BEP 67 – Socializando com colegas de trabalho

This is the fourth in a series of intermediate business ESL podcasts that focus on business travel. In this series we’re following a group of trainees who work for the telecommunications company Ambient as they visit their head office in Michigan in the U.S.

How do you make friendly chat with your colleagues? What kinds of topics can you talk about? We’ll be looking at some answers. Em particular, we’ll cover informal greetings and how to chat about movies. As almost everyone loves to go to the cinema, movies are usually a good topic for small talk.

As our listening begins, it’s Monday morning. Honesto, a trainee from the Philippines, says hello to his American colleague Brenda as she comes in to the office.

Perguntas de escuta

1) What does Brenda mean when she says “veg out”?
2) What are critics and what did they think about Rush Hour 3?
3) How does Brenda like her coffee?

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BEP 66 – Trabalhando com colegas e fazendo solicitações

O que você faz se não tiver espaço de escritório para todos os seus funcionários ou muitos deles geralmente passam a maior parte do tempo viajando ou trabalhando fora do local? Nos anos 90, algum gerente inteligente veio com uma solução – mesa quente – E o resto é história. Hot desking refere-se ao uso de áreas de trabalho temporárias que são configuradas para qualquer equipe que precise delas.

Com a invenção dos laptops e da Internet, podemos trabalhar em qualquer lugar. Agora, em muitas empresas ao redor do mundo, de empresas de software de alta tecnologia a consultorias de gestão e até mesmo cada vez mais em setores mais tradicionais, como bancos e engenharia, um certo número de áreas de trabalho são transformadas em “mesas quentes.” Contanto que eles estejam vazios, qualquer um pode trabalhar lá. Sentar-se, conecte seu computador, e você está pronto para ir! Em empresas onde muitas pessoas viajam, esta é uma ótima maneira de economizar dinheiro porque reduz o espaço não utilizado a um mínimo.

Nisso Podcast de inglês para negócios lição, continuaremos nossa série sobre viagens de negócios. Estamos seguindo Honesto, um funcionário da Ambient Telecommunications de Manila, em uma viagem de treinamento para a matriz em Michigan, EUA. O foco principal do idioma da lição é fazer pedidos educados. Pelo caminho, também veremos algumas maneiras diferentes de expressar gostos e desgostos. Honesto encontrou uma mesa sem uso e está trabalhando quando de repente consegue um novo vizinho, Megan.

Perguntas de escuta

1) Que tipo de expressões Honesto e Megan usam para fazer pedidos educados?
2) Em que tipo de treinamento Honesto está participando?
3) De onde é a megan?

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BEP 65 – Inglês de vendas: Técnicas de Questionamento (2)

This is the second in a two-part Business English Pod lesson on questioning techniques. Last time in BEP 64 we looked at making small talk and gathering information with open questions, getting specific information with probing questions and guiding the conversation by showing interest.

This time we’ll learn several more advanced questioning techniques, including direct questions, to get information from someone who is being uncommunicative, reflective questions, to guide the conversation, and hypothetical questions, to suggest possible action. Together these techniques form a series that can be used to drill down to the information you need.

Como você deve se lembrar, the listening takes place in a customer needs analysis: Brad, from chemical coatings producer Forrest and Brown, is visiting his customer Andy. Andy’s company, Stratos, puts together circuit boards for use in consumer electronics.

No fim de Papel 1 , Brad had just used a probing question to determine what exact kinds of products Andy’s company focuses on. When he discovered that Stratos was making a lot of boards for TVs, Brad decides to follow this line of questioning. As we’ll see, this is because TVs are a good match for Brad’s products.

The specific kind of TV they are talking about is an LCD TV, often referred to as a flat screen TV.

Perguntas de escuta

1) LCD TVs produce a lot of heat. Why is this important to Brad’s sales pitch?
2) What are Andy’s main priorities in selecting conformal coatings to protect the circuit boards Stratos produces?
3) What are the main good points of the coating that Brad wishes to sell to Andy?

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BEP 64 – Inglês de vendas: Técnicas de Questionamento (1)

Questions are an important part of almost every conversation. So being able to ask good questions is critical to communication. How can we make our questioning more effective and efficient? In this two-part Business English Podcast series we’ll be looking at some answers.

The communication skills we’ll be learning can be used in any situation, but we’ll be focusing in on an area where questioning techniques are particularly important: needs analysis. This refers to analyzing the needs of a customer as part of the sales process. We’ll study a series of questioning techniques that can be used todrill down to” – isso é, get to or uncoverthe information you want.

In today’s Business English listening Brad is a sales manager for Forrest and Brown, a producer of innovative industrial coatings and glues. Coating refers to a chemical that is applied to the outside of something to protect it. Por exemplo, paint is a type of coating. Forrest and Brown producesconformal coatings”; this type of coating is used to protect printed circuit boards, or PCBs. PCBs are small flat boards covered with wiring and electronic parts. Almost all electronic devicesTVs, CD players, phoneshave them.

Today Brad is visiting Andy, who is a production manager for Stratos, an assembler of PCBs that are used in household items. We can say that Andy is Brad’sprospect” – the person he wants to sell to.

Let’s listen to how Brad asks Andy questions to analyze Stratos’ necessidades.

Perguntas de escuta

1) What does Brad think of the Stratos facility?
2) How long has Stratos been located in its current location?
3) What kind of devices does Stratos produce circuit boards for?

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BEP 63 – Persuasão indireta em um contexto social

Life is actually a constant exercise in persuasion, wouldn’t you say? What I mean is we don’t just need to persuade people in the meeting room; actually, we are constantly using the tools of persuasion across a wide variety of situations ranging from serious to casual. In addition to formal situations, everyday persuasions include when to meet, whether to extend a deadline, and even such common things as where to have lunch or which movie to see.

So the persuasive process we learned in BEP 59 , 60 & 62 is useful not just for formal business situations, but across all sorts of contexts that come up many times every day. You don’t always want to use the indirect approach to persuasion, but it’s often very useful.

Here’s an example of the persuasive process at work in an everyday situation: Julie is persuading her husband, Steve, to try a new vacation spot.

Enquanto você escuta, see if you can identify the five steps of the Monroe sequence:

1) Getting attention
2) Establishing need
3) Satisfying that need
4) Visualizing the future
5) Asking for action

Because this is an informal situation, the language Julie uses is obviously quite casual and she doesn’t include any numbers or statistical data; mas, as always, a convincing description of the problem in the need step is the key to successful persuasion. And it’s important to state the problem from the perspective of the audience, which in this case is Julie’s husband.

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