Resources:

• How Retailers are Using Generative AI Right Now

• Starbucks and the Magic of Artificial Intelligence: Enhancing Coffee and Customer Experiences

• 5 Ways Amazon is using AI to improve your holiday shopping and deliver your package faster

• 12 most popular AI use cases in the enterprise today

• How To Make AI Work In Your Organization

• How to integrate AI into your business to make it more productive

• A Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing AI in Your Business

• 16 Essential Tips for Integrating AI into Your Business

• A Step-By-Step Process For Implementing AI In A Small Business

• How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Businesses

Insights into the Entrepreneurship Industry

• 5 Things you really need to know when starting your own business 

• How to spot the next 500 Unit Franchise

• Build a Bank before you need a loan

• Quizno Owner Could Purchase Bankrupt Group

• How Founders can manage Investor Relations During a recession

• The Major Benefits of Social Media for Small Business Owners

• How Small Businesses are competing for hires

• How Mom and Pop Stores are Making a Comeback

Insights into the Entrepreneurship Industry

• 5 Things you really need to know when starting your own business 

• How to spot the next 500 Unit Franchise

• Build a Bank before you need a loan

• Quizno Owner Could Purchase Bankrupt Group

• How Founders can manage Investor Relations During a recession

• The Major Benefits of Social Media for Small Business Owners

• How Small Businesses are competing for hires

• How Mom and Pop Stores are Making a Comeback

Insights into the Industry

• 19 Digital Marketing Solutions to Boost Brand Content and Loyalty

• How Marketers are working to Mitigate AI Issues

• Will AR Mirrors become a new Marketing Focus

• 7 Digital Marketing Trends

• Popular Brand Expands Product Line

• DTC Brands entering Warehouse Clubs

• Astrology being used to grow a brand

• Refurbished Products attract GenZ

EXAM STRATEGIES

The Exam Blueprint Is Your Best Friend

• Use the exam blueprint to focus your preparation efforts. You may prioritize studying instructional areas with the higher number of questions listed the blueprint.

Keep Expanding Your Knowledge

• As you advance in competition, exam items become more specialized to the Career Cluster. Therefore, you should start with an understanding of general business concepts in the Business Administration Core and build on the knowledge within the Career Cluster of your competitive event.

Review Your Work

• Don’t just take the exam! After you take the exam, compare your answers to the exam’s key. If you incorrectly answer a question, re-read the question, note the correct answer, and then read the descriptive key. The descriptive key explains the correct answer and why the other answers are incorrect. This will also help you understand the performance indicator addressed in the exam question.

Focus Your Efforts Where They Need To Be

• Each exam question is linked to an instructional area. For each incorrect answer, tally the instructional area it matches. If you are noticing a pattern of incorrectly answering questions within particular instructional areas, spend more time learning the knowledge and skills within those instructional areas. Spend more time reviewing the performance indicators under those instructional areas.

Form Study Groups

• Because there are only seven DECA exams, chances are high that some of your fellow chapters are taking the same exam as you, even if they are in a different competitive event. Use this opportunity to form study groups. You could consider taking the exam together and discussing the questions and answers. You could even divide and conquer to prepare study materials to help understand performance indicators.

Get In The Mode

• Recreate the testing scene. Find out from your chapter advisor the setting for your exam during competition. Will you be taking the exam online through an electronic device prior to the competition, or  using pencil and paper on-site during the competition? Find out how long you will have to take the test. Then try to replicate the setting using a practice test and using the same time frame you are given in competition.

Develop a Study Schedule

• Make sure to study and prepare on a regular basis. Plan a study schedule and calendar leading up to your competition. Do not study right before you take the test. Instead, concentrate on being calm and confident in yourself when taking the exam.

Test Taking Techniques

• When taking the exam, use these general test taking techniques:

  1. Familiarize yourself with the format.

  2. Read the question. Think about the answer.

  3. Read all choices before choosing your answer.

  4. Eliminate choices you know aren't correct.

  5. If you get stuck, circle and come back.

  6. Always take an educated guess.

  7. If time allows, review your work.

Remain Positive!

