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BEP 71 – Mergers: Office Gossip and Reported Speech

Business English, ESL Podcast, Grammar, Socializing /

This is the second in a two-part Business English Podcast lesson that follows some of the internal discussions that take place in a company going through a merger.

Today’s episode focuses on casual office conversation and gossip. Office gossip is a type of informal conversation in which we tell secrets or rumors about other people or other departments. Gossip is often called water cooler chitchat, since the water cooler is where colleagues meet by chance and discuss things that are happening in the office. You might also want to review some of our previous shows on socializing for more language to use in these types of conversations.

For the listening today, we rejoin Jack at the guitar manufacturer headquarters, after his short but difficult chat with his boss Jim. Jack is in the cafeteria when a co-worker meets him there by chance.

Listening Questions

1) What did Frances hear from Joanna?
2) Who did Michelle take off with?
3) Where does Frances tell Jack she has to go?

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BEP 70 – Mergers: Breaking Bad News

Advanced, Business English, English for Meetings, ESL Podcast /

This is the first in a three-part Business English Pod series that explores the use of many different language techniques in the context of a merger. Today’s episode focuses on vague, diplomatic language and probing questions. Vague and diplomatic language was introduced in podcasts BEP 24, BEP 51 and BEP 52, so you might wish to review those to refresh your memory.

In addition, we’ll be covering probing questions, which we first looked at in BEP 64. To probe is to explore or investigate, so probing questions are used to gather more detailed and targeted information. And I should also point out that there are two speaking practices at the end of this podcast – an action packed episode indeed.

For this series, we again visit our U.S.-based guitar manufacturer, which has a production plant in Costa Rica. In this episode, we find out that the company is merging with a larger guitar manufacturer. To merge is to join together. When two companies join together, we call this a “merger.”

The new owners want to cut costs, which might mean cutting jobs. So, an important question in the mind of our old friend Jack is – who is going to be fired? We join Jack and his boss Jim, who meets Jack by chance in the hallway of the company headquarters.

Listening Questions:

1. Who will Jack be meeting with after his chat with Jim?
2. What city might the Costa Rican plant move to?
3. Why do the new owners want to move the factory out of Costa Rica?

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BEP 69 – Telephone English: Leaving a Message

Business English, ESL Podcast, Intermediate English, Telephone English /

This lesson has been updated in anew series: BEP 69A Redux & BEP 69B Redux.

People are busy. When you telephone people, they often aren’t there to take your call, so you need to leave a message. And almost everyone has to answer the telephone and take a message sometimes. Doing so professionally leaves a good impression on your customers, colleagues and boss.

Today we will hear a bad example and a good example of taking and leaving a telephone message.

Justin Thomas is with Trivesco, a major shipyard, or maker of ships. He is calling Sylvie Peterson at Daneline, a shipping company. Sylvie is a sales and purchase (S&P) broker. A broker is a middleman or negotiator. Sylvie specializes in negotiating the purchase of “newbuildings” or newly built ships. Amy, the receptionist, answers the phone.

Listening Questions

Bad Example
1) Does Amy answer the phone professionally?
2) Is Justin prepared?

Good Example
1) How does Amy answer the phone?
2) What is Mark calling about?
3) How does Amy make sure that she has got Mark’s correct phone number?

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BEP 68 – Meeting English: Dealing with Interruptions

Business English, English for Meetings, ESL Podcast, Intermediate English /

As a non-native speaker of English, you might often find yourself in situations like this: You’re sitting in a meeting or a teleconference, and some of the participants are native English speakers. They are speaking with one another very rapidly, and they are using some idiomatic or difficult-to-understand expressions. Someone says something you don’t understand, or perhaps something that is not true or that you disagree strongly with. You should interrupt to ask what they mean, to clarify, to correct – but you just can’t bring yourself to open your mouth. How do you start? How do you interrupt?

That’s the focus of today’s Business English podcast lesson. We’ll be studying useful language and expressions for interrupting and for resisting or stopping interruption.

