Month: January 2011

Improve your sales presentations with Powerpoint design

John

I had been doing sales presentations for years when my boss took me to one side and started to question why my performance was not as strong as the rest of the team’s.  He asked me to give him one of my standard Powerpoint presentations, to give him a better sense of what I was doing in my meetings.  He wasn’t totally unimpressed by my efforts, but he thought that my use of Powerpoint design could do with being updated.  I hadn’t been on a course for a good few years and had been concentrating on the content of my presentations at the expense of the style, which is more important than I realised.

My boss sent me on a brief course which I found really useful.  It really made me aware of all the tools in the program that enable you to really make your presentation into a multimedia experience that is less at risk of boring the audience to tears.  I found it really useful thinking a bit more in depth about the visual element of my presentation.  I had always included pictures, but the course flagged up how carefully these need to be considered.  Rather than picking a vaguely suitable picture to go with a statistic, it is more effective to use a pie chart or bar graph that properly reinforces the statistic.

The course also emphasised that, while Powerpoint design does allow for very technical and detailed slides, simplicity remains very important.  As the audience only sees each slide for a number of seconds, a hectic page is unlikely to make an impression and convey all the information on it.  The old rule that audiences can take in three points at a time is worth remembering, and extra elements such as video content should be viewed in context of this.  I was glad that the team at the training course also worked with me on my existing presentations, looking at how I could improve the effectiveness of the message I wanted to convey.  General advice is always useful, but I really felt that I got value for money when I was able to see how much better my new presentation was than the one I would traditionally give.

When I got back to the office I was actually quite excited about showing my boss my new Powerpoint presentations!  He agreed with me that they did a much better job at getting my point across, and were more entertaining as well.  My next sales presentations went quite well, as I was much more confident about my new presentations, I think this improved my confidence and therefore my presentation style.  A bit of Powerpoint design training certainly went a long way.

Please visit http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Bacs payments are easy

Charlie

bacs payments have been around for a long time and bacs software has become an integral part of the process of transferring money between accounts. Bacs stands for Bankers’ Automated Clearing Services, although this full name is little used now. The acronym, like the Bacs process, is far more convenient. The Bankers’ Automated Clearing Service was conceived and developed in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s by a man called Denis Gladwell. Since then it has proved immensely popular as a method of making payments and managing accounts both with businesses and with the wider public.

One of the main advantages of using Bacs is that there is far less paper to worry about and to keep track of when you are attempting to transfer money between bank accounts. It is efficient and easy. These attributes have made it a very convenient means of settling invoices, paying salaries and paying the other assorted expenses that are a normal part of business life. It has also significantly reduced the need to store large sums of cash to meet future expenses claims and has also greatly reduced the amount of time that a business’ staff have to spend tracking down and storing the paper documents needed to carry-out their transactions at the bank. This makes for a much happier and more productive workforce, because people are able to get on with other more interesting tasks to develop and improve the business.

Nowadays, many people in accounts departments make relatively few trips to banks and the same is increasingly true for individual customers. A large proportion of banking these days is done online. Using your knowledge of key details of your account (such as the account number and the sort code) and remembering passwords and security information enables people to conduct their banking business over the internet. This means that they are able to access their account information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week from the comfort of their favourite armchair in their living room if they so wish. This means that bacs payments can now be planned and arranged much more easily. It should, however, be remembered that the bacs system does not make payments instantly, but normally takes three working days.

Bacs payments were an excellent invention and bacs software enables these transactions to be processed smoothly and securely. bacs may one day be superseded by another invention, but members of accounts and finance departments will always be grateful to Denis Gladwell.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Cash genie can help you stay on top of your finances

John

It is often said by wise people that there is more to life than money, but there is no denying the fact that a lack of money can be very worrying and have a large negative impact on people’s lives. Finding a magic lamp, rubbing it, and having a Cash Genie emerge to solve your money problems is a fantasy, and impractical. There are, however, a number of ways in which the stresses and strains which can be caused by a shortage of funds can be alleviated. The resolution of such financial problems can then allow people to concentrate on those things which are really important in leading an enjoyable and fulfilling life.

The main thing to remember when thinking about your finances is to draw up a budget and to stick to it. Sometimes, however, there can be unexpected expenses which disrupt even the best laid plans. One option if this happens to you is to take a short-term loan. If you do decide to do this you should always use a reputable company and never a loan shark. Through a reputable company you can arrange a short-term loan for the amount you need while you reorganise your finances to meet the unexpected expense. This can be a useful course of action if, for example, you know that your next pay cheque will arrive shortly, but you need money quickly to meet a sudden, but important, expense or to avoid going overdrawn.

Searching for such companies on the internet will reveal examples of the ways in which short-term loans can be arranged. Often you need only to give your details (including home address and banking information) to get access to a small loan. It is rare for these companies to check your credit rating as part of the process of arranging a loan, so if you have a very poor rating, for whatever reason, this can be a very useful facility. The important thing to be aware of, however, is that if you fail to repay the loan by the agreed deadline it is likely that your credit rating will be adversely affected, even if the amount you owe is only a very small sum.

If you frequently find that you need to borrow money to meet your financial obligations each month then other loan programs or financial advice are likely to be more beneficial. The good thing about a short-term loan is that, like a Cash Genie, it can provide a quick (if temporary) solution to a brief shortage of cash.

Please visit http://www.cashgenie.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Graduate jobs provide training after university

Annie

In the current economic climate a lot is made of the difficulty of getting into graduate jobs or onto a graduate scheme. There are, of course, other options open for those people who have recently left university that may still lead to the job offer and outcome that is hoped for. Internship jobs, for example, can sometimes lead to offers of full employment at the end of them. The main thing is to fully research your options and make total use of the resources available to you. Not only will this help you find an enjoyable job much more quickly, it will also help you to remain in a positive and proactive frame of mind.

Internships can be very rewarding experiences for people who have recently left university. Provided the terms of the internship are not taking advantage of the intern, they can allow recent graduates the opportunity to develop skills that employers will find valuable and to build-up the business knowledge that they may not have acquired during three years studying at university. Even if you, as a recent graduate, already have the skills and business knowledge that employers are searching for, doing an internship can allow you to demonstrate that you have these qualities.

Since you will very likely be competing for the job against a great number of other graduates, both from your own graduation year and from previous years, it is vital to give yourself the best possible chance of being hired by the business for the position that you have applied for. This means working on your interview technique and being able to talk sensibly about the ways in which you meet or exceed the requirements for the role. Again, doing an internship can help demonstrate that you are committed to the sector in which you want to work and work well in a business or office environment.

Conversely, doing an internship might also demonstrate to you that you do not enjoy the work you had hoped to do and would be better-off exploring other options. Internships are useful because they allow you to try out a number of different options without making a long term commitment.

Getting accepted on to a graduate scheme is one way to be trained in the career you hope to follow, but internship jobs can also be very rewarding and allow you to build up your network of contacts and your range of experience to succeed when you do finally get hired for one of the graduate jobs that you have applied for.

Please visit http://www.careerplayer.com/ for further information about this topic.

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