Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on idioms related to negotiations.
Negotiation is at the heart of business. We negotiate salaries, partnerships, prices, terms, timelines, business deals, and pretty much everything, in fact! And to do this, we discuss, we persuade, and we make trade-offs all in the name of closing the deal.
Yes, almost everything in business is a kind of negotiation, a push and pull in which we try to get what we want. And it should come as no surprise that in English we have a lot of different idioms for talking about negotiations. Today we’ll look at some of these idioms and how to use them.
You will hear a conversation between two colleagues, Jose and Neil. They are talking about some negotiations they’ve been involved in recently. In particular, Neil has been experiencing some challenges in a negotiation with a company from Singapore.
Listening Questions
1. What surprising demand does Neil say the other company made early on?
2. After explaining his own experience with a Brazilian company, what does Jose suggest Neil try?
3. What does Neil think he might have to do instead of doing what Jose suggests?
Download: Podcast MP3
