Business | English learning podcast Conversation | Episode 2

[Music] welcome back English Learners my name is Marco and I am joined by Erica how are you Erica I'm doing great Marco and you excellent I'm doing really well and I'm really excited about our lesson for today that's right we've got an intermediate lesson today and we're going to study some real English English that you use every day right that's right English that native speakers really use exactly and today as Erica mentioned we have a intermediate lesson and not only is it intermediate but it's a business lesson yes so today we're listening into a sales

meeting and we're going to learn some great useful English to talk about sales strategies so we're going to learn English for sales strategies for making suggestions and for responding to suggestions great so why don't we take a look at our vocabulary preview for today vocabulary preview so our vocabulary preview is a part of our lesson when we teach you some really important words that will help you to understand the dialogue better okay great so that is what vocabulary preview is we have two words for you today and we can start off by looking at the

first one our first word today is Drive Sales Drive Sales Drive sales to drive sales and that means to increase sales right to sell more exactly so to Drive sales okay so now let's look at our second word and it's an interesting one it's promotion promotion promotion promotion so Erica what is a promotion exactly okay so here we're not really talking about getting a better job right okay yeah not like a job promotion no we're talking about a marketing strategy okay so I can give you an example suppose that I want to buy shampoo uhhuh

and if I go to the supermarket and I see buy one and get one free so that's a two for one that's a two for one promotion yeah okay that's a sales promotion or perhaps the shampoo in the supermarket is less expensive than usual maybe yeah usually maybe it costs $5 but today it costs $4 that's a sales promotion great so that's a really good marketing strategy exactly and we'll hear this word in our dialogue today great so we are ready to listen to our dialogue it's going to be pretty fast so it might be

a little bit difficult to understand but don't worry if you don't understand everything because later in this lesson we're going to explain all the important words and [Music] phrases all right people we're holding this meeting today because we've got to do something about our sales and we need to do it now I want Concrete Solutions how do you plan to drive sales Roger well um in fact we're the most expensive in the market so maybe we need to lower our prices to match the competitors lower our prices not very creative it'll never fly with Swan

what kind of thinking is that jeez anyone have a better plan Natalie um perhaps um a promotion maybe a two for one offer or or something like that what that's the same thing bad idea really bad idea damn it people come on think the CEO will be here any minute hello Mr Swan oh Mr Swan hello Mr Swan do we have any ideas yet yes Mr Swan we were kind of considering a two for one offer to get more competitive a two for one promotion H I kind of like the sound of that it sounds

like something we should consider yeah exactly that's just what I was thinking in fact it's a brilliant idea I'm glad we thought of that very [Music] creative okay so an interesting manager right I don't know about interesting maybe I would think bad manager we're going to talk about him later on in the show but now let's take a look at our language takeaway language takeaway okay so language takeaway is the part of our lesson where we teach you the most important important words from the dialogue all these words that we are going to focus on

can be found in today's dialogue exactly so we have three words for you today let's look at the first one match the competitors match the competitors match the competitors match the competitors great so we have some examples for you so you can listen and try and see if you can figure out what match the competitors really means example one we guarantee that we can match the competitors's lowest price example two it's impossible for us to match the competitors our costs are just too high example three do you think we can match our competitors prices and

still keep our quality High ah okay so I see that match the competitors means to be as good as or better than other companies in the same industry exactly mat the competitors all right so let's move to our second word today for language takeaways and it is in the market in the market in the market in the market we heard this phrase in the dialogue and it means in the industry exactly I can say for example English pod is the best language pod in the market so of all the podcasts that teach English English pod

is the best of course no doubt about it I totally agree right or I can give you another example iPods are the most popular MP3 players in the market so of all the MP3 players in the world iPods are the most popular so let's move to our final word for today and it is it'll never fly it'll never fly it'll never fly it will never fly so this phrase sounds a little bit strange I know fly are we talking about an airplane here what's going on exactly but we're not so so we're going to give

