看着现在大家都在忙着准备考试，就写一篇关于BEC高级口语的吧。望能对在准备BEC higher的同学们有些帮助~
　　具体的考试形式就不多说了，相信大家都知道，这里主要说一下presentation部分经常考的内容。由于很多同学的专业并不是和商务有关的，因此积累一定的商务知识和素材就十分必要。
　　首先是Marketing，一般presentation部分考官会给三个题目供你选择，可以说必有一道是关于Marketing的，所以这方面的材料要好好准备。以下是我当时准备的一些常用材料。
　　I. Pricing Strategy
　　1. the product itself: the cost of producing plus your expecting profit
　　2. similar products, the rival firms: What are their prices? What are your product’s competitive advantages? In what aspect does your product superior to others? This can add extra value to your product.
　　3. target customer: Whether they are wealthy or not? Can they afford the price?
　　Ex: How to ensure that price levels for new products are set appropriately?
　　○1 The first problem is who your target customers are. Their income, occupation, preference.
　　○2 Do market research to make sure whether your target customers can afford the price level. There are mainly four ways of doing market research: survey, telephone interview, observation and questionnaire.
　　○3 Test your product in a small region. Find out how it sells, get the feedbacks of the customers. Decide whether to make any adjustment.
　　II. Product Package
　　Ex: The importance of packaging products appropriately
　　○1 Traditionally, the purpose of packaging a product is to protect the product or to make it convenient for carrying, as some products are liquid or sticky.
　　○2 Today, the package add value to the product, especially to the consumer goods. The package is the product’s first impression to the customer. They may judge the quality of the product by its package and decide whether to buy it or not. Sometimes, a gorgeous package is a symbol of identity, especially when the product serves as a gift or present.
　　○3 You have to packaging your products appropriately so that your products can stand out from the crowd and be bought by the customers.
　　III. Diversification
　　Ex: The importance of product diversification to the success of a business.
　　这时你可能对product diversification并不是很熟悉，可以举一些案例，比如, the case of coca-cola: despite of its regular cola, it produce diet cola for people who get diabetes or adiposity problems. 然后借以说明product diversification的作用。
　　○1 Meet the needs of different customers.
　　○2 Increase the company’s market shares/market penetration.
　　○3 Marketing segmentation: the division of potential buyers according to age, sex, lifestyle, etc with the aim of designing and promoting goods and services to meet their specific need.(此定义引自《牛津英汉双解商务英语辞典》，我认为很不错的一本商务英语词典，每个词汇都有在商务方面的中英两种解释和例句)
　　IV. Advertising
　　1. Media
　　○1 The types of media: TV and radio commercial, newspapers and magazine, poster and bill board, direct mail, the Internet, etc
　　○2 Advantages and disadvantages of the major types
　　TV: high attention, combination of sight, sound and motion; high cost and less audience selectivity.
　　Newspaper: flexibility, good local market coverage, broad acceptance; short life, poor reproduction quality.
　　Magazine: high geographic and demographic selectivity, credibility, long life, good pass-along readership; having rivals in the same magazine.
　　Direct mail: audience selectivity, flexibility, no ad competition within the same medium; relatively high cost, junk mail image.
　　Internet: high reach of international audience, similar effect as TV commercial, interactive; the users of Internet are limited, compared with TV.
　　○3 Consider your target audience and your budget to make a wise decision.
　　2. Agency
　　○1 Select a suitable agency
　　A. Consider the reputation and past performances of the agency. Agencies provide the client with the services of highly skilled individuals who are specialists in their chosen field.
　　B. Same compensation philosophies. Different compensation systems may result in disagreement.
　　C. Stability in agency’s policies. Mergers and acquisitions may lead to policy changes. This will have negative effect on the performance of the agency.
　　○2 Ensure that agencies maintain a high level of effectiveness.
　　A. Regular reviews: financial and qualitative assessments.
　　B. Financial audit: It is designed to verify costs and expenses, salaries for the employees, and payments to the media and outside suppliers.
　　C. Give detailed instructions or certain trainings to the agencies about how to represent a company.
　　D. Make full disclosure of any potential and existing conflict of interest. One agency cannot run two accounts which are indirect competition with each other. In some cases, even indirect competition will not be tolerated.
　　3. Trade fair and exhibition
　　○1 Types of exhibition. What are exhibited? Whether it is related to your field? Whether you can find potential customers, suppliers, or partners?
　　○2 Scale of exhibition. How many participants are listed? Whether it is local or national or international?
　　○3 Publicity of exhibition. How far is the organizer willing to increase public awareness? Whether they are able to attract public attention and the leading companies of the field?
　　○4 Cost of admission. Some of the exhibitions are relatively high, because they wish to attract only the professionals of their own field. Some are admission free, because their target market is the entire population.
　　○5 Other points: Location, transportation, accommodation and time.
　　Ex: The importance of selecting appropriate members of staff to attend exhibitions.
　　○1 The exhibition is a stage for a company to exhibit its product, capacity and credibility.
　　○2 The members need to know every aspect of the product and the company, and what the company wants in the exhibition.
　　○3 They should have eloquence to promote the product and the flexibility to adapt to the changes.
　　○4 Because they represent the image of the company, they should also have a good physical appearance.
　　V. Market Research
　　The definition of market research: study carried out by a company before launching a new product, into the needs, lifestyle, income, etc of potential buyers and to measure the success of similar products that are already available. It may involve interviewing people in the street or giving away sample product.
　　○1 Market research can be done for both a product and a company. As for a product, it is the first step when promoting a new product. It can find out whether the market accept the product or not. As for the company, market research can find out the customers’ opinion about the after-sales services and corporate image.
　　○2 There are generally four ways of doing market research, observation, survey, questionnaire and telephone interview.
　　○3 There are four procedures while doing market research. First, represent suitable questions. Second, record the customers’ feedbacks. 　　Third, gather these statistics. Forth, analyse them and draw a conclusion.
　　VI. Sales
　　Ex: How to sell a product effectively in international markets.
　　○1 Advertising. Choose a media to advertise your products in a foreign country, TV commercials, magazines, bill board, or etc. Make sure it suits the local tastes. Maybe you can try to sell on the net; it will receive the world-wide attention.
　　○2 Do market research. Find out whether the products are accepted by foreign customers. It can be carried out as surveys, observations, and questionnaires.
　　○3 Adjust your product to the local tastes. Although the case of your products are the same, you can change some details. Take IKEA, the largest furniture retailer, for example, is doing well in suiting the local taste.
　　○4 What I want to put emphasis on is franchising. Franchising is a good way to sell your prosuct in a foreign country. As local businessmen understand their own culture best.