Business Presentations: Informative & Persuasive

Types of Business Presentations

• This lecture provides guidelines for different types of presentations: informative, persuasive, group, and special occasions.
• Previous lessons on effective presentations should be consulted.

Differences Between Informative and Persuasive Speaking

• Informative speaking reveals and clarifies options, while persuasive speaking urges the audience to choose options.
• Informative speaking does not seek audience commitment, whereas persuasive speaking does.
• Informative speaking involves fewer ethical obligations than persuasive speaking
• Informative speaking informs and hardly involves emotional appeals, while persuasive speaking often does.

Informative Presentations

• They update superiors on projects, relay information to colleagues, or teach coworkers new systems.
• Can be formal or informal and knowing principles helps to organize thoughts.
• Principles are the building blocks for persuasive presentations.
• Types of informative presentations include briefings, reports, training, webinars, and press conferences.

Briefings

• These are short talks that inform a generally knowledgeable audience about a specific area.
• They typically last no more than 2-3 minutes and do not need attention-grabbing introductions or conclusions
• Simply organized topically or chronologically.
• Briefings summarize a position but don't make complex arguments.
• Some may use simple visual aids, but rarely detailed presentations.
• Briefings are usually conversational due to their informal nature.

Reports

• Reports provide an account of what was done or learned to internal or external audiences.
• Some reports are long and detailed, while others are brief and can be formal or informal.
• The method in which reports are given are dictated by the organization’s culture: brief or elaborate, with or without visual aids, incorporating Q&A sessions.
• Common reports are status, final, and feasibility reports.

Status/Progress Reports

• Review the project's purpose.
• State the current status of the project.
• Identify obstacles encountered and attempts to overcome them.
• Describe the next milestone or significant event.
• Forecast the future of the project.

Final Reports

• Introduce the report by stating name and briefly describing the undertaking.
• Provide necessary background by explaining why the project was undertaken and the approach.
• Describe what happened during the project, including challenges.
• Describe the results, including successes and failures.
• Inform listeners on how to get more information.

Feasibility Reports

• Evaluate potential action steps and recommend courses of action; includes elements:
• Introduction: Define the problem and explain its consequences.
• Criteria: Give standards used to evaluate alternative courses of action.
• Methodology: Describe the process used to identify and evaluate the plan.
• Possible Solutions: Provide possible solutions.
• Evaluation of Solutions: Measure the suitability of each solution against identified criteria.
• Recommendations: Describe the solution that best suits the criteria.
• Conclusion: Summarize findings, showing how they solve the problem.

Training

• Teaches listeners how to do something, ranging from informal to highly structured.
• Successful businesses recognize the significance of training.
• The average US organization spends $1,252 per employee on training initiatives.
• Expert trainers are either in-house or freelance, but most work-related training is informal.

Planning a Training Program

• Define the Training Goal by identifying who the audience is and what the audience should extract from the training.
• vague: "Train employees to deal more effectively with customer complaints."
• better: "Teach the Sales & Customer Service Departments staff how to use the tactics of listening, asking questions, and agreeing to deal more effectively with customer complaints."
• Develop a Schedule & List of Resources.
• Determine the time needed to plan and publicise and steps to take before delivering training.
• Identify needed staff, participants, facilities, and equipment.
• Create or purchase training materials.

Delivering the Training

• Link the Topic to the Audience, demonstrating the payoffs of listening.
• Start with an Overall Picture, previewing your message clearly to orient listeners.
• Emphasize Important Points.
• Number Items to keep listeners aware of where you are in your presentation.
• Use Signposts, telling listeners how new material relates to the topic and includes transitions.
• Use Interjections to highlight the importance or placement of an idea.
• Use Repetition and Redundancy to intensify the message and increase the odds of understanding.
• Add Internal Summaries and Previews summarizing/reviewing important points.
• Cover Only Necessary Information, and fulfill your listeners needs.
• Avoid Jargon and technical terminology to prevent overwhelming the audience.
• Link the Familiar to the Unfamiliar, relating new material to information people already understand.
• Involve the Audience, improving understanding and retention.
• Ways to involve the audience are: direct participation, using volunteers, and Q&A sessions.
• Use Multiple Channels , utilizing channels to deliver presentations to help listeners understand.

Webinars

• A web-based seminar is a type of virtual meeting used in business settings and has 7 uses:
• Training/Product Demonstration to teach customers.
• Corporate Communications to bring remote employees together.
• eLearning that covers educational topics.
• Lead Generation to give you new potential customers.
• Customer Retention to have dialogue with customers.
• Reputation Management to familiarize participants with the brand.
• Providing Association Members with Content - providing association member free content.

