Audience Analysis Paper - Effective Communication

Effective communication is vital in any business position. For sales people, communication is even more imperative because of their interaction with customers and employees. In this paper I will discuss the distinctiveness of an audience that would be required if I was presenting a quarterly sales information meeting to a group of stakeholders, which would also include the managers, sales people and its customers. I will also be discussing the communication channels that would be most suitable for specific meetings and some concerns that I may need to keep in mind because of the diversity of the audience attending the meeting.

When preparing a presentation of quarterly sales information you will want to discuss different topics, particularly pertaining to the corresponding audiences. Face-to-face presentations are common in sales and usually involve speaking to a large group of individuals. For instance, a face-to-face presentation might include showing graphs, spreadsheets and/or a PowerPoint presentation to the group of people from the company that has investments within the company. One consideration that you should consider most important with this channel of communication is that it allows the salesperson conducting the presentation to adapt to the audiences needs. If the meeting is being held for the stakeholders of the company, the presentation would be held differently than if the information or products were being presented to the managers, salespeople or even the customers. The stakeholders would be better informed with data contained in quarterly sales charts that entail the production of the business, especially dealing with financial consideration or gain. To have a successful presentation, I would need to gain knowledge of what roles each group plays within the business and who my audience will be. The groups they would fall under would be a primary audience, a secondary audience, and/or

Audience Analysis Paper 3

an auxiliary audience. I would place the managers in the primary audience because they have power over the business. The managers make the decisions that best fit the company. The secondary audience would consist of the sales people. The sales people need to understand the data presented to them in order to sell products and present accurate information to the customers. Since they are the ones that promote the product, knowledge would be power for them; the more they know the better. The auxiliary audience consists of the customers. The customers should be notified on where and how the company is standing. The specific characteristics that I would use to learn about my audiences are size, demographics and knowledge level. I would look at the size of my audience. That would be one of the first things you would want to know to better prepare your presentation. For a larger group presentation it usually calls for more structure and more formality. A substantially structured presentation to a much smaller group may be out of place and rigid. If you are meeting with a larger group you will need to be involved to make the audience members feel engaged during the presentation. A small group may be easier to persuade participation. Demographics are another factor to consider including occupation, or cultural background, ethic, gender, educational background and age. All groups are there to find out how sales are going and how we can improve them. The audience already has knowledge of the business so the speaker would not need to go into detail about the company's products. If the company had multiple products as the speaker, I would then discuss the sales numbers for each product and how they compare to others. I could compare and contrast to make suggestions for each product based on the