you some examples and try and guess what it'll never fly really means example one this marketing plan will never fly it's just too expensive example two what you want to sell bikinis in Alaska that'll never fly example three Brad told me his idea for a film script but the story will never fly it's not interesting enough so it means it won't work it won't work it's not a good idea they'll never agree exactly great so now we've seen a lot of useful phrases and we are ready to listen to our dialogue a second time but

this time it's going to be slow so you'll be able to understand a little bit better and you'll be able to hear the words and phrases we were just talking about all right people we're holding this meeting today because we've got to do something about our sales and we need to do it now I want Concrete Solutions how do you plan to drive sales Roger well um in fact we're the most expensive in the market so maybe we need to lower our prices to match the competitors lower our prices not very creative it'll never fly

with Swan what kind of thinking is that jeez anybody else have a better plan Natalie um perhaps um a promotion maybe a two for one offer or something like that what that's the same thing bad idea really bad idea damn it people come on think the CEO will be here any minute hello Mr Swan oh Mr Swan hello Mr Swan do we have any ideas yet yes Mr Swan we were kind of considering a two for one offer to get more competitive a two for one promotion H I kind of like the sound of that

it sounds like something we should consider yeah exactly that's just what I was thinking in fact that's a brilliant idea I'm glad we thought of that very creative okay great I hope everyone understands a lot better now and I hope everyone could listen out for some of those key words right so now it's time for us to take a look at fluency Builder fluency Builder so with fluency Builder we try to help you increase your fluency we take a word or phrase that you already know and show you how to say it a little bit

more naturally a little bit more like a native English speaker right and we have three of these words for you today yeah let's start with the first one okay so often students will say something like I'll be here soon or I will arrive soon right and these sentences are correct they're totally fine but I think there's a better way to say this right and we heard it in the dialogue so let's listen to what the person in the dialogue said the CEO will be here any minute the CEO will be here any minute okay so

be here any minute he'll be here any minute it just sounds a little bit more natural yeah I think I use this phrase quite often he'll be here any minute he'll be here soon yeah great okay so let's move on to our second phrase for fluency Builder so this phrase will help you to learn how to say I'm thinking about something in a better sounding way right so you can say something like we are thinking about a sales strategy or that sounds like something we should think about right and it's perfectly correct yeah there's no

problem with this but in the dialogue we heard something a little bit different so let's listen to it it sounds like something we should consider it sounds like something we should consider so consider sounds like a pretty natural way of saying it right yeah and you know I think it sounds really kind of smart yeah it sounds more more formal even a little more professional yeah it's a good word y okay brilliant so let's move on to our third word Marco you already said our third word oh yeah I actually did brilliant um that's a

great word right there yeah a lot of people might say that's a great idea or great but in the dialogue we heard another way of saying the same idea that's a brilliant idea that's a brilliant idea okay so this is great but I would have to say that it's a little bit more British English yeah I'd agree with you there but I also think it sort of gives more power to this idea that it's a good idea brilliant idea that it's a really really good idea yeah yeah I like that word okay so we're ready

to listen to our dialogue again a third time but at its normal speed is it all right people we're holding this meeting today because we've got to do something about our sales and we need to do it now I want Concrete Solutions how do you plan to drive sales Roger well um in fact we're the most expensive in the market so maybe we need to lower our prices to match the competitors lower our prices not very creative it'll never fly with swan what kind of thinking is that jeez anyone have a better plan Natalie um

perhaps um a promotion maybe a two for one offer or or something like that what that's the same thing bad idea really bad idea damn it people come on think the CEO will be here any minute hello Mr Swan oh Mr Swan hello Mr Swan do we have any ideas yet yes Mr Swan we were kind of considering a two for one offer to get more competitive a two for one promotion H I kind of like the sound of that it sounds like something we should consider yeah exactly that's just what I was thinking in

