Business English Pod / Sales English / Page 10

BEP 120 – Telephoning: Checking on an Order

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

Doing business across borders requires precise coordination, especially in the era of “just-in-time” delivery where goods need to be shipped to the customer at exact times. When a product is made in one country, assembled in another, and sold in a third, the companies involved need to be in constant communication from start to finish. Making sure that orders are made and delivered on time is an essential part of international business, and a lot of the monitoring will be done by phone. So, in this episode we’re going to look at ways to check on the progress of an order over the telephone.

A while back in BEP 92 & 93 we met Bill, a buyer for Bancroft’s, a chain of women’s clothing stores in the U.S. He’s placed a large order with Viva, an Italian fashion company, which is being coordinated by Catherine Traynor, Foxtrot’s shipping manager. Foxtrot is Viva’s U.S. distributor.

It’s now several months later and the order is due to be delivered. But Bill has just received a call from Bancroft’s warehouse to let him know that only half the order has been delivered so far. Now he’s calling Catherine to check on the rest of the delivery.

Listening Questions:

1. How does Catherine let Bill know she’s looking for information about his order?
2. Where is the second part of the shipment?
3. What does Catherine offer to do to avoid separate deliveries in future?

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BEP 93 – English for Sales: Taking an Order

Business English, ESL Podcast, Intermediate English, Sales English /

In this Business English Pod lesson, we’ll be focusing on the language of taking an order and discussing standard terms, such as delivery time, payment method, and so on.

The listening takes us back to the Foxtrot showroom in Las Vegas. As you’ll recall, Foxtrot is the American distributor for Viva, an Italian clothing, or Apparel, manufacturer. Bill is a buyer for a chain of department stores, who has now decided to purchase from Viva. Foxtrot representative Adrianne and her Viva partner, Mario, discuss Bill’s order with him.

Before we get started, it’s important to emphasize that this conversation is not really a negotiation, but rather a situation where most parts of the deal are already agreed to. So, in this episode, we’ll be studying vocabulary for summarizing the terms of a typical commercial order and learning phrases for managing customer-vendor relationships, for example by reassuring the customer to build goodwill.

Listening Questions

1) When he says, “We operate on a narrow window for deliveries,” what does Bill mean?
2) The term chargeback refers to all or part of a fee being refunded, or returned, to the buyer. For what situation is Bill quite “strict on chargebacks?”
3) When would Bill like the first delivery to be made, and why?

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BEP 92 – English for Sales: Features, Advantages, Benefits (or FAB Presentation)

Business English, ESL Podcast, Intermediate English, Presentation in English, Sales English /

For today’s Business English Podcast lesson, we’re going to focus on the “classic sales” approach to selling products and services. This approach is based on explaining the features, attributes and benefits of your products using the “FAB” technique.

The FAB technique is useful for people working in the manufacturing and retail trade – anyone who has to present products. In particular, we’ll look at how this approach can be applied in the Merchandizing business. Merchandizing is the trade name for businesses involved in the design and manufacture of clothing and household items.

In the dialog, we rejoin Marco and Francesca on their trip to a fashion trade show in the U.S. Their company, Viva, has just created an exciting new line of clothes. With the help of their American partner, Foxtrot, they are hoping to get a couple big sales contracts with U.S. department stores.

The listening takes place in the Foxtrot showroom. We’ll hear Francesca speak to a potential customer, Bill, who is a buyer for Bancroft’s, a retail chain store that targets professional women.

Listening Questions

1. What is the key feature of Viva’s fall colors this year? Can you name some of the colors?
2. Why is the Viva Professional line more expensive?
3. As described in the dialog, what are the main benefits of Viva’s clothing line?

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BEP 85 – English for Sales: Informal Product Presentation

Business English, ESL Podcast, Intermediate English, Presentation in English, Sales English /

In this Business English Podcast, we’re going to look at the language of presenting your products and services to potential clients in informal situations.

Following on from our episode on hosting a site visit, we return to our friends at the railway tunnel. Stanley Wang is a site agent for a railway construction project in western China. He has just taken Matt and Paul, sales engineers from a small American company, on a tour of the tunnel. Now, in the evening, Stanley and his boss Bill Zhang are hosting a dinner for Matt and Paula. The group is discussing possibilities for future cooperation.

In many countries and cultures around the world, informal occasions – such as a friendly meal or a game of a golf – are more important to the sales process than a formal presentation in the boardroom. And so in this episode, we’ll be studying language for presenting our products in such casual situations. In particular, we’ll see how you can sell your products in relation to your customers’ needs with a few soft-sell techniques.

Listening Questions

1) Were Matt and Paula able to go to the tunnel face, that is, the end of the tunnel?
2) What is the main point of interest that Matt and Paula pursue in the discussion?
3) What are the advantages that Matt and Paula’s device have over traditional surveying methods?

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BEP 84 – English for Sales: Site Visit

Business English, ESL Podcast, Intermediate English, Sales English /

There are many different kinds of sites. We often speak of construction sites, a site where something is being built – such as buildings, roads, bridges, airports, and so on. But a site can also be a completed structure, like a factory or even sometimes an office. In a site visit, visitors come on site to have a look around. Someone in your company will usually play host and give them a tour. This is often part of the sales process: Sometimes it’s the visitors who are selling something to the host, and sometimes it’s other way around.

The language we’re going to study in this episode will be useful for anyone who needs to host visitors. No matter whether we are giving journalists a demonstration of a factory, or introducing potential customers to our work site, or giving government officials a tour of a construction project, we need to show people around and point out areas of interest.

In the listening, Stanley Wang works for China Western Railroad Construction Company. Stanley is the site agent – that is, the person in charge of a construction site – for a railway tunnel that is being built. Matt and Paula – who work for a small engineering company called TunnelTech – are visiting potential customers in China. As the dialog begins, Stanley is getting ready to take them into the tunnel for a look around.

Listening Questions:

1) What does Stanley point out in the tunnel? What language does he use to draw everyone’s attention to it?
2) What are the advantages of the machine that Stanley describes?
3) Stanley mentions two safety hazards. What are they?
4) What is the question that Paula asks Stanley about the hazards?

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