Speaking. Discuss this and present your opinions.

a) Every company tries to present its products or services at different fairs and exhibitions. Why do you think companies want to exhibit what they can offer?

b) When a company wants to participate in a fair or an exhibition, there are a lot of things to pay for. Participation is expensive. What do you think the participation cost usually includes?

Fairs and Exhibitions

Trade fairs and exhibitions are held over all over the world. Firms and companies are always eager to participate in them because they attract thousands of visitors, including many potential buyers. You will find no better chance to advertise your goods and make contracts and agreements with future customers. It is also a unique chance to establish new markets because nothing else makes your products or services better known outside your region or country. In this respect, international fairs and exhibitions are especially important, though domestic ones are also very advantageous. There are many advantages of fairs and exhibitions – making transactions, getting new orders, making contracts and agreements, advertising your products, contacting potential customers, expanding your market and opening up new ones. These advantages are not limited to the time an exhibition or a fair is being held, but continue on as inquiries are received concerning your goods and offers are made for the products in which your contracts were interested.

There is a difference between an exhibition and a fair. At a fair you do not only exhibit your goods but also may sell on the spot. At an exhibition you usually only exhibit, without selling directly – though every exhibition has a commercial center where one can make contracts and agreements for future supplies.

It is usually quite expensive to participate in a fair or an exhibition. The participation fee is often quite high. Next, you pay for the exhibition space – the greater the space is the more you pay. Then, you should prepare that space to exhibit your goods or services. That means installing a stand or a booth, which may cost quite a lot. Another expense is the booklets or brochures placed in your booth and bulletin boards, advertising or giving information about your company and its products. Firms and companies try to make their own presentations during fairs and exhibitions, and often organize receptions. These presentations and receptions provide opportunities to contact potential customers, advertise the products, and greatly stimulate contracts. But they are expensive. Therefore, nor every company can afford to take part in the most expensive great international exhibitions or fairs. Smaller organizations tend to limit themselves to local events of this kind that are much cheaper. However, international or country – wide exhibitions and fairs provide much cheaper opportunities.

Some fairs and exhibitions are traditional and are held annually. These have special centers built for item, designed just for that exhibition or fair. A good example is HELEXPO, the international exhibition in Thessaloniki, Greece. It was founded in 1926, and is now held during the first fortnight in September. The fair premises and buildings occupy a great area in the very center of the city.

There are also fairs and exhibitions organized periodically, which are devoted to achievements in a certain branch of economy. These are usually named accordingly, as are “International Tourism – 2008” and “Electronics –09”.

2. Comprehention check up. Summarize the information in the text:

a) the advantages of participating in fairs and exhibitions;

b) the cost of participating in fairs and exhibitions;

c) the difference between annual and periodic fairs and exhibitions;

d) the difference between fairs and exhibitions.

 

Role – play

STUDENT A

You are an owner of a business. A representative of an exhibition that will be organized in your city has come to suggest that you participate. Ask him/her appropriate questions. You are interested in receiving some information about what kind of exhibition it is, how your participation might help your business, how much your participation will cost, what you will have to pay for it, and how you will benefit from it. Make your decision about participating and tell the representative about it.

STUDENT B

You are a representative of an exhibition that will be organized in your city. (You will have to decide what kind of exhibition it is). You have come to an owner of a business to convince him/her to participate. Answer in detail all of his/her questions, and try to convince him/her that, despite the cost, participation will be very advantageous to his/her business.

 

Role – play

At the exhibition (fair). Now it is time to give the two presentations you prepared for the exhibition (fair) where your company (partnership) is participating. As one group makes their presentation, the other group`s members play the role of visitors, and then the groups change places.

Each presentation follows this pattern:

a) The person who chosen earlier gives the presentation speech.

b) Visitors ask question and the presenter, with one or two of his/her assistants (also selected earlier), answer them in great detail. The presenter chooses which questions to answer him/herself and which to give to the assistants.

c) Following the question-answer session, everybody in the group (including the presenter) takes the role of a stand attendant. Every stand attendant should talk to one visitor, answer his/her questions and give any of the explanations needed. The aim of every stand attendant is to convince the visitor to buy the products or services, or better yet, to make a contract (agreement) for their regular delivery to his/her store. An attendant may talk to the visitor about one or more product or service. After the conversations are finished, roles are changed, and the second group makes its presentation.

 

Speaking and Writing.

The sentences below are from a presentation speech. Which of them belong to the following topics: Production, History, Markets and Sales? In what order should they follow each other inside each topic? In what order should the topics follow each other? Put all the sentences in their correct order.

a) In the graph you can see the growth of production over the last 5 years.

b) The firm was established 20 years ago, in 1987.

c) Quality is our principal objective in manufacturing.

d) The purpose is to increase sales in the domestic markets.

e) The founders were three men who joined their capital, investing it in this business.

f) Sales in the domestic market are lower than those in the international market.

 

Writing

Imagine you are a Customer Support Manager. Complete this short presentation to your staff with these ‘signposting’ words or phrases.

a) to sum up e) firstly i) finally

b) let us now turn f) this means J) on the other hand

c) during g) on the contrary

d) as you may know h) secondly

 

There are three key groups we need to take care of – and the first of those is the customer, the second is the customer and the third is the customer! ¹……… the next five minutes I will outline three reason why we need to re - focus on our customer care programme.

²………, we know that a dissatisfied customer never buys from us again. ³………, if we address the customer’s complaints satisfactorily, nine times out of ten he will stay with us. ⁴……… front – line staff have to be given the right to deal immediately with complaints.

⁵………, we need to give the customer added value. This needn’t be very expensive for us. ⁶……..., it might simply mean staff following up sales more quickly with a phone call.

⁷……….., we need to train our staff more efficiently and decide on a clear customer focus policy. ⁸………., we have a team working on a proposal for this.

⁹………., we need to improve and update our customer care approach.

¹⁰………. to the future. I propose we spend the next 30 minutes making a short action plan which we can present to the management.

 

7. Read the text and fill the gaps in with prepositions and linking words from the box about the text. (Note: ’x 3’ and ‘x 4’ mean that the presentation will need to be used three or four times).

to (x3) of (x3) in (x4) on however at first into with from