This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1113.
Attending a business conference?
Don't phone it in.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 50 million times.
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With your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
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I'm going to a business conference in California this week.
Are you attending any conferences soon?
Get three amazing phrases to use at a conference with natives.
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Hey, Jessica, happy last day of February.
Oh, thanks.
I don't feel like there's anything to be celebrated right now.
We're moving through the winter.
James and I were talking about this yesterday.
How annoying it is that like Because he had the day off for Martin Luther King Day.
And then, like, there's another day off school for, like, Veterans Day.
There's all these days off school.
And he's like, I don't understand it because they're not even holidays.
Like, in the sense that we want them to be holidays.
Like, a theme.
Like, something to celebrate.
Whereas...
We have holidays like Halloween and Valentine's Day, but there's no days off school, even though right, it's a theme.
I don't know.
It's just a conversation.
That's true.
It's hard to know what to do with days off sometimes.
Yeah, no, we went skiing the other day on Monday, and it was so cold.
It was like zero degrees out.
It was insane.
Literally.
So that was crazy.
So I don't know.
I hope you guys spent some good time warming up in the lodge.
That's like the best part of that time.
Yeah, but you know what?
February.
I'm just opting out of winter entirely this February because I'll be in California at the end of February for a conference and it's going to be good.
That's so exciting.
Ooh, is that the podcast conference?
No, it's not.
Actually, the podcast conference was in the summer, which was awesome too.
But this is a conference about business building and marketing and things that we need to learn about.
And that's what we're going to talk about today, you guys.
You're going to get some awesome idioms. you could use professionally, but also personally.
Absolutely.
I know a lot of our listeners are interested in business English and we're going to be talking a lot more into March and April about business English guys and how you can bring your new connection skills into the business world.
But before we do that, I actually want to read part of an email that I got from a listener from Korea about our Tokyo program.
Yeah.
Awesome.
We have so many amazing listeners in Korea.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah, we do.
What did this awesome person say?
Okay.
So she says, I'm so glad that you're coming to Tokyo in May.
I'm sorry that you're not coming to Seoul, but it's good enough because it's much closer than Boston.
There you go.
Yeah.
And she says, in the picture of last year's event in Japan, everyone looks Japanese.
So I wonder if it's okay to join if I'm from Korea.
I'm not 100% sure if I can participate in your events in Tokyo for now, but I want to.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh, yes, everyone is welcome, of course.
Lindsay and I, we don't have like any preferences, right?
So I mean, yes, Tokyo is the place we're going to now, right?
And hopefully in the future, We will make it to Seoul.
We will make it to Taipei, Beijing, Brazil, right?
Like we want to go everywhere.
But first things first, right?
This is our first step.
So Tokyo is amazing.
And yes guys, if you live nearby, if you're in Taipei, if you're in Seoul, if you're in anywhere within like a short flight from Tokyo, oh my gosh, please come join us.
Yeah, 100%.
I know it's a pretty short flight because when I lived in Tokyo, a lot of people were going to Korea, to Seoul to shop for the weekend, and even Hong Kong and things like that.
So guys, definitely get yourself a plane ticket.
Buy your tickets for the program.
Go for the VIP program, because a lot of students have said that that was the best option, because that gives you the most one-on-one time with one of us.
Definitely.
So that is the best way to maximize your learning that weekend.
So join the program.
Absolutely.
100%.
It's going to be good.
So go to, yeah.
So Jessica, where can our listeners go to, to do that?
I know this one.
Guys, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash Tokyo.
That one's easy to remember.
Guys, definitely.
You know what?
I mean, the more international, the better, right?
So yes, we would love as many of you to come as possible.
A hundred percent.
I'm always quizzing you on those links.
You're doing well.
You're doing well.
I'm getting better.
After like four years, I've learned some links.
Exactly.
So let's get into it.
I mean, you know, this conference is coming up for me.
It's going to be a big one.
And sometimes conferences can be a little intense, right?
Because we don't know anyone. naturally.
So we thought that we'd talk about a couple of business pet peeves today, right?
Yes.
Yes.
So business pet peeves.
But like, as I said, guys, you could really use these in like any part of your life, right?
But, like Lindsay said, we do want to bring you guys some more business English, because we know a lot of you are using this stuff for your career.
So let's Use it in this context today.
