7 Guidelines for Powerful Presentations [pub company powerful]
If speaking in front of an audience scares you more than death itself it's time to get up and do it! When we confront fears that aren't dangerous to our lives we grow and learn beyond any book. The fact is, no matter what field you're in, if you can confidently speak in front of large groups of people, you will be an invaluable resource for your company. You will be paid more and have greater job security.
The following are 7 guidelines for Powerful Presentations:
1: 80-20 Rule
Realize that 80% of your material must be information your audience already knows. Sound strange? Think of it this way. When we advanced through school each year's lessons grew from the material from the previous year. For instance we learned the alphabet, then words, then we were able to put sentences together, and then we studied structure, punctuation, grammar, paragraphs...
80% of school is remedial of the previous year. This is how we learn. To make the 80% of the material interesting you need to simply add your own unique personality. Then connect the 80% with the 20% for new material and your audience will be sitting on the edge of their seats. Learning is about seeing known material in new ways and making connections to new material. If these percentages are reversed you will lose you audience in a thick fog of confusion. [pub company powerful]
2: Know Your Audience
Research your audience. What do they know? What do they want to know more about? When you can answer these two questions you are well on your way to putting together a powerful presentation that leaves them enlightened and feeling good.
Proper Attire and Grooming:
A suit and tie may not be advisable if you are speaking to a "Youth Without Shelter" group. They will likely feel like you are preaching from an "Ivory Tower" perspective. Conversely, ripped jeans and a T-shirt may not be advisable in a business setting.
3: Have a Plan
After you choose a topic decide on how you want to present it. Will you use visual aids? What is your purpose? Maybe you want to inspire some sort of action from your audience like buying your products. Prepare, prepare, prepare... Know your material. There should be no doubt in the mind of your audience that you have earned the right to talk about this subject.
Briefly tell your audience what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them. This will reinforce your message. [pub company powerful]
4: Practice
The success of becoming good at anything, including public speaking, is practice. Give your presentation in front of the mirror, notice your posture; practice on your family and friends; imagine giving your presentation to a thousand people as you practice.
Does your voice project? Could a person sitting in the back row hear you? Are you using vocal variety including volume, pitch, and tone? How is the pace; too fast, slow, or just right?
5: Over the Top Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm originally meant possessed by the Gods. Ignite passion about your subject into the audience; light their minds and move their bodies with your words and gestures! They should be sitting on the edge of their seats ready to take action at your beckon call. It is difficult to stay tuned-in to a boring, monotone speaker; it is impossible to turn away from somebody possessed with enthusiasm.
6: Make Your Audience Feel Good
Give lots of praise and be personal. Thank them for being there and let them know that you are honored to be addressing them. Tell them a funny story about yourself. Maybe it was when you were on stage one time and flubbed your lines. If you flub your lines any time while speaking, make a quick joke about it and keep going. Remember most of the people in your audience are scared to death of public speaking. After all your preparation and practice it's time to be natural, human.
7: It's Not About You
Realize that your presentation is not about you. It's not even about the presentation. It's about how the audience responds to the presentation. When you can direct your attention away from your fear and your self-image you will have taken the biggest step toward getting intimate with your audience and delivering the messages in the way that best suits them.
You have to feel into your audience. You have to know when they are drifting, what puts them on the edge of their seats, what they disagree with. This type of connection can only happen if your step out of your own fears and anxieties and into the hopes and dreams of your audience.
Ask a lot of questions. Even rhetorical questions are great. This engages the mind. Understand that when you ask a question, the people in your audience cannot not answer. That's the way the mind works. Whether they use a physical gesture, answer out loud, or silently the mind will answer. Does that make sense?
To sum up: The most effective speakers jump at any opportunity to speak publicly, they move out of their own insecurities, focus on the audience, and get personally involved with their messages. Practice, practice, practice until you can speak naturally from your heart, then allow your presentation to flow in the direction of their wants, needs, and interests.
by Brad Hutchinson
Monday, December 10, 2007
Earnings Per Share May Be Dangerous To Your Financial Health
Earnings Per Share May Be Dangerous To Your Financial Health [pub company health]
There's a serious and completely preventable problem occurring in the financial investing arena these days.
This threat to one's financial well-being comes from the sole focus on "earnings per share" triumphantly trumpeted by companies in their quarterly financial press releases. And the financial media doesn't help any with their superficial thirty second blurbs informing the investing public of the same thing. Even more alarming is that this novice mistake is frequently made by "expert" and "veteran" investors, as well.
The unfortunate truth is, failure to address this common oversight can cause painful repercussions to your investing portfolio. And also hinder you from identifying companies worthy of your long-term financial best interests.
