Principles of Speech Communication

Speech making is perhaps one of the innate abilities of man, irrespective of one's citizenry, or ethnic affiliations. Yet many people speak without understanding that it is a special ability without which communication between people and groups would not be possible.

Speech communication differs from normal day to day talking in which one speaks sporadically without considering ethics and skills. However, it is similar to every day communication in that they are both driven by the aim to communicate meaningfully.

Speech making is an organized communication aimed at sharing specific message about a given subject to create impact towards solving human problems.

Principles of Speech Communication

This article provides guidance in the following areas:
Types of speech
Sages/steps in the speech making process and
Structure of a speech

Types of Speech
The onus remains squarely, on every speech maker to identify the type of speech most suitable to his/her purpose. For emphasis, it should be known that the aim of your delivery should be the sole factor dictating the style/type of speech you should choose to use.

Generally, there are, for conveniences, sake, four basic speech types, viz:
• Argumentative speech
• Persuasive speech
• Educative speech and
• Informative speech.

Argumentative Speech Type
Arguments imply elaborate presentation of all perspectives to an object or a subject of discussion, before settling down for the most applicable option. What comes out of an argument as most acceptable may not necessarily be truer, or better than other options, but the process of arguing makes it best, when compared to the others. This is why one choosing this type must bear in mind that it is his/her approach to it, and the ability to convince that determines the success or failure of the entire process.

While this may be closely related to persuasive essay, the dissimilarity lies in using points to convince at all cost.

To argue therefore, the speech maker needs to clearly and exhaustively raise every point of the issue and state facts about it. And this statement of facts is the "why" of the validity or not of your argument.

Persuasive Speech Type
As the name indicates, this type of speech is meant to stimulate a favourable disposition towards the subject of your concern or to appeal to audience to see it your way and act as you desire.

Companies, individuals and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that depend on project grants are often required to their proposals in brief, before forums of grant agencies. In doing this, they are expected to give brief, straight-to-point run down of what they propose to do to achieve goal, if given grant. This summary must necessarily include a statement of methodology and justification why it has to be your proposal, and not that of another. You must convince that using so and so method, you will be able to achieve set goals within the specified time, without waste of resources and this, you must do without doubt.

A high point worthy of emphasis is that to persuade, a speech maker must JUSTIFY why you are convinced that your method is most suitable to deliver best result. Your entire exercise will be meaningless if it fails to provide justification.

Also, students defending their research projects/thesis/dissertations ought to bear this in mind, as they will at one time or another, need to persuade their tutors I favour of their work.

Educative Speech Type
Although teaching in a class room situation requires more than speech making skills, it would do you well as a professional teacher, haven undergone training in the profession, to add these to your skills. As one who teaches in a school or a religious organization, one makes speeches often, both officially and otherwise.

Advertising agencies as well make use of this type of speech as product display demonstration to teach prospective consumers of a new product a step - by - step approach to using it.

An educative speech provides a comprehensible how-to-do-it guide to given subjects and must be done carefully to avoid confusing consumers/students/audience/congregation.

Informative Speech Type
The aim of this class of speech is to make known. This may come in presentable form in which the speech maker delivers it to audience or may be a press release. Whichever the case, both the writer and giver of speech must choose words carefully in order not to mislead, as the aim is to give accurate, unmistaken information as at press conference, organizational report forums, annual general meetings, state of the affair reviews etc.

Whether as government official, a politician or celebrity wishing to tell subordinated, colleagues or fans and the mass media something, this type of speech serves you best, as it equally serves the technology company wishing to inform its market of its newest innovation.

Security agencies and Public Relations Executives of all manner of corporate entities should be versed in this type of speech, as they will find it useful in the course of their careers.

Stages in the Speech Making Process
As already stated in the introduction, why you make speech is to communicate towards an end. Thus, your speech can only be seen as a success if the aim is achieved at the end of the day. To achieve an aim, professional speech communication follows a procedure, which is here written as the stages/steps in the speech communication process. They include:

• Research: If you are to speak, it means that there is someone you are to speak to, about something, something of importance to both of you, and at a given time and place. Your first responsibility is to FIND OUT what it is you are going to talk about. Whatever it is, you must study it to know far more than you will need to talk about and in this case, it is necessary to preempt the likely questions your audiences are to ask, and provide answers in the speech you make.

where and when necessary, consult with people such as experts, who have better technical understanding of the subject than you and to these, pose ALL your questions and let their answers be the knowledge with which you confront the exercise, as these answers should be the basis of the speech you present. In doing this, you should avoid stating the obvious. By this I mean elements that can easily be deciphered and understood should not be your primary aim to explain, rather you will do more good to seek out areas that are not likely to be understood at first glance by the lay man and on these, place your emphasis.

If for instance your speech is a political manifesto, it will be more profitable to describe in detail, what you intend to do to solve certain societal problems and your conduct in office, should you be elected, than to dwell on the might of your political party or on the electioneering process - whoever your audience are already know how to vote and how strong your party is but even if they don't, there are people stationed to teach them those.

