Quarterly Sales Information Audience Analysis

Running Head: Quarterly Sales Information Audience Analysis 1

Quarterly Sales Information Audience Analysis

Leonard Anderson, Sr.

University of Phoenix

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Introduction

One of the biggest mistakes that a person can make when he or she is scheduled to speak to a group of people is not conducting an audience analysis. Not finding out as much as you can about an audience before the time when you have to present a message to the people that will make up the audience is like walking into a strange room at night without turning on the lights. Because you don't know the room and because you can't see what is in the room, there are a lot of accidents. You bump into furniture. You knock things over. You might even break something valuable. These are metaphors for the damage that can be done when speaking to a group of people without knowing anything about them. Speaking to a group of people without knowing who they are can result in damaged or broken relationships than can be difficult and sometimes impossible to fix. When the setting is a business and you're speaking to a variety of stakeholders, the damage can take a lot of different forms. If you're tagged to present to a group of potential investors or potential shareholders at a meeting and could end up making people lose confidence in the company and making a decision not to invest at all. If you have a presentation to make to your immediate supervisor or his supervisor and you say something the shows you don't know anything about him or her and what's important to them, then you can damage your own credibility and even have a negative impact on your supervisor. Whether your audience is your supervisor, a group of potential investors, youth at your church, customers, co-workers, your wife or your children, communication must always be designed with the audience in mind. According to Amy Merrick, in "Asking 'What Would Ann Do?'" (2006), you have to know who your audience is, what their values are, and what groups your audience members belong to.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the important elements of preparing to give an in-person quarterly sales presentation to an audience that consist of a variety of stakeholders. In this analysis the stakeholders are the company's managers, salespersons, and customers. The paper will be

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divided into four sections. Section one will focus attention general audience characteristics. Section two of the paper will look at the things that need to be considered when thinking of the customers that are in the audience. This will includes the appropriate channels to use and issues of diversity. Section three of the paper will look at the things that need to be considered when thinking of the salespersons that are in the audience. This discussion will include the appropriate channels to use and issues of diversity where salespersons are concerned. Section four of the paper will look at the things that need to be considered when thinking of the managers that are in the audience. This discussion will also include the appropriate channels to use and issues of diversity where the managers are concerned. The final section of the paper will over ways to ensure that the message is effective.

The presentation that is given has to take into consideration that these three groups are similar and also different in what they expect. The managers have a set of expectations about the information that they need to hear. The salespersons have their own set of expectations and needs about the kind of information they need to hear in a quarterly sales presentation and customers have their own set of expectations. According to Locker and Kienzler, "Audience analysis gives you the tools to shape messages and shape the product."

Audience Characteristics

When analyzing an audience, it is important to look at the obvious similarities as well as the obvious differences. Some of the demographic characteristics that need to be considered are the age, and gender of the people who make up the audience. You also want to have information about your audience's income level and educational level. Depending on your purpose or the message you are going to present, you might need to know your audience's religion. Locker and Kienzler (2008) include in audience characteristics what is called psychographic characteristics. Psychographic characteristics are the audience's values, beliefs, goals, and lifestyles.

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Customers, Channels and Diversity

When preparing the quarterly sales report with customers in mind there are several things to consider. Since customers do not work in the field, the message needs to take into consideration that they will not know certain terms or jargon. Therefore, the presenter needs to avoid these in the presentation. In general the kinds of things that customers are interested in are the cost of the product being sold, the models that are available, and product availability. The concerns that customers have include product safety and how complaints including, refunds and exchanges, are handled. Your channel is going to be face-to-face because this is an in-person presentation. However, during the presentation you can make use of technology to show short videos or customers shopping for the product of customers being interviewed about