Learn 25 Business English Idioms: "face the music", "hard sell", "pass the buck"…

Hi, welcome back to engVid. Today, I'm going

to be teaching an absolute ton of business

idioms. Now, this is not just appropriate

for people professionally working in cities.

This is stuff that school kids would benefit

from being able to use, and it's also beneficial

for native speakers of English as well, because

I guarantee that not all of us uses these

phrases regularly, and so we can all benefit

from trying to improve our vocab. So, you

ready? Let's go.

"At a premium". So, a premium price is a top,

top price. It's like the most expensive. So,

if we're talking about tickets being available

for some fantastic sports or concert, and

if I said the tickets are at a premium, maybe

they're sort of running out, there's not very

many left, and so they're at a premium. The demand has pushed up the price.

"A back-of-the-envelope calculation". Let's

just practice saying that. "Back-of-the-envelope

calculation". A back-of-the-envelope calculation

is... Well, think about it. Someone's very

quickly writing down some figures. How much money's coming in, how much money's coming

out. Okay, so we'll charge this amount. So, it's a quick calculation. Yep. Without the

benefit of sitting down with project teams, it's just a quick one.

"To keep"... Oh, I've put the apostrophe and

the "s" in the wrong place. "To keep one's

eye on the prize". So, the apostrophe "s", this is possessive use of the apostrophe.

The "i" belongs to one, meaning us generally.

"To keep one's eye on the prize" means to

keep focused on your target, whatever that

is. Okay? For me right now, it's makengvideos

for you guys. Doesn't happen very often. It

happens about every sort of three years. So,

if I get comments like, "Benjamin, you look different", that's because I haven't been

standing in a bucket of ice for three years.

Okay, "strategy". So, okay, let's get going.

"Climb the corporate ladder". Okay? "Climb the corporate ladder". "Corporate" is to do

with a business. It actually... The root of

the word, yep, that's a Latin word that means

"body". So, an organization, a business, it's

like a body. It's got lots of different parts,

and they're all part of a whole. So, if you

climb the corporate ladder, you're going from

the most basic position all the way up to the CEO. "Climbing the ladder". Okay?

"To cash in on". So, "cash" is an informal word

that means money. If you cash in on something,

then you are profiting from it. Yep. "To cash in on an opportunity",

to get all the available reward. "To drum up business" means to be proactive,

to go out there and find some sales leads, to

promote yourself. Yep. "To make it happen",

proactively from what you do. "To drum up business".

"To fast-track a project". So, maybe we've got,

like, five or six different projects that we're

thinking about doing, and we're thinking, okay, which one is going to work best? Ah,

this one here. Let's get everything going. Let's concentrate on this, and let's make

it happen really fast. We're going to fast-track it. So, "all hands on deck",

you'll learn that one in a later video I do about sailing idioms. "All hands on deck",

let's all help this particular project. "To

turn it around". So, if I'm driving the car,

and I realize I'm going in the wrong direction,

if it's safe to do so, I'll do a "turn in the

road" maneuver. Yeah, a U-turn. Actually, if

I'm in the UK, it's more likely to be that way.

Okay. So, "to turn something around" hasn't been going very well, so I do something to

change it and to start making it go well. Okay?

"To generate lots of buzz", yeah, like a bumblebee,

yeah? "Generate" means to create. Think of,

like, a huge power generator, yeah? It makes

the electricity. "To make lots of buzz". "Buzz"

is an onomatopoeic word, yeah? It's a sound word.

So, if you're making lots of buzz, you're making

lots of noise, you're creating lots of interest

in your business. Okay? "Generate lots of buzz".

Everyone wants to know about what you are doing.

"Rally the troops", okay? Means get them

all here, get everyone going, working on it.

"Troops" is a word that means soldier. So, we're

not... we're not calling everyone soldiers,

but it... the expression just means get everyone

here, let's get everyone going, yeah? We need

all to be working together. Is there one that it's similar to? Maybe later.

"Hard sell", so that's where I'm quite forceful,

I'm quite hard in the way I sell something.

I want you to subscribe to my channel right now.

I want you to make sure that the notification

bell is on, so whenever I create a new video and

it's uploaded, you get it straight away, yeah?

Subscribe to Benjamin right now, yeah? That

was a hard sell. I'm not normally like that.

Okay, moving on. "To plug something". What is

a plug? A plug is what you put in a bath to

keep the water from going out. My plug's just broken, so it's not a very good plug.

