Creative Ways to Get the Audience Involved in Your Presentation

By Sean Buvala

 

job, jobs, career

There may have been a time in history when audiences would just sit quietly while a presenter rambled on. Perhaps people were "trained" by society to accept whatever was being dumped on them.

In today's age, the time of the accommodating audience has passed. Your listeners interact every day with information while they surf the web or, in some cases, through their television remotes in digital cable. Rather than lament the inability of an audience to just passively listen to your presentation, work energetically to involve them in the event. Here are a few easy ways to help you do just that.

1. Ask them to share what they are learning as they learn it.

As you speak, stop after some of the major points and say, "Let's check in. Turn to someone near you and tell him or her what you just heard me say about (whatever your topic is). Let's see how well I am doing with helping you learn." Approach this gently and humorously. Give the attendees a chance to reenergize by processing your talk as it happens to cement the new learning into their minds. Do this several times as you speak, giving the audience just a few minutes to interact.

2. They can tell a story of their experiences with your subject.

This is especially good at the very beginning of a presentation. Say, "Today I am talking about (the subject). Is there a time in your life when you or someone you know encountered (the subject)? How did you react to it? How does (the subject) fit into your life? Turn and briefly tell your story to the person in the next seat." You can also do this at the end of your presentation, asking folks to talk about something that came to mind as you spoke.

3. Invite them to create a quick sample or demonstration with your information.

I recently had a chance to teach marketing to fellow performing artists. While most artists struggle with the idea of marketing, today's world requires them to embrace new ways of thinking. After I presented examples of critical marketing tools, I turned the audience loose to create examples of the items we had just discussed. Working in small pick-up groups of five or six audience members, the participants picked up large pieces of paper and markers I had left at tables in the back of the room. As they worked to make an example of a business card, post card or one-sheet, they discussed among themselves the material I had presented. Rather than being passive observers, they were now part of teaching each other.

Regardless of your topic, there are ways for you to move your presentation from something people look at to something they can experience. We know from studying the psychology of learning that every time we add another sense (such as touch, smell, hearing) to a presentation, retention of the learning is increased. Help your audience to take hold of your subject and give them a creative way to interact with you and each other.

There may have been a time in history when audiences would just sit quietly while a presenter rambled on. Perhaps people were "trained" by society to accept whatever was being dumped on them.
In today's age, the time of the accommodating audience has passed. Your listeners interact every day with information while they surf the web or, in some cases, through their television remotes in digital cable. Rather than lament the inability of an audience to just passively listen to your presentation, work energetically to involve them in the event. Here are a few easy ways to help you do just that.
1. Ask them to share what they are learning as they learn it.
As you speak, stop after some of the major points and say, "Let's check in. Turn to someone near you and tell him or her what you just heard me say about (whatever your topic is). Let's see how well I am doing with helping you learn." Approach this gently and humorously. Give the attendees a chance to reenergize by processing your talk as it happens to cement the new learning into their minds. Do this several times as you speak, giving the audience just a few minutes to interact.
2. They can tell a story of their experiences with your subject.
This is especially good at the very beginning of a presentation. Say, "Today I am talking about (the subject). Is there a time in your life when you or someone you know encountered (the subject)? How did you react to it? How does (the subject) fit into your life? Turn and briefly tell your story to the person in the next seat." You can also do this at the end of your presentation, asking folks to talk about something that came to mind as you spoke.
3. Invite them to create a quick sample or demonstration with your information.
I recently had a chance to teach marketing to fellow performing artists. While most artists struggle with the idea of marketing, today's world requires them to embrace new ways of thinking. After I presented examples of critical marketing tools, I turned the audience loose to create examples of the items we had just discussed. Working in small pick-up groups of five or six audience members, the participants picked up large pieces of paper and markers I had left at tables in the back of the room. As they worked to make an example of a business card, post card or one-sheet, they discussed among themselves the material I had presented. Rather than being passive observers, they were now part of teaching each other.
Regardless of your topic, there are ways for you to move your presentation from something people look at to something they can experience. We know from studying the psychology of learning that every time we add another sense (such as touch, smell, hearing) to a presentation, retention of the learning is increased. Help your audience to take hold of your subject and give them a creative way to interact with you and each other.