If on the other hand your concern is a product/service as a PRE/Advertiser, or an issue intangible as those handled by spiritual leaders and programme facilitators, seek out beforehand, opinions and opposing views about the product/service/issue. Be sure to find out details about the product/service/issue as to how it functions or implications of every standpoint in an issue. It is only this detailed understanding of subject that places you above your audience to be able to grant answers to their every question, including the ones they are not able to ask.

When you have satisfactorily understudied the subject of your presentation, you should as well endeavor to study the people to whom you will be speaking. This may require going the extra mile to study the various groups of people likely to be present at your presentation as well as their depth of understanding of the subject. Also, their depth of understanding of the language of communication is of importance, as this helps your diction for proper understanding.

You may as well, need to take a closer look at the place and time of your presentation. Though this may not be of same relevance as the first two, but is advisable because the place and time of an event contribute to a large extent, to the atmosphere of the event and in effective communication, the atmosphere is as important as the message itself as it colours the meaning of a message. This is why "good morning" at a time may be a greeting and at another time, a disturbance, as "yes" may mean yes at time but mean "no" at other times.

• Speech Writing: A well-researched speech may often end up poorly delivered if it is poorly documented, as many speech makers find the Read Only Strategy (ROS) more convenient than any other method. For a speech to be remarkable, its research, documentation and delivery must be sufficiently mastered.
Whether commissioned to write a speech for someone else to deliver or not, speech writing requires an interplay of excellent writing skills controlled by specific facts gained through research conducted at the initial stage with appropriate and accurate choice of words and illustrations, analogies etcetera.

Here are the basic formats of speech writing: the scripted speech, the semi-scripted speech, the outline speech and the unscripted format.

Scripted Speech: Earlier I mentioned ROS (Read Only Strategy) which is my description for a speech that is pre written and delivered verbatim unfortunately, this leaves no room for improvisation thus, where the speech writer is different from its presenter, the latter may have little or no idea about the technicalities of the subject of discussion, as he/she only read what is on paper. In this case, questions asked pose a great challenge to the presenter and may often be a source of embarrassment. A person delivering speech using ROS, without sufficient rehearsal may get pronunciations wrong and dodge questions at the end of the exercise as politicians do, because they are hardly involved in the creation of their speeches. However, this is the most used type of speech, practiced by political icons and celebrities because of its convenience.

The hugest merit of this is the convenience and the fact that individuals who are extremely shy or incompetent can hide away their weaknesses behind the paper already written for them. Also, the speech presenter may not need to have a deep knowledge of the subject, provided the writer of the speech does a good job. It is of advantage to persons who make many speeches within limited time and have little or no time to rehearse.

Notwithstanding, the problem with ROS is that it leaves the audience bored, as the speech maker is buried in the paper rather than keeping contact with the people to whom the presentation is being made.

The Semi - Scripted Speech Format: a speech is semi - scripted when only the principal lines of thought are written down, leaving the rest to be done on the spot of delivery. The preacher in a religious event may for example, write down a theme and scriptural texts while leaving the connected sentences to the process of delivery.

This method, a combination of ROS and improvisation proves beneficial when the speech writer is the same as the one to delivers. Otherwise, it becomes almost impracticable to deliver a semi - scripted speech prepared by somebody else. Where it is feasible, the writer and presenter must necessarily require massive effort at rehearsals which may not always be forth coming.

Out - Line Speech Format: Highly flexible and creative method that only notes in sequence, key points while leaving connected sentences to the delivery point. The advantage of this lies in the fact that where the atmosphere does not permit certain lines of thought or use of language, the speech maker changes direction. And because it is outlined rather than scripted, prevailing circumstances, at event venue, such as mood, time and language suitability are easily manageable. However, this method is most successful where the speech writer is the speech maker or where the latter has equal in-depth knowledge of subject and shares similar views with the former.

Unscripted Speech Format: This, otherwise referred here as improvisation or impromptu, is a speech format that requires no prior writing at all. Its success solely depends on the speech maker's ability to improvise, that is, to create instantaneously, a spontaneous response to the situation. This, experience has shown, is the most effective speech style that does not fail to take audience along, as it is a child of circumstance.

Often you are asked to provide a repertoire or vote of thanks without warning. Using this format, you get your data from the prevailing circumstance and must immediately become a millionaire in thinking and in language if your audiences are of the millionaire class or you can be a road side mechanic if those are the people you are to communicate to.

The problem with this is that for beginners, improvisation could be challenging, as it requires tact and a lot of self-confidence.

• Rehearsals: After your documentation, the next stage is rehearsals. This simply means a trying out of yourself, a practice simulating the actual presentation you will be doing.
When doing this, critique your eye contact, facial expressions, gesticulations and general comportment. While practicing in front of your mirror may not be exactly similar to doing it in front of a thousand people, it gives you an idea of your look and performance and allows you to improve on those areas. You may like to present to your friend, spouse or kin to have their inputs.
• Speech Presentation: The essence of all the activities carried out from stage one is to achieve a remarkable presentation, such as would leave a desired impact by achieving the goal pursuant of which the speech was meant to be made. It therefore cannot be over-emphasized that this is the most vital aspect of the entire exercise, as it is the only thing people see and know about. Audiences do not follow you to your closet to see that you have researched your piece well but they will decide whether or not you have done well once you have delivered. For this reason, I like to say that it is better to conduct a poor research, do a poor documentation but superb presentation rather than having it the other way round.

