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We all know the kinds of people I'm

talking about right before the pandemic,

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they were everywhere being pictured

in private jets that they didn't own,

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filming in mansions they didn't live

in, with promises of seven figures in

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seven minutes if you just click buy

now, it looks flashy until it doesn't.

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These grifters manufacture status.

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With fake magazine features, vanity

Awards, inflated titles, and yes,

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sometimes they do rake in millions before

the curtain falls, but here's the truth.

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Audiences are catching on, and when

they see those same tricks in you, even

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by accident, your credibility tanks.

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So today we are drawing the line between

genuine credibility and manufactured

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status, and before we finish up today,

I'll give you a three point simple

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test you can use to check yourself

before you slide into status theater.

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Welcome to Present Influence, the

show for speakers, coaches and

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expert business owners who want

to deliver more impact, influence,

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and inspiration in their message.

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My name's John Ball, keynote

speaker, communication coach,

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and your guide on this journey to

mastery level communication skills.

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Now your credibility has mattered forever.

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in Aristotle's great work on

rhetoric, which really is all about

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influencing communication and speaking.

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He recognized the

importance of credibility.

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He called it, Ethos and it

really means the same thing.

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It's your audience's ability

to trust in you, to trust the

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messenger behind the message.

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Do you have the status and the credibility

to be worth listening to and to trust

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with the message that you are delivering?

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Authority is also one of

Robert Cialdini's principles.

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We are wired to trust in experts, but.

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Trust is fragile.

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And if people even get a

whiff of spin, you're done.

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but real authority compounds

credibility, builds reputation

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and reputations build re bookings.

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You've probably seen examples and

you maybe even have been tempted by

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them, of things like, uh, being on

the top 10 coaches of 2025, a pay to

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playlist or Vanity Magazine covers you.

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Think of Forbes Magazine, where you can

pretty much pay to play there as well.

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titling yourself as an international

speaker after appearing in

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an unpaid panel in Toronto.

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But why do people do it?

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Well, these are shortcuts to success.

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These are the things that look like

credibility without doing the work.

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but when it fails, it really

fails and it does fail because

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people are more savvy than we

often think audiences can smell.

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Inauthenticity a mile off,

they can smell the theater.

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So if they get a sense that you are

not the genuine article, you're more

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show person than real person, they

are gonna be turned off by that.

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Now, if you've tuned into my content

before, maybe you are a regular listener.

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I appreciate you if you are, and if

you aren't, maybe you'd like to be,

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But if you are, you'll know that I've

talked about ethics a lot and how

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important I feel that this is because

the tools of influence and persuasion,

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The tools of rhetoric, the tools of

being on a stage and delivering a

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message, having any kind of public

platform, put you in a position where

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you have authority, where people will

listen more to what you're saying

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and those tools can be manipulated.

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Now, manipulation in itself isn't

always a negative word because we

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are always manipulating things.

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We're always massaging things,

trying to get things to go our way.

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Trying to convince people of

things that we believe in or

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want them to believe in too.

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And we could call that manipulation,

or we can call it persuasion.

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Where manipulation becomes a problem

is where we are manipulating for

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our own ends, for our own greater

good, rather than the greater

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good in general for everybody.

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When the end results are selfish end

results, the sense of manipulation

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will more likely start to shine through

and people will get a sense of feeling

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used or things feeling transactional

rather than relationship based.

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Having ethics isn't

just about that though.

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It's also about living with yourself,

being able to be comfortable with who

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you are and the decisions that you

make, and the actions that you thereby

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take because, if you are doing things

that are outside of your own personal

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integrity, then you are living outside of

your own ethical values and that has the

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potential to put you on a downward spiral

to do more of those things because your

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personal identity, your self image lowers.

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You start to think of yourself

as being less than a good person.

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You start to recognize, well, I

want to be this good person, but

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I do all these things that I know

aren't good, aren't good for me,

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don't feel good for other people.

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We all want to be the hero of our own

story, and we may end up doing a lot of

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mental gymnastics and even manipulation

in order to be able to give ourselves

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that illusion of peace of mind.

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the real peace of mind, the real

ability to sleep with a clean conscience

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only really comes when we are living

in our integrity, living within

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the values and ethics and having

a good life, being a good person.

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Now, I don't personally

ascribe to any religious ideals

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about what a good person is.

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I think we all have a pretty good

sense of what good morals are, what

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good values are, and that hurting

other people is not good values and

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doing things for the greater good

and in service to other people,

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probably more along the lines of good

values and also looking after ourselves

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as well, but not looking after ourselves

to the detriment of other people.

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There are certain things that can

start to give some signals and

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clues as to where manipulative use

of authority might be occurring.

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Ethical authority signals are also

easy to come by as and they can

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build trust faster than anything.

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They build a sense of confidence and

security in a person much more than

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the flashy image and the big I am

statements that we will often hear.

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Some people will be fooled by those,

but majority of people probably won't.

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Things like earned testimonials, actual

case studies of people you've worked with

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and experiences you've had, sharing your

journey, including the scars, including

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the things that haven't gone well.

