Weathering the storm(s)

I've been hunkered down now for over a month weathering both winter and financial storms, but I thought I would peek my head out for a brief moment to share what I've been doing and see if anyone else has been following a winter/economic survival plan.

On the weather front, we've made some significant strides towards handling winter. We installed all new windows to upgrade our home into 21st century standards. No more plastic shrink wrap to put up and pull down. Not only is this a huge improvement cosmetically, but we are already noticing some significant cost savings over our old drafty windows. Secondly, we have gotten our home insulated recently.
Some other common ideas we've implemented for our home involve the use of a programmable thermostat. Settings allow for temperature thresholds for certain time periods. They are flexible enough to recognize separate weekend settings too.

On the financial storm front, it seems as though this has already been going on for quite a while and my initial rationing and preparations need an overhaul for what now seems to be a worsening and prolonged situation.

Despite all the news announcing corporate layoffs (big and small), financial bailouts, credit card crunches and general rising unemployment, I'm pleased to say I am still employed full time. Perhaps I am lucky, or perhaps I'm on borrowed time; we'll see.

Either way, cost cutting is being deployed by not only businesses but by households as well. Here are some of the cost cutting measures I have either done already or will be doing in the immediate future:

1. Look at your "nice to have" monthly fixed expenses:

• Re-financed my home to take advantage of significantly lower rate
  
• I've bundled my home phone, internet and television services to one provider for an overall reduced rate
  
• Trimming down the number of paid for channels or reducing internet speed packages
  
• Trimming down Cell phone packages to lower minutes per month, or use of family plans
  

2. Look at ways to reduce necessary monthly fixed expenses:

• Turn your heat down when not at home or layer clothing
  
• Shorter showers to save on hot water heating costs
• Turn lights out when leaving rooms
  
• Turn off surge protector power-strips that are connected to computer equipment or entertainment units when not in use
• Grocery store
• buy in bulk
• Try wholesale clubs for staple items like toilet paper, shampoo, soap, etc.
  
• clipping coupons
• buying items when on sale and planning meals around those ingredients rather then meals dictating your shopping
• use the grocery store loyalty cards - the savings can be significant and some offer gas discounts on top of grocery bill savings
• Recycle more versus throwing things away to reduce the frequency of garbage pick ups or take your trash to the transfer station yourself.

3. Evaluate all non-essential expenses:

• Dining out
• Try inviting guests over for dinner, cooking meals at home in general often costs less, especially where cocktails or wine is involved. If the offer is reciprocated, you'll still have evenings out for half the cost
• Perhaps your dog doesn't need to go to doggy day care everyday
• Try every other day or every two days
  
• Take your dog for walks and get the benefit of exercise while you're at it!
• Go for a hike versus go to the movies

4. Other cost cutting ideas:

• Learn to sew and mend clothes with missing buttons, fixing hems, etc.
• Sell any items that are taking up space in attics, basements, garages
• Stay-cations, look for smaller scale vacations or getaways that are more local to avoid high travel costs
• luxury items can wait

There are plenty more out there, so feel free to comment and add on!

Tip - Business Presentations

So you are tasked with creating or delivering a presentation.   Whether it's delivered electronically or in person with Audio Visual, there are some considerations to keep in mind.   Regardless of audience, there should always be a general format you are keeping in mind.  I was once taught this by a mentor at a former company that was steeped in the tradition of being highly professional and always delivered the best presentation/sales pitch.  "Tell 'em what you are going to tell 'em, Tell 'em, then tell 'em whatcha told 'em".

That's the magic formula!

Here are some more tactical ideas to consider when delivering a presentation:

1. Audience - You want to speak or display content that speaks to the vernacular/lingo or vocabulary level of your audience.  Nothing allows an audience member to feel more part of your presentation than to use the language they use every day.  Nothing isolates an audience more than to speak well over or under their intelligence level or business perspective.

 

2. Branded Templates - If you are representing your company, use the company approved templates, not something you feel looks nice or cute. It's always best to represent your company first rather than your self interest.  Also, if your audience is a room full of clients from a single company, perhaps co-branding the presentation is in order.  This gives the sense that the speaker/presenter is "one of us" from the audience perspective.  *It is important to note that you must have permission to use other company logos and there may be strict rules on how their logos or brand is displayed.  Also the content of the presentation may need to be footnoted with proprietary, confidential or some other derivation of ownership; check with a legal department if available.

3. Formatting - Take care in utilizing the same font, tabs or bullet structure throughout the entire presentation.  This provides visual continuity and allows a participant to focus more on the meaning of your presentation rather than digesting the cognitive distractions in a continual moving target of title centering, heading boldness, bullet indents and sub-bullet icon discrepancies.

4. Light heartedness/humor -  Be very careful here.  This treads along the lines of talking politics or religion at a dinner party.  Regardless of audience, generally speaking, too much humor can sabotage the intent of your presentation, so use it sparingly, if at all.   The goal of a presentation is to get your point across with credibility, convince your audience of a particular point, or sell a product or service.  Too much humor may send the message that you are not to be taken seriously.

5. Animation - this is along the same lines as point #4.  Too much visual interaction via fly in from the left, camera shudder bullet points, sound effects, star wipes, etc. can be distracting.  If you must have an effect, pick one style and stick with it throughout the entire presentation.   Watch your presentation through on a timer start to finish and see if it becomes tiresome or distracting.   Chances are high that no one will be more impressed by your powerpoint skills versus your ability to present meaningful content and motivate a call to action.

6. On the screen versus "out of your mouth" - Here the standard 80/20 rule should apply*.  20% of what you say should be on the screen the other 80% should come out of your mouth, otherwise, why are you even there?  Value your personal contribution to the meaning and detail of higher level bullet points.

* If you are handing your presentation over to someone or an audience  to be read and learned, use the speaker notes to fulfill the total package concept, not within the slide itself.

7.  Length - Be respectful of the time you have with your captive audience.  If you know you have only 1 hour to present, give yourself about 50- 55 minutes to cover the material and leave the remaining time for questions.  If your presentation is a success, the audience members will be at the ready to ask for more of your time at a subsequent meeting time.  This is a good thing!  When your audience wants to hear more from you, you've done your job well, in fact so well, they want more!

8.  Basic Structure  - Outline what you are going to tell them,  tell them, then at the end review what you've told them.  A consistent message will always have a better chance of leaving the desired impression than a scattered concept that leaves your audience confused as to what they just heard.

Good luck and break a leg!