To aid your performance in this regard, a couple of problems have been identified and solutions proffered here:

Overcoming Stage Fright: The incidence of stage fright is one menace too many that ruins otherwise, a remarkable speech. Your ability to manage this is as important as the other elements in the process involved, as your audience are not lenient, but are always looking for loopholes to capitalize on in unmaking your effort.

Ironically, everyone has some level of stage fright. The only difference being that some see the high tensed atmosphere and the rapid beating of their hearts as a positive force that complements their strength of delivery, while others fret at it.

What constitutes stage fright is fear; fear of the many eyes gazing at you, possibly "dissecting" and finding fault in whatever you are telling them, what you wear and the entirety of your being. Surprisingly, all this is more imagined than real, as audience hardly have any doubt until you give them a reason to. When you give the impression that you are in control, they accept that you are and thus, look up to you for answers.

Your appearance and perhaps gesticulations which you may have seen as errors become model to be emulated. This is why you must make your fear work for you.

There are several tricks to achieving this, two of which are suggested below:
Ice-Breaking - this refers to a ploy of ventilating tension rising from high expectation and an aura of formality. Audience expecting or rather, awaiting your presentation are kin and formal. This formality exerts more pressure on you, as you feel intense need and anxiety to deliver. In extreme cases, this raises doubts inn you as to whether you can satisfy them or not so you begin to stammer, jump words on the speech or add nonexistent words to the already prepared piece.

To break-the-ice, you can tell a short, relevant story or begin by doing an out of the way exercise like giving a joke or introducing yourself. This breaks the air of formality and helps both you and your audience relax enough to conveniently and enjoyably face the business of the day. By the time you have made your audience laugh or you have expended your pent-up tension telling a story, you will have made the atmosphere informal enough and gained the rapt attention of the audience.

Pen Cap Trick: Another way of managing stage fright is by directing the tension to your finger tips rather than to your head and mouth. This is possible by keeping your fingers actively engaged, as the natural course of function of the human system directs pressure/energy to a part of the body that is engaged in an activity. Therefore, if your attention lies only with your eyes and vocal cord, they will have to find a way of expending all the energy directed at them and in the process, mistakes could be made.

Splitting this pressure from your upper region to another section helps to keep balance in the overall management of tension and helps you coordinate and concentrate better in the efficacious delivery of your speech. The trick is to keep an object in your hand which your fingers will be compressing while you do the talking.

Because this activity is more physical than the intellectual role of speaking, more tension/pressure in exerted and expended here, leaving your heart with less thuds per time, and your concentration devoid of excessive anxiety.

However, it is advised that you pick an object that would not attract more attention than the speech. Something small enough to be completely hidden in your pals, and that does not make noise would do. Many people use paper clip, which they bend and straighten many times, while they speak. I had used pen cap made of plastic.

Looking, not Seeing: When presenting a speech or any creative work before an audience, many beginners find that they get lost if they focus on keeping eye contact with specific members of audience. The fact that your audience are taken along more when you keep eye contact with them is not to say that you must pay attention to the expressions on the faces as this will, more often than not, distract you. You can look in the direction of your audience generally without seeing of focusing on any one in particular. That way, everyone thinks you are looking at the next person and you end up achieving satisfactory presentation at the conclusion.

Diction: This had been touched earlier, but cannot be exhausted. The language of presentation should be chosen in line with the characteristics of the audience. Generally, a verbose speech is unnecessarily lengthy and full of jaw breaking language that make everyone clap for you not for the meaning and sense derived from your presentation, but for the amusement. The bottom line is to communicate, not to impress.

Structure of a Good Speech
A good speech, like every good piece of writing, is not just poured out at audience, but is meaningfully communicated only when it meets a prescribed, conventional specification. Every speech, good or bad has the following components, which either makes or mars it, depending on the writer/presenter's ability to weave the various components into one beautiful piece or failure to do so, which leaves the work deformed like a physically challenged man.

• An introduction: this being the first line of your presentation, it is the most important as it sets the tone and mood for the rest of the presentation. If therefore, your introduction is good, it captivates audiences' attention and stirs up interest: sends questions, expectations and anxieties running in the minds of the audience. So also does a poor introduction kill their appetite, so that rather than get anxious to get the rest of the gist from you, they get anxious to dispose of your time wasting presence. Speech makers of reasonable experience will tell you that the most embarrassing moment of their careers was when an audience just stared at them indifferently, while they made frantic efforts to get their attention. Often, they'd ignore you and fill in the gap by telling stories and holding pockets of briefs underground.

To avoid such pitfalls, your introduction must stir interest and be interesting enough for one man to tell another to keep quiet let him hear you well, as each speech must be worth the time spent to receive it. Otherwise, they would just switch off psycho-mentally, while leaving you to make the noise.
To achieve this, you can ask a rhetoric question, use an anecdote (a short analogical story) or a catchy quote but which must be relevant and which would make your presentation easier to achieve.

