Lesson 6 – Ending a Presentation

Lesson 6 – Ending a Presentation

Welcome to [bad word] s "Business Meetings" course: lesson six. I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

In the fifth lesson of "Business Meetings," we learned business vocabulary for giving presentations and talking about visuals at formal and informal business meetings. In this sixth lesson, we're going to learn how to end a presentation.

Let's listen to Chris as he ends his presentation at the formal meeting.

Chris: Using all of the information that Ms. Graff has just presented as a starting point, my product development team has been trying to enhance our product to include more of customer's desired features. Our specific proposals were described in detail in the memo that was circulated last week, so I see no reason to cover them in depth at this point in time. However, we do need to open a dialogue about which changes we're going to implement, and a timeline for doing so.

So, as our presentation concludes, I want to repeat the key points. First, our market share is showing a downward trend. Second, our marketing campaign isn't appropriate for our target audience. Third, many key features are missing from our product. Our recommendations are to revamp our marketing campaign and redesign our product. We are facing some serious problems, and we need your input in order to deal with them as quickly as possible.

Without further ado, I'd like to open the floor for discussion. Shawn will be our moderator.

Chris begins by saying that he's going to use all the information that Hannah (Ms. Graff) has presented as a starting point. "starting point" is the place where someone begins something, or the information that one uses to begin something. If you want to lose 20 pounds (you want to go on a diet), your starting point may be how much you weigh right now. Chris's starting point is Ms. Graff's, or Hannah's, information, meaning that he's going to continue from where her information ended.

Chris says that his product development team (the people who work on improving and making new products for the company) has been trying to enhance (enhance), or improve, the product to include more of the features, or product characteristics, that customers are looking for. He says that his specific proposals were described in detail in a memo. "proposal" (proposal) is one's suggestion or idea about what, how, and when something should be done. For example, when a nonprofit organization (a hospital or a school, for example) asks for money from businesses, it usually has to write a proposal to explain how the money will be spent. "proposal" is usually a written plan about what you want to do – what you are suggesting.

Chris's proposal is about how the product should be improved, or enhanced. "memo" (memo), which is short for "memorandum" (memorandum), is a short written message in a company or a business, usually to share information in an office. memo is usually written on a piece of paper. The top of a memo usually has at least four lines, with the name of the person who wrote it, the name of the person or people it was written for (the people who should read the memo), the date, and the subject of the memo (the topic of the memo).

Chris's memo was about the team's proposals, or ideas for improving the product. He said that the memo circulated last week. To "circulate" (circulate) means to move from one place to another, or to pass from one person to another so that the information is shared (everyone gets to see the information). To say that the memo circulated last week means it was sent to many people at the office last week.

Since everyone has seen the memo, Chris says that he sees no reason to cover his proposals in depth at this time. He says he sees no reason, meaning it is not ne