Read the following presentation
My name’s Marta Rodriguez. I’m Personnel Director of Tara Fashions. I’m going to talk to you today about our company. First, I’ll give you some basic information about Tara Fashions. Then I’ll talk about our overseas stores. After I’ll outline the strengths of the company. Next I’ll talk about career opportunities with Tara. And finally I’ll mention our future plans. I’ll be pleased to answer any questions at the end of my talk.
Let me start with some basic facts about Tara. The company started in 1978. We are family – owned business and our head office is in Cordoba, Spain. We sell clothes for men and women, and our customers are mainly fashion-conscious people aged 20 to 35. We have 15 stores in Spain. All of the stores are very profitable.
Right, those are the basic facts.
Let me add a few figures. We have an annual turnover of about €260 million. Our net profits last year were approximately €16 million. We have a workforce of just over 2,000 employees. So those are the numbers. Now about our overseas stores. We have 4 large stores in France and another 10 in other European countries. We are planning to open 5 new stores next year.
What are our strengths? We keep up with fashion trends. If we sport a trend, we can bring out a new design in 15 days. And we get it to the stores very quickly. We deliver to stores twice a week. And we sell our designs at the right price.
OK, now what about career opportunities? It’s quite simple. If you are ambitious and fashion-conscious, we have opportunities in all areas of our business. We will welcome you with open arms.
Finally, a few words about our new project. We are planning to open a new store in New York next year – on Fifth Avenue. This will give us a foothold in the US market. We’re very excited about this new development.
After reading the presentation complete the following chart.
Tara Fashions
| Where is the head office? | Cordoba, Spain |
| What does it sell? | |
| Who are its customers? | |
| Annual turnover? | |
| Annual net profits? | |
| Number of stores: in Spain? in other European cities? | |
| Strengths? | |
| Future plans? |
SITUATION
Imagine: Your friend has bought one of the things described below.
1. Ask him/her if he/she is happy to have got it.
2. Ask him/her about the details of the purchase.
1. The best thing I’ve ever bought is my camera because I can look back at all my travels and the people I’ve met, and it brings back memories that I can enjoy all my life.
2. Last week I bought some speakers for my Mac computer. They cost about £40, which is really good value. You just plug them into your computer and get sound as good as many hi-fis. This means I don’t have to buy a DVD player to watch films as I can do it on the computer and have a great sound.
Skills Practice
Role-play: Presentations
I. 1. You are a sales agent. You are making a presentation of your new product for a group of people. Try to do your best wing the pieces of advice given in “Some Hints for a Successful Presentation” (Text 3)
This is our new product – a CD tower system. As you can see, it’s attractive and stylish. The tower is made of wood and it holds twenty CDs. Let me tell you its dimensions. It’s 33 centimeters high, 18 centimeters long and 20 centimeters wide. And its selling price is just under £25 – a very competitive price.
It’s ideal for storing CDs and CD-Roms. It has several special features which should appeal to our customers. Firstly it has a soft-touch mechanism. This means you just touch a button and the CD comes out smoothly and quietly. Another advantage is that it’s easy to select the CD you want because the title is clearly displayed. A very useful feature too is that it’s simple to use. You can open the CD case without talking it off its tray.
The tower is well-designed. It’s robust, elegant and user-friendly. It’s very flexible I forgot to mention that – because the towers are modular, so you can put one on top of the other. That’s a big advantage for people who have lots of CDs. And one other thing, you can save £15 if you buy two units instead of one.
I think the CD tower will be one best-selling products. It really does meet the needs of music lovers. It’s so practical, it’s a high-quality product, and great value for money.
Are there any questions you’d like to ask?