Types of Presentations
There are three types of presentations individuals encounter in business settings: informative, persuasive, and special occasion speaking.
Informative presentations provide audiences with company or department status updates, employee training, or product details for investors or consumers. Informative speakers teach or explain. These presentations can be further categorized by type:
People - Business presentations that provide a briefing on investors for a company with a breakdown of their biographical highlights and investment goals would be speeches on people. Another example might be a company presentation on new leadership or a newly created division. Consider that presentations on people can focus on historical or contemporary individuals.
Places - Business presentations on places focus on geography and location. These types of presentations might be briefings on market areas or company locations. Consider that presentations on places can also concentrate on historical or contemporary locations.
Objects -Business presentations on objects that may be concerned with creating or selling a product focus on a general audience of consumers or those who maintain highly specialized knowledge.
Events - Frequently, speeches on events conform to special occasion speaking. However, sometimes there are critical events within a company that new employee training may cover, such as the formation and success benchmarks of a company, or critical transitions or mergers.
Ideas/Concepts - Business presentations on services offered to clients often focus on ideas or concepts. While an interior designer may have objects to sell to a customer, an initial speech may include how the project will occur in phases. Alternatively, there might be a speech on how the interior designer selects objects for an overall theme for particular indoor settings based on lighting, materials, and overall design.
Processes - Business demonstrations that instruct a group of people on “how to” complete something are process-oriented, informative presentations. These process-oriented speeches teach a skill or knowledge base to colleagues or customers. Process-focused speeches may materialize as status updates on company projects because they show how a project started and take the audience through the order of completion of each phase. Process informative presentations may also come as product demonstrations.
Persuasive speeches strive to influence public opinions and behaviors. A persuasive speech can reinforce or change an audience member’s point of view on a topic. For example, a speaker might strengthen the audience’s opinion on their preference for a particular commodity or even a political candidate. Alternatively, the speaker could seek to influence audience members to shift to a different company for a specific product or to select one product, software, or service over another.
A persuasive speech may also focus on behaviors. A speaker may undertake to persuade an audience to take a specific course of action, such as purchasing a product or becoming involved in an organization. These are both action-based persuasive speeches. Sometimes a persuasive speech asks audience members to stop engaging in a specific action — for example, a speech encouraging audience members to no longer purchase cosmetics from companies committed to animal testing.
Special occasion speeches bring people in organizations and communities together, and their goal is unification and celebration. Special occasion speeches honor the accomplishments of individuals, celebrate the meanings of monuments, and commemorate events. The genre of special occasion speaking differs from informative or persuasive speeches. Speakers present these addresses within more formal contexts and serve an inspirational aim. Because special occasion presentations are celebratory by design, they differ from persuasive and informative speeches in which research data is essential. Special occasion speaking emphasizes using language devices and vivid imagery, such as metaphors or similes.