Are you excited for your first day?

Oh, yes!

I always dreamt of this job.

Perfect!

First thing I want you to do is to touch base with the marketing team.

Oh, of course!

Touch base?

Should I touch the marketing team?

Great!

It's important to hit the ground running ASAP.

Hit the ground and run?

What?

What's he saying?

You're a quiet person.

Should we get the ball rolling then?

Oh, I love games!

What ball?

Football?

You are fired!

Hello and welcome to another lesson!

In this lesson, we're going to talk about business English or corporate lingo.

But what does it mean?

It means we're going to learn some phrases and vocabulary that you need to know if you are going to work or are working at an English-speaking environment.

If you're applying for jobs and if you want to prepare for the interview, it's also a good idea to know these phrases.

All right, let's start!

Some of these phrases may sound a bit weird.

For example, this one, touch base.

Touch base?

Touch base of what?

Touch base, surprisingly, means to connect with someone.

You want to talk to someone, maybe your boss, maybe your colleague, maybe your client, just to align, just to communicate.

And well, instead of saying, let's connect with them, in the business world, they say, let's touch base.

Let's touch base later this week to review the project updates.

That means let's connect.

Let's talk about it.

Let's communicate.

You know what a table is, right?

I'm pretty sure you do.

Table is a noun.

But did you know the table can also be used as a verb?

And it's very common in the business world.

Let's table this.

Let's table it?

Like, turn it into a table?

If you say, let's table this or let's table it, you mean, let's postpone it.

It may be a good idea, but for now, let's not talk about it.

Let's table it.

Let's postpone it.

For example, we don't have enough data for now, so let's table this topic for the next meeting.

Let's table this topic.

Let's postpone the conversation.

Another phrase with table, bring to the table.

This seems like a phrase to be used in a restaurant, but in the business world, what does it mean?

Bring to the table means to contribute to a meeting or a project.

What unique skills can you bring to the table for this project?

What unique skills can you bring to the table for this project?

It means what skills do you have that can contribute to this project?

You know what fruit is, right?

But there is a very interesting phrase in business English.

Low-hanging fruit.

Low-hanging fruit.

Low-hanging.

If fruit is low-hanging, what does it mean?

It means it's very easy to pick it, right?

It's here.

It's right here.

Just pick it.

Very easy to do, right?

That is exactly what it means.

Low-hanging fruit are tasks or opportunities that are very easy to achieve with minimal effort.

Those are low-hanging fruit.

Let's focus on the low-hanging fruit to quickly improve our sales figures.

Let's focus on the low-hanging fruit, on the things which can be achieved with minimal effort.

A word that is almost overused in the business world, and I'm pretty sure you've heard.

Synergy.

Synergy.

But what does it mean?

Synergy is a concept.

It means the combined effort of a group that is greater than the sum of individual efforts.

So you as a group of people, you as a team will work together and the combined effort is called the group synergy.

We're looking for synergy between the marketing and the sales teams to boost performance.

We want the synergy between the two teams.

We want them to work together.

A phrase that is very common, especially in online meetings.

Let's take it offline.

Let's take it offline.

What does it mean?

It's very obvious, right?

It means let's discuss it after this meeting, especially privately.

So there's a meeting with 10 people and something comes up and then I tell you, hey, let's take this offline, shall we?

That means you and I will talk about this privately outside of this meeting.

This topic is a bit off track.

Let's take it offline and discuss it after the meeting.

Let's take it offline.

Ah, a cliche phrase that you hear a lot in the corporate world.

Think outside the box.

What does it mean?

Think outside the box?

To think outside the box means to think creatively.

We need to think outside the box to solve this issue with our marketing campaign.

It means we need to think creatively.

We need to come up with a creative idea to solve this problem.

And another word that you must know in business English.

Leverage.

Leverage is basically a fancy way of saying use.

It means to use something to its maximum advantage.

We can leverage our existing customer base to drive growth in the new market.

We can leverage it.

You leverage something that you have, a particular skill or in this case your customer base, you use it effectively to achieve something bigger.

That is leverage.

Now it's time for a dialogue.

Hey, can we touch base about the marketing campaign for a few minutes?

Sure.

I've been thinking we should focus on some low-hanging fruit first.

Like improving our social media presence.

It's an easy win.