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Being vulnerable to the point of not

needing to people to think that you are

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perfect in every way, shape, or form

of never made any mistakes, always gone

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wrong or you can trust me, I don't ever

make mistakes, and that would actually

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be more of a reason to not trust.

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The signals of manipulation of

negative manipulation really

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are things like fake scarcity.

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It could be countdowns that never

end, deadlines, that never really get

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abided by borrowed credibility might

be posing with celebrities at events

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and having your picture taken and

plastering those all over your website

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to borrow off their credibility, and

they may have no idea who you are.

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Inflated claims the world's

number one and so on.

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But here's the thing, extraordinary

claims do require extraordinary

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evidence, so question everything.

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Check people out.

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Don't take people at their word.

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One of the biggest reasons why people

can be so easily deceived can be

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the passion and the confidence that

people can manipulatively, inject

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into their presentations and stories.

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Stories are incredibly influential.

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Especially if they really pull us in and

maybe make us laugh at certain points and

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take us on a bit of emotional journey.

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Anecdotal evidence and stories, and

often people saying things that may

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not actually be a hundred percent

true will often lead to certain people

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Taking them at face value and thinking,

oh, okay, I accept that because they

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seem genuine, because I'm convinced

by their story I've bought in.

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I felt some emotional

connection here as well.

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And so these things can be used

to work for us and they can

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be used to work against us.

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The tools of authority have

no morality themselves.

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They can be used for good or for bad.

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Same as a hammer can be

used to build or destroy.

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Now, I said at the start of this

episode that I would give you a three

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point credibility test, and this is

a test to do on yourself for every

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point of authority signal, so for

your testimonials, your case studies,

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anything else that's kind of your

stories especially important for that.

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Let me share with you

just before we do this.

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When I first started working in

the personal development industry,

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stories were a really important thing

and one story particularly that I

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started to become very aware of was

a very similar story from a number

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of speakers about how at one point

in their life, they were broke, kind

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of living in the parents' basement,

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Having to heat water to wash in off

of a gas heater, maybe having to live

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off pot noodles and pasta because they

couldn't afford much else, and, uh, being

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completely broke and doing the things that

someone who's completely broke would do.

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And then at some point there's this moment

of transformation, realization, and a life

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change changed and they headed on this

new track towards success and wealth and

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profitability and all those good things.

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Now these stories will be so

similar that I wondered who came

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up with the story first, but now I

think that was the wrong question.

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the question that I was asking

wasn't really skeptical enough?

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the better question to have asked would've

been, why is this story being told in this

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way by so many different people to the

point where you might think, all right,

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I wonder whose story this actually is.

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So now I actually doubt that it was

anyone's genuine story and experience

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because I think the whole structure

of the story was more the point.

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It doesn't matter who came up with it,

there were various stories being used

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because of the structure and because of

what they represented and because of their

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effectiveness with particular audiences.

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And this is something that's worth looking

into, like the different kinds of stories

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that influence and affect people in

particular situations, and certainly the

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ones that paste the experience of audience

who may be like, well, maybe even to have

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the state of, they start the story in an

even worse position probably than most

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of the people who are in the audience

who might have some kind of financial

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struggle and they end up in the place

where the audience really wants to get to.

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So the audience has that mini journey

with them from being in failure

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worse than they are, to being in

success greater than they are.

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I think, well, if they can go

from worse than I am to greater

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than I am, I can do that too.

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And that really was the

whole point of that story.

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And there are many other stories

that similarly go along that line.

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So.

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I say they're not parableistic stories

as such, but the, the message or

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the, the theme of the story is the

intention of it is really important.

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And that's always a question

that's worth asking yourself.

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When you hear stories, when

you hear someone speaking,

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what's the intention here?

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What is the speaker trying to get over?

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Is this really about what they're saying

or is there something else at work here?

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I warn you.

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I warn you, when you do this, if you

keep this thing in your head of always

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asking, what's the point of this?

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What's the intention here?

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I recommend switching that off when you're

watching TV or films because it will ruin

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every TV show and film you ever watch.

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If you start asking yourself,

what's the intention here?

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What's this leading up to?

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Why are they doing this?

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Why is that music playing?

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Why are we seeing this

particular scene on screen?

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What's that setting up?

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It will ruin the whole thing for

you because you will start to figure

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out the the signals of what's coming

next or what's being set up or the

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emotion that is intended to be evoked.

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These are the kinds of signals

that you will pick up on.

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So when it comes to a credibility test,

we want you to be able to pick up on

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authority signals for yourself as well.

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So when it comes to things like

your testimonials, your case

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studies, stories about yourself

and your experience, achievements,

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especially statements of achievement

and expertise, are they earned?

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Did you actually achieve it or are

you just implying that you did?

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Are they relevant?

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Does it really matter to the

audience that you're trying to reach?

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Or is it just a status grab?

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Are they verifiable?

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Could someone check out the claim

and see if it holds up or not?

