English for entrepreneurs: your secret for talking to new clients.

2,648 views ・ 2022-08-24

Business English with Christina


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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If you have a business and you wanna find international clients,
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you probably already know that you need English. And in today's lesson,
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I'll teach you the number one skill that you need to contact new clients
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confidently.
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And you'll also learn three things that you need to
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say in those super important. First 10 minutes, you ready? Let's go. Hi,
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I'm your English coach, Christina,
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and welcome to business English with Christina,
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where this week and next week also you're learning how other
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entrepreneurs and business owners solved their English problems so they could
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grow their business internationally.
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And this is the second episode in this special series designed to help you
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find new clients in English. Now, if you missed part one, which was all about,
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uh, the importance of speaking English, when you have your own business,
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you can go and watch that episode with the link that is below this
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video and coming up, uh, next week,
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actually next Monday, uh, there's a special,
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I'm doing a special live webinar to help you find the courage and know
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what to say to approach new business contacts. So if you want your invitation to
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that webinar, it's free. Um, the link is below,
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go over and sign up to my newsletter so that you can get that invitation.
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Now,
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last time we talked about how your English could be hurting your
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business, and of course, how you can fix that because we want, uh, yes,
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we want to recognize the problem, but more importantly,
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we want to try to fix the problem. Not just feel bad all the time. No. Uh,
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all about solutions here. And we talked about a client of mine,
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who we called Manuel, um,
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who has a lot of clients in the states and who was afraid
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to actually work with them over, um, virtual meetings.
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And he just was doing all the work by email.
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So how did Manuel solve this problem and how can you maybe solve your problem
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if you're feeling the same way and you, you know,
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prefer to do business by email or chat rather than actually
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speaking with your clients and your business contacts? Well, you're gonna start,
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like I said,
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by focusing on the one important thing that might have the most
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impact on your business. And if you wanna start finding new clients,
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one of those things is of course conversation.
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And if we go a little further,
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it's those first 10 minutes of the conversation,
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which are so important for making a good impression and establishing a good
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business relationship, you know,
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last time we talked about the importance of the,
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those first moments of your conversation. And we said that, you know,
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the end depends on the beginning.
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So the way that the result that you.
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Want from that conversation does depend a lot on the way that that
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conversation starts. And that idea came from an article,
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which if you want the full article, uh, you can go over to my blog,
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there's a link and you can read it. But in that article,
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the author talked about the situation of asking for
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directions in French. The author is an English speaker. So like me, um,
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in France like me, and he said, you know,
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he would co go to people in the street and ask, I don't know, like,
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do you know where's the eel tower or something like that? Um,
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and the people would just say like, sorry, um,
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I don't speak English or they did.
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They basically didn't want to help this person.
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And he realized that it was because in that first
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interaction, he wasn't doing the right thing, which was saying, Bojo like,
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just going up and saying hello before asking the
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question. And once he started doing that,
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like the result of the conversation changed completely,
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he was able to get directions. And it was all because of just one little word.
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So when we say that those first moments of a conversation
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are crucial, like it's not an exaggeration.
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It really can make a difference in the result that you get.
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So in your first conversation with a, you know,
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new client or a potential client, what's the first thing you need to say.
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It's very simple. I promise you're gonna be like, Christina's like,
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you are just making fun of us. This is so simple,
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but really it's something so simple.
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Start with like good morning or good afternoon or
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hi, it's nice to see you or hello.
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How are you today now? Does it sound easy? I mean, like,
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even like stupid, too easy where you're just like, okay,
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that is ridiculous. Like I know that, yes,
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you probably do know that. And I'm sure that you do it in your native language,
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but when you are in a situation like you're with a
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potential client, so there's, you know, there there's, um,
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something important there for you. It's a high stakes conversation.
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You're on zoom, it's in English,
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you are feeling nervous and we can forget those basic
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things that, of course we know, and we know they're important,
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but with the pressure and the situation and the stress,
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we can forget what to say. And then it's like,
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once you realize that now you're stressed because you know that you didn't quite
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do the right thing.
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And then you're just stressed for the rest of the conversation. And it, I mean,
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it's just like, it's all downhill from there.
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It's you don't wanna be in that kind of situation.
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And you know, when you know the, the right.
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Way, let's say the, you know, the, the way to start a conversation confidently.
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Yes, it's important for, you know,
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establishing a good foundation for that business relationship.
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But that's not the only reason it's because when you know exactly how
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to start a conversation,
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you feel confident about yourself and what you're going to say.
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You have phrases that you can practice before to become comfortable
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and to feel confident. And then you're not stuck,
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like wondering what to say or searching for your words,
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because that first little moment, you know exactly what to say,
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you've practiced it, you've got it.
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And you feel good right from the start.
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And that has an impact on the way the rest of the conversation goes.
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So after you have, you know, said, hello and greeted your,
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your, your potential client here next,
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you wanna take a moment to express your gratitude, uh,