Tips for Effective Webinars

• Identify a Specific Topic.
• Select an Engaging Host to welcome the audience, introduce the speaker, ensure that the speaker stays on topic, open the floor for questions and conclude the session
• Choose an Organizational Format.
• Design an Interactive Session with media to keep your audience interested.
• Prepare for Questions, deciding when they will be answered.

Press Conferences

• Also known as news conferences.
• Press Conferences share information about the organization with the media.
• Purposes include responding to emergencies, introducing new products, announcing new leadership, and releasing financial information.
• Choose a Newsworthy Story: Newsworthy stories are timely, affect many people, involve famous figures, notable organizations, and human interest.
• Determine Time and Location: Midmorning to noon conferences allow journalists to finish their story and file it to make the news.
• Ensure there is enough parking and adequate seating.
• Electrical outlets are needed for equipment.
• Space is ample enough for TV cameras.
• A multi-box device allows audio feeds from one mic.
• Ensure it is well lit for television.
• Send a News Release or Media Advisory about the presser at least 24 hours in advance.
• Select Speakers and Rehearse, while being versed in media relations.
• Tips: anticipate and prepare answers, rehearse in front of a camera, identify "talking points," keep it brief, consider visual aids, and address questions with short, clear answers.

Persuasive Presentations

• Persuasive presentations aim to change how an audience thinks, feels, or acts.
• Persuasion is motivating an audience, through communication, to voluntarily change a belief, attitude, or behavior.
• Differs from coercion or manipulation
• Persuasion vs Coercion vs Manipulation: Persuasion presents a message, coercion involves force, and manipulation involves trickery.
• Types are: sales presentations, proposals, motivational speeches, and goodwill speeches.

Sales Presentations

• One party presents remarks to persuade another to purchase a product/service.
• Sales presentations are planned in advance with the following guidelines:
• Establish Client Relationships to get valuable information on client needs.
• Put Client's Needs First, focusing on solving their problems.
• Listen to your clients and be prepared to field questions.
• Emphasize Benefits, not Features.
• Use an Effective Closing Strategy that summarizes benefits.

Proposals

• Advocate a specific action from the audience.
• Can be aimed at external or internal audiences.
• The most straight-forward approach for a presentation is by introducing the problem and offering a solution.

Introducing the Problem

• Demonstrate the nature of the problem in terms the audience will understand.
• Show the undesirable consequences of the problem.
• Highlight ethical dimensions if the current situation is morally wrong.
• Provide causal analysis of the situation.

Providing a Solution

• Describe the positive consequences of the proposal.
• Show how the proposal will avoid adverse consequences.
• Highlight the ethical reasons for the approach.
• Address the feasibility of the proposal- cost, time, motivation, and other factors.

Motivational and Goodwill Speeches

• Motivational Speeches seek to generate enthusiasm and acceptance of changes.
• Goodwill Speeches aim to create a favorable image and change behaviors and are used by organizations to endorse interest or support.

Organizing Persuasive Messages

• Important in determining how successful you will be in persuading your audience.
• Many ways to organize, while the chosen one will depend audience's attitude.
• The four ways to organize presentations are: Problem – Solution, Comparative Advantages, Criteria Satisfaction, and Motivated Sequence.
• Problem – Solution: Persuades the audience that something is wrong and suggests how to remedy the problem.
• Comparative Advantages: Shows all the alternatives side by side and why your alternative is the best choice.
• Criteria Satisfaction: Sets up criteria that the audience will accept and shows how an idea meets the criteria.
• Motivated Sequence: A five-step boosted strategy of involvement and sequence.

Motivated Sequence Steps

• Attention: Capture the audience's attention by introducing the problem interestingly.
• Need: Explain the problem completely using supporting material to prove it's serious.
• Satisfaction: Present the solution and provide support that will solve the problem.
• Visualization: Describe how the proposal will solve the problem, painting the possibilities/what will happen if the proposal isn't accepted.
• Action: Call for a response by explaining what listeners can do.

Considerations for Choosing an Organizational Pattern for Persuasive Presentations

• Problem-Solution - Most basic pattern, helpful when audience needs convincing of a problem.
• Comparative Advantages - Use when audience is considering other proposals.
• Criteria Satisfaction - Use if the audience is not likely to consider alternative plans.
• Motivated Sequence - Use when problem and solution are easy to visualize.

