Learnship 13 - 2023/10/31

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Business Language Coaching - Session 13 - Closing A Presentation

  • review your presentation
  • compare some different communicative strategies for closing a presentation

Impromptu presentation practice

Topic: Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of how their choices impact the environment

  • having said that
  • as it so happens
  • generally speaking

Opening and closing

Try to make your last line or two truly eloquent, meaningful, touching, accurate and wise. Always memorize your last few lines. This is the time to deliver straight to them: eye to eye, person to person. Try to leave them with a thought that will continue to provide an echo after you stop. - Sonya Hamlin, Sonya Hamlin Communications

Many of the techniques you can use to open a presentation will also work well to close one. But this is your last chance to get your message across. How far do you agree with what Harvard Law School presentations coach Sonya Hamlin has to say about closing a talk?

Listen to the closing moments of four presentations and number the techniques in the order you hear them.

[x] call for action

Extract 1: Ladies and gentlemen, to take this project to the next stage we need your total commitment to the ideas behind it. But we need more than that. We need you to go back to your divisions and units and project teams and become champions for this new initiative, to spread the word and build confidence in the new direction we are about to take. Without you and your people we cannot make this strategy work. Without your actions, it’s all just words. We’re counting on you to make this happen … Thank you very much.

[x] dramatic summary

Extract 2: OK, I’m going to break off in a moment. So let’s take a look back at what we’ve spoken about this morning. We’ve looked at the five ways a product can fail. First, we looked at extension failures - trying to stretch your brand too far, as Harley Davidson did when it tried to make perfume! We also looked at PR failures and the R.J. Reynolds Joe Camel campaign, marketing cigarettes to young people. Then we looked at cultural failures and KFC in Hong Kong. We moved on to look at people failures at Planet Hollywood and Fashion Café. Finally, we looked at failures of ideas. And it is from these that we can learn the biggest lesson. The list of failed product ideas is almost endless. Kellogg’s Cereal Mates, Pepsi AM, the Barbie computer, Clairol’s ‘Touch of Yoghurt’ shampoo - all jokes in their respective industries. But behind each of these spectacular failures was the basis for a brilliant idea. To create future successes we have only to revisit the failures of the past … Thanks very much.

[x] heart-felt message

Extract 3: You know, I’ve been where you are now. I’ve sat in a six-by-six cubicle with a list of cold leads and telephone just waiting for me to pick it up and start calling. But in my day it was easier. I can remember when it was just a question of going out there and getting the business. It took dedication, indestructible self-confidence and a lot of hard work, but the business was there to be had. Today, you have to create the business. So, if you take just one thing from this talk today, take this. I used to be a salesman - and a very good one. But you’re more than that. You’re entrepreneurs, creating business each and every day. For you, the challenges and the opportunities are so much greater. Enjoy the risks you have to take, for with greater risks come greater rewards … Thank you very much.

[x] famous wise words

Extract 4: It was Ricardo Semler, the Brazilian CEO and author of the bestselling Maverick!, who said: ‘Democracy has yet to penetrate the workplace.’ He said:’There are companies which are prepared to change the way they work. They realize that nothing can be based on what used to be, that there is a better way. But 99% of companies are not ready. They are caught in a kind of industrial Jurassic Park.’ Well said. There are enough dinosaurs in this industry of ours already. If we want to be part of the one percent, we have to evolve. And today’s talk has been about how to speed up our evolution … Thank you.

Vocabulary/Notes

  • preference towards* the two seasons
  • a peninsula
  • it’s pretty much enough
  • men are more overpowering*/women are overpowered
  • to sort the garbage into
  • global warming
  • switch to using clean energy
  • to get* people’s attention
  • to have people in the palm of your hands
  • eloquent