Longer Business Messages

p. 330 Test Your Knowledge

1. During oral presentations, presenters can practice and demonstrate communication skills, research, planning, writing, visual design, and interpersonal and nonverbal communication. Presentations let presenters demonstrate their abilities to think on their feet, grasp complex business issues, and handle challenging situations.

2. The three goals that you should accomplish during the introduction of an oral presentation are: gain audience interest, build your credibility, and preview your message.

3. To get an audience's attention during your introduction you can unite the audience around a common goal, tell a story, pass around a sample, ask a question, state a startling statistic, or use humor.

4. The three tasks you should accomplish in the close of your presentation are: restate your main points, describe next steps, and end on a strong note.

5. To ensure success with online presentations you can consider sending preview study materials ahead of time, keep your presentations as simple as possible, ask for feedback frequently, consider the viewing experience from the audience members' point of views, make sure your audience can receive the sort of content you intend to use, and allow plenty of time for everyone to get connected and familiar with the screen they are viewing.

Reports and Proposals

1. Reports for monitoring and controlling operations are used to provide feedback and other information for decision making plans, operating reports, and personal activity reports.



2. Primary research contains information that you gather specifically for a new research project, and secondary research contains information that others have gathered and published.



3. A survey is made reliable and valid by avoiding leading questions, avoiding ambiguous discriptors, avoiding compound questions, formulating questions to provide answers that are easy to analyze, keeping the questionanaire short and easy to answer, and providing clear instructions to make sure people can't be expected to remember.



4. A conclusion is using a direct approach to communicate the main idea quickly, and a recommendation is establishing the need for action, introducing the benefits, listing the steps required to achieve the benefit, and explaining each step more fully.



5. Proposal writers use RFP by including instructions that specify exactly the type of work to be performed or products to be delivered, along with budgets, deadlines, and other requirements.

Persuasive Messages

1. Some questions to ask when gauging the audience's needs during the planning of a persuasive message are: Who is my audience? What are my audience member's needs? What do I want them to do? How might they resist? Are there alternative positions I need to examine? What does the decision maker consider to be the most important issue? How might the organization's culture influence my strategy?



2. Demographics and psychographics allow the speaker to take into account cultural expectations and practices so that he or she does not undermine the persuasive message by using an inappropriate appeal.



3. Emotional appeals call on feelings or audience sympathies, and logical appeals are based on the reader's notions of reason. The appeals can use analogy, induction, or deduction.



4. The three types of reasoning that you can use in logical appeals are: analogy, induction, and deduction.



5. The AIDA model organizes a presentation into four phases: attention, interest, desire, and action. The limitations of the AIDA model are that it essentially talks at audiences and not with them. It is also built around a single event rather than on building a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship. It is also not the best tool regarding compatibility with today's social media.

Communicating Negative Messages

1. The five main goals in delivering bad news are to convey the bad news, to gain acceptance for it, to maintain as much goodwill as possible with your audience, to maintain a good image for your organization and to reduce or eliminate the need for future correspondence on the matter.

2. The questions you should ask yourself before when choosing between the direct and indirect approaches are: Will the bad news come as a shock? Does the reader prefer short messages that get right to the point? How important is this news to the reader? Do you need to maintain a close working relationship with the reader? Do you need to get the reader's attention? What is your organization's preferred style?

3. The sequence of elements in a negative message organized using an indirect approach are opening with a buffer, providing reasons and additional information, continuing with a clear statement of the bad news, and closing on a positive note.

4. A buffer is a neutral, noncontroversial statement that is closely related to the point of the message. Some people consider is unethical if they are insincere and deceptive.

5. When using the indirect approach to announce a negative decision, it is important to present your reasons before explaining the decision itself because you help maintain focus on the issues at hand and defuse the emotions that always accompany significantly bad news.

Routine and Positive Messages

Question #2 page 160
At a local business supply store, I recently purchased your "Negotiator Pro" for my computer. After viewing you ad in Macworld magazine, I bought the CD because it appeared that it would be an effective tool to use in my corporate seminar on negotiation.
Unfortunately, the CD did not work in my computer. The store refused my return because I had already opened the sealed package. The store clerk told me to contact you in order to receive a version that would work with my computer.
Please send me the new disk, or refund my money for the cost of the program. Thank you for your help.

