Expressions you need to feel comfortable welcoming a visitor to your company

- When a business contact visits you from another country,

do you feel confident that you can build rapport

and make your client feel welcome?

In your native language,

it's probably something that you're used to doing.

And today, we'll make sure that you're ready

to welcome those important colleagues, clients,

and suppliers in English too.

Hi, I'm your English coach, Christina,

and welcome to Business English with Christina,

where you become better at English and better at business.

In today's episode, we're gonna look at what you need to do

to welcome a visitor to your company.

Many of my clients, you know, they enjoy connecting

with other business contacts in person,

and meeting someone in person,

can be a really important chance

to build that business relationship.

It's a chance to build connections and build rapport

after, you know, a year and a half

of only meeting people over Zoom.

And now that the world is slowly starting to open up again,

I've got some expressions to help you feel more confident

and more comfortable with your guests in English.

And this way you can focus on building that relationship,

getting to know them, and enjoying the experience.

You know, I can still remember like when I arrived in France

and I didn't always feel comfortable in social situations,

I didn't know what to say or what was expected of me.

And, you know, fortunately,

I had some friends who took their time

to explain to me, like this is the thing to say,

this is the thing to do.

And I found that was so, so helpful.

And so that's what I wanna give you today.

Because when someone makes you feel at home,

you remember that.

All right, so let's get started by learning what to say

when your visitor arrives.

First, get ready to greet your business contact.

Of course you'll say,

"welcome, thank you for coming."

And then if you've never met them like in real life,

maybe only by phone or email or Zoom, you can say,

"it's a pleasure to finally meet you in person."

And as a way to make your client feel more comfortable,

it's always nice to offer them something to drink.

You know, sharing a cup of coffee or tea together,

it's a great way to create that connection.

A chance to bring your visitor

into maybe a shared break area where your team goes,

where they can meet each other

and really start to feel welcome.

So you could say something like this,

"would you like a cup of coffee or tea?"

"Can I get you something to drink?"

And if you're taking them to that space in your company,

where your, you know, co-workers come to to meet and talk,

you can say, "let me show you our break room."

And if you wanna make a little joke, you can say,

"let me show you our break room,

it's the best place in the company."

And then, you can start your small talk.

So, since they've probably just traveled

from somewhere to arrive at your country,

it's nice to ask about how that trip was,

with questions like, "how was your flight?"

Or, "how was your trip?"

Oh, and before we get deeper

into all those small talk conversations,

go ahead and give me a thumbs up for this video

and subscribe to my channel, just to let me know

that you're learning with me.

All right, now, we're gonna use small talk

to make your business contact feel at home with you

and your culture and your company.

You know, many of my clients, they're not so sure

about what to say when they have an English speaker

or a foreigner coming to visit their company,

and they just are not sure what's appropriate

and what's not.

So, to not stress about that, it's a good idea

to learn a few essential phrases ahead of time

so that you'll know what to say,

even if you're not used to making small talk.

So you could just ask them if they know the area,

try one of these questions.

"Have you been to Bordeaux before?"

Or, "is this your first time in Paris?"

And a lot of my clients ask how to give advice on,

you know, their favorite restaurant,

or maybe even invite your visitor out for dinner.

So, if you want to invite your visitor for dinner or lunch,

you can say, "would you like to join me for dinner?"

And if you want to suggest maybe one

of your favorite local restaurants, you can say this,

"I can suggest an excellent local restaurant

that serves chicken with crawfish, it's a local dish."

Or, "I know a great local restaurant,

they have the best fish.

And personally, if ever you come to Grenoble,

let me know, we can go and have coffee maybe?

But, even if we don't, if you go to a restaurant

and you see any dessert with Chartreuse in it,

I suggest you get that is my favorite."

Now, if you want to make your visitor feel at home

and help them to, you know,

connect with some of your coworkers or your colleagues,

there are some very typical expressions

that everyone uses, but you might forget

if you're sort of feeling stressed at that moment.

So let's look at those, so you can just learn them easily.

To help your visitor get to know your team,

you can simply say,

"let me introduce you to my colleague, Dana."

And of course, make sure that your visitor knows

that they can ask you for any help if they need it.

And for that, you can use these expressions.

"Don't hesitate to ask if you need anything."

Or, "if you need anything, just let me know."

And then even when it's time to say goodbye,

you can continue building up that rapport

and leave a good impression.

So here are a few expressions to help you feel confident

when it's time for your visitor to leave.

For a more formal situation or relationship, you can say,

"it was a pleasure having you."

But for a slightly less formal option

but still very appropriate for business,

"it was great to meet you."

And of course, you may also want to encourage your visitor

to stay in contact with you,

and try saying something like this.

"Let's keep in touch about our upcoming project."

Or, "let's stay in touch about what we discussed."

And last but not least, you wanna make sure

that you send off your client with some well-wishes,

and you can simply say, "have a safe trip."

If you don't use it, you lose it.

So here's one way that you can use what you learned

in today's episode.

Think of one question that you would ask a visitor

to your company, and then put it down in the comments.

It's a perfect opportunity to practice,

to make sure that your question's correct,

and to use what you learned today.

All right, if this lesson was helpful for you,

I would love to know.

And there are three simple ways that you can tell me.

Give me a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to my channel,

so that you never miss my future Business English lessons.

You can also go over to my website

and sign up to get your English Habits Kit,

so that I can help you

to start building some solid learning habits

for lifelong learning and fun.

And of course you can watch this next lesson,

which has some examples

in context of a welcoming a visitor into your company.

So it's a good way to consolidate everything

that you learned today.

And finally, I wanna say thank you

for learning with Business English with Christina.

And I look forward to seeing you next time.