Dialog: VIP LESSON 049 - Future of Business A: We really embarrassed ourselves last night at that business function. B: What are you talking about? A: We didn't even have business cards to hand out. We need to make some if we want anyone to take us seriously. B: Who cares what those suits think? A: We should, we're the ones trying to do business with them. I know they are a bunch of squares, but we've gotta play the game if we want to make any cash. B: Fair enough, but I'm not sure business cards are necessarily the way to go. We want to stand out as innovators rather than followers. We can just say that business cards are outdated and were around before cell phones were super popular. Now you can just take down a new contact's number and you don't have to worry about losing all those stupid cards. A: That makes sense actually. But if you had that reasoning, why wouldn't you say that last night instead of just accepting the other people's cards without saying anything. B: I just thought of that now. Phrases and Vocabulary Used: Function: Sometimes formal events are called functions. If you don't know the exact name of this kind of formal event, just call it a function. A "work function" is another example. Hand out: Handing something out, is a way of saying "giving" something to someone. Obviously you are using your hands to do this. Take us seriously: If you "take someone seriously" it means that you treat them like they are respectable and serious people who are not just joking around. He wrote a really good novel, but none of the book publishers he saw took him seriously because he was poorly dressed and it was his first book. She made an impressive business plan, but the banks didn't take her seriously because she was only 16 and didn't have a university education. Suits: This is a negative term used to describe people who wear suits all the www.china232.com 1
time to their job. It's kind of like calling these people robots who are controlled by a big corporation or government. It gives the feeling that these people are boring people who can't think for themselves. The movie script is awesome as it is. It's so annoying that those suits have to get involved and make it suck. Squares: A "square" is a person who never does anything bad or says anything offensive. This is another term to describe boring people. He's such a square, he won't even have a single glass of wine at his own wedding. Play the game: In this business context, "playing the game" means to do whatever needs to be done to get the business. He's a super smart guy but no company will want him because he refuses to play the game and often gives the company a bad image. The way to go: If something is "the way to go" it means that it is the right way to do something. He's 92, I don't think that getting a dangerous surgery at his age is the way to go. Stand out: If you "stand out" it means that you appear different and noticeable. We have so many competitors in our industry. Almost everything looks the same. Consumers don't know what to buy. If we want to sell anything, we need to make a product that really stands out. Innovators: An "innovator" is someone who is creative and invents new things. They challenge the way the old things are done and do something new. The Ipod was a very innovative product when it first came out. FULL PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: Welcome back to lesson number 49 in the VIP room for anyone who is interested and paying attention Add, talking business kind of things once again and this is a thought that crossed my mind and it's actually crossed my mind several times. The main topic of the show, which is when you meet people, when you're networking, and you re doings some business kind of stuff. You re exchanging business cards, and I think the whole thing is ridiculous. I m going to get to that in the dialogue. Add, do you have anything you want to add before I give the www.china232.com 2
whole surprise away. Well, I think you gave it away pretty much but that's okay because now you know what we're talking about and I think that's a pretty good idea there Andy, so maybe we should just jump right in and then we can talk about everything after that. A: We really embarrassed ourselves last night at that business function. B: What are you talking about? A: We didn't even have business cards to hand out. We need to make some if we want anyone to take us seriously. B: Who cares what those suits think? A: We should, we're the ones trying to do business with them. I know they are a bunch of squares, but we've gotta play the game if we want to make any cash. B: Fair enough, but I'm not sure business cards are necessarily the way to go. We want to stand out as innovators rather than followers. We can just say that business cards are outdated and were around before cell phones were super popular. Now you can just take down a new contact's number and you don't have to worry about losing all those stupid cards. A: That makes sense actually. But if you had that reasoning, why wouldn't you say that last night instead of just accepting the other people's cards without saying anything. B: I just thought of that now. VIP LESSON 049 - Future of Business Right, so that was a good dialogue. We have been talking about getting business cards, but I like this idea in the dialogue and I think we ll go with that from now on. Absolutely, yeah, we've actually never made business cards and a lot of people talk about you know, you ve got to get a business card, you need a business card, you ve got to do all this stuff, but it s 2010, and everyone's got a cell phone. My maid has a cell phone. That s how you store people's information. I don't understand why you want this stupid ticket. This little piece of paper. I think it's not bad if you don't really like meeting people and you still want to get your name out there, but you probably aren t really getting a good reputation if you can't even get their phone number with your cell phone. Yeah, and a lot of people just come in to these things, handing out their business cards to everybody. I take them and then end up losing them and I don t understand why. They just imagine I guess that people will just magically want it and call them for some reason. I mean, sometimes, I guess it makes sense, but we re kind of having a little bit of fun with this Add. But let s just jump into the first term here, which is a business function. Add s claiming we embarrassed ourselves without www.china232.com 3
