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To be persuasive in business, you need more than facts and logic, and you must also connect emotionally. People make decisions with both their minds and their hearts, so showing warmth and friendliness helps make them more open to your ideas.
You don’t need to be overly social; simply showing empathy and genuine interest in others is enough. Asking questions not only builds rapport but also gives you insight into what motivates people, allowing you to adapt your approach.
Emotions play a key role in persuasion. You can appeal to fear (“sales may drop if we don’t act”), hope (“this plan will give us our weekends back”), or pride (“this will make us leaders in our field”). Another powerful emotion is belonging – people want to feel part of a group or shared vision. You can use this by framing your message around teamwork or industry trends (“the whole industry is moving this way”).
A couple of useful techniques are contrasting and hyperbole. Contrasting means presenting two choices where one clearly supports your message. Adding hyperbole, or deliberate exaggeration, can also make your message more memorable (“this could be the most important decision in our company’s history”).
Persuasion isn’t purely an exercise in logic. It’s not just people’s minds that you need to consider, but also their hearts. That’s why we try to make a connection with them emotionally, or personally. We try to learn about them so we can adapt our approach. We appeal to a broad range of their emotions. And we use techniques like contrast and hyperbole to ramp up the impact of our ideas.
Persuasion is one of the most valuable skills in business, enabling professionals to influence decisions, gain support, and advance ideas. But effective persuasion is not about slick talk or manipulation – it relies on sincerity and well-chosen techniques.
Sincerity is the foundation. People are persuaded when they believe you genuinely believe what you are saying. If your audience senses dishonesty or hidden motives, trust quickly erodes. To demonstrate sincerity, share how you came to believe in your idea. For example, acknowledge initial doubts and explain what changed your perspective. Transparency also plays a major role. If you stand to benefit personally, acknowledge it openly while emphasizing broader benefits. This honesty builds trust and credibility.
Once sincerity is established, persuasion comes down to tailoring your approach to your audience. Logical thinkers respond to structured reasoning, such as outlining clear criteria for a plan. Others may be more influenced by authority or social proof, in which case citing respected figures or supporters can be effective. The key is to understand what motivates the people you are trying to influence.
Beyond adapting to individual mindsets, several techniques are broadly effective. Repetition reinforces ideas and makes them more memorable. For example, emphasizing a chain of cause and effect – like lowering costs leading to stronger growth – creates impact. Rhetorical questions are another powerful tool, framing choices in a way that guides the audience toward your conclusion without directly telling them what to think.
In short, successful persuasion blends sincerity with strategy. Believe in your message, be transparent about your motives, and then apply techniques that resonate with your audience. With this balance of trust and skill, you can significantly enhance your ability to persuade in business.
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the second part of our financial English series on discussing an audit.
Money is the language of business, and audits are one way companies prove they can be trusted with it. Audits check whether financial records are accurate and reliable. They help investors, managers, and the public see that the numbers tell the truth about the organization’s money.
If you’ve ever been a part of a discussion about an audit, you’ll know that there’s a lot of specialized language in the world of finance. And some of this language is what we call collocations, or natural combinations of words. We use collocations all the time. In fact, we store a collocation in our memory as one unit, rather than individual words.
Maybe you’ve noticed a few collocations I’ve already used. Earlier, I said “financial records,” which are the documents related to a company’s finances. I also said “to tell the truth,” which is a verb plus noun, showing that collocations include combinations of different types of words. And if you learn these combinations, you can both understand better and sound more fluent.
In today’s dialog, we’ll hear a conversation between Ray and Elaine, who work for an international company that has just gone through an audit. Ray is the CFO, or Chief Financial Officer, and Elaine is the CEO. In their conversation about the audit results, they use many collocations. We’ll explain these collocations later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. Ray says that the “audit findings” revealed a gap. What financial process is this gap related to? 2. What question does Elaine ask about reporting? 3. What does Ray suggest rolling out this quarter to improve procedures?
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the first in a two-part series on financial English for discussing an audit.