• Linkage: while some may argue rightly that the body of a speech and this section are indistinct, there is a need here to split them for the purpose of proper better understanding. A linkage is a sentence or two that connect the introduction with the details' section (body) of the presentation.
• The Body of Details: Haven captivated the interest of your audience in the introduction and properly linked it using appropriate word, the emphasis now rests on providing all the details that are the main thrust of the presentation. All the points you may have gathered in the research will now be knit together beautifully and well explained to answer the questions your audience are likely to be asking. Your points must be well explained and objectively convincing enough that at the end, your audience will be left in no doubt (even if their own opinion differ), but rather have clear understanding of your impressions.
• The Conclusion: the last line of a good presentation should leave a lasting impression on people's minds. Often, a relevant quote or rhetoric does the magic but the speech writer or (and) the presenter should understand that the relevance of the devices to subject or occasion as well as your accuracy of expressions is what leaves indelible marks on the minds of audiences. The conclusion should be food for thought, something people should remember long after they may have forgotten everything else, including the speech maker.

Basic Principles by Dreg En Ay

Principles of Speech Communication
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Dreg En Ay is an author of twelve poems, including the globalisation piece, MEGGIDO, and three prose works currently undergoing publishing in the United States of America and in Africa. He renders consultant services in all forms of writings, social communications research and creativity, delivering public lectures on similar subject matters. He is a seasoned blogger. to read more of his works, view http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Dreg_En_Ay or http://dreg-creativewritingtechniques.blogspot.com

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Find a Person's Address at No Charge

Looking for people is really not as hard as some people assume it to be. Even when looking for something like an address you might be surprised on how simple it is to retrieve it. Find out more from the following article.

If you want to find a person's address then the paragraphs below have some ideas on how you can go about retrieving it. If I was looking for this detail the first place that I would search is the telephone directory. Over the years there are number of telephone directories that have emerged on the net and can be used for this search. The two most common ones though are the white pages and the Google phonebook.

You can access the white pages by going to whitepages.com. There are various options that are offered here and you can use the find people option to try and find a person's address. It is as simple as entering the person name and searching. You also have the option of choosing a state or city through which the name should be searched through. Considering the problems associated with name searches and multiple results and name searches this actually a good idea.

Find a Person's Address at No Charge

If ever it happens and there is more than one result for a search; by clicking on the name of each result you can see more details associated with that result. Using the Google phonebook is even simpler. All you have to do is type the word phonebook: followed by the name of the person whose address you are looking for.

The name will be searched through this directory and results that match the name that you entered will be returned. These are the two most common sources that you can use if you want to find a person's address.

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More Related Resources
1. Find Street Addresses
2. Find Somebodys Address

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How to Identify Unknown Phone Numbers and Cell Phone Numbers

Often, unknown phone calls are usually a miscall or a wrong number. This is a simple mistake every one of us has made before. That being said, there are other reasons why people want to check up on an unknown telephone number before writing it off as a mistake.

Here is a list of possible reasons why people use reverse phone lookups to identify unknown callers.

Curiosity is the first and most popular reason. Often people simply want to know just who it is that has called.

How to Identify Unknown Phone Numbers and Cell Phone Numbers

Using reverse phone lookups to find addresses of friends and relatives is also a possible reason. Many people do this when sending out cards or invitations.

Pranks callers can be a genuine nuisance to any phone. Using reverse phone number search can help identify such prank callers.

Identifying harassing creditors and telemarketing calls can also be a reason to use a reverse search phone number lookup.

There are also those who use reverse phone call searches in order to check up on a cheating spouse.

Some people use reverse phone call search information to identify harassment calls in order to report them to the police.

Ultimately, identifying a phone number is a useful service, and can be accomplished through reverse phone number lookup website. Some sites not only let you obtain names and addresses, but also personal information such as criminal records, bank records, and many other public domain and even private information.

If you want to lookup a name from phone number right now, one popular place that also gives you access to court records is http://www.namefromnumber.com/.

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Perry James is a licensed private investigator and author on public records research at http://www.FindAnyRecords.com.

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How to Stop Harassing Phone Calls

Harassing phone calls are a type of home invasion. A complete stranger can interrupt whatever you're doing anytime they please with a simple phone call.

These calls can come from relentless telemarketers, prank calls from kids, or even nosy voyeuristic people. When you find yourself feeling reluctant about answering your own phone, then the problem has gotten out of control. It's time to take back ownership of your phone and eliminate harassing phone calls once and for all.

Regardless of the types of unwanted calls, there are a number of things that you can do to fix this problem. The first step in putting a stop to these calls is finding out the callers identity. This is where reverse phone look ups come in handy.

How to Stop Harassing Phone Calls

You can learn the name and address of the offender in just a few minutes. It doesn't matter whether the caller is using a cell phone or an unlisted land line.

When the callers realize that they can be identified, most will stop. Furthermore, you can regain control over the situation by being able to place a name and address with the caller. Most reverse phone look ups will give you extensive background information as well.

What you do with this information depends on the nature of the call.  Telemarketers can be stopped by joining the national do not call registry. If the calls are of a threatening nature, don't confront them on your own.  Contact the local law enforcement agencies to deal with the problem. Another option is to block the offensive number by contacting the phone company.

With just a few simple clicks, you'll have the information you need to get the harasser to stop. The phone is a technology that should enhance your quality of life, not allow intrusive strangers access into your home.

