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Offer ends August 10th. allearsenglish.com connection hey lindsay how's it going i'm feeling pretty good today michelle how's everything going for you what's up yeah everything is going well lindsay have you ever had to cancel a meeting uh due to some sort of emergency situation yeah for sure for sure and sometimes it even happens like after the emergency happens and i'm exhausted or something ah the aftermath The aftermath.

Yeah, for sure. But yes, I have. What about you?

Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, I know.

Usually things to do with having my kids being sick or not feeling well, family emergency.

Actually, there was. Oh, gosh, there was a time in.

Let's see. It was about a month ago. I actually didn't cancel, but I wish I had.

I was teaching online and my child care fell through.

So I was going to have my year and a half old with me.

And I thought, OK, well, let's give it a try.

And oh, my gosh, how did that go? was three hours and she did fall asleep for a little part of it she actually fell asleep in her high chair which was weird um but then she was jumping all over and it was it was you know that was super intense michelle bad decision bad decision bad decision yeah you got to know when to just cancel right yeah sometimes it can be hard though to cancel because you want to show that you can do everything and you don't want to you know you know it doesn't feel good to have to cancel right of course of course this is the challenge that parents have you know every day right having to navigate child care in addition to work work from home it's it's a big thing now for sure for sure yeah yeah um I recently had an experience where somebody had to cancel something on me so I I don't know I just felt like this was something that's important to cover for the podcast Yeah, I'm excited for our listeners to get this today.

This is a key skill and it really matters, guys, how you do this, right?

It's not so much about the fact that you're canceling.

As long as it's not happening too often, then it's not going to be about that.

It's about how you say it and how you deliver it.

Right, Michelle? Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, but guys, we want to direct you also to episode 181 of the Business English podcast, which was how to cover your bases in business English.

Yeah, I love it. And guys, I want to take a minute to call out the names of those listeners who have reviewed this podcast because we read your reviews guys every week and we love them.

We want to hear your review. So thank you to Fitness Farzan from Iran.

Nabi Ola Kodadi from Spain, Morteza Akbari from the US, Arfan Azgan from Iran, and Charlie 8806 from Germany.

Charlie left us an amazing five-star review.

And he says, your program is on my daily to-do list.

I love that, Michelle. Thank you. Thank you to all of you.

Thank you for listening. We so appreciate it. yeah and you guys know you can leave us a review wherever you listen to the show so go ahead and tell the world what you think about alders english tell us we will read it and if you ask a question inside your review if it's a good one we will bring it on the show to answer it right michelle we love questions from listeners yes we do we really do so let's talk about different mediums right if you need to cancel on someone lindsay are you more inclined to text email call what do you think um Probably email.

If it's a work thing, probably email. Unless it's like the last minute and they may not be checking their email, then it might be text.

So if I cancel it on you, Michelle, if it's five minutes before recording, that might be a text message.

But if it's like two days before, that might be an email.

Depends on timing. Hmm. Yes. Yes. And I want to talk about timing.

Don't let me forget that. Yeah. But because that's something I didn't write about, but I have been thinking that since we started recording that we need to talk about that.

So so let's talk about text, though. If you're going to text, what are you kind of like?

When do you think text might be good? I mean, certainly.

Oh, you already said it. Right, right in front of it.

And when you feel like you're kind of on a bit of a more casual communicative relationship with the person, are we assuming here this is a colleague, Michelle, like you have a work meeting or like a recording session like with us or something like that? well it depends i mean that's good to talk about i mean lindsay like we already talked about what we would do with us but let's say it's let's say you are a wedding planner and you have a client that is coming in and you have to cancel the appointment you're probably not gonna text them probably yes yes yes we want to be a little more professional so we're kind of imagining maybe you're a consultant of some sort and you have an outside client that you're canceling on that's the context right yeah so so that's i mean one of the contexts you know but so i think texting is not necessarily appropriate in those situations an email might be better or a phone call so yeah yeah yeah i think email is a little bit more formal than a text and that's like you said when you have time but what about a phone call yeah i mean i think it's not a bad idea to do both if we're talking about let's say you're a wedding planner or a business owner of some sort and a client is coming in maybe your web designer you had a meeting with that client i think sending an email to have like have it in writing in a way and then also calling can't be wrong you know two modes of communication so why do you think why because i think the phone call is more the immediate like don't get on the train you know don't get on the subway don't write changes but the email might be more of an apology right so you could say something a little different i'm so sorry i had to cancel today looking forward to rescheduling you know when are you available that kind of thing you're it's like a follow-up yeah exactly but in general like you you just said it i mean the basic idea is to apologize and say you need to reschedule yeah for sure for sure so the reason i said texting initially is you know that would be maybe more between colleagues like if or like a slack channel right between call like you and i our colleagues work together we record every week that's a little more casual yeah okay right this is a little bit more casual big topic i know there's a lot to go into here i mean but it happens that's important so but i mean some some key terms you could use are emergency or a family emergency right for sure or something came up being careful with that something came up because that could be that's used sarcastically sometimes too isn't it something came up yeah and also like it's do you think you need to say why you have to cancel something like how how clear do you how specific do you think you need to be for people to be satisfied with you know to be okay with you know i don't think you necessarily have to be super specific um yeah i don't think you have to explain i think if it happens over and over you should initiate like a meeting with the person that you keep canceling on right like and just say what's going on right like is there something bigger going on you would want to take responsibility for that right but for each individual thing i think you don't you're not required to explain what do you think michelle yeah i agree um you know you don't want to be too too vague but um you don't have to like be like oh my my wife you know has a situation like you don't have to and also and be careful what you you don't want to be like oh my toilet is overflowing oh my gosh imagine your wedding planner saying that yeah i think you know people don't necessarily in business people don't necessarily need to know or want to know all the details of your kitchen like a kitchen fire or something whatever it is it's happening right right right so so but if you are gonna text someone so you could say something like hey blank hey lindsay i'm so sorry and i feel like with texts it's also sometimes good to do like capitalization like i'm so sorry So sorry.

