This Business English lesson looks at language for answering the telephone in English. Talking on the telephone in has become an extremely important part of business English. You need to be able to answer a call professionally and create a good image of yourself and your company with only your voice.
The Business English Kickstart Course covers the 3 main Business English Skills of meetings, presentations and talking on the phone with 20 lessons appropriate for intermediate English Speakers. The course is available on the Udemy platform which provides desktop and mobile access for Android and iOS devices.
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on understanding your customer’s needs in the sales process.
As a salesperson, you can’t just walk up to a customer and start pitching your products. How do you know the customer actually needs your products? And why would the customer buy from you without knowing anything about you? No, the sales process doesn’t start with a pitch. It starts with making your initial approach and getting to know your customers, which is what we looked at in our last lesson.
So what come’s next? Well, once you’ve made your initial approach, you can move on to understanding the customer’s needs. And that’s what we’ll focus on in this lesson, because if you understand what the customer needs, then you can offer them the right solutions.
What are the techniques we can use to learn about a customer’s needs? Well, today we’ll cover several, including how to ask direct questions, present alternatives, and ask about priorities. We’ll also look at proposing the next step and asking about buying authority. Once you’ve done these things, you can move on confidently to matching your solutions to their needs.
1. Which area of the hotel does Aaron present an alternative option for?
2. What are Eva and Robin’s two major priorities?
3. What does Aaron say he is going to do next?
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s business English lesson on making your initial sales approach.
Sales is right at the core of business. It’s how you connect people with products, and turn products into profits. But most sales aren’t made with a single conversation. There’s a process involved. This process involves many different steps, and at each step, a good salesperson has to use their skills to keep the process moving forward.
In this lesson, we’ll focus on the initial step of the sales process: making the approach. This is when you talk to the potential customer for the first time. You want to establish a good rapport and ask some questions to start learning about their needs. We’ll learn how to compliment a prospect and ask open-ended questions. We’ll also cover how to show interest to get more information, show that you’ve done some background research, and reference other business connections. With these skills, you can get off to a good start with your prospect.
In today’s dialog, we’ll hear a salesperson named Aaron, who works for a company that sells refrigeration and cooling equipment. Aaron is visiting a new hotel in Thailand and talking with Eva, the hotel’s manager and Robin, the head chef. He has arranged to visit the hotel and hopes to start building a relationship and finding out about their needs.
Listening Questions
1. How does Aaron compliment his prospective customers?
2. What does Aaron show interest in to get more information?
3. What business connection do Aaron, Robin, and Eva have in common?
In this Business English vocabulary lesson, we’re going to look at the marketing mix, which is made up of the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. We’ll look at the idea of placement, which is all about a product’s market coverage and how it gets to market through logistics and a company’s distribution channels. The final P is promotion, or advertising, which may involve public relations and marketing campaigns, including in-store promotions.
In this Business English vocabulary lesson, we’re going to look at the marketing mix, which is made up of the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. First we’ll cover ideas related to the product, which includes differentiation and positioning. A company’s products must also reflect its branding. The second P is price, and we’ll look at ideas such as penetration pricing and loss leaders, as well as price points.