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Read More

Find Out Who Owns Any Phone Number.

Just Type in Anyone's Number & Get the phone Number Owners Info. Click here to get a Reverse phone trace. Or go to ReverseCellPhoneSearches.com

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50 Ideas For Increasing Profits and Cost Reduction

Do you want to know 50 great profit building ideas that you can put to immediate use in your business to increase profits and reduce costs?

If yes, read all these ideas that have been implemented by clients and have benefited them giving their businesses dramatic boost in profitability. Most ideas can be put to action immediately. Each idea has the potential to give you many %points increase in net profits.

Research shows profits increase by 4%-56% and costs reduce by 18%-37% within 2 years using the simple 5 step process called the Profit Maps Model. Usually a 5% reduction in cost is adequate to turnaround most loss making businesses.

50 Ideas For Increasing Profits and Cost Reduction

Businesses can calculate the value of the savings by these 2 simple formulas

If the business made a loss

Total Costs and Expenses = sales + absolute value of net loss +/- income tax = say X

Minimum Savings you will make in 2 years = 5% of X (which was calculated above)

If the business made a profit

Total Costs and Expenses = sales + net profit +/- income tax = say Y

Minimum Savings you will make in 2 years = 5% of Y (which was calculated above)

So how much can you save? Improve your profits by?

Revenue

This category typically contains inflows of resources into the business generated through operations.

Needless to say the profit building process can be used to generate marketing and sales ideas. The following ideas were generated with the objective of increasing revenue with little or no impact on the cost structure.

Revenue Increasing Ideas

1. If your company has facilities located over a multi-geographical area you may be able to rent antenna space to cellular phone companies. Typically these companies will pay for the use of rooftops as a place to erect their antennas. Another option is for billboards as advertising if you occupy a central location with a high visibility building. This enhances your revenue without any additional cost you. The point here is to explore alternative uses for your facilities. Remember they are assets that can be used 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are numerous opportunities available for increased revenue if you look for them. Training room and function room facilities can be rented out in the evening or weekends. How about spare land or excess slots you own for public car parking?

2. Determine whether your business can market commission and non-commissioned products as add-on sales. Look for opportunities to sell products to your existing customer base at no additional cost. Examples are catalogue sales to airline passengers and the sale of miscellaneous products to credit card customers. You may have the opportunity to do something similar. Your customers have more value than you realise.

3. Is there any additional value in your customer database? Perhaps your business could generate additional revenue by selling the data. Alternatively consider starting a telemarketing department to market another line of products or services. Depending on your business and the nature of your customer base you may have something great here.

4. Explore the advantages of an effective e-strategy including e-commerce, e-business, e- people and e-technology. There is no question that the new opportunities available through the Internet offer new and innovative ways to increase profits and reduce costs. Consult with an expert in this area including a cross-section of your employees and magic will happen.

5. Segment your customers into heavy user and light user categories and determine the difference between these two groups. What needs to be done to generate another sale from both categories? All customers are critical. What can you learn about the different types of customers to determine whether more selling occasions possible? Make the most of these customers; you already have them.

6. Develop retention strategies as well as growth strategies. In today's markets, it is as important to hold on to your existing customer base as it to grow your business. It took you a certain amount of resources to attract your customers: you may want to explore ways to retain a high percentage. What is your cost to acquire a customer? What is your cost to retain a customer? Do your employees know?

7. Continue to look for augmented products and/or services that would add value without adding expense.

8. Explore opportunities to licence or franchise your business products or services for additional market share or penetration

9. Explore merger and acquisition scenarios where efficiencies would be gained for all businesses concerned.

10. Develop a relationship with a long-distance carrier whereby your company will distribute phone cards to your customer base in return for a fee or residual commission.

Salaries

This category typically contains charges associated with

· Management Pay
· Non-management Pay
· Hourly Wages
· Training Labour
· Overtime Pay
· All Other Pay, Wages and Salary items

Cost Saving Ideas

11. Establish a 45 to 60 hour per week work environment among the managers. Cost structures among your competitors are basically similar to your cost structure so you will obtain an advantage because your managers are working more hours. This assumes that your managers are productive. Managers who have responsibility for a workforce of hourly employees are usually at the facility, a retail outlet, restaurant or office at least this amount of time. Sometimes business volume is extremely low at early or closing hours. During the slow hours managers can save substantially by scheduling fewer employees and filling it themselves. In addition to the Labour savings, managers will become more knowledgeable about operations and will find ways to improve customer service, training and operations. I have put this procedure in place in several places. At the beginning there will always be resistance, but once managers get beyond the initial hump things will run smoothly. I also find that certain incentive programmes work well here. Get the manager's incentives based on Labour dollar saved and they come to understand the process.

12. Effectively manage your salary administration programs. Many companies pay lip service to this principle but failed to obtain true levels of success in salary administration and management. To start, make sure you have a salary range for every position in the company. Salaries should be structured so that the midpoint is 100, the minimum is 80% and the maximum is 120%. The basic philosophy is that the candidate should be hired into a position between the minimum and the midpoint on the basis of his or her level of experience. The employees are then moved higher in the range on the basis of performance. This philosophy is based on the premise that mid-point is the amount the position is worth to the company. Employees can obtain an additional 20% through stellar performance. Few employees should be paid over the 120% range. Each job is worth a specific amount to the organisation. If a new hire needs training to become efficient in a particular job, that employee is working at a level below the worth of the position and therefore should be paid at the minimum salary range. When the employee's performance rises at successful completion of training and can perform 100% of the job duties move the employee quickly toward the midpoint of the salary range.