Avoid Late Payments and Bad Debts

By Meredith Parker

job, jobs, career

Having good cash flow is essential for any business to achieve success; there are of course many things vital to keeping your business in the black, but providing goods or services for free is not one of them; bad debts and late payments are almost always a factor when a small business hits a cash flow crisis, so it is prudent to adopt a strategy that will mitigates the effects of non or slow payment.

To ensure payment and promptly a business has to level the playing field a little, share the financial risk with the customer, to this end it is completely acceptable to ask for something from the customer before goods or services will be provided:

• Credit checks
• Payment in advance
• A Deposit
• Third party guarantees

A credit check is essential if a business intends to extend any kind of credit terms to customers as, although not a complete guarantee, it can highlight obvious problems in advance.

Asking for payment upfront is always going to offer the most security, but the reality of modern business is that this is not always going to be a commercial option.

When very high values are involved asking for a third party guarantor may be applicable, but by far the most useful tool available to a business is the financial deposit; it is the best way of ensuring that even in the event of a bad debt the loss is not total.

The worst thing one can do in business is to treat every customer in exactly the same way, and although sentiment will not be your friend when it comes to collecting money owed to your business it is wise to consider first whether the debtor is also a valuable customer; if they have a good past payment record and bring regular custom, talk to them before getting heavy, the debt will often prove to be oversight or a temporary blip; sometimes goodwill is more valuable than prompt payment.

By Meredith Parker

Isn't Working Capital Bad For Your (Business) Health?

By Stan Prokop

job, jobs, career

We can hear our clients now! How possibly could working capital (isn't that cash flow?) be bad for my firms financial health. Let's talk about that.

The technical financial folks define this as a very basic calculation that even the non financial business owner can do - simply deduct your current liabilities from your current assets (from your balance sheet statement) and, voila! Congratulations, you have working capital. Hopefully that number is a positive number, because when it's negative you're technically insolvent and that's a subject and solution for another day!

Anyway, our number is positive - that's good, right. Not necessarily, and that's the premise of our info we share here, because if you have positive working capital your funds are tied up in receivables, inventories and pre paid items.

It is therefore very important to understand what makes up working capital, how you can monetize or cash flow it, and most importantly, but often totally overlooked, how you can measure business capital.

The essence of measuring your working capital revolves around turnover, days sales outstanding, inventory turns, and payables days outstanding.

The good news is that you can very easily calculate and track these measurements, and we can virtually guarantee they will better assist you to understand why your investment in working capital is very much a teeter totter of good news/bad news.
Do you like to travel? Money does also, and considers how long it takes for a dollar to travel through your company. From the day you place an order, purchase product, pay for product, bill a receivable, and yes, collect that receivable that total cycle can be easily 200 days, if note more. That's a lot of travel, so you hopefully can see our premise here that your investment in your working capital accounts is not necessarily a great thing.

Your business is composed primarily of inventory, receivables, and payables, (also fixed assets). We therefore strongly suggest to clients that they understand the turnover and overall return they are getting from these key asset accounts.
You would understand your situation somewhat better if it were not for those pesky issues that you can't control - business owners and financial managers recognize them well and run into them every day. They are sales growth and decline, your fixed costs that you have to pay and manage no matter what, and any financial distress you may be experiencing from past external factors - i.e. a bad year, etc,

The holy grail of business capital and working capital financing is when you have strong controls on internal asset turnover and at the same time you have access to external working capital via bank lines, asset based lending facility, loans, grants, etc.

