Day One: Improving Business Communication
- Barriers and pitfalls of business communication
- Differences between written and spoken communication and their implications
- Managing e-mails to be noticed
- Writing effective business letters
- Writing professional agendas and minutes
- Writing instructions and guidelines
Day Two: What Makes an Effective Report?
- Characteristics of an effective report
- Understanding the readers’ needs
- Generating ideas – Mind mapping and brain storming
- Selecting and structuring the content – logical sequencing
- Sources of information and research techniques
- Great beginnings and neat endings
Day Three: The Writing Process
- Managing your time and priorities
- Sentences, paragraphs and readability
- Critical reading and managing comments
- Proofreading, grammar and punctuation
- Tables, diagrams, figures and graphs
- The executive summary
Day Four: Presentation Skills
- Characteristics of effective presentations
- Preparing a persuasive business presentation
- The pillars of effective presentations
- Structuring the presentation and making a case
- Positive body language
- Using visuals effectively
Day Five: Making a Case & Influencing Skills
- Choosing words for maximum impact
- Handling questions from your audience
- Team presentations to convince critics
- Supporting presentations with written documentation
- Making a persuasive business case
- Influencing Skills and getting support