Financial audits have a way of increasing stress within a company. Suddenly everyone’s paying attention as reports get checked, numbers are reviewed, and details that seemed minor yesterday become urgent today. Audits can feel intense, but they are a critical part of good business practice.
Like many other financial processes, the world of audits has its own language or vocabulary. And much of this language comes in the form of “collocations.” Collocations are words that go together naturally. They are combinations of words that we learn as a group, rather than individually.
For example, a minute ago I said “everyone suddenly pays attention.” We always use that verb “pay” with the noun “attention.” It’s a strong collocation. That expression includes a verb and a noun, but collocations can feature any word forms. “For example” is a collocation that has a preposition and a noun, for example.
In today’s dialog, we’ll hear a conversation between Ray and Marcia. Ray is the Chief Financial Officer for an international company. Marcia is an auditor with an accounting firm hired to do an audit of Ray’s company. During their conversation about the upcoming audit, Ray and Marcia use many English collocations. We’ll explain these collocations later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. What does Ray hope to do in the week following the 15th of the month? 2. What does Marcia want to “walk through,” or review, with Ray? 3. Ray asks about something that is a hot topic, in Marcia’s opinion. What does he ask about?
With his recent moves, Donald Trump has plunged the global economy into a new era of mercantile competition. He slapped tariffs on numerous trading partners even as he finalized new deals with others, such as Japan and the EU. The US president’s executive order last month announcing the tariffs said they were designed to reduce America’s trade deficit. As the Washington Post reports:
Since returning to office, Trump has raised US tariffs to their highest level since the 1930s, with an average rate of about 17% on nearly 45% of all imports. New 25% tariffs have been announced on India, with 50% on Brazil and copper imports. Although the administration has signed framework deals with key partners such as the EU and Japan, analysts warn these agreements remain fragile and insufficient to offset rising input costs and legal challenges.
The consequences of these sweeping tariff increases are being felt deep within the mechanics of global trade. As costs rise and agreements remain uncertain, businesses are struggling to maintain operational stability. Nowhere is this more evident than in global supply chains.
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on how to keep a conversation going while socializing at work.
Some people are natural talkers. They seem to be able to start conversations, and maintain conversations, so easily. You might think this is an ability people are born with. Either you have it or you don’t. Either you have a social personality, or you don’t. But conversation is actually a skill.
And if conversation is a skill, then you can develop it through practice. In our last lesson, we practiced starting a conversation with someone. Once you’ve got the conversation started, it sure is uncomfortable if you don’t know how to keep it going. So we need a different set of skills and language to maintain the flow of conversation.
One thing you might do in this situation is direct the conversation or change the topic. And to keep the other person engaged, you’ll want to show interest and comment on what they’re saying. That makes them feel good and want to keep the conversation going. Showing interest often means asking follow-up questions and showing empathy or personal care or attention.
In this lesson, we’re going to go back to the first dialog we heard in the previous lesson, which featured Penny and George. Penny and George work for an international company called Multi-Fresh, which is hosting a conference for its employees. We’ll hear how Penny develops her conversation with George.
Listening Questions
1. What is the word or topic that Penny uses to change the topic of conversation? 2. What experience of George’s does Penny show interest in? 3. How does Penny react when George tells her about how difficult his experience was?
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on how to start a conversation while socializing at work.
For many people, starting a conversation with someone can be a huge challenge. And it doesn’t get any easier when you’re doing this in another language! But it is one of the most important skills for building professional connections. A simple chat at a conference or event can lead to new opportunities, ideas, or contacts helpful for your career.
Learning to network confidently will help you feel more comfortable and prepared in professional and social situations. So what are some of the things you should think about? Well, you might start by introducing yourself, especially to someone you recognize but haven’t met in person before. You might also use questions to break the ice and start a conversation on a simple and safe topic.
Informal conversations can be tricky. For one thing, you need to know how to handle a situation where you forget someone’s name. You also need to be able to find ways to keep a conversation going and, when the situation calls for it, end it politely.