We constantly remind clients that if they are turning over their working capital accounts more efficiently all the time its in effect a measure of the true success of your company - think of it, you're buying things, paying supplies on time, and customers are paying you on time and ordering more goods and services. A quick tool for measuring your progress in this area is simply to take your receivables days and inventory days, subtract your payables days outstanding, and if that number is improving, or going down you are winning the 'working capital is bad for your health' premise we have presented.

As a Canadian business owner you are both granting credit and requesting credit (customers and suppliers respectfully). Understanding business capital in this manner will allow you to finance better internally and borrow via banks, finance firms, asset based lenders, etc.

Speak to a trusted, credible and experienced business financing advisor about our ' health' problem and what your tools and solutions might be for better business success.

Inventory Costing Systems

By Andrew W Werner 

job, jobs, career

Companies that have some form of inventory need an inventory costing system. Throughout the years, many ways to calculate inventory costing were developed. However, only four stand out as the most commonly used forms of inventory costing; First-In First-Out (FIFO), Last-In First-Out (LIFO), weighted average, and specific identification. Each way has its own specific mathematical approach to calculating inventory and cost of goods sold, which result in maximizing the company's profit.

The first way, FIFO, is a relatively simple solution. As products are taken from inventory, whichever product was created first will be the calculated cost of goods sold. For example, lets state there was a beginning balance of ten bikes worth ninety dollars a piece for a company. A purchase of ten bikes was made, but each bike was worth one hundred dollars a piece. When a sale is made, the ten bikes worth ninety dollars would be sold first and additional orders would take from the next earliest inventory. Most companies tend to use this method over the other two, because it has the best ending gross profit.

The second way, LIFO, is another relatively simple solution. While FIFO used an ordered way of calculating cost of goods sold, LIFO uses a reverse order. The most recent purchase of inventory goods is sold first, while the products created first will be the last to sell. So going back to the example, the ten bikes worth one hundred dollars a piece would be sold first, while the ten bikes worth ninety dollars a piece will remain in inventory. Unlike FIFO which is primarily used for maximizing profit, LIFO is primarily used to lower taxes for a company. During the 1980's when inflation was rather significant, LIFO was used by many companies to not get taxed on the inflation rate.

Here is where things get a little more complicated. The third method, weighted average, is calculated in such a way that the average of all products in inventory is what the cost of goods sold is. When inventory is sold, the average is recalculated for the next round of sales. For example, lets say ten bikes were worth ninety dollars each and a purchase of ten more bikes worth one hundred dollars each was made. The groups of products are added together and divided by the number of units. When a sale is made, products are sold at that averaged price per unit, which happens to be ninety-five dollars per unit. Lets say for argument's sake that fifteen units are sold, leaving five units left. After the sale, the inventory balance remaining is added together and divided by the total number of units left. Another purchase is made of ten units worth eighty dollars a piece. The cycle of averaging the price per units continues.

The fourth and last method, specific identification, is used to assign costs to each specific unit. A great example of when this is actually used is in the car market. When a sale is made, the sold units of product are taken from every different group of inventory. For example, lets say there is ten bikes at ninety dollars a piece and ten bikes at one hundred dollars a piece. Inventory is written where ten bikes are worth ninety dollars each and ten bikes are worth one hundred dollars each. When a sale of ten units is made, five units worth ninety dollars a piece are sold, and five units worth one hundred dollars a piece are sold. Inventory is recalculated and the balance of each group is five bikes worth ninety dollars a piece and five bikes worth one hundred dollars a piece.

Although there are many methods that are used to calculate an inventory costing system, only four really stand out. First-in first out, last-in first out, weighted average, and specific identification. First-in first out is used primarily to maximize gross profit in a company, while last-in first out is used to primarily reduce taxes. The weighted average method is the average of all unit costs divided by number of units, and is primarily used to keep a standard price per unit. Lastly, the specific identification method is used to identify specific units of product and calculate the inventory costing as an individual item. This method is commonly used while selling in the car market. No matter what method a company ends up choosing to use for their inventory costing system, it is important to remain with that system throughout all calculations.