BEP 47 – Cold Calling: Clarifying Benefits and Making a Pitch

This is the second in our three-part Business English Podcast lesson on a useful telephone and sales skill: cold calling.

You can always make yourself more persuasive by asking well-considered questions and really listening to the answers. This principle is true whether you are selling a product or an idea. So in part two we are going to look at some key selling skills: strategically clarifying and summarizing your prospect’s concerns and incorporating them into your pitch to make it more persuasive.

Where we left off last time, Steve had just introduced his company’s services and asked Linda a needs analysis question. Now lets listen as he clarifies her needs and makes his pitch.

Listening Questions

1. What’s the main issue or problem that Linda sees with her current system?
2. What does Steve mean by a “one-stop” service?
3. What does Linda suggest instead of meeting with Steve?

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BEP 46 – Cold Calling: Getting off to a Good Start

Today’s lesson is the first in a three-part Business English Pod series on cold calling, the skill of making unsolicited telephone sales calls. Unsolicited means “not asked for.” So cold calling is the skill of making a sales call to someone who is not expecting you.

Cold calling skills are very useful in many parts of business life. To cold call successfully, you need to be persuasive. And persuasion is fundamental to business success, whether you are trying to convince a customer to buy something or your boss or colleagues to accept your point of view.

In today’s listening you’ll here two examples, one bad one good. We’ll listen to the bad one first. Josh Knight of Nexus Communications International is cold calling Linda Darling, who works for the law firm Drucker and Smythe. So Linda is Josh’s prospect, or potential customer.

Listening Questions

1. Identify four things that Josh does wrong.
2. What is Josh selling?

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BEP 41 – Job Interview English: First Round Interview (Part 2)

This is the second in a two-part Business English Pod lesson on first round job interviews. learn how to answer common interview questions and useful phrases and vocabulary for English job interviews.

As you’ll remember from the first episode, Mike Barnes is interviewing William Chow for a job at the Hong Kong head office of First Mercantile International, a global bank. William had just finished telling Mike about his work history, management style and personal characteristics. Our HR manager, Mike, continues the interview with another very common first round question. Lets see what it is and think about how you would answer the question?

Download a PDF list of useful interview phrases to describe your personal characteristics here.

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BEP 40 – Job Interview English: First Round Interview (Part 1)

Today’s Business English Podcast ESL lesson is the first in a two-part series that follows job applicant William Chow through his first interview at an international bank.

In this podcast you’ll learn how to deal with some typical first round English job interview questions. Along the way you’ll also practice some great new vocabulary and useful phrases for job interviews.

In the dialogue we’ll listen as William gets interviewed for a position in the business development department of the main Hong Kong branch of Mercantile International. Mike Warner, a HR manager at Mercantile International Hong Kong, is conducting the interview.

More job interview English lessons

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BEP 37 – Presentations: Question and Answer (2)

Today’s advanced Business English Podcast episode is the second in our a two-part series on question and answer, or Q&A, during a presentation in Englishpresentation in English.

The listening starts where we left off last time. Nick, the new European sales director at Harper-Tolland Steel, is answering questions after his English presentation.

Nick has proposed to retrain key sales staff at Harper-Tolland in order to boost sales after a disappointing new product launch. Where we left off, Cindy, the regional sales manager for Germany, is asking Nick how they will measure the success of the new training program.

As you listen, pay attention to how Nick and Nick’s boss, Max, deal with questions and manage the Q&A session.

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