In this lesson, we’ll hear two dialogs that take place at an HR conference for an international company called Multi-Fresh. In the first dialog, we’ll hear Penny strike up a conversation with George. In the second dialog, Pat tries to strike up a conversation with George.
Listening Questions
1. What information does Penny give when she introduces herself to George? 2. What topic does Penny mention to get the conversation started? 3. What excuse does George give for finishing his conversation with Pat?
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on how to manage the discussion during a meeting in English.
Bad meetings can waste time and leave everyone confused. But a well-run meeting can help create new ideas, solve problems, and move a project forward. Running a great meeting is about more than just following an agenda. It means guiding the conversation effectively.
If you’re running formal meetings as a manager or team leader, this skill is essential. But even if just you’re a team member who wants to make sure your team has good discussions, it’s good to understand what’s behind running a meeting. And you never know when it might be your job to facilitate.
Good meeting management often means keeping the discussion focused and inviting different viewpoints or opinions. It also means widening the discussion, moving to a new agenda item, and checking for agreement.
In this lesson, we’ll rejoin a meeting about budget cuts at an international shipping company. Martin, the General Manager, is facilitating the meeting. We’ll also hear Sandra, Sam, and David, three employees in the meeting.
Listening Questions
1. How does Martin respond to Sam’s comment about pizza? 2. What does Martin say once they have finished talking about the outsourcing issue? 3. At the end of the conversation, what question does Martin ask everyone if they agree on?
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on how to start a meeting in English.
Many jobs require us to spend a lot of time in meetings. Sometimes we might think there are too many meetings. In part, we might feel this way because a lot of meetings aren’t run very well or facilitated effectively.
There’s a good chance that you will have to run meetings some day, if you don’t already. You have a chance to make sure those meetings are effective by running the meeting well. Fortunately, running a meeting involves skills that you can learn.
Today we’ll focus on starting a meeting, which begins with getting people’s attention and acknowledging them. Next, you might clearly state the purpose or goals of the meeting before reviewing the agenda with everyone. Then you may invite someone to begin speaking about the first item on the agenda.
In this lesson, we’ll hear the start of a meeting about budget cuts at an international shipping company. The meeting is being led by Martin, the General Manager. We’ll also hear Sandra, David, and Sam, employees who are attending the meeting.
Listening Questions
1. What does Martin apologize for as he is acknowledging the meeting attendees? 2. What does Martin say is the objective of the meeting? 3. What does Martin invite Sandra to do at the end of the conversation?
Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast as we look at how to build a collaborative workplace culture.
Even in the most competitive companies, collaboration is key to success. In our last lesson, we looked at the benefits of collaboration, like innovation and employee engagement. Now we’ll look at the systems and approaches to make it happen.
Collaboration starts with leadership. Leaders need to focus on “we,” not “I.” That means trusting their teams, being open about goals and challenges, and involving others in decisions. When teams feel trusted and included, they’re more likely to work together.
Communication is key too – and it changes when you give up control. It’s no longer just about giving clear instructions. It’s about listening, understanding different ideas, and building consensus. That takes more time and effort, which means teams need some flexibility in their schedules.
Collaboration also needs structure. Cross-functional teams, shared roles, and communities of practice all help break down silos. And digital tools like Slack or project management platforms make it easier to share work and ideas.
Of course, not every decision has to be made as a group. Some are simple or urgent. And when trust is low, it may be best to focus on rebuilding that first.
But if you want the real benefits of collaboration, you need to create the right environment: one built on trust, open communication, and the systems to support teamwork.
Business English News 56 – Deglobalization
Apr 01, 2024
In this Business English News lesson on the trend toward deglobalization, we look at business English vocabulary related to economics and global trade. The past few years have been a very interesting time for the world economy. A pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of global supply chains. Geopolitical tensions around the world have intensified, stoking […]
Business English News 55 – 2024 Global Economic Outlook
Jan 07, 2024
In this Business English News lesson, we look at business English vocabulary related to the economy and finance and the global economic outlook for 2024.
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