fact it's a brilliant idea I'm glad we thought of that very creative all right so listening to this dialogue makes you think about this boss I'm pretty sure everyone has had a manager or a supervisor that's similar to this guy yeah this boss uh Clark I would have to say he sounds like a terrible person to work for yeah that's true if you're a manager you want to motivate your employees I think it's the most important thing a manager does is to encourage his or her employees and to help support them to grow and to

be better people in the job and this guy is totally not doing this and you can tell because they are a little bit scared of talking and he cuts them off with saying oh it's a bad idea give me a better idea and stuff like that yeah I could never work for a guy like this you know my first boss that I had when I first entered the workforce um I was in a very Junior position and I was working for a large company and the general manager of the company he was amazing he was

so encouraging he knew every single employees name first name and he would you know make an effort to stop and say hello and ask them how things were going and you know what this left me was such a good feeling about the company that I really wanted to work hard for this company and try my best and I think that I've never met such a great boss as this guy no I think that's true definitely if you have a boss that's encouraging and motivating like that it makes you work harder and makes you feel part

of a really special team and that's something we can all agree on and I'm sure all our managers out there do the same well you know what I hope some of our listeners log on to our website and maybe they can tell us some experiences with bad managers or good managers or if they are managers how they handle things yeah and hopefully they can use some of these great phrases that we talked about today the English pod audio review listen to the meaning then say the vocabulary word a real or specific solution to a problem

Concrete [Music] Solutions increase sales Drive sales in the industry in the market be as good as or better than other companies in the same industry to match the competitors will not work will not be approved will never fly something done to make people aware of a product promotion will arrive very soon be here any minute thinking about to consider excellent brilliant as good as or better than others of the same type comp itive make sales successfully win sales plans for a company sales activities sales strategy the process a customer goes through when deciding to buy

a product sales cycle to sell more than others to out sell when a customer buys the same brand over and over Customer Loyalty let's try that faster excellent brilliant we arrive very soon be here any minute to sell more than others to out sell will not work will not be approved will never fly the process a customer goes through when deciding to buy a product sales cycle something done to make people aware of a product promotion in the industry in the market increase sales Drive sales be as good as or better than other companies in

the same industry to match the competitors as good as or better than others of the same type competitive make sales successfully win sales plans for a company sales activities sales strategy when a customer buys the same brand over and over Customer Loyalty thinking about to consider a real or specific solution to a problem Concrete Solutions now say the word and hear it in a sentence Drive sales if we want to drive sales I think we need to spend more time training our sales people drive sales the most important thing for us right now is to

focus on D driving s Drive sales I think if we increase our marketing budget it will help us to drive sales in the fourth quarter I expect each of you to come to the meeting tomorrow with Concrete Solutions for our recruitment problem Dale have you come up with any concrete solution I'm sorry but I just can't offer any Concrete Solutions right now promotion we can't have a sales promotion right now because our costs are too high promotion the department store is offering a promotion everything is 50% off let's go shopping promotion a two for one

promotion might be a way to attract new customers we guarantee that we can match the competitor's lowest price it's impossible for us to match the competitors our costs are just too high do you think we can match the competitor's quality and still keep our price low in the market English pod is the best podcast in the market in the market iPods are the most popular MP3 players in the market in the market our product is the cheapest in the market will'll never fly this marketing plan will never fly we just don't have enough money for

it we'll never never fly I like that idea but it'll never fly with management will never fly Brad told me his idea for a film script but the story will never fly it's not interesting enough be here any minute hurry up the bus will be here any minute be here any minute Nick just called he said he should be here any minute be here any minute is everything prepared for the meeting the CEO will be here any minute to consider we're considering a sales promotion to consider I think we need to consider a new sales

strategy to consider have you considered reducing the price brilliant that's a brilliant idea brilliant this is a brilliant marketing plan brilliant what a brilliant suggestion thanks Roger so thanks for listening today everyone and until next time this is goodbye bye [Music]