Business English: How to get a meeting – *EXACTLY* what to write and say

Welcome back. My name's Benjamin. In today's

lesson, we are looking at phrasing for email

and phone call to help get you into the room.

Because the truth of the matter is that you're

not going to get an amazing business deal just from sending an email. Business deals

get made in person, but how do you get into the room with someone that you don't know

as a friend or close associate? You have to

send emails, follow them up with phone calls

to try and actually meet those people. So, who

will benefit from this video? Well, certainly

if you're working in sales in English and

you're learning English as a foreign language,

good place to start. But also if you're looking

to get work experience and just get face-to-face

meetings with people to help you, then I think this will be of benefit for you.

So let's dive straight in, shall we? I've suggested that we're starting with email,

then going to a phone call, and then meeting in

person. So, the standard email says something

like "Dear blah, blah, blah", and then has

the name down here. But we're going for quite

a direct style of written English here, so we'll have "Dear, my name's da, da, da". It

makes it conversational, friendly. "My name's

da, da, da, and I work for", introduce yourself.

What do you do? Who are you? "I work for blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah", or "I

look after client accounts at", or "I represent",

name of the person, yep. So, find a good way

of talking about what you do.

Who put you in contact? Or maybe you found the contact details yourself. "I was given

your details by", who recommended it? Who

thought we would work extremely well together?

Who thought we would work extremely well together?

Who suggested that I contacted you? Who suggested

that I contacted you? Okay. If you weren't recommended by someone, what could you say?

"Hi, my name's da, da, da, and I work for", "I have been having a look at your website,

and I have been, and I was very impressed

by", give a compliment. "And I was interested

to find out about", yep, tell them again. Why are you getting in contact? Well, here,

"Please find attached my brochure, portfolio,

CV", but why are you sending it? Tell them.

"I would like to", what are you trying to get from this person? Now, this is more if

you're kind of on an equal footing with someone.

Do give me a call if you have any questions.

If you're submitting your CV to some kind

of recruiting manager, then you have to show

respect to them. "Do please find attached my CV", and you would say to someone like

that, "I hope to hear from you soon. I hope to hear from you soon."

"Kr", short for "kind regards". So, let's just go over that again. "My name's da, da,

da. I work for", were you introduced or did you find the information yourself? If you

found the information, "I have had a good look at your website, and I was impressed

with", what do you want? Yep. "I am looking to", "I am hoping to", what's the link with

this person? "Please find attached my", something

that sells you really well, "I hope to hear

from you soon", or "Please give me a call if

you have any questions." Right. The email's

gone. They haven't called. What do we do?

Forget about it, move on to the next person?

Well, you write to the next person as well, but at the same time, you follow it up with

a phone call. "Hello, this is Marek from whatever

service you are offering. I'm calling in regards

to the email I sent about pipecleaningservices.com

or whoever you are, whatever you are. I was

just wondering, I was just having a think if you'd had a chance to have a look at it,

to have a look at this email. Have you read

my email?" Probably the person gets hundreds

and thousands of emails all the time. They're

like, "What email are you talking about?"

So if they say, "Yes, I've had a look", then

you start trying to get a meeting in person.

If they have no idea who you are, then you need

to tell them on the phone some more about you and

the service you provide. So let's have a look at

how we do that. Somehow you've managed to get them

vaguely interested in your company. Well done.

On that note, if you would like to subscribe to

this channel to get videos coming in when they

are released on YouTube, then please do so right

away if you are subscribed already. Nice one.

Okay, so tell them about your company. Who are

you? "We are a plumbing company. We are a engineering company." Since what date were

you established? "Since 1952. We have been

providing bespoke services to..." Let's write

that phrase down. Bespoke. I like it. Bespoke.

It means individualized. Or another way of saying

it is "tailor-made". A tailor is someone who

makes clothes for that person. So if they're

tailor-made, then it's made just for that customer.

"Since 1952, we have been providing bespoke

holidays to the Caribbean." Ooh. "We have a

reputation for..." What are your key values?

Professionalism, punctuality, going the extra

mile, exceeding customer expectation. Exceeding,

yeah, doing more than expectation. "We pride

ourselves in..." What are you really happy about?

Or what do you say you're really happy about?

"We pride ourselves in our customer care." Let's

write that down. Customer care. On a personal

note, I've recently been working on building a

bridge from Abergavenny to somewhere else. What

have you been working on? And look, I'd be very...

Remember, you're still on the phone, here. I'd

be very happy to meet in person, to go through...

To go through, to show you, to go through our

portfolio. Portfolio. Again, it's kind of softy.

Port, port, portfolio. And show you what we might be able to do for you. What we might,

it's a possibility, what we could do for you. Right. Hopefully they're interested.

Maybe the other guy or lady goes, "Hmm, yeah.

Sounds interesting." Yes. Yeah, we could have

a meeting. So, you say, "Ah, great. When were you

thinking, exactly?" When were you thinking? I.e.,

give me a date. When were you thinking? Or you

could ask, "When suits you?" Which is when or

when's good for you? When suits you? Is it good

for you? They say, "What about next Tuesday?"

If the answer is, "Sorry", then say something

like, "I'm afraid I've got bingo that day."

I'm not going to be able to make it... No, you

don't want to say bingo. "I'm afraid I've got a

prior commitment." Or, "I've got", let's write

it up here, "I've got another engagement."

Yeah, or a commitment. Just means you're busy.

"I'm afraid I've got another commitment that day."

Is there another time that might work? Could you suggest another time?

Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. Yes? No? That

could work? Yep. Were you thinking in the morning

or in the afternoon? Morning, about 9 o'clock.

Okay, great. Shall we confirm that a little bit

closer to the time? Shall we confirm, or are

you happy to confirm that now? Are you happy to

confirm? "To set it in stone" means to make it

solid. We're not going to change it. Shall we...

Shall we... Are we agreeing on that? Fantastic.

Well, "I very much look forward to meeting you

then." "I very much look forward to positive

expectation about the future to meeting you

then." So, what have we done? We've told them why

we're great, because we're trying to get a meeting

with them. They say, "Yeah, meeting. Good. Yes,

meeting." We ask for a date. We say, "Yes" or "No",

and then we say, "Looking forward to it."

All right. It's time for you to do something.

Yes? Rather than passively absorbing,

yeah, you need to actively do the quiz. Where

is the quiz? It's on the engVid website.

So, have a look. Give the questions a go. Hope

you get a good high score. If you don't, maybe

have another look at the video, and if you want any extra help with your English,

do come over to www.honeyourenglish.com.

Thanks so much for watching, and I look forward to seeing you very soon.