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 particolare, 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.

Nella finestra di dialogo, 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.

Domande sull'ascolto

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?

Download: Podcast MP3

In questo 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. Ora, 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 particolare, we’ll see how you can sell your products in relation to your customers’ needs with a few soft-sell techniques.

Domande sull'ascolto

1) Were Matt and Paula able to go to the tunnel face, questo è, 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?

Download: Podcast MP3