How to Open a Speech or Presentation

The audience is seated. The lights dim and the room quiets. All eyes are on the dais. All too often, this is what is heard to open the speech or presentation: Hi, thank you for having me. It is an honor to be here with you today. My name is ____ _______, and I am going to be speaking to you today about_______. Looking around, here is what I tend to see: 1) People reviewing a physical copy of the program, their notes, even the labeling on the sugar on the table; 2) T-U-T/T-O-T Typing under table/typing on table. The smartphones are out in force; it is not unusual to see laptops, netbooks or tablets out and being utilized as well; 3) Eyes looking up. Eyes looking down; 4) Eyes looking everywhere but at the speaker. So how do you effectively open a speech or presentation? There are a number of effective ways to open a speech or presentation. Here are four: 1) A Quote Name a topic, and more often than not there is a great quote or saying that suits your subject matter perfectly. An example - one that I often use to open a presentaiton dealing with public speaking: It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. Mark Twain 2) A What If Scenario Drawing your audience into your presentation is important and doing it immediately works wonders. Getting your audience thinking right away by painting a scenario is very effective. 3) An Imagine Scenario Same thought process. Putting your audience members directly into the presentation by allowing each member to visualize a scenario is a great tool 4) A Question Rhetorical or literal; When someone is posed with a question, whether an answer is called for or not, that person intuitively answers, even if just in his or her mind, and now that person is involved. I will be periodically adding more opening tips. Stay tuned "Good morning, my name is Charles Boyd. I'm appreciative of your attendance today. The subject I wish to talk about is very important to me, and by the end of my talk with you, I believe you'll feel the same."

Cost Control and Reduction

Cost control and reduction refers to the efforts business managers make to monitor, evaluate, and trim expenditures. These efforts might be part of a formal, company-wide program or might be informal in nature and limited to a single individual or department. In either case, however, cost control is a particularly important area of focus for small businesses, which often have limited amounts of time and money. In a small business the focus is often on selling and servicing the customer. This leaves the task of purchasing slightly sidetracked. Even seemingly insignificant expendituresfor items like office supplies, telephone bills, or overnight delivery servicescan add up for small businesses. On the plus side, these minor expenditures can often provide sources of cost savings.

PLANNING AND CONTROL

Cost control refers to management's effort to influence the actions of individuals who are responsible for performing tasks, incurring costs, and generating revenues. First managers plan the way they want people to perform, then they implement procedures to determine whether actual performance complies with these plans. Cost control is a continuous process that begins with the annual budget. As the fiscal year progresses, management compares actual results to those projected in the budget and incorporates into the new plan the lessons learned from its evaluation of current operations. Through the budget process and accounting controls, management establishes overall company objectives, defines the centers of responsibility, determines specific objectives for each responsibility center, and designs procedures and standards for reporting and evaluation. A budget segments the business into its components, or centers, where the responsible party initiates and controls action. Responsibility centers represent applicable organizational units, functions, departments, and divisions. Generally a single individual heads the responsibility center exercising substantial, if not complete, control over the activities of people or processes within the center, as well as the results of their activity. Cost centers are accountable only for expenses. Revenue centers primarily generate revenues. Profit centers accept responsibility for both revenues and expenses. The use of responsibility centers allows management to design control reports and pinpoint accountability. A budget also sets standards to indicate the level of activity expected from each responsible person or decision unit, and the amount of resources that a responsible party should use in achieving that level of activity. The planning process, then, provides for two types of control mechanisms: feedforward, which provides a basis for control at the point of action (the decision point); and feedback, which provides a basis for measuring the effectiveness of control after implementation. Management's role is to feedforward a futuristic vision of where the company is going and how it is to get there, and to make clear decisions coordinating and directing employee activities. Management also oversees the development of procedures to collect, record, and evaluate feedback.

CONTROL REPORTS
Control reports are informational reports that tell management about a company's activities. Control reports are only for internal use, and therefore management directs the accounting department to develop tailor-made reporting formats. Accounting provides management with a format designed to detect variations that need investigating. In addition, management also refers to conventional reports such as the income statement and balance sheet, and to external reports on the general economy and the specific industry. Control reports need to provide an adequate amount of information so that management may determine the reasons for any cost variances from the original budget. A good control report highlights significant information by focusing management's attention on those items in which actual performance significantly differs from the standard. Managers perform effectively when they attain the goals and objectives set by the budget. With respect to profits, managers succeed by the degree to which revenues continually exceed expenses. In applying the following simple formula, Net Profit = Revenue - Expenses, managers realize that they exercise more control over expenses than they do over revenues. While they cannot predict the timing and volume of actual sales, they can determine the utilization rate of most of their resources; that is, they can influence the cost side. Hence, the evaluation of management's performance and the company's operations is cost control.