these business cards at the business function, and a function here is kind of a funny word in this context, and sometimes formal events are called functions and if you don't know the exact name of some kind of formal event, you can just call it a function. So I could say, like a work function, so I've got to go to this stupid work function tonight so I m going to be home late honey. If you're married and want to be nice to your wife or husband. Right, they re having some kind of a function, just some kind of a gathering of some sort and yeah, usually this is in some sort of a business environment. Yeah, it s usually in a business environment, you don't know what to call it so you just say it s some sort of a function, like there s going to be dinner and whatever, maybe not even you don t even know what it is. It s just some sort of a function I guess. Anyway, next one Add, hand out, and this term, this phrasal verb I believe it's called is when you give something to somebody with your hands. So this is what we use to say, you know for handing out business cards for example, which I said we don't do because we don't have any and hate them. But anyway, if you're going to give people business cards and you want to express that, you could say, I've been handing out a lot of business cards. So handing them out is just giving them, it s another way to say it instead of passing them along or giving them out. Yeah, I find a lot of people almost hand them out like they re handing out flyers and just more of a nuisance than anything. You don't even want to keep them or put them in your pocket. Yeah, some people just hand them out I've seen, before you even really start a conversation. They sort of start the whole thing with their business card and it doesn't make any sense at all. And anyway, in this dialogue Add s playing the role of the guy who says we need to make some if we want anyone to take us seriously and this phrase here, take us seriously, if you take someone seriously, that means that you treat them like they are a pretty serious person and they re not joking around. You kind of respect them and you know this is a serious kind of thing. So I could say, he wrote a really good novel, but none of the book publishers he saw took him seriously because he was poorly dressed, and it was his first book. So basically, even though the book was really good, nobody cared. They thought he was like a little stupid kid. They didn't even want to publish the book. They couldn't take him seriously. Exactly, and sometimes people don't take younger people seriously because they are young and they have no experience. So, you could say, I couldn t take him seriously because he was only five years old. How could I listen to what he was talking about? Yeah or I could say, she made an impressive business plan but the banks didn't take her seriously because she was only 16 and didn't have a university education. So even again, though the business plan was okay, she was too young and they didn't take her seriously. They didn't treat her with the type of respect that they would do to someone who they did take seriously. Right, so I was worried about people not taking us seriously because of our not having business cards, but in actuality people do take us seriously because of our basically because of our people skills I would have to say. My people skills are definitely hit and miss depending on my mood. Sometimes they re pretty bad, but you know, we get the job done sometimes Add, when we re talking to suits and this is the next term. One of my favorites, if not my favorite word in the www.china232.com 4
whole dialogue. I said, who cares what those suits think? And we know what a suit is. It s a man's formal wear I guess. You wear a suit to a wedding and this kind of thing. But when you're calling somebody a suit, this is a negative term to describe people who wear suits all the time to their job. It s kind of like calling these people robots who are controlled by a big corporation or government, and it gives you the kind of feeling if you're calling other people these suits, that these people are boring, and they cannot think for themselves. So if you refer to someone as a suit, it's almost like you're saying they're not even a real person, they re just speaking on behalf of the corporation or whatever. Right, and you're really making fun of them because you can't just call anyone that's working in a company a suit as much because it's pretty derogatory and it could be pretty offensive if you did it in the wrong way. Yeah, if you call them a suit, you know, that guy is just a suit. That s not a very nice thing to say. Because you're saying really all he is, is his clothing. Right, and he has no thoughts for himself basically. Yeah, so I could say, or someone that's writing movies could say, that movie script awesome. It's so