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Now, if it fails even one of

these, it's manufactured status.

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It's trying to make yourself

look more ahead of the game

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than you probably really are.

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my intention here is not

to shame you with this.

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Don't shame yourself because of this,

but just know that these are not

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authentic claims that are being set up.

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This is a, a massaging or exaggeration

of reality of truth in order to

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give a sense of personal status.

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Now, this status status is gonna have

far more value to you when you know

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that it's real and that it's genuine,

but it don't always sound great when

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you're speaking to an audience who

want an expert in front of them.

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Or you have this imagination that

maybe the imposter syndrome's

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kicking in and you're thinking,

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I'm not enough of an expert just

yet, but let me show you this.

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Credibility can come from all sorts

of spaces and all sorts of places,

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and many of the people that I've

worked with as clients over the years

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have discovered this for themselves.

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I would say myself included to

some degree, because when I started

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this podcast, I was not an expert

in influence and persuasion.

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I was just very, very interested in it.

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It's a passion subject for me.

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The presentation skills, the

influence and persuasion.

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I was no expert even five years ago.

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I had a healthy interest.

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There was lots of things that I knew that

I knew that I did not have expert status.

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I did not have qualification.

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I did not have the ethos really to be

able to say, I am an expert in this topic.

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I was just someone who had interest and

curiosity and a desire to know more.

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As you can imagine, in five years

of talking to experts and doing

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my own education and research

and development, that I have

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become more of an expert in that.

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I still would not call myself a

completely qualified expert because

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who really can say that they know

everything that there is to know.

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You know, I'm sure there are things

even in Robert Cialdini doesn't know

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about influence and persuasion or

hasn't really studied or looked into.

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No one has the full picture, but

we all can have levels of expertise

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and we can be honest to that.

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So I can make the claim that after

nearly six years now of doing a podcast

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that is about influence and persuasion

and presentation skills, that I have

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some level of expertise from that.

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From a time spent talking with

experts in these topics To my

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own research and development, and

that's not a fake claim and it still

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has a good amount of credibility.

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Sometimes credibility can just

be a deep passion for a subject,

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something you really care about.

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You might want to get up on stage

and talk about the environment.

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Doesn't mean you have to be

a, an environmental scientist.

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It.

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It can just be that you have a real

passion for change and you have enough

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knowledge to be able to talk and

deliver a passionate change message.

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So this is really where

ethos can come from.

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A credibility can come

from, without having to step

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outside of your authenticity.

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Now.

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There are times where we might just

gloss over the truth in order to make

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things sound better than they really are.

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We probably do it mostly with

our cvs, our resumes, when we're

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sending those off, we want to give

the best impression of ourselves.

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but sometimes we can say, oh,

I'm, I'm an award-winning speaker.

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Well, maybe the award you won was

best speaker at your Toastmasters

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club or, uh, best table topics.

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Nothing really major, but you know.

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Did you win an award?

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Sure.

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You did.

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Did you win it for speaking?

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Yeah.

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Would anyone care about that award?

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Other than yourself or your local

club, probably not that much.

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So it would be a definite

exaggeration of that truth.

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So I think if you win awards, even

if they are local awards, if you're

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putting yourself out there in the world,

those things probably mean a bit more.

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If you've won competitions, great.

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That can be credibility and.

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I would say, you know, things like,

um, things like club memberships don't

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always give you a, i, I think some saying

something like, I've been a member of

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Toastmasters for five years or 10 years

doesn't really tell us anything other than

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that you've had membership for that time

and maybe gone to some of the meetings,

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but telling us that you've achieved

certain rankings within that might mean

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a bit more and it might have a bit more

depth or that you've won competitions

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in the world championship of speaking,

or maybe even won the world championship

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of speaking with Toastmasters.

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That would definitely give you a higher

level of credibility that can come

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from that, but, you have to make these

judgements calls for yourself and be real

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about, are you stretching the truth a

little bit too much here to inflate your

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ego or to look like more of an expert.

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Is there a version of the truth

that would still do that without

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moving too much outside of your

integrity or your own personal ethics?

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Maybe there is, and if there is,

I recommend you try and find it.

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And if you can't find it, maybe try

and find some of those things that

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you would like to be able to claim

as status for yourself and move

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towards making them reality so that

you don't have to pretend anymore.

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The reality is this, you don't need

smoker mirrors to build influence.

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Just imagine stepping off a stage, not

with applause out of politeness, but

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the people quoting your words, sharing

your stories, reaching out because they

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trust you, not your rented Ferrari.

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Speakers like Joel Binge, Lucille Oai.

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Recent guests on this show and so many

others I've interviewed, they prove that

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speakers who win long-term are the ones

who build credibility the slow way through

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clarity, connection, and consistency.

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So here's your challenge.

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Audit your credibility signals this week.

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Ask yourself, is it earned?

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Is it relevant?

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Is it verifiable?

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And drop one example in the comments

of a credibility marker that you are

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proud of, because the clearer your

credibility, the bigger your impact.

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See you next time.