So I could say definitely my biggest pet peeve professionally is when people phone it in.
So this is an awesome idiom because, like you cannot tell at all what it means from the words themselves.
So phone it in.
It's like you are just taking up space.
You're not trying.
You are not working hard at all.
Like you show up, right?
Like you're there, but you're not contributing anything.
So that drives me crazy because if I'm working, I'm working.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love that.
Yeah.
Literally, if you go to the dictionary, it says to perform a role or duty in a half-hearted, disinterested and unprofessional manner.
I love that.
So here's a question.
Is that the same as dial it in or is that a different expression?
Dial it in.
Have you heard that one?
Dial it in?
I haven't.
But that is really not something that I say.
I say phone it in for sure.
Dial it – oh, no.
Okay.
I do.
I say dialed in.
So without the it, right, it's different.
So to be dialed in as an adjective phrase would be like you're connected.
You have the details and the information.
Yeah, it's totally different.
Exactly.
It's totally different.
Here it says to set up everything completely, precisely and perfectly.
So almost kind of the opposite.
But going back to phone it into The focus on that one.
I love that one.
And this, guys, is like a native secret right here.
Really use this because I've heard only natives use this.
And it's so natural.
It actually sounds kind of cool when we say it, when we want to express this idea.
That guy's really phoning it in.
Right?
So yeah, it's good.
Yeah.
So remember that like this is a negative thing to say, obviously.
And when we are using this language in the context of pet peeves, our intonation changes, right?
So I think that's another thing to think about, guys.
Like this really will give you that native edge, right, to be connecting it to the emotion.
So like the disappointed sigh at the beginning, like, ugh, he's really phoning it in.
That's so natural.
It doesn't get more natural than that.
Guys, write this down.
This is gold today.
Gold today.
And take it to your next, whatever, your next conversation with your colleagues.
Again, just be careful who you're saying it around because it could be offensive.
We're like encouraging you guys to gossip.
It's fine.
It happens.
Okay.
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So the next one.
This is a really fancy, impressive sounding phrase to do something for the sake of
So for the sake of introduces like the purpose of why you're doing something, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It could be a positive thing.
Like, I am working hard for the sake of our business, right?
Like a positive goal.
But it could be negative, right?
So, Lindsay, you thought of this one.
When it's annoying to you and people give you their business cards, why is that annoying?
Yeah.
I mean clearly in American business culture we have to wait until we've actually built the relationship so that they may want to reach out to us right.
You know the feeling when you're in a networking event or a conference.
I might face this.
I doubt I'll face this in this conference because these guys are like modern marketers, right?
Yeah. this would be more likely to happen in a more old fashioned kind of scenario.
But when someone, just you feel it, they come up to you and the business card comes right out before you even know who they are.
And we wanna be careful because in different cultures, it's done differently, right?
So I'm pretty sure that in Japanese culture that is how you would really introduce yourself, And so it's really different across cultures.
But in American business culture, I just I don't like it.
It's my pet peeve when someone just gives me a business card for the sake of handing out business cards.
So this gets to the cultural difference in business, right?
Between how Americans might do something and how Japanese yes, and Taiwanese.
I think most Chinese people as well.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
You guys can write a comment on this.
But for sure, because I know when I was in Taiwan as well.
That's like if you're in a professional context –
And I am meeting this group of people for the first time and everyone is giving me their business card.
And I'm like, as an American, that's annoying.
It's a pet peeve because I feel it's inefficient.
I have no context.
I don't need this yet.
Don't give it to me yet.
Right.
There's a time and place, right?
And in my mind it's after you've actually really sat down with the person for a little while, or maybe you've had a substantial conversation and there's follow-up necessary for something.
That would be the reason to hand someone your business card in a conference in the U.S.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So, yeah.
So let's bring this back to the vocab, guys.
So if you are conducting business in your own culture, giving someone the business card for the sake of an introduction or for the sake of merely exchanging cards, that is acceptable.
That's normal.
That's polite, right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
But doing that here, not so much.
Yeah.
So the phrase to take away, guys, is for the sake of, right?
I love that.
Just doing something, you know, for the purpose of the action itself, right?
Within itself.
So good.
So good.
Yeah.
So the last phrase, you guys, this is also very idiomatic.
It's lovely.