Good idea.

But we also need to think outside the box for the new product launch.

We want to stand out from the competition.

Agreed.

Can we bring something to the table that is different from what others are doing?

I think we can leverage our existing customer base.

They trust us and that could help us get traction in the new market.

That sounds like a plan.

We can create some synergy between the sales and marketing teams to make that happen.

Great.

Let's table the rest of the conversation until we get more data.

We don't have all the numbers yet.

Sounds good.

We can take it offline and continue after our next meeting.

I hope you're enjoying this lesson.

So far we've learned 8 phrases and we have 8 more phrases to cover.

But before we continue, let me tell you something.

Do you want to have the summary of this lesson and all other lessons of mine on YouTube in one PDF file for free?

That's right.

You can download my Ultimate English Book which has more than 500 pages of lesson summaries and you can get it for free.

But how?

Simply click on the link above my head, go to my website, type in your name, your email address, your country, and click download.

You will receive the link in your inbox.

And now back to the lesson.

Back, back, back.

A phrase with back.

Back to the drawing board.

Back to the drawing board?

Have you been drawing something?

It's actually a very common business English phrase and it's often used when you fail at doing something as a business.

But what does it mean?

It means to start over.

Start again from the very beginning.

Usually with a new plan because, well, your first plan was not successful.

The client didn't like the proposal.

So it's back to the drawing board for us.

Back to the drawing board because the client didn't like it.

Let's start from the beginning.

Oh, another phrase, but this time with the word ball.

What do you do with a ball?

You can roll it.

Let's get the ball rolling.

Wait, is this business English or are we playing soccer?

Yeah, wait, believe me, this is a very common phrase.

Let's get the ball rolling.

What does it mean?

It means to start something, especially a meeting or a project.

We need to get the ball rolling on the new marketing campaign.

We need to get the ball rolling.

We need to start.

One word that reminds me of work a lot and that if you work in an English-speaking atmosphere, you will hear it a lot, is streamline.

Streamline.

Streamline, what is it?

Streamline is to simplify a complex process.

Why?

Because you want to make it more efficient.

That's streamlining.

So you may hear this a lot.

We're trying to streamline a lot of our processes.

That means we're trying to simplify them to make them more efficient.

Streamline.

We need to streamline our workflow to meet the deadline.

We need to streamline our workflow.

It means our workflow is not very efficient right now and we need to streamline it.

You've had a meeting at work and something didn't go quite right and your boss starts a sentence with moving forward, oh my god, that means from now on something should change.

Let's say in your company there has been very poor communication across multiple departments and your boss will say something like moving forward, we'll need to improve communication across departments to avoid delays.

Yeah, moving forward basically means from now on.

And in the same meeting, your boss will look at you and say I think you should take the lead on this one.

Take the lead.

That basically means you're in control.

It's your responsibility.

Take the lead.

James will take the lead on the new marketing campaign.

James will take the lead.

It's James' responsibility.

And in the same meeting again, your manager will look at James and say you will take the lead but keep me in the loop.

Keep me in the loop?

What does it mean?

It means keep me informed of what you're doing.

Keep me informed.

Let me know.

Keep me in the loop.

Please keep me in the loop on any updates to this project.

Please keep me informed.

And the meeting is over and your boss will look at everyone and say all right, let's hit the ground running.

What will you do?

Start hitting the ground?

To hit the ground running means to start something immediately and with energy.

Yes, let's go.

Let's do this.

We need to hit the ground running if we want to meet the deadline.

We need to hit the ground running.

It means we need to start immediately with energy.

And last but not least, get the green light.

Green light?

Are we driving?

Well, imagine you're driving and you see the traffic light which is red and it turns to green.

What does that mean?

That means you're allowed to go.

You're allowed to start.

That's exactly it.

To get the green light means to get the approval for what you want to do or what you need to do.

We got the green light from management to start a new initiative.

We got the green light from the management.

That means the management has approved the project so we can start now.

And now it is time for another dialogue.

Hey, I heard we didn't get the approval for our proposal.

What's the plan now?

Yeah, the client wasn't happy with it so it's back to the drawing board for us.

We need to come up with a new idea.

I see.

Well, once we have a new idea, let's get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

We don't have much time.

Definitely.

And moving forward, we also need to streamline our process.