The listening takes place in an internal meeting at Strand Technologies, a Hong Kong-based OEM of portable electronic devices, mainly MP3 and MP4 players. OEM stands for “original equipment manufacturer.” It refers to companies that manufacture other companies’ products for them. In this internal meeting, all three participants know each other well so the language is more informal and direct. As you listen, pay attention to how they use assertive language to interrupt each other in order to keep the meeting on track and arrive at positive result more quickly.

Listening Questions

1) What does Bill mean when he says they’re facing a “bottleneck?” What is the bottleneck?
2) Why can’t Bill just retrain the engineers he has?
3) What is Mei Lin’s suggestion to speed up the recruitment process?

*** This lesson is part of our Business English eBook for meetings: Meeting Essentials. Premium members click here to download the complete eBook.

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BEP 103e – Presentations: Describing Charts and Trends 1

Advanced, Business English, ESL Podcast, Presentation in English /

This is the first of three Business English Pod episodes on charts and trends from our new eBook – Presenting for Success. Over these three shows, we’ll be learning language for dealing with visuals, describing trends, analyzing and comparing data, and making predictions. “Visuals” refers to any visual element of your presentation – charts, graphs, pictures and so on. A trend is the general direction – upward or downward – of some metric, that is measurement, such as price or revenue. For example, when we say, “The price of oil has risen 30% in the last three months,” that’s a trend.

In this lesson we’ll focus on the basics of how to deal with visuals in your presentation: That is, how to attract attention to them, how to emphasize the key parts, and how to relate points about different visuals as you move through your slides. A slide is just one picture in your PowerPoint presentation.

The listening comes from a presentation at the Central European head office of Ambient, an American mobile phone manufacturer. Ambient has regained market share after a couple of bad years and has now taken over the number two place behind market leader Sirus and just ahead of the third player, CallTell.

You’ll hear Pat, the new finance director in the Central Europe region, in the middle of a presentation to the sales team. As we join them, he is bringing up a slide on revenue trends among the top three players in the business.

As you listen, pay attention to the language that Pat uses to call attention to his points and to relate them to each other.

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BEP 67 – Socializing with Colleagues at Work

A2, Business English, ESL Podcast, Intermediate English, Socializing, Travel /

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. In 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.

Listening Questions

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 – Working with Colleagues and Making Requests

Business English, ESL Podcast, Functions, Intermediate English, Travel /

What do you do if you don’t have office space for all your employees or many of them usually spend most of their time traveling or working offsite? In the 90s, some clever manager came up with a solution – hot desking – and the rest is history. Hot desking refers to using temporary work areas that are set up for any staff who needs them.

With the invention of laptop computers and the Internet, we can pretty much work anywhere. Now, in many companies around the world from hi-tech software firms to management consultancies and even increasingly in more traditional industries such as banking and engineering, a certain number of work areas are made into “hot desks.” As long as they are empty, any one can work there. Sit down, plug in your computer, and you are ready to go! In companies where a lot of people are traveling, this is a great way to save money because it reduces unused space to a minimum.

In this Business English Podcast lesson, we’ll be continuing our series on business travel. We’re following Honesto, an Ambient Telecommunications employee from Manila, on a training trip to head office in Michigan, USA. The main language focus of the lesson is on making polite requests. Along the way, we’ll also look at some different ways to express likes and dislikes. Honesto has found himself an unused desk and is working along when all of the sudden he gets a new neighbor, Megan.

Listening Questions

1) What kind of expressions do Honesto and Megan use to make polite requests?
2) What type of training is Honesto taking part in?
3) Where is Megan from?

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BEP 65 – Sales English: Questioning Techniques (2)

Business English, Communication, ESL Podcast, Sales English /

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.

As you’ll remember, 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.

At the end of Part 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.

Listening Questions

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 – Sales English: Questioning Techniques (1)

Business English, Communication, ESL Podcast, Sales English /

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 to “drill down to” – that is, get to or uncover – the 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. For example, paint is a type of coating. Forrest and Brown produces “conformal 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 devices – TVs, CD players, phones – have 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’s “prospect” – the person he wants to sell to.

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

Listening Questions

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 – Indirect Persuasion in a Social Context

Business English, ESL Podcast, Persuasion /

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.

As you listen, 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; but, 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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