Yeah. Maybe. And then I need to reschedule today's meeting.

I'm dealing with a family emergency over here.

Are you free Friday or whatever? yeah and i think we want to we should do another episode michelle on hey versus hi in business that's a great idea let's write that down okay hey versus hi hey versus hi guys hit that follow button so you don't miss that i think that's going to be a really good episode the hey x like hey lindsay hey michelle would work fine between us i think if you're talking to a client like if you're that wedding planner you're talking to your client I might be a little more careful, especially if it's early in the relationship, you're just getting started.

So that's interesting that you say that.

So this is an example for text message, but just look down quickly at our other two examples.

But don't you think, Michelle, maybe we disagree here.

Even, even though it's text, I still think we need to stick with the relationship.

Like how, what is the context of the relationship?

Everything doesn't change just because it's a text message.

Right. But I think also we're kind of going along that idea of if you're, if it's a client, we were saying like, you're less likely to text them.

So, but yes, I agree with you. If you were to text a client, I agree with you that I would say hi.

Hi. Yeah. I would go with hi. I would default to hi for sure.

Default to hi. Default to hi. All right.

Good stuff. See details online. Okay, Michelle, let's go to an email example then.

So we have said we're gonna default to an email or a phone call in most cases for clients.

So what does that look like? All right.

You might say hi, X. So hi, Jessica. I really apologize.

I know we had planned to meet tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately, a family emergency has come up and I need to cancel.

Would you be available on Friday? I sincerely apologize.

Thank you, Michelle. Yeah. And I like the idea of making sure you reschedule immediately.

That's the thing. You got to apologize and you have to reschedule.

Yeah, for sure. And you take responsibility for that, for making sure it gets rescheduled.

I love that. What about on the phone? What do we do there?

Okay. All right. Let's give it a go. Here we go.

Hi, Lindsay. How are you? I'm fine. Are we still meeting today?

That's why I'm calling. I'm really sorry, but I have to reschedule.

Something came up that I have to deal with and I can't get out of it.

Oh, that's okay, Michelle. Let's reschedule.

Thank you so much for understanding. Nice.

Nice. Okay. Yeah. Are you mad at me there?

Are you mad or you feel okay about that?

No, I think have to deal with feels a little angst.

It feels a little intense, like maybe a little bit TMI, slightly too much information.

You could just say just something came up that I have to address would be a way to elevate that a little bit more.

Do you know what I'm saying? Have to deal with... feels a little bit like it's a burden or just, it might be just revealing a little too much about personal life.

In a more formal, again, I'm going back to the wedding planner, the contractor, consultant, you're a web designer, you have a client. maybe just a little, if you just want to be a little more buttoned up, something came up that I have to address.

Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one as well.

So, but I just want to address this before we go is this idea of timing.

Now, I have had people cancel meetings on me like morning of for an afternoon meeting for something that doesn't seem like a good excuse. yeah for sure yeah yeah yeah um so you want to think about timing also like let's say you're let's say your excuse isn't a mate like don't wait until the last minute unless it really is an emergency and something really just came up like oh yeah always be respectful of the person's time i think that's what it all comes down to is just showing that person that you respect their time showing that you are apologetic for having to cancel and showing that you um you know are giving them a heads up if you can now often you can't but if something happens where it's you know you have a client and something didn't quite work out or you need you need to reschedule and don't wait until the morning up if you can help it yeah for sure give them the respect maybe you commit to something try try to not be don't can't try not to cancel or in general of course um and if you do You know, it's better to give them as much warning as you can.

This is a complex topic, isn't it, Michelle?

There's a lot of ways to do it wrong. Yes.

Yes, this is hard. But I think this is hard for native speakers, too.

Oh, you know, this is it's not it doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel good to have to cancel. It just doesn't.

Yeah. And I think there are other scenarios that we haven't covered that we could cover another day.

We're going to need to get some outsider information on how this is dealt with.

But I know in the corporate world, especially for remote work, sometimes people will just get put into a meeting.

People will just put something on your calendar.

That happens. We don't do that here. We always email and say, are you available here?

We just don't do that. But corporate world, they do.

There's a meeting. I'm being pulled into a meeting.

Someone put it on my calendar. Ah. That's a whole other art that we will talk about.

Today's episode is more about a consultant situation or yeah, that would be a great episode.

Let's write that idea down. I like that.

Yeah. Okay. What else, Michelle? So hold on.

I'm writing it down. Well, I'll tell our listeners where they should go now.

Guys, check out episode 140 of Business English.

Are we still on for lunch? How to cancel a business lunch.

So that was very specifically about a business lunch.

So that would be related to today. So go check it out.

Good stuff. Yeah, exactly. So the basic idea is it's always hard to cancel.

But when it's for an emergency, you need to make that urgency, emergency, urgency clear.

Yeah. You're not just... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's important. Maybe they hear it in your voice.

If you're calling, just take people's time seriously, right?

If they've booked a time with you, it means they haven't booked something else that maybe they could have done.

That's the key. And it's respect, right?

If you do need to cancel, take it very seriously.

Do it well. Do it right. And do it only when you have to.

Yeah. I love it. I love it. This is a great topic.

We're going to revisit this from different angles soon, guys.

So hit follow. We'll see that soon. All right.

Okay. This was fun. And I'm glad we didn't have to cancel today.

Me too, Michelle. It's good to be on the mic.

Bye, Lindsay. All right. Take care. Bye.

Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.

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