What is this critical investing component? It's the Cash Flow Statement, kin to the more popular balance sheet and income statement. How does the free cash flow statement help you with your investing oversight? A company's free cash flow helps to answer three very fundamental questions - When to buy? When to sell? And at what prices?
The fact is, free cash flow is what should be monitored first and foremost as a shareholder in any business. Most everyone knows that "cash is king". Free cash flow is the lifeblood of any company. [pub company health]
The problem when paying sole attention to "earnings per share" is that it is formulated using "generally accepted accounting principles". Commonly known as "GAAP", this accounting methodology is a flexible representation of the company's revenues and expenses, mainly formulated for tax reporting purposes. The sticking point is that "GAAP" consists of many non-cash items - sometimes considered as "accounting fictions". And because of the permissible leeway in how GAAP can be implemented, it's subject to manipulation.
In contrast, the cash flow statement is less prone to being manipulated than the other two financial statements. That's because it mainly boils down to what money came in and what money went out. Not unlike an individual's monthly budget.
When analyzing a company it's critical to understand how much cash flow it is earning from its operations. This amount represents the excess cash that can be taken out of the company to be used for dividend payments, share buy-backs, new investments and acquisitions; all activities geared to the benefit of shareholders.
With GAAP earnings on the other hand, companies often take significant "one-time" charges against current earnings, usually after some adverse event, like a company acquisition gone bad. As a result, future earnings are then susceptible to being inflated artificially.
The income statement also includes many non-cash allocations and accounting conventions that don't reflect a company's true cash position. [pub company health]
A further example of an ongoing non-cash "cost" is depreciation and amortization, which can add up to significant amounts. In reality, the cash has already been spent for these assets. GAAP adjusts these one-time payments over a period of years to smooth out the companies earnings over time so they don't appear too lumpy or erratic.
Another flaw might be using the balance sheet for liquidity analysis because the data represents only a specific period in time. By contrast, liquidity analysis derived from the cash flow statement can be used to provide a more dynamic picture of what cash resources are available, and can be evaluated over a chosen period.
One can also see whether cash spend is at levels that the company is going have to incur debt, slow its spending rate, or both. This is especially important for new companies that are not generating profits yet. Do they have enough cash to remain in business?
Changes in cash flow can be reveal much about a company's accounting practices, too. Cases where cash flow is not rising, or declining, as fast as earnings may warn of possible accounting shenanigans.
These are just a few of the many insights and potential advantages that analyzing the cash flow statement will bring forth. And it's freely accessible at the Security and Exchange Commission's EDGAR financial statements web site.
by Scott Jackson
There's a serious and completely preventable problem occurring in the financial investing arena these days.
This threat to one's financial well-being comes from the sole focus on "earnings per share" triumphantly trumpeted by companies in their quarterly financial press releases. And the financial media doesn't help any with their superficial thirty second blurbs informing the investing public of the same thing. Even more alarming is that this novice mistake is frequently made by "expert" and "veteran" investors, as well.
The unfortunate truth is, failure to address this common oversight can cause painful repercussions to your investing portfolio. And also hinder you from identifying companies worthy of your long-term financial best interests.
What is this critical investing component? It's the Cash Flow Statement, kin to the more popular balance sheet and income statement. How does the free cash flow statement help you with your investing oversight? A company's free cash flow helps to answer three very fundamental questions - When to buy? When to sell? And at what prices?
The fact is, free cash flow is what should be monitored first and foremost as a shareholder in any business. Most everyone knows that "cash is king". Free cash flow is the lifeblood of any company. [pub company health]
The problem when paying sole attention to "earnings per share" is that it is formulated using "generally accepted accounting principles". Commonly known as "GAAP", this accounting methodology is a flexible representation of the company's revenues and expenses, mainly formulated for tax reporting purposes. The sticking point is that "GAAP" consists of many non-cash items - sometimes considered as "accounting fictions". And because of the permissible leeway in how GAAP can be implemented, it's subject to manipulation.
In contrast, the cash flow statement is less prone to being manipulated than the other two financial statements. That's because it mainly boils down to what money came in and what money went out. Not unlike an individual's monthly budget.
When analyzing a company it's critical to understand how much cash flow it is earning from its operations. This amount represents the excess cash that can be taken out of the company to be used for dividend payments, share buy-backs, new investments and acquisitions; all activities geared to the benefit of shareholders.
With GAAP earnings on the other hand, companies often take significant "one-time" charges against current earnings, usually after some adverse event, like a company acquisition gone bad. As a result, future earnings are then susceptible to being inflated artificially.