So you probably know the word rehearse, right?
Like to rehearse, to practice.
Yeah.
But boring.
Yeah.
So what's another way we could say that?
I love this phrase.
It is to have a dry run.
For some reason, that phrase just sounded gross to me for some reason.
It sounded weird.
Yeah.
Outside of conversation, it sounds weird.
But it's so good.
It's so good.
For example, we are hosting a webinar soon.
Well, actually, when this comes out, it'll have already happened.
Oh, darn.
We're recording a little in advance because I'm going to be away in February.
And yeah, so we just did a dry run for our web class coming up.
Right.
We did a dry run.
We went on the webinar platform.
We recorded it.
We looked at the PowerPoint and all that stuff.
A dry run.
Love it.
Yeah.
So I think, yeah, this goes beyond just practice, right?
So a dry run is actually going through the whole presentation.
I think this is best used in the context of presentation.
So it could just be to your colleagues, your boss, or a huge audience at a conference.
But to do a dry run is not just to look at your notes.
It's to actually go through the whole thing.
Use the technology, bring up the slides, because the purpose is to make sure that all the tech works.
Exactly.
So it's kind of like a trial, right?
Trying it out to see what happens, see what your backup plan would be if it didn't work for some reason.
And you know how this comes back to.
Pet peeves, though is do you ever go to like breakout sessions or presentations, just when you go to conferences?
Or do you spend the whole time networking usually?
No.
Well, I don't really do the conferences.
I just went to that one big huge one here.
But no, I attend anything that's interesting.
I mean, it goes back to like not phoning it in.
Like if I'm going to be at a conference, I'm going to do everything I possibly can.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's funny.
I feel like I want to spend more time this time networking, because whenever I hear about people that are really high up in their careers, they always say that when they go to conferences they actually don't even go to the talks.
They just spend their time networking in the lobby.
Oh.
Yeah, okay.
You know what I mean?
But I don't know.
I think a good mix of both is a good thing.
But yeah, I love to go to the talk show.
I like to learn and get motivated when I go to these things.
Yeah.
Yeah, but like as your career evolves –
As your role evolves, so does your interests and requirements and responsibilities.
Yeah, Lindsay, you're going to be networking hardcore.
I hope so.
No, but that is annoying.
You're expecting a professional presentation or at least something that is worthy of your time.
And if the time is wasted, yeah, this totally happens.
Because the person, they're like, oh, why doesn't the mic work?
How do I turn this on?
And it's supposed to have started.
Oh, that's terrible.
Yeah.
And the fact is, if you go to a really big conference, usually there are like four or five other options at the same time that you choose.
And sometimes it's not an easy choice.
So guys, if you're giving one of these presentations, these breakout sessions, make sure you go through a dry run before you give the presentation.
Yeah.
And you know what?
I think this is great to have in your back pocket, you guys, because, you know, stuff happens.
There are glitches sometimes.
So what if you did do a dry run and then you're going through your presentation and maybe the slides stop clicking over right?
Like the remote button stops working and the slides won't click over.
Yeah.
You could look at your audience and you could be like, guys, listen, I did a dry run.
It worked just five minutes ago.
Just give me a second.
I know these phrases are so native, especially the I love the phone it in and the dry run.
So good, guys.
So good.
Like Jessica said, if you can keep them in your back pocket and break them out, it will change the way that you connect with natives, because they'll feel like you really understand them right.
You guys will really understand each other if you're using their language.
Right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
And remember, guys, like the best way to learn vocabulary is in context.
So when you take notes on Lindsay and my conversations today, make sure that you are writing down the context of situation, the whole sentence that we're using it in right.
That's why the students in Connected Communicator learn vocabulary so well because they learn it from natives in real context, in real conversations.
Absolutely.
A hundred percent.
I love it.
So, so this has been a good little hint into the business world today, right?
As I'm getting ready for this conference and guys you're going to be talking, like I said before, we're going to be talking more about business English this spring, into the summer.
So it's going to be good.
It's going to be good.
Keep listening to Allers English and we're going to learn a lot this spring.
For sure.
So many amazing projects.
Oh my gosh, so many, so many.
All right, Jessica, thanks for hanging out today.
It's been fun as always.
Super fun.
All right, enjoy your conference.
Yeah, I'll talk to you soon.
Bye.
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