Anyway, to plug something means to... to talk about it, to promote it. So,

if my friend Daniel had a concert and he was

plugging it, it means he would be telling

everyone about his concert, yeah? Okay, so...

and he would be creating lots of buzz around it.

Maybe he'd be rallying the troops, getting all of his other friends involved.

He'd be trying to drum up an audience. And

maybe he would make some back-of-the-envelope

calculations about how much he could afford to pay his musicians.

Okay. "Through the roof", yeah? Through. If

something goes through the roof... so think...

think of, like, a chart or a graph. It goes up, it goes down. The roof is up here,

so if it goes through the roof, then it

increases dramatically, yeah? The roof is like

the top of the house. "To pull the plug".

So, we've got our bath, we pull the plug out,

or the water leaves the bath. So, if I pull the

plug on a project, then I... I kind of stop it,

yeah? Think of the project as being the

bath, or the water has gone out of the bath.

"To jump the gun". Now, if I... think of athletics, here, yeah?

So, we've got all our 100-meter sprinters

lining up to race. They go down on your marks,

get set, but someone jumps the gun. Goes before they should do.

So, how would we apply this to a business context?

Maybe if you... yeah, if you... if you do something before you're meant to.

"To face the music". So, if we've done something

that we're not meant to, then it might mean that

we have to go and have a difficult conversation

with a manager, in which we will have to face

the music. Here's my face. The music is the

noise coming from the big, scary boss. "Benjamin,

what have you done?" "Oh, I'm sorry. I jumped

the gun. I did something too, too early." And

so, "to face the music", it means, like, to face up to the consequences, to reality.

Well, here we are. "Reality check". The boss

might say, "Let me give you a reality check,

Benjamin. Your mistake has done da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da." So, a reality

check means a... kind of like an update. Yeah.

"Let me show you what's really going on here."

So, I'm in trouble with the boss, and he tells

me I'm going to have to "jump through hoops".

"Jump"... "To jump through hoops" means to do what your employer or someone other...

some other person with authority wants you to

do, just to make them happy. And maybe you think

these jobs and these tasks are really silly,

but it's just something you have to do.

There's no choice to "pass the buck". "Pass the

buck" means, I don't know, I don't want to do

that. Yeah, he can do that one, or she can do

that. I don't want to do it. Okay? So, these are...

we've looked at lots of different things, different

sort of strategies, different things you can do

around the world of work. And now we have a couple to do with your attitude.

So, "Are you the type of person to dot your I's and

cross your T's?" This means attention to detail.

So, if the boss says, "Benjamin, you really

need to start crossing... dotting your I's and

crossing your T's" means, yep, okay, everything

needs to be done in a certain particular way.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained." So, "ventured"

here means tried, nothing tried. If I... if you

don't try, you'll never know. Yeah? So, if you

don't try something, then you can't get anything

from it. So, it's kind of a phrase to show, well,

give it a go and you never know. Okay, I've got

even more for you. I hope you've been listening

and you're going to remember some of these.

Thanks for watching. Let's get some more on the

board. Okay, just four more because there's been

a lot of content to digest in this lesson. "A

blockbuster". Now, that typically comes from

the movies, the films. If something is a

blockbuster, then it's a huge success. Not used

that often. "Mum's the word". If you want someone

to be secretive and not share some information,

then you might just go, "Mum's the word." Yeah,

it means don't tell everyone, and then that person

might say, "Okay, sure, sure, sure. Mum's the

word. Mum's the word." It just means it's a secret.

Okay? But you wouldn't say that in, like, a big group context. You'd just say that

to someone individually. "To work down to the

wire". Now, this phrase comes from horse racing,

where the horses are going to the finishing line.

And if you want to get more idioms, I've got a

lesson on, like, well, gambling and cards, so it's

to do with that. "To work down to the wire" means

to go to the last minute. So, the deadline is at

8am, you're working on it at 7.58, and you send it

at 7.59. "To iron out the kinks". So, "iron" is

what you use to, you know, make your shirt sort of

uncreased. "Kinks" are kind of, like, the small

little mistakes. So, if you iron out the kinks,

then you're just making sure everything is

absolutely perfect. So, what I think you should

do now is if you see the little button that

shows how many minutes into the lesson you are,

I think you should put it back so that you've got

the board with all the vocab in, and write down

some of it. Yep. And just make sure that you can

remember what all of this stuff means before you

then go and do the quiz. And if you're getting

less than 8 out of 10, watch it again. Okay?

Thanks for watching. If you do want any more

help from me individually, then my website,

honeyourenglish.com, will point you in the right

direction. Thanks for watching. See you again soon.