STANDARDS
For cost control purposes, a budget provides standard costs. As management constructs budgets, it lays out a road map to guide its efforts. It states a number of assumptions about the relationships and interaction among the economy, market dynamics, the abilities of its sales force, and its capacity to provide the proper quantity and quality of products demanded. An examination of the details of the budget calculations and assumptions reveals that management expects operations to produce the required amount of units within a certain cost range. Management bases its expectations and projections on the best historical and current information, as well as its best business judgment. For example, when calculating budget expenses, management's review of the historic and current data may strongly suggest that the production of 1,000 units of a certain luxury item will cost $100,000, or $100 per unit. In addition, management might determine that the sales force will expend about $80,000 to sell the 1,000 units. This is a sales expenditure of $80 per unit. With total expenditures of $180, management sets the selling price of $500 for this luxury item. At the close of a month, management compares the actual results of that month to the standard costs to determine the degree and direction of any variance. The purpose for analyzing variances is to identify areas where costs need containment.

Cost Control and Reduction

In the above illustration, accounting indicates to management that the sales force sold 100 units for a gross revenue of $50,000. Accounting's data also show that the sales force spent $7,000 that month, and that production incurred $12,000 in expenses. While revenue was on target,

actual sales expense came in less than the projected, with a per unit cost of $70. This is a favorable variance. But production expenses registered an unfavorable variance since actual expenditures exceeded the projected. The company produced units at $120 per item, $20 more than projected. This variance of 20 percent significantly differs from the standard costs of $100 and would likely cause management to take corrective action. As part of the control function, management compares actual performance to predetermined standards and makes changes when necessary to correct variances from the standards. The preparation of budgets and control reports, and the resulting analysis of variances from performance standards, give managers an idea of where to focus their attention to achieve cost reductions.

COST CUTTING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

A variety of techniques can be employed to help a small business cut its costs. One method of cost reduction available to small businesses is hiring an outside analyst or consultant. These individuals may be independent consultants or accountants who analyze costs as a special service to their clients. They generally undertake an in-depth, objective review of a company's expenditures and make recommendations about where costs can be better controlled or reduced. Some expense-reduction analysts charge a basic, up-front fee, while others collect a percentage of the savings that accrue to the company as a result of their work. Still others contract with specific vendors and then pool the orders of their client companies to obtain a discount. Some of the potential benefits of using a consultant include saving time for the small business owner, raising awareness of costs in the company, and negotiating more favorable contracts with vendors and suppliers. Steps that a small business can take relatively quickly and can start them down the path of cost reduction include such things as printing or photocopying on both sides of the paper whenever possible. Securing supplies to which employees have access, like locking the office supply cabinet, to better track usage of these items. Canceling insurance policies on unused equipment and vehicles is another way to check unnecessary costs. Establishing a regular cost-cutting program can be done by setting aside time to review several months' worth of checks and invoices and make a detailed list of all monthly expenses. Then, decide upon a few areas that might benefit from comparison-shopping for better prices. If the small business owner is not inclined to undertake the comparison-shopping personally, a responsible employee can be assigned to the task. Despite the importance of cost control to small businesses, and the potential for cost savings, cost reduction alone cannot guarantee success. For cost cutting to be effective, the sales and revenue end of the business must be healthy. "Only the most exceptional leaders of the most exceptional companies avoid getting sucked into a period of heady growth followed by desperate cutbacks," Alan Mitchell wrote in Management Today. "These companies have learned the hard way that cost cutting alone doesn't guarantee customer preference." Mitchell went on to explain that every business reaches a point in its growth when management recognizes a need to cut costs, usually in the face of a crisis. "Over time, you get a cost cutting culture," consultant Paul Taffinder told Mitchell. "Once you have, the types of people who are good at building thingscreating new values, new products, new servicesare driven out of the business because it is unpleasant for them to work there. Then, once boom time arrives again, the organization piles on capacity but doesn't solve the problem of creating innovative potential. It has to hire talented new people again." Many companies repeat this process of inefficient growth several times.

The effective implementation of a cost control and reduction program takes planning and time. It should be seen as a continuous process and one that will need ongoing attention. Instead of blindly trying to cut costs in the face of a crisis, Mitchell recommended that managers embrace cost cutting as a strategic issue and approach the task from a marketing perspective. "If you are going to talk about waste, you need to define what value is, because the opposite of waste is value," business school professor Dan Jones told Mitchell. "And you can only define value from the end customer's perspective. If you can really do thisif you really know what it is that doesn't add value to the customerthen you can start asking 'How can we get rid of that?' Otherwise, we are just saying 'Let's cut costs."

BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Bain Study Outlines Strategic Importance of Continuous Cost-Reduction Program." The Controller's Report. February 2004. Cost Reduction and Control Best Practices: The Best Ways for a Financial Manager to Save Money. Second Edition. Institute of Management and Administration (IOMA), 2005. Covington, Donna. "Cost Reduction Essential to Competition: A Global Look at Costs Gives the Big Picture and a Big Advantage." Industry Week. 16 December 2005. Horngren, Charles T., George Foster, and Srikant M. Datar. Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis. Prentice Hall, 1999. Meigs, Robert F., and Walter B. Meigs. Accounting: The Basis for Business Decisions. Ninth Edition. McGraw-Hill, 1998. Mitchell, Alan. "Corporate Dieting Can Make Your Company Fat." Management Today. May 1998. Patterson, Perry. Cost Reduction and Control Best Practices: The Best Ways for a Financial Manager to Save Money. John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

Accountability is the key concept for cost reductions. You have to ensure that you can compare figures and that people are accountable for those figures. Therefore you have to identify cost reductions possibilities and start eliminating these costs now! Although not all cost reduction methods have the same savings potential, they can help your organization to cut costs dramatically. Below is a list of 10 ways to save costs:

1. Eliminate Non-Performing (Lease) Contracts

The entire CRE portfolio is either owned or leased. Particularly in Lease Administration there is a clear distinction between performing and non-performing lease contracts. The costs per square foot (office space) are a good indication for your performance. Ensure that you make quality decisions on what standard cost per square foot you want to achieve for your portfolio.

2. Eliminate Underutilized Space

Research has indicated that at any given moment a staggering 40% of your spaces are unused. This is unacceptable and has an immense cost savings potential. Identify which space is actually used and which is not. Good indications are the ratio between Usable Space and Not Usable Space, Office Space and Shared Space + Commons.

3. Implement a space allocation charge back methodology

When you want to start saving on your space costs ensure to implement a space chargeback methodology instantly. When budget owners are accountable for their space usage youll reduce your space occupancy costs overnight. This also helps to eliminate underutilized space (point 3)

4. Eliminate Non-Performing Assets

Some of your assets are mission critical. Think about your HVAC installations. Without these it is not possible to work in an office building. However some of those installations are underperforming while their costs are immense. What you need to know is which technical service requests are related directly to an asset. In addition to know about the technical and economical lifecycle. Perhaps your critical installation is performing according to organization standards and needs to be replaced.

5. No-show Charging
All knowledge workers need to meet occasionally to discuss about their projects, have team meetings, develop strategies, etc. Although meetings are becoming more virtual a large portion of the meetings are still physical meetings. No-show is extremely expensive and about 25% of all planned meetings are no-shows. This blocks the limited meeting room capacity for other meetings forcing to hire additional meeting capacity or even worse to convert office space to meeting space. To cut costs instantly implement a no-show charge when cancelled too late. This has both a positive impact on your space usage as well as your conference room occupancy percentage.

6. Cancel contracts with non-performing suppliers

Especially in the maintenance of your critical assets you need trustworthy suppliers. To reduce costs you need to be able to measure the number of technical service requests to the contract and SLA. If the supplier doesnt meet the contract, cancel the contract. Again accountability is key here. You need to know which assets cause interruptions to your primary process and need to identify which causes these interruptions.

7. Implement Virtual Meetings

Over the last five years virtual meeting technology has leaped forward. WebEx, GoToMeeting, Saba, Microsoft, and other vendors provide excellent meeting technologies that can reduce the number of flights dramatically.

8. Reduce Energy Costs

Energy is expensive and will become even more so in the next couple of years. LEED and BREEAM are examples of standard evaluation methodologies which can help you to identify your most expensive energy consuming buildings. In addition to reducing costs you improve your organizations carbon footprint.

9. Eliminate Non Efficient Processes

In each organization there are a number of processes which do not contribute to the organizations business goals. These inefficient processes need to be eliminated from your organization today as they have a large cost impact. As an advice you can use the 20/80 rule. Identify your thirty most used requests then you will have about eighty percent of the processes. If you evaluate these processes your able to eliminate the non efficient processes.

10. What ideas do you have?

In addition to the above you might have some ideas of your own. What cost reduction ways have you implemented? And are they succesful. Id love to hear your experiences.