What a finish!

At the end of a business presentation, we normally finish with a concluding statement. During the closing moments, you should:

• inform the audience that you are about to finish (now they know they really have to sit up and listen)
  
• summarize the main points
• leave the audience with something to remember

Here are three common ways to signal the end of your presentation:

• "To conclude, I'd like to repeat the point I made at the beginning."
• "To summarize, then, we expect to improve our sales this year."
  
• "To finish, I'd like to recap on the three main points in my talk."
  

Do not use "at last" in the final paragraph. This means "na endlich!", and leaves the audience with the impression that you can't wait to finish and go somewhere more interesting.

When President Barack Obama made his inauguration speech on 20 January, he  used only one of the above points: he left his audience with something to remember.

In our exercise, we take a closer look at the last paragraph of Obama's speech. Could you learn something from him for your business presentations?