annoying that those suits have to get involved and make it suck. Which is often the case with movie writing, the suits, the business people have to get involved and they end up ruining the entire movie script by the young writers. I've never written a movie but, I hear this is what happens. Right, they just want to make the most money and they don't really care if they ruin the script. If they get the most money, then they re happy. That s what these suits care about. Exactly, I hate wearing a suit myself but I do if someone invites me to a wedding, which happens very infrequently, but from time to time. Anyway Add, a square. We may have talked about this one, but you may have forgotten or I may have forgotten. But anyway, a square is another derogatory or negative term and its it's about a person who never does anything bad or says anything offensive. So it s another way of describing these really boring people. So I could say, he's such a square. He won't even have a single glass of wine at his own wedding. So someone who s that, you can imagine a guy who he s at his own wedding, everyone s drinking, he's having fun, maybe he doesn't drink, which is fine but he s so much of a square he can t even have any fun at all and have even one glass of wine at his own wedding, that's my example of a square. Exactly, and I think when I first heard this term was from my grandfather and you often hear that kind of a term in his generation. So you re kind of making fun of them for being old as well if you call somebody a square because it's really not used that often. Yeah, so a lot of corporate guys, these suits are often squares as well and if we re talking to any of you and you happen to be a suit or a square, my apologies, but you know how it is. These are just the terms to call businesspeople. Most of our friends are suits. Most of them are not squares really or suits, but they wear suits and they hate it. Sometimes we call them suits and squares so just for fun because we like to do that over here. Yeah, and they're doing that because they just want to play the game and in the business context, in the business world, playing the game means to do whatever needs to be done to get the business. So I could say, he's a super smart guy, but no company will want him because he refuses to play the game and often gives the company a bad image. So playing the game is just doing whatever business www.china232.com 5
kind of stuff is necessary. So even if you don't think wearing a suit is something you want to do, if you want to be a banker, you have to wear a suit. That s part of playing the game. Exactly, and we re not really playing the game over here. We re working for ourselves. I m not sure how it's going necessarily, but I'm having a good time. And we re not playing the game, but we re playing our own game so I would say that's pretty good. It s really fun to do. It's a little bit risky sometimes and it feels weird without the steady salary, but things seem to be going and that's the way to go that we see it Add is making money online. And if something is the way to go it means it's the right way to do something. So I could say, about somebody or a doctor could say, he's 92. I don't think that getting a dangerous surgery at his age is the way to go. So the doctor doesn't think that for a 92-year-old man getting that kind of surgery is the right decision. It s not the way to go. It's not the right decision. It's not the right move so to speak. Exactly and the next term we have here is stand out and if you stand out it just means that you appear different and noticeable. It's nice to stand out if you're going out on a night out on the town and you re trying to attract some ladies or some men and depending on who you're talking about. Yeah, so standing out, you can stand out in both a positive or a negative way. Obviously you want to stand out in some kind of a positive way. If you do something really weird and stupid you'll stand out but you ll look like an idiot. But anyway, in one other context, in a business context, we could say, we have so many competitors in our industry, almost everything looks the same. Consumers don't know what to buy. If we want to sell anything, we need to make a product that really stands out. So something that s quite different and Apple, the ipod manufacturer or Apple Computer's, you know them. They make a lot of stuff that stands out, they make you know, it's the same thing really, it s a computer, but they look different and it gives people something like, wow that's quite different, or that kind of feeling, it stands out, it looks different. Right, and Apple's also a very innovative company or you could call them innovators and if you're an innovator, it s just someone who's creative and you invent new things. So Apple is the company that invented the ipod and obviously you've heard about this if you re listening to this show I would guess. So we re kind of innovators in a way even though we weren't the ones to think about podcasts. I don t even know if you can really call us innovators but we re doing something kind of different. We hope that we re standing anyway. But these are people that challenge the way old things are done and try to do something new. That's what innovators which are the people do, that s what innovation is all about. It s creating something new, forgetting about what was old and using the technology and leveraging it to make something pretty sweet in the time that you're in. So anything new for that time is very innovative. Right and we re trying to make some innovative lessons over here and I've hoped you enjoyed the show here at triplewwwdotchina232.com www.china232.com 6