The income statement also includes many non-cash allocations and accounting conventions that don't reflect a company's true cash position. [pub company health]
A further example of an ongoing non-cash "cost" is depreciation and amortization, which can add up to significant amounts. In reality, the cash has already been spent for these assets. GAAP adjusts these one-time payments over a period of years to smooth out the companies earnings over time so they don't appear too lumpy or erratic.
Another flaw might be using the balance sheet for liquidity analysis because the data represents only a specific period in time. By contrast, liquidity analysis derived from the cash flow statement can be used to provide a more dynamic picture of what cash resources are available, and can be evaluated over a chosen period.
One can also see whether cash spend is at levels that the company is going have to incur debt, slow its spending rate, or both. This is especially important for new companies that are not generating profits yet. Do they have enough cash to remain in business?
Changes in cash flow can be reveal much about a company's accounting practices, too. Cases where cash flow is not rising, or declining, as fast as earnings may warn of possible accounting shenanigans.
These are just a few of the many insights and potential advantages that analyzing the cash flow statement will bring forth. And it's freely accessible at the Security and Exchange Commission's EDGAR financial statements web site.
by Scott Jackson
Use Press Releases in Your Internet Marketing Program
Use Press Releases in Your Internet Marketing Program [pub online company]
If you've ever felt reluctant to submit a press release because you weren't sure how to write an effective release, pay attention to the following advice. Writing a good press release is simpler than you may think.
A good press release is essentially a good news story. Any time your business releases a new product or does anything newsworthy you should create a press release to tell the world about it. The press release will be welcomed by journalists and internet writers whose job it is to educate and inform. They will either use your press release intact or use it as the basis for an article that they will write about your news and your company. The result? Publicity, credibility, and a stream of customers.
Therefore, you'll want to write as many press releases as you can. A good press release can be more valuable than an advertisement, generating more potential customers. [pub online company]
The elements of a good press release include three essential parts, the headline, the introduction, and the body. It is recommended that you put a lot of thought and attention into the headline. It should be informative and make the reader want to learn more. The introduction is short and interesting The body contains all of the who, what, where, why and when answers that a good news story requires. Since good news stories are people centered, these elements should be focused on the people aspect of the story.
Take care that the press release is timely, relating to something that has just occurred. It should also be brief and to the point, around 400 to 500 words in length. Be sure that the grammar and the spelling are standard and correct or else the press release will not be published. Lastly, make certain that the press release is factual and truthful.
It's a good idea to keep the paragraphs of the body short, about three or four sentences in length. This length will make the press release easier to read. Also, it is wise not to send extra material such as photos with the press release. If photos are important they can be posted on a website which is referenced in the body of the press release.
A couple of additional elements are commonly included at the end of good press releases. A short "about us" section provides some background information about your business and yourself. Some media contact information gives your contact person the information they need to be able to contact you. [pub online company]
The press release traditionally should close with the symbol, "###," which signifies that it is complete.
by Garry Gamber
If you've ever felt reluctant to submit a press release because you weren't sure how to write an effective release, pay attention to the following advice. Writing a good press release is simpler than you may think.
A good press release is essentially a good news story. Any time your business releases a new product or does anything newsworthy you should create a press release to tell the world about it. The press release will be welcomed by journalists and internet writers whose job it is to educate and inform. They will either use your press release intact or use it as the basis for an article that they will write about your news and your company. The result? Publicity, credibility, and a stream of customers.
Therefore, you'll want to write as many press releases as you can. A good press release can be more valuable than an advertisement, generating more potential customers. [pub online company]
The elements of a good press release include three essential parts, the headline, the introduction, and the body. It is recommended that you put a lot of thought and attention into the headline. It should be informative and make the reader want to learn more. The introduction is short and interesting The body contains all of the who, what, where, why and when answers that a good news story requires. Since good news stories are people centered, these elements should be focused on the people aspect of the story.
Take care that the press release is timely, relating to something that has just occurred. It should also be brief and to the point, around 400 to 500 words in length. Be sure that the grammar and the spelling are standard and correct or else the press release will not be published. Lastly, make certain that the press release is factual and truthful.
It's a good idea to keep the paragraphs of the body short, about three or four sentences in length. This length will make the press release easier to read. Also, it is wise not to send extra material such as photos with the press release. If photos are important they can be posted on a website which is referenced in the body of the press release.
A couple of additional elements are commonly included at the end of good press releases. A short "about us" section provides some background information about your business and yourself. Some media contact information gives your contact person the information they need to be able to contact you. [pub online company]
The press release traditionally should close with the symbol, "###," which signifies that it is complete.
by Garry Gamber
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
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