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because they probably have a very busy schedule, you know, like,
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like all of us. Um,
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and they've taken a moment out of their day to learn more about you and
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your company and what you offer and to see if you can work together and do
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business together.
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And you simply want to express your thanks
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for that. So it's very simple. You can just say,
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thank you so much for meeting with me or thank you for taking
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the time to speak with me today. Again,
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it seems simple because it is simple,
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but again, if you're in a stressful situation, you might forget that.
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And to be honest,
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there are a lot of native speakers who also forget these little
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things. So, like I said, it's very simple, but it can make a big difference.
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And it can again give you that competitive advantage over,
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you know, maybe other businesses, you know,
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whose native language is English that you're in competition with. And
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if you practice doing this, like, I don't know,
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put a note next to your computer or something. Um,
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so that you remember to do this and just practice getting that habit it'll
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become easier and help you feel confident and make a difference in those
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first few seconds. Now, going back to our story about Manuel,
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who was learning to, uh, do business with his American clients over, um,
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virtual meetings. Now,
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one of the things that he also had to learn was that it,
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it wasn't all about speaking English.
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It was about communicating the right way in a business situation.
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And a lot of people, you know,
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think that they need to just go directly into the business conversation and they
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don't take just a, a little minute or two to,
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to get to know the other person or to, um,
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to show that you value the other person and you are interested in them in what
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they're doing. And this can be very simple as well, like maybe, um,
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to prepare for your meeting.
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You take a minute and you just go and you look at your client's profile on
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LinkedIn to see what their, what they've been doing recently.
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Or you go and look at their company's website to see what news they have or
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what projects they're working on recently.
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And then you can use that to just find one simple
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question that you can ask to your client. For example,
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if you see that they've launched, um, their, on their LinkedIn profile,
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they talk about a new product that they are launching. You can say, oh,
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I saw on LinkedIn that you're getting ready to launch a new product.
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How's that going? Or maybe on their company website, they posted something,
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uh, some information that is re relevant to, to their clients.
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And then you could say,
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I noticed your company recently posted that interesting article on
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cyber security for companies. That was a really interesting article.
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And if you, you know, maybe you were,
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you saw on social media that the person was traveling to a business event,
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or maybe when you were organizing the meeting. Um, they said, oh,
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uh, I, after I returned for my business trip, we can meet ask them about that.
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For example, you could say, oh,
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I know last month you were at CES in Las Vegas. How did that go?
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And it's like I said, it just takes a few extra minutes of preparation,
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but it can make a huge difference on the impression that you give to your
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client. Now, people that, that I've worked with, people like Manuel,
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one of the things that they do after they learn these,
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these expressions and these techniques it's to practice so that it becomes
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easier for you so that it becomes a habit so that you feel comfortable doing it.
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You can, you know, of course do this just by yourself, even better,
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get a friend to help you,
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someone to role play so that you become comfortable doing it with another
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person. And maybe you're thinking like, okay, that's great. Yeah. But I,
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but like, I'm not ready. I'm, uh, I don't have the level. I'm,
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I'm just, it's not the right time. And I've seen a lot of people say that,
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but I've also seen a lot of people say that kind of like,
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feel that fear and then say, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
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I'm gonna go outta my comfort zone. I'm gonna try,
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I'm gonna make a lot of mistakes and I'm gonna feel really embarrassed
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sometimes, but that's part of the process of learning and improving.
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And you have to embrace that,
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but you've got to be willing to take that first step.
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And I know that if you are running a business, going out of your comfort zone.
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Taking that first step, like I know that you're used to doing that.
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So I have no worries. Let's say, um,
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in your ability to do that, like, I know you can do this,
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but you just have to just do it. Like they like the brand Nike, like they say,
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just do it.
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So if you want to work on that and work on getting to
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that, getting that courage and getting to those next steps. And like I said,
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as you saw today, it's a lot easier than you imagine.
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Go ahead and subscribe to my newsletter.
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I'll put the link down below so that you can get your invitation to this
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masterclass on Monday,
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where we're going to go more into detail about the exact things that you can say
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so that you can feel confident and you can start doing this. And like,
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I always say, if you don't use it,
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you lose it. So here's your chance to use some of this English today,
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share with us one time in your life that you did something that
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previously you were afraid to do it. So something where you,
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you were afraid and then you decided, all right, I'm gonna do it.
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And just tell us that story because that, like,
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I'm sure that that is going to be a very inspiring story for me.
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And for all of the other people in our community,
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you can put it in the comments below the video or over on the blog.
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And if this lesson was helpful for you, I would love to note,
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and there are three ways you can tell me, of course,
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thumbs up and subscribe to my channel on YouTube so I can continue making
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business English lessons for you, go over to, um,
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the blog post, sign up for the newsletter.
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So you can come to the master class on Monday,
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and you can watch this next lesson about how to introduce yourself in
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English. All right. Thanks a lot for learning with business English,
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with Christina. And I look forward to seeing you in the must,
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the master class on Monday. It's not easy to say. All right. See you guys. Bye.
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