2. A Friend with a Grin

Suddenly I seem to be a VIP in my friend Phil's eyes. Very gratifying.

Business buzzing

Phil's offices are located in a pleasant business park near Bracknell. As soon as I walked through the door, I could feel that heady ‘business buzz' that I remember from my own corporate days. Men and women were striding purposefully into meeting rooms, talking earnestly into mobile phones, or greeting visitors in the busy reception area.
"Rest assured it's not always like this!" Phil greeted me with a handshake and a smile. "We're entertaining our shareholders and our biggest clients today: a series of presentations right through the day, culminating in a big speech and then a drinks reception at 5pm."
"Aha - that explains all the busy-looking people! So who's giving the big speech, Phil?"
Phil coughed nervously. "Er - I am! As CEO, I need to provide a summary of the year just gone - and a perspective on what I think lies ahead for us in the year to come."
"Sounds impressive, Phil - are you feeling confident?"

Perfect Presentations

Phil smiled. "I am now. That's why I invited you, Jane. I wanted you to see the difference that Grammar to Go has made to my presentation - both the content and the style. If you're free until 5pm, I'd love it if you could sit in on my final speech. See what you think - then I'll show you what I was going to present before I signed up to Grammar to Go. I think you'll notice quite a difference!"
"Great, how exciting - I'd love to stay and listen. But it's only 11am now, Phil - won't I be getting in the way in the intervening hours?"
"Not at all." Phil indicated we should move towards the lifts. "Like I said, there are presentations running all morning and all afternoon. I wanted you to listen to a couple of others - and give me your honest opinion."
The first session of the day was being held in a spacious boardroom on the second floor.
"That's our Sales Manager for the East of England." Phil indicated a tall, nervous-looking man stepping up to the microphone.

... or not?

As soon as the man began speaking, I could tell he didn't feel comfortable. The Sales Manager had prepared around ten slides to accompany his speech - but they didn't do him any favours. Even without knowing much about the subject matter, I spotted numerous grammatical and spelling errors that, sadly, detracted from his presentation. I could see that some of the other people had noticed them, too.
When the Sales Manager had finished, he was replaced by a younger man who began to speak confidently about his team's progress that year.
"That's one of our team leads", whispered Phil. "Can you see the difference?"
I certainly could. In contrast to his managers' presentation, this man spoke confidently and precisely, and the slides that accompanied his speech were neat, succinct and word-perfect.
After the applause died down, Phil turned to me, smiling. "Example number one: guess who's been using Grammar to Go in our Norwich office!"
"That's not hard!" I laughed. "And no prizes for guessing who thought they didn't need it! I don't think the Manager will take much convincing, though, do you?"

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