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Effective Communication

Black Friday and the Shopping Craze

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Today, the day after Thanksgiving, marks the first day of the holiday shopping season. The retailing industry terms this day ‘Black Friday’.

In theory, stores expect to switch from losses (accounted for in red color in financial statements) to profits (accounted for in black color.) Stores, big and small, offer hefty discounts and attractive promotions to lure shoppers. Consequently, Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

  • Stores open as early as 5:00am and publicize low-ticket items to attract shoppers. Often, stores carry limited quantities of deeply discounted items. Thus, shoppers scramble to enter the stores and fight to lay their hands on these items. See interesting news stories of shoppers fighting for bargains here, here and here.
  • Most stores offer discounts for only a few hours in the morning. For instance, today, Wal-Mart’s discounts were limited to 5a.m. to 11a.m. Shoppers transit from store to store and families split-up to reach various stores before discounts terminate.
  • Stores hope that once shoppers are tempted to start the day at their stores, they will buy less-discounted and regular merchandise. Clearly, they risk margins in an effort to boost sales numbers, one of the key metrics in the retailing industry.
  • In 2004, Wal-Mart decided to scale down on Black Friday offers in an effort to increase margins. Sales were poor; Wal-Mart stock dropped 4% the day it announced poor sales figures.
  • This year, major retailers including Wal-Mart [WMT] and Target [TGT] reported weaker-than-expected sales numbers for October. Wal-Mart announced just 0.5 percent increase in same-store sales for October; these numbers were short of the 2 to 4 percent increase that it had initially expected. Consequently, Wal-Mart announced aggressive discounts on a wide-range of goods including consumer electronics.

As I hopped from store to store hunting for bargains and gifts this morning, I ignored a few questions the investor in me had: Do Black Friday promotions pull sales from later in the shopping season? How many customers return goods they purchased on Black Friday? If a retailer fails to capitalize on the Black Friday craze, can it make up during the rest of the shopping season? Are sales numbers more important than margins?

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You are Your Presentation, Your Slides Aren’t

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You, not Your Slides, are Your PresentationLast week, I attended a training seminar where the speaker stood by the side of a projection screen and behind a table where he had his laptop. He hardly moved from his position during the hour-long seminar. He was short and was barely visible from the back of the thirty-people room, as shown in the illustration. Despite his interesting content and compelling arguments, he was physically disconnected from his audience.

One of the common mistakes speakers make is that they regard their slides as the core of their presentation—they give their slides the center stage during their presentations. Sometimes they stand behind a podium or by the side of a projection screen and command very little attention from the audience.

Here are a few tips to help you engage your audience.

  • Get a handheld or a clip-on microphone and a remote control to advance your PowerPoint or Keynote slides. Walk around the room and establish a positive rapport with your audience.
  • Maintain a relaxed body language and tone, smile and engage the audience in discussions. A relaxed stance and engaging conversations quickly establish your authority over the subject matter and your credibility with the audience.
  • Maintain eye contact with all the members of your audience. Observe their body language for non-verbal feedback to your presentation content.
  • Have a friend or family member attend your presentation and request that he or she observe your non-verbal communication, viz., your appearance, enthusiasm, tone and volume, gestures, eye contact, audience engagement, pauses, and pace of delivery.

As you prepare for your next public speaking assignment or presentation, remember that your slides or handouts just augment your presentation and support your line of reasoning. You are the presentation; you should be the focus.

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The Twelve Most Persuasive Words in English

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“Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.”
– A Rephrasing of Aristotle’s Rhetoric

The choice of words is one of the key components of persuasive communication. In marketing, advertising, grant- or project proposal writing, or in most other interactions, we attempt to influence someone’s mind about an idea or a product.

The Twelve Most Persuasive Words in EnglishBelow is a list (in order) of the twelve most persuasive words that have proven to be most influential on listeners’ or readers’ minds. Often, advertisements consist of crafty constructions of these words. Surprisingly, the word ‘free’ is absent. The Language Log website at the University of Pennsylvania has an interesting thread on the source of this list.

  1. You
  2. Money
  3. Save
  4. New
  5. Results
  6. Health
  7. Easy
  8. Safety
  9. Love
  10. Discovery
  11. Proven
  12. Guarantee

How will we use these words in our verbal and written communications? How will we incorporate these words into our everyday vocabulary?

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The Abuse of Exclamation Marks

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“My gosh!!! I was thinking about calling you the other night! It is exciting(!) to hear from you!!!!! How have you been!?!?!?! Congratulations on successfully defending your thesis!!!!!!”

The Abuse of Exclamation Marks in Written CommunicationExclamation marks are used at the end of sentences to express strong feelings of astonishment or emotion. Our generation has learned to use handfuls of emoticons, exclamation marks and question marks as substitutes for tone and body language in instant messaging and such. This communication style habitually creeps into our professional communications. Overuse of exclamation marks is a pet peeve of many professionals; some even consider exclamation marks minor annoyances.

In reality, exclamation marks are not necessary; they are usually inappropriate in professional written communication or in academic writing. Many professionals consider the excessive use of exclamation marks as signs of inexpressiveness and professional adolescence.

  • Use exclamation marks sparingly. Use only one exclamation mark, if necessary, for expressing very strong positive feelings. E.g., “Congratulations on finishing your first marathon!”
  • Do not use multiple exclamation marks to exaggerate your feelings. A single exclamation mark is sufficient.
  • Repeated use of exclamation marks is distracting to a reader. The reader cannot clearly differentiate the more exciting expressions.
  • Do not combine an exclamation mark with any other punctuation. Every sentence must end with a single punctuation—a period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark.
  • If you are tempted to use an exclamation mark to attract a reader’s attention, try to reword the sentence. E.g., restructure “The C++ shell sort implementation had an error!” to “We found an error in the C++ shell sort implementation.” Alternately, reorganize your thoughts in an independent paragraph or bullet point.
  • Avoid inserting exclamation marks within parentheses to emphasize a specific word within a sentence. E.g., “Coastal South India is excessively(!) hot and humid during summer.”

In the absence of facial or verbal cues, written communication can easily be misinterpreted. Resist the urge to convey emotion and feelings in email or in written communications. Avoid exclamation marks.