Business Information

America is a multi-cultural society but business meetings are mostly done in English and Spanish.  New York meeting space differs from organization to organization.  In America, golf is a very popular sport and most meetings take place between the executives at the golf courses where business deals are sealed.  Americans work 6 days each week from 9-5 (Monday – Friday) and 9-6 (Saturday), Sunday usually is a free or rest day.  Americans are not shy to play golf and do business at the same time. A golf course is one of the famous New York meeting space amongst executives.

American executives value their space and are known to avoid hand-shakes at all costs.  They appreciate if a business partner keeps their distance and do not think it appropriate to be hugged by a business associate or partner.  Exchanging gifts is not a must and gifts, if received are opened in the presence of those present and appreciated openly. When meeting a business associate for the first meeting, the dress code is expected to be official.  Do not dress casually as this does not augur well.

A business meeting with American executives is straight to the point, takes shorter time and is to a great extent decision oriented.  American does not consider a business card as important as other business associates from the oriental culture.  If no business card is offered at the meeting t do not take offence, they do not place too much emphasis on it.  Keeping time during such meetings is necessary and it is considered rude to arrive late for a meeting.  New York boast of some of the most advanced meeting places in the whole world.

Most of the meeting places or conferences in New York have the state of the art facilities required for meeting places.  American etiquette when it comes to eating and doing business slightly differs from the rest of the world.  It is imperative before setting out on a business meeting to understand how Americans prefer doing business and what makes them tick.  Americans are humorous people and love talking while doing business at the same time. Do not consider this rude, it is part of their culture.

It does not matter who the audience being addressed are.  The most important factor in giving a speech is preparation.  At any conference meetings, crowds expect to receive and hear different and new opinions.  Make no apologies at all.  It is a sign of lack of preparedness.   Whilst giving a speech, try as much as possible to captivate the audience either through short stories or interesting narratives.  During a speech presentation, do not disappoint try as much as possible to be clear, precise and keep it short and to the point.

Presentations through power-point makes better illustrations and gives new and better meaning to the listeners.  Make the presentations in advance; re-check if they make sense and if they are legible enough for all the audience.  At conferences, all eyes are on you and it makes sense to once in a while sweep your eyes across the room.  This makes the audience have a sense of belonging.  Be audible enough and do not use a monotonous voice that will send the audience to sleep.  Vary the voice tones at all costs.

During preparation, make sure the notes are clearly typed and numbered.  This helps incase a page goes missing or mixed up, it becomes very easy to know.  At all costs acknowledge your audience and appreciate the staffs behind the whole project who have worked tirelessly to make this a possibility.  After completion of the presentation, give room for questioning.  This will give you a chance in understanding if the audience have understood and are in need of further clarification. Prepare hand-outs incase there are people in the audience who prefer to have a better understanding later.

Do not give a speech blindly.  Know the objective and the targeted audience that the speech is intended to.  This will help in organizing the right tools when it comes to the final presentation.  During presentations, it sometimes make a big different when examples are used.  Examples are an easier way of explaining some hard to understand facts about a product or an occasion.  Using examples makes in easier to identify with your audience without causing unnecessary friction.