13. Insist that a salary survey be done every year to ensure that you have achieved the desired community position relative to your competition. In this case the competition is those companies that would recruit your employees. You need to make sure that if you survey 10 competitors; you have a salary range higher than 75% of these companies for your key positions and higher than 50% of these companies for lower-level positions. Implementing this strategy will help you reduce turnover and will also ensure that you are not overpaying for positions.

14. Make sure your salary administration program allows for regular salary review. Typically, this is done once a year for salaried employees and every six months for hourly employees. The review should include a performance appraisal form and the employee's performance levels should correspond with established pay increases. In other words, establish the pay for your performance review system.

15. Establish a bell curve of salary increases. Let's say that approximately 8% of your employees are superior performers, 12% are above average, 60% are average, 12% are fair, and 8% are poor. Create a salary increase guideline that mirrors this curve, with the better performing employees receiving higher increases. For example superior employees are given 6% to 7%, above average employees 4% to 5%, average employees 3%, fair employees 2%, and poor employees 0%. This allows the organisation to check and reward performance whilst still meeting its salary increase budget. Obviously, your goal is to continue to train and develop your workforce. Occasionally, low performing employees have to be replaced with those most suited to the position. The Bell curve is just a process to ensure that star performers are recognised and rewarded for their work.

16. Establish the salary increase guideline budget and stick to it. Plan salary increases for the coming year by using the Bell curve mentioned in the above idea. Department managers should budget salary increases for employees assuming that the next year's performance will be at the same level as this year's. Please be aware that some performance ratings will change. There will always be exceptions. This process will help ensure that your organisation will remain within the new salary increase budget.

17. The salary increase guideline budget should be preapproved. When a different rating is submitted during the year, treat it as an exception and make sure to justify it because performances can change- it may go up or down. A strict salary administration program will ensure that budgets are achieved.

18. Establish a training rate for all appropriate positions. This is crucial when your organisation experiences higher levels of turnover during the first and second months of employment. The training rate is lower than the standard pay rate and is applicable only during the training period. Employees are given a raise once the training has been completed satisfactorily. Determine whether the training rate could be established for other positions in the organisation.

19. Where the training rate is not appropriate, establish a probationary rate for the standard 90 day period. This rate is lower than the standard pay rate and is applicable only during the first 90 days of employment. If performance is satisfactory, the employee will receive a raise to the standard pay rate. Determine whether a probationary rate could be established for all positions in the organisation.

20. Develop a labour-management system whereby a computer predicts daily or hourly volume and the amount of labour needs on the basis of seasonality. Most businesses have a trend cycle that can be measured with 15 minute increments. First, you must find a way to get past the notion that your business cannot be tracked this way. There is a pattern to your business. Discovering your business pattern is the first step toward determining how to manage your Labour cost. Management will give you many reasons why the business cannot be tracked. Once you work through all their concerns, you and your team can identify those trend items, aspects of your customer behaviour that, in fact, can be tracked and schedule Labour accordingly.

21. Determine whether your new hires would qualify for the targeted job tax credit program whereby a percentage of training dollars is refunded by the government.

22. Determine whether your organisation would qualify for tax benefits for providing employee childcare services.

23. If your employees handle cash transactions, install software driven cash reconciliation process to save time at shift changes and at closing. This will also reduce cash shortages. This type of procedure also saves time in the cash out process.

24. Constantly look for software modifications that can reduce labour. Seconds saved could also mean dollars earned. Using technology is a natural approach to the whole effort of productivity improvement. If your business has not recently explored this area, effective tools that currently exist may surprise you.

25. Have an industrial engineer evaluate your business in terms of time and motion studies to determine whether additional efficiencies can be achieved in areas where high throughput is important. This approach can still work today. Some managers run their businesses the same way they did 10 or 20 years ago. Time and motion studies can have an impact on cost savings, productivity, customer service, and employee morale.

26. Establish a self-regulating team with the specific responsibility of improving productivity and reducing costs in a particular department or area of the organisation.

27. Develop an incentive to reduce absenteeism. This incentive should be linked to productivity improvement goals and to the availability of the workforce. It should be based on reducing absenteeism from previous period. The incentives could be a vacation bonus based on a 1% reduction in absenteeism

28. Develop a variable pay program whereby management salaries are reduced 5% to 10% across the board and these dollars are set aside into a bonus pool. When there is goal achievement, managers have the potential to earn even higher levels of compensation. However, these dollars will be at risk if managers do not achieve profit objectives. The potential to earn even higher levels of compensation will help sell this item.

