Read the conversation. What parts of a meeting structure do you find in it?

 

ALAN Ladies and gentlemen! Right, I'd like to welcome Signor Arturo

 

Foscatelli, our founder and president.

 

ARTURO Thank you! I have just completed a tour of our franchisees in the United

 

Kingdom and I must say I am very much encouraged by what I've seen.

 

ALAN That's good news, Mr Foscatelli, but I think I ought to tell you that some

 

of us here are not very happy about the way things are going.

 

ARTURO Perhaps that's because you have been looking at figures while I have been

 

talking to people. But I don't want to take up your time; please carry on.

 

ALAN Thank you. I'd now like to open up the meeting to questions and

 

discussion. Vikki, I think you had something you wanted to say?

 

VIKKI Yes. I'd like to have a second look at the sales chart that was distributed

 

at the start of this meeting.

 

IDA Sales chart?

 

VIKKI The sales gap analysis. Ida and her team used it to show that we ought to

 

spend more on advertising. Now, on this chart, I'd like to plot the money

 

that's been spent already. The scale on the y-axis will be different, of

 

course; we can read it in hundreds of thousands instead of millions. It's

 

the shape of the curve that I'm interested in.

 

NIGEL With respect, may I ask just what this exercise is supposed to achieve?

 

ALAN All in good time. Vikki?

 

VIKKI The advertising expenditure in 2006 was negligible, because the franchise

 

wasn't fully operational. In 2007 it was fifty thousand; 2008 – a hundred

 

and seventy thousand; 2009 – four hundred an ten thousand pounds.

 

NIGEL Hang on, what was 2009 again?

 

VIKKI Four-ten. Right. We can only get a whole-year figure for 2010 based on

 

the advertising department's proposals: their budget will amount to – four

 

hundred and ten thousand times one point eight five – nearly seven

 

hundred and sixty thousand. What happens after that, in 2011 and '12, is

 

anybody's guess. But let's join the dots and see what the curve looks like.

 

IDA Mr Chairman, and Mr Foscatelli, I really must protest. We didn't come

 

here today to play party games.

 

ARTURO Oh, I rather enjoy party games. Look at this line. It goes up even more

 

steeply than the sales forecast.

 

VIKKI Thank you! That's precisely my point. An eight-fold increase in

 

advertising over two years has produced less than two and a halftimes the

 

revenue.

 

IDA And how do you suppose we got the extra revenue? An extra three

 

 

hundred and sixty thousand in advertising to bring in an increase in

 

turnover of one point six million! Or to put it another way, in 2008 our

 

advertising budget was ten point five per cent of total outgoings. In 2009

 

it rose to eighteen per cent.

 

VIKKI Exactly!

 

IDA But – but, according to our 2010 figures, even with my proposed eighty-

 

five per cent increase, advertising will still only account for twenty per

 

cent of outgoings. Twenty per cent!

 

ALAN Ladies, ladies, please! Mr Foscatelli?

 

ARTURO All I wanted to say was that these 2010 figures are simply targets, and the

 

way we’re going I’m afraid we’re going to fall short of them. Figures are

 

valuable, statistics are valuable, but statistics, especially percentages, can

 

hide as much as they reveal. What matters to me is the bottom line.

 

NIGEL I’m very glad to hear you say that, sir. I was afraid we were going to lose

 

sight of it altogether.

 

VIKKI Oh please!

 

ARTURO A franchise network is only as good as its franchisees. I’ve just seen a

 

cross-section of our people and I am impressed. Our selection procedures

 

are obviously working well. It does seem to me, however, that on the

 

training side we are falling down somewhat.

 

IDA Forgive me for interrupting. Are we to take this as a motion of no

 

confidence in Franchise Development?

 

ALAN Hold on, Ida – don’t jump the gun.

 

ARTURO All the advertising in the world will not help our brand image if our

 

franchisees are not running their own businesses efficiently. The budget

 

that I would like to see rise sharply next year is that for education and

 

training.

 

NIGEL How do you think the money should be spent?

 

VIKKI I really don’t think the president should be expected to answer a question

 

like that off the top of his head. I would like to point out, however, that

 

 

my remarks at the beginning of this meeting echo what Mr Foscatelli has

 

just said.

 

IDA It can’t be easy echoing something that hasn’t been said yet!