Background: This esl podcast is about a conversation between friends after a job interview. Learn excellent terms and vocabulary for job interviews and have fun listening to this podcast!
Lesson Below
Conversation
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Add: How’d the interview go today?
And: Great! I think I got the job.
Add: What kind of job is it?
And: It’s selling life insurance. They said the top guys earn over a quarter million dollars per year in commission.
Add: Ya, that’s how they hook you. Did they happen to mention the industry average? Also, how are you supposed to find business?
And: They have a list of people and you are supposed to phone them.
Add: Oh, cold calling? That’s horrible. I did that before. It’s really easy to get discouraged. I couldn’t handle all the rejections. You are always interrupting people while they are at work and stuff. They often get angry and it’s just a really difficult way to do business.
And: I spoke with a few guys who did it and they said it was tough at first, but later on you get a lot of business from referrals so you don’t have to rely on cold calling.
Add: that’s not too bad I guess. Do they pay you a salary as well?
And: They do for the first 6 months and then after that its all commission based. I’m going to try it out. I’ve got a feeling I can be pretty persuasive.
Add: It’s a lot harder than you think, but good luck, I don’t want to discourage you. I’m sure it will be a good experience at the very least.
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Key vocabulary and phrases that are discussed in the podcast:
Commission – It’s a type of payment where you get a % of what you sell. A 5% commission means that you would get 5% of the cost of something if you sold it. Many sales jobs pay this way. Sometimes the deal is some salary, some commission.
Hook – Try to make you do something. In this dialogue, the boss talked about the most successful salespeople to make the person think it’s a great job.
Industry average – The average amount of money that all the people in one industry earn. In this case, it’s the average earnings of the people at that company who sell life insurance.
Cold calling – Some sales people use this method of sales to reach their potential clients. It’s when you simply phone someone from a list of paper. These are often just random people you are trying to sell to. It’s a very difficult form of selling.
Rejections – When people refuse to buy your product.
Referrals – When someone you have done business in the past, tells someone else about your business and you sell to that new person. For example, if you sold me a house and then later I told my friend that you are really good and they should go to you. Then I referred you and you got your new business from my referral.
Persuasive – The ability to use your own reasoning and arguing abilities to make other people do what you want them to. For example, if you want your friend to go to the bar, but he doesn’t want to go at first, maybe you can persuade him to go if you tell him it’s cheap drink night or it’s ladies night. It’s obviously an important quality to have in sales.
September 8th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Hi, how are you there? I am really enjoying to listening to you guys. The job you are doing is great! I am fond of Business English, so that’s the topic which I appreciated much. The information is a bit fun as well as rather useful.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:30 am
great job guys. I have obligation to take one lessons everyday because your lessons are super. Be so good and do not stop doing these enrich lessons. Thank you from Slovakia
February 18th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
it`s really good thank you so much everything seems to be perfect but I was thinkin about the idea to invite another one in the podcast in order to listen more voices it would be graet I think.
Please don stop don`t please¡¡¡¡
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I like the music by Maddona at the end too
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Hello Again guys I´m don´t know anything about business but I think always we can lear something. Hey I like too the song of Madona “La isla Bonita”.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
This is very interesting to study englich like that , because in college we study academic english. That\’s not so good.
June 24th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Hey guys,
I have already listen until this lesson, and i want reach de most recent you have published… number 121. But i want listen one-by-one until there, because they are great.
I am learning a lot with you.
Thank you for helping me improve my english.
On proposal, i´m from Brazil.
September 1st, 2009 at 3:20 am
I like your lessons so much!! I listen them almost everyday to improve my English. It\’s very funny although some vocabularies I couldn\’t use them in Thailand but it can make me feel enjoy when I learn them.
December 11th, 2009 at 1:58 am
This is the first time I comment.
The lessons for free are absolutely amazing.
I love this podcast.
Thank you for making me smile all the time.
On the front page, there are nice two guys :-) wearing pink shirt and purple one.
Which one is Andrew or Addison?
I’m just curious.
Hope you guys smile after reading this.