29. Controlling your staff turnover is another way to reduce operating costs. Implementing strategies throughout the entire human resources cycle to ensure that all systems, procedures, policies, and practices are tight preventing employees from falling through the cracks. I refer to this as the human resources closed loop. If you think about it you will see that there is a cycle to the human resources process. It starts with recruitment, interviewing, selection and placement and continues to orientation, training, salary administration, performance appraisal, development, promotion, and finally termination. Then the cycle begins again. Make sure that all of the areas mentioned are employee friendly and are designed to retain employees. Identify any areas where improvements would reduce the number of employees leaving.

30. In order to determine where are to place additional controls, measure your labour costs in terms of cost per unit, cost per test, cost per guest check, etc. Breaking your labour costs down to the lowest unit will help you better identify cost saving ideas. It will also make it easier to affect and control.

Other Personnel Costs

This category would typically contains charges associated with

· Applied Payroll Burden
· Superannuation Employers Portion
· Vacation
· Paid Holidays
· Sick Leave
· Bonuses
· Short/Long term disability
· Group medical

Cost Saving Ideas

31. Make sure your company has a program that offers all full-time employees the opportunity to receive a higher salary in lieu of accepting certain benefits (such as medical, dental and life-insurance). Today many employees are being carried on a spouse's plan. Why not let these employees choose a higher salary instead of benefits? As long as salary increases less than the cost of benefits, the company will save money and employees will increase their income.

32. Evaluate the cost of your superannuation administration. There are competitive programs that can reduce administrative costs. A simple evaluation of three different companies will determine whether you have an opportunity to realise savings. Even if you do not want to change the current superannuation administration you may still be able to negotiate better terms by showing your evaluation.

33. Reduce workers compensation insurance by aggressively reducing accidents. Evaluate your workers compensation actual to determine your claims history. Most companies set an actual rate and never re-evaluate them even though their experiences change. Depending on your business you may be surprised at the potential savings here.

34. Using the Internet conduct benefit surveys to comply your cost with those of similar organisations.

35. Challenge third-party providers to reduce administration costs by using the Profit Maps Model and passing those savings along to you.

36. Continue to monitor workers compensation costs and develop action plans to reduce them.

37. Develop a back to work programme that puts injured employees in alternative positions. There are times when injured employees want to remain active in the organisation and appropriate positions are available.

38. Negotiate settlements when long-term workers compensation situations dictate.

39. Eliminate alcohol at all company sponsored activities. This approach can prevent accidents, cut beverage costs at functions and reduce risks.

Communications

This category typically contains charges associated with

· Long-Distance Telephone
· Cellular Phone
· Pagers
· Data lines
· Fax lines

Cost Saving Ideas

40. Authorise a telecommunications consultant to analyse all your communication costs in terms of rates charged, equipment used, and programmes offered, promotions available, usage, cellular phone options, long-distance carrier performance and pricing, fax and security line combinations, past bills, and so on. Structure the contract so that the consultant bills on the basis of percentage of cost saved or refunds received. In this way, there will be no cost to you if the consultant is not successful in improving your bottom line. Review all areas of communication to ferret out these pockets of expense that often go unnoticed. Pagers and cell phones are usually ordered and distributed without the benefit of an organised plan. There are real and meaningful discounts if you shop around.

41. Continue to renegotiate rates and terms with the vendors who provide services. Set up an ongoing procedure for constantly renegotiating rates and terms.

42. Monitor and control your communications cost on the basis of the cost per unit test (guests check, or that like) in order to determine locations for exerting any additional control.

Utilities

In this category typically charges associated are

· Gas and Electricity Usage
· Water

Cost Saving Ideas

43. Authorise a utility consultant to analyse your utility costs. Such consultants would know how to deal effectively with the local public service companies in order to discover advantages or missed opportunities associated with gas and electric services. They should be fully authorised to check existing equipment and records. They should be experienced in developing an index and analyses and creating demand graphs to spot situations where you may have been overcharged. They would also represent your issues to the public utility commission.

44. Pay your consultant on the basis of a percentage of the savings associated with his or her action steps. The typical rate is 25% to 30% of the demonstrated savings and refunds over a specific period of time. There should be no charge if savings are not demonstrated.

45. Take energy conservation action steps including setting thermostats at 72°F. Automatic controls should be put in place to control temperature during off hours.

46. Turn off lights in conference rooms, restrooms and officers when they are not in use.

47. Turn off all lights not related to security at the close of business.

Professional fees

This category typically includes charges associated with professional services such as

· Legal and Human Resources Related Fees
· Proposals (domestic and international)
· Fees for Technical Services
· Other professional fees

Cost saving ideas

48. Talk about fees. If your lawyer does not bring up the subject of fees, you should. Do not be shy. In business, lawyers are free to set their own fees. The best time to discuss is at the beginning of a new legal matter.

49. Try to settle cases rather than litigate.

50. Have lawyers design standard forms you can use in routine transactions.

Conclusion

50 Ideas For Increasing Profits and Cost Reduction
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The more you understand the power of this list, the more you'll realize you must get your hands on all the other ideas to benefit your business. Go to [http://www.profitmaps.com.au] to obtain and use a simple 5 step process that can do this for your business.

As mentioned each idea has the potential to increase your net profit margin by many % points. Research shows profits increase by 4%-56% and costs reduce by 18%-37% within 2 years. Usually a 5% reduction in cost is adequate to turnaround most loss making businesses.