• Be confident. Refrain from engaging in negative discussions with other members prior to the exam, such as “I’m so nervous – I don’t know if I studied enough.”

PRESENTATION STRATEGIES

First Things First

Consider your presentation your time to highlight the most important parts of your competitive event. In every case, you're trying to sell the judge that your idea, concept or plan is the best. Start with that in mind, and develop an outline for your presentation. Your ultimate goal is for the judge to choose your presentation. Consult the presentation evaluation rubric in the DECA Guide to ensure that your presentation includes information for all of the scoring criteria. You may also consider visual aids and if you'll use technology — but make sure they are relevant and meaningful to your presentation.

Brand Yourself A Winner

When creating your project and delivering your presentation, you are essentially developing a brand for yourself and your ideas. Make your presentation’s brand attractive and easy for your judge to remember by wrapping it in a strong visual package. Tie together all the elements of your project, from the charts and graphs of your written document, to your slide backgrounds, to the shirt you wear with a signature element, such as a particular color palette or pattern.

Stop, Look, Listen

A great portion of your presentation’s success isn’t dependent on what you say, but how you say it. Like any good speech, the judge may not recall every statistic, market segment or promotional idea that you deliver, but they will remember how you made them feel. That’s where confidence in your delivery comes in. Being excited, nervous and anxious about your presentation can cause your rate of speech to increase rapidly, making your words fly by in a blur. Always remember the power of pause. When practicing your presentation, incorporate pauses into your phrases. This will create a dramatic, ear-catching effect to keep your judge attentive to your presentation, plus it will emphasize important points and information. 

Eye contact is another way to connect with your judge. Locking eyes shows confidence in the points you’re delivering and is another way to keep your judge engaged in your delivery.

A memorable part of your delivery that will greatly affect how your judge feels is your tone of voice. Your tone should vary depending on the subjects you’re covering in your presentation. For example, presenting a charity that your Community Giving Project supports may be most effective with a serious, earnest tone, yet in sharing your creative marketing  ideas for an Integrated Marketing Campaign event, an excitable, vibrant tone would be great for expressing your creativity. No matter what tone you use, make sure you vary your expression. Nothing will lose a judge’s attention more than a flat, boring delivery that gives them no feeling about your topic. 

Take Note

While relying on your innate ability to “wing it” is never recommended for competition, writing down paragraphs of perfect phrases, word-for-word, doesn’t guarantee that your presentation will turn out trophies either. Note cards are a handy tool to remember specific numerical data and exact quotes, but using them as a crutch for your memory could reduce your confident delivery, especially in form of eye contact with your judges. Instead, commit your presentation to memory as best as possible. If you thought it, developed it and wrote about it, you should be able, with a bit of practice, to present it well. Use your visual aid to help guide your talking points, with illustrations, diagrams or other images to help cue your words. 

Wrap It Up

Just because you reach your last slide doesn’t mean it’s time to thank your judge, shake hands and flee the room. The time after your formal presentation is crucial for further interaction with your judge. Take this opportunity to clarify parts of your presentation, show more of your personality and impress your judge with an ability to provide thorough answers to any questions they may have. The best way to flawlessly answer these questions is to prepare for them in advance. Use your advisors and peers as practice judges for your presentation, and request that they each ask you at least three follow-up questions to your presentation. You begin to become more confident delivering answers off-the-cuff and will begin to learn the most commonly asked questions of your presentation. Should your judge not immediately ask any questions, ask for them! 

To leave even more of an impact on your judge, provide them with a handout before you walk out the door, such as a brochure or outline. Use this strategy to highlight important takeaway points from your presentation, further brand yourself and your ideas, and keep a presence in front of your judge, even long after your final handshake. Make sure to have a final statement or call to action to show your judge that you’re interested in following through.