Strategies for Effective & Ethical Persuasion

• Unlike coercion/manipulation, persuasion presents a message and allows audience members to choose.
• To make the ethical case: Maximize your Credibility, Use Logical Arguments, and Use Psychological Appeal.
• Maximize Your Credibility: Credibility is a powerful factor because the audience will rely on you.
• Enhance credibility by : demonstrating competence(knowledge of subject and credentials) and earn trust.
• Emphasize Similarity to the Audience as they are most open to ideas of a speaker whose attitudes are similar to their own .
• Use Logical Arguments: Many logical arguments contain fallacies/errors in reasoning
• Avoid fallacies which weaken your case.
• Common fallacies are: personal attack (ad hominem), reduction to the absurd, either-or, false cause, and bandwagon appeal.
• Use Psychological Appeals along with logical arguments and credibility.
• Ways to appeal is to: appeal to the needs of your audience, have a realistic goal and adapt to the cultural style.

Social Judgement Theory

• Helps to understand persuasion difficulty; upon hearing arguments we sort into areas:
• Latitude of Acceptance. Contains positions/arguments the listener would easily accept.
• Latitude of Rejection. Contains positions/arguments the listener would reject.
• Latitude of Non-commitment. Contains positions/arguments the listener neither accepts nor rejects.
• Set realistic goals by expanding listeners latitude of acceptance.
• Focus Appeals on the Critical Audience Segment by appealing to decision makers.
• Defer the Thesis with a Hostile Audience so your audience is open to what you need to say.
• Present Ample Evidence to Support Claims as listeners are less likely to hear opposing views.
• Consider Mentioning Opposing Ideas rather than ignore them.
• Adapt to the Cultural Style of Your Audience as cultural background affects response.
• Increase Your Appeal to the Audience - Listeners are persuaded by speakers they find appealing.
• Demonstrate Your Sincerity - Speakers that believe in subjects are persuasive.

Group Presentations

• Common in the working world and can be more effective than a single one.
• Organize speakers by their skills and perspectives
• Organize by Topic by breaking up into separate segments. Each speaker addresses one or more, giving way to those who specialize in certain topics.
• Organize by Task by assigning separate roles within the discussion.
• To handle the introduction, transitions, and conclusion when giving a group presentation: follow guidelines.
• Introduction of Presentation by either having one master of ceremonies or having the first speaker do it.
• Transitions can be done by the master of ceremonies or having speakers introduce next speaker.
• Conclusion can either be given by master of ceremonies or final speaker that restates the thesis, main points, while not just the recent remarks.

Delivering a Group Presentation

• Rehearse extensively.
• Avoid last-minute bumbling and discuss the setup and position.
• Decide if presenters will speak while seated.
• Non-speaking presenters should look at the audience.
• Ensure you speak to audience and not just your team.
• When not speaking, look at the speaker and listen .

Special Occasion Speaking

• There are many speaking occasions in business settings.
• Welcoming remarks set the tone for the event with the following :
• Say who you are.
• Identify the person coming and thank them.
• State why the occasion is important.
• Deliver remarks by speaking to welcomed party.
• Include audience participation.
• Introduce another guest speaker by previewing the topic the person will speak about.
• Give reasons to listen by sharing background.
• Enhance speaker's credibility.
• Plan remarks in advance.
• Deliver it naturally.
• Look at the audience and not the speaker.
• Keep it short while being sure information is correct.
• Be sensitive to gender & culture.
• Honouring a Person or Institution is done chronologically or topically.
• Chronologically means following the life and career.
• Topically means choosing themes from a person's life.
• Accuracy of names and details is important.
• Giving a Toast
• Be sure everyone is present.
• Be prepared for who your audience is.
• Try to be spontaneous and avoid reading.
• Keep it brief and end by inviting cheers.
• Acknowsledge the honored person.
• Be inclusive and alternate your gaze.
• Please drink responsibly, be appropriate, and aware of over consumption of alcohol.

Presenting an Award:

• If already aware, mention recipient.
• Delay if there is suspense.
• State the name and show the recipient.
• You must take the time to say how they meet the criteria and make the presentation known.
• Acceptance Speech:
• Show gratitude and appreciation to contributors

General Career Tips

• *Story Telling is key- a story told is more pursuasive than an argument
• narrative Paradigm is communications focused .
• You must think about the message your audience is going to take away with them, and sway their emotions.
• Choose whether sitting or standing DEPENDS ON YOUR GOAL.
• to take charge, breath better- stand.
• to build Rapport with the group, see yourself as part of the team - Sit!
• If presenting to an International Audience, please address formally and in a structured manner.
• simple sentences, speaking normally and using handouts will help!
• consult with a local to make sure the topics you choose are culturally sensitive!