To obtain the maximum benefit and ensure that the actions result in improving your bottom-line you need a structured methodology or a process on an on-going basis such as the 5 step process suggested in profitmaps.com.au.

Contact

Name SKANDA Kumarasingam

Title Business Professional and Facilitator

Organization [http://www.profitmaps.com.au]

Contact Details skandak@profitmaps.com.au

(02) 9960 1916

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Internal and External Communication Approaches for Business

So you are a owner and you want to know how you will be able to expand your business. One of the most important things in the world of businesses is to trigger off great relationships with other enterprises so that you earn a name. In order to establish a reputation in the trading world, you need to have a great communication strategy. Business communication can essentially be divided into internal and external communication.

Things like establishing a brand, marketing your products and services, advertising, working on things like public relations, media management and even businesses dealings with customers or other firms fall in the category of external communication.

As for internal communication, things like building up the ideals of your company, setting certain guidelines that you expect to follow in your business, carving out strategy and goals to ensure success, keeping your employees inspired and egging on all those involved in your business falls into the category of internal communication.

Internal and External Communication Approaches for Business

All the things mentioned above contribute to the betterment of your business prospects. Be it internal communication or external communication, it ultimately contributes to the growth of your business. Thus, business communication is an integral aspect that will help you go ahead and establish yourself.

When it comes to business communication, or for that matter, any aspect, the most important thing is the customer. You need to ensure that you deliver what the customer wants. Even when it comes to things like marketing or advertising, you need to show what the customer appreciates and likes. Different customers accept different kinds of marketing. It all depends on you to ensure that via business communication, you are able to cater to the choices of a wide range of people. If you are able to master the art of impressing many people by various means, you will be able to take your business to the top.

However, merely enticing your customer by showing them certain things is not good business. Good business means getting a quality product together and then marketing for it wisely so that people accept it. Just promising your customers a lot and then delivering nothing will only get your business into a soup. So gauge your products and services and then embark upon advertising and marketing. Internal business communication is the key to get all your people together and then inspiring them to deliver the best.

If you want to create a world class product, the first thing that you need to do is believe in yourself. This is where internal business communication comes in. It helps you get all your employees together and tell them that you can pull it off with élan. If there is a lot of positive thinking and bursting enthusiasm in your camp, the good spirit will show in your product. Your employees are an integral part of the company, so keeping them happy and making them believe in the company and themselves is very important.

Business communication is a very important aspect of your business and you need to take great care in improving your communication strategy so that your business keeps booming!

Internal and External Communication Approaches for Business
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William King is the director of Wholesale Pages UK, UK Wholesalers Directory, Aid and Trade Wholesale Dropshippers Directory. He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

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Audio Conferencing - Cooler Than Cooler Talk

In this world of industrial globalization and razor thin margins, effective communication is often the only edge in tremendously competitive markets. That was often the mantra in several corporate improvement techniques for the past decade. Now that instantaneous data transmission and communication is at our fingertips, there's no excuse not to communicate within the team. Oftentimes however, this communication takes place in different time zones and in different countries. Companies are taking advantage of quantum leaps in technology and rightly so.

What's Your Phone Bill Like?

All these great ways to communicate do not come cheap. It is not called global capitalism for nothing. Global telecommunications companies are fighting tooth and nail for a piece of the large and delectable pie. So you tell your people to communicate, but now they have to communicate cost effectively? No rest for the weary is there?

Audio Conferencing - Cooler Than Cooler Talk

Every time the offshore branch calls up headquarters for a strategy discussion, your phone bill goes up. Every cellular phone call from your busy and mobile marketing executives is another cost on the balance sheet. The larger the organization, the more people have to talk. And you have to pay for all this?

More For Less

The good news is that audio conferencing systems are a cost effective way of helping your business processes and communications. They also cut down on time costs by aggregating several potential interactions into a single simultaneous call. It involves three or more parties talking to each other utilizing existing technologies. Instead of having your CFO relay a message to the Finance department, you can tell the entire team yourself!

Today, audio conferencing mainly utilizes two main types of technology. The first is the existing telephone infrastructure. The parties to the call are basically dialed in and everyone can speak and listen as if they were in the same room. The other method is using something called VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). In this technique, spoken audio is converted into digital data for transmission over the Internet. In both methods, the audio is routed into a central conference bridge which ties in all the other parties to the call.

Don't be misled. Audio conferencing isn't only for large corporations. Any kind of group can benefit greatly from its use. Government units, charitable organizations, and even churches engage in audio conferencing. Even space programs use it when they communicate with people in orbit.

So What IS The Bottom Line?

It should be very apparent that audio conferencing is a very beneficial thing. Call costs are reduced by simple virtue of the fact that less of them need to be made. Such a simple concept. Fancy that. And since everyone is already sitting around anyway, less time is spent on the call which is another cost reduction. Another benefit is the reduction of transportation costs. Your country managers can interact with each other in real time without the need for their physical presence. Bottom line? Anything that improves communications to better accomplish goals is a great thing.

Audio Conferencing - Cooler Than Cooler Talk
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Is your business expanding? Consider audio conferencing. Visit Audio-Conferencing-Guide.com today for more on conference phones and free conference calls.

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