Question #9 page 163
5493 Beechwood Drive
Trenton, NJ 08608
April 12, 2009

Florida Resort Bureau
1555 Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard
West Palm Beach, FL 33401

Dear Sir:

My wife, two teenage children, and I are planning a vacation for late September. I enjoy the beach and the golf course, but we also want to be near night entertainment that is suitable for the entire family. We are particularly interested in resort areas that have public transportation because some family members may want to participate in activities away from the resort. Please send us any information on resorts with the criteria within the next two weeks so that I can plan my vacation days at work accordingly.

In addition to brochures, will you please label the resorts that are near large cities and the resorts that can be reached by public transportation and have attractions for teenagers. Also, do off-season rates include all of the amenities? How is the weather during September in Florida? Who should we call for concert schedules during our vacation?

Your advertisement in the April 2009 issue of Smithsonian magazine compelled me to contact you about a Florida vacation.

Sincerely,

Frank C. Atlas
Frank C. Atlas

E-Mail Assignment

E-mail

To: sarah@work.net
CC: jim@work.net
From: bill@work.net
Subject: Money for Training Trip

Sarah,

How do I receive reimbursement for a training trip? Do you know who I should ask?

Please reply at your convenience.

Sincerely,
Bill


Netiquette Activity
Rules for Email Etiquette:

Value of Email:
1. Be Cordial to your Audience
Refrain from pointing out their mistakes. If you disagree with his or her ideas then say so in a polite and friendly manner. Use the Golden Rule when conducting your emails. Do not say something to other people that you would not like them saying to you. Your email must contain valuable information that addresses a concern, facilitates your audience to act, or notifies the audience of important upcoming events. Never send a pointless email. That wastes your time and the time of your reader.

Use of capitals and lowercase letters:
2. Refrain from using all caps. It makes the reader perceive you are screaming at them. If something must be emphasized, then italicize or bold those few words. Remember to always use spell checker to avoid grammatical errors. Be sure to capitalize proper nouns at all times.

Use of confidential, sensitive, and private information:
3. As a general rule, do not post anything in an email that you would not want published in the newspaper. Remember that email is sent unencrypted and may be easily read by more than the intended receiver. If private information must be shared then contact that person by telephone or arrange a meeting where the two of you can discuss the issue one-on-one. If information is confidential, perhaps sending it by email is not the best choice because email poses many privacy concerns.

References

http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/starthere/netiquette.html

http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html

http://www.fau.edu/irm/about/netiquette.php

Routine Letter Assignment

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Save File: sdeloach_routineComm.pdf

Metro Power Memorandum

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Creating Effective Sentences

Best Baby Gear is our e-tailing company, which specializes in quality products for the parents of newborns, infants, and toddlers. We provide well-built, classy, and durable products on our website, www.bestbabygear.com. Our company selects only top of the line products to sell on our website; therefore, your product will be presented with other high-quality products. After careful consideration, we conclude that the Inglesina line meets our standards. We look forward to working with you in the future.

PowerPoint BioAssignment

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Audience Profile

Question #9: The audience that is most likely to be stimulated by a peanut butter advertisement is people who enjoy consuming peanut butter. The audience's general attitude toward peanut butter could perhaps be the satisfaction of knowing their loved ones can be fed nutritionally by the tasty snack. The audience needs to know: where to find peanut butter, recommended foods to be consumed with peanut butter, how much they may spend, what size containers are offered, etc.

Question #11: When sending a cover letter and resume to a potential employer, the employer is my audience. The employer's attitude toward my interest in working for him or her would be enthusiasm perhaps about expanding their firm and gaining insight from a new perspective. I would need to make sure that the employer knows which position I was applying for, my previous work experience, my expected/asking salary, references, etc.

Week Two of ENGL 304

Chapter One has been somewhat interesting, but very imformative. I must admit that English is not my strongest subject, but it is imperative that I learn to communicate effectively with my fellow classmates, professors, future employers and clients, etc. Strong verbal and written communication is key to being a successful business professional, and I look forward to learning much more from future chapters and classes.

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Expectations for English 304

My expectations for this course are to develop a clear understanding of what is expected of me as a business professional. I intend to create professional business documents such as memorandums, e-mails, resumes, and other various word documents that will be used to impress potential employers and clients. I expect to complete many in-class assignments and to follow along on my computer as the professor illustrates how to format such documents.