This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 482.
Give your business idea one last chance with this vocabulary.
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This is Real Business English, with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.
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Hey, Lindsay, how are you?
Pretty good, Michelle.
How are you?
How's it going?
Yeah, I'm doing well, thanks.
So is it easy to know when it's time to kind of I don't want to use the word give up, but I can't think of a better one.
Give up on an idea in business.
Yeah, I think people love the word pivot.
Pivot.
Let's say pivot.
It's hard.
No, you're right, Michelle.
I mean, if you're a very disciplined business person, then probably yes.
But sometimes we fall in love with our ideas.
Yeah, or we feel like we don't have enough data and we think oh, but this launch didn't go well because of this.
And yeah, so it's not easy for me.
It's not easy.
Yeah.
No, no, it's not easy.
So today we're going to talk about a frequently used expression, to talk about giving something one final chance.
Dramatic.
Yes, it is.
It is traumatic.
Lindsay, what is this?
What is the expression?
The expression of the day is last ditch effort. last ditch effort.
And I like this one because it does work for business and life, right?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
This is very versatile.
I mean, do you ever use this, Lindsay?
Yeah, absolutely.
I definitely do.
One last ditch effort.
It puts a little emotion into what you're saying, right?
Yeah.
It's pretty complex.
The pronunciation, it's funny because it's, it almost sounds like the way, you know, people don't usually say last ditch effort, right?
It almost sounds like you're saying last ditch effort, right?
The way it's connected.
It's like, oh, last ditch effort.
Just the way it's connected.
I think it sounds more like that.
I don't, I...
When I say it, I don't say last-ditch effort.
I don't pause so much.
It's like that connected speech, last-ditch effort.
Yeah, let's make sure our listeners know exactly what the word is that they're hearing.
Can you spell it for us here, Michelle?
Yeah.
Ditch.
D-I-T-C-H.
So last ditch effort.
Yeah.
And there's a hyphen between the two, the last and the ditch.
And that's why they seem to stick together pronunciation wise.
Right. right?
Right.
So when you hear it, you might be hearing last stitch effort, right?
Last stitch, like stitching, uh, kind of right.
Or like Lilo and stitch, right?
That's it.
It can, it might.
Just so you know it might sound a little bit like that when uh someone saying it quickly.
Um, so I wanted to point that out, but it's actually a last ditch effort if you're spacing it.
Um, Yeah.
One final chance, right, Michelle?
One final push before you're kind of ending something, shutting it down, putting it out to pasture, whatever we send it off to the farm.
Yeah, I mean, it's true.
So companies have products. multiple products and some of them do better than others.
And so they have to make these decisions sometimes.
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
So.
Well, we have something exciting coming up before we talk more about Last Ditch Effort.
Yeah, we're going to start focusing on pronunciation in a new course that is going to be coming out.
Oh, Michelle, we've been so busy.
We just launched professional two and now we've got another new course pronunciation.
But the cool thing, the thing that I love about this course, is that it's not just about American English.
It's not that narrow.
It's about the rhythm of English broadly.
So this course will help you to speak clearly.
That is the goal of this course.
Course is clear speech, no matter what accents you are using, let's say british australian, no matter what accents what?
Who is hearing you from different native speakers, non-native speakers?
It's clear speech by understanding the secrets that native speakers know that we're going to show you in the course.
All right.
Love it.
So guys, if you want to get on to that early access list, we highly recommend it.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash pronunciation.
Yes.
And pronunciation is spelled P-R-O-N-U-N-C-I-A.
T-I-O-N.
Yes.
Nice long word, but a good place to go.
Very worth it to go over there, because when you get on that early access list, you will be one of the first to receive the email to know when the course is live.
When it's ready, you'll get the best possible price on the course.
It's also cool to be early in a course because we will connect with you.
We'll ask you questions about how it's going.
It's a cool moment to connect with us when you join a course early, right?
Absolutely.
So, um, Last-ditch effort.
When would we use this, Lindsay?
We talked about it being one final push, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes at work there's a campaign that we're trying to implement, but it just doesn't seem like it's working.
So we might give up, or we might just suggest one last ditch effort, one last thing that we'll try to do to give it one final chance.
And maybe people don't necessarily have much confidence in this one final chance, but they're going to try it because the worst thing would be like putting a product to bed and then thinking like oh, but we didn't try this thing.
Right.
Right, exactly.
And I think that shows a lot of intelligence just to know when it's good for one more chance or when it's probably not worth it.
I mean, it's just an analogy.
So Dan and I have something called the one more block rule.
OK.
So sometimes when we've been traveling and you're kind of going around aimlessly and you're looking for a restaurant and you know, you're kind of like oh, there's nothing much here.
We should just turn around and go in the other direction.
We'll say one more block.
So we'll say one more block when the one more block roll, because And it's that it's that same idea of you know, when is it worth it to keep going and see.
Maybe sometimes that's when the best gems are found.
It's true.
Oh, my gosh.
That's a good rule.
I like that rule.
Make sure that you. explore what's out there.
It's true when you're traveling and you're looking for a restaurant.
It can get really a lot of drudgery when you just can't find the right place.
But then there's this beautiful, you know option around the corner and it's the best meal you've ever had.
Right.
Yeah.
So kind of, it's, it's a similar idea.
So sometimes It is worth going one more block.
Maybe sometimes it's not, but this last-ditch effort is basically the one more block rule.
The one more block rule.
I love it.
Let's give some examples, Michelle, of where this might be implemented, yeah?
Right.
Yeah.
So an example could be maybe one extra email pushed out to clients, or maybe you're trying to schedule something with the team.
So one more we use a lot of doodle.
Doodle polls.
We do.
We do.
Or what else?
Or maybe one more month trying to see if a new program can become more understandable, or even something as simple as trying to solve a math problem or a computer problem, before you call IT.
Yeah.
Right.
You don't want to be the person that's always calling IT for help.
Right.
Right.
Exactly.
So let's show now how it would actually be used in sentences.
So here's the first one.
Okay.
So our sales have decreased, but I'm not ready to cancel the project.
I'd like to give it one last ditch effort and really push ourselves for one more month.
That's a good one.
Or this one, the computer isn't turning on.
Okay, one last ditch effort.
If it doesn't work, I'll call IT.
Because you know that when they get there, they're going to just push one thing.
Yeah, right.
It's going to be very easy.
Or they're going to unplug and plug back in.
Embarrassing.
Or the campaign could be working better.
I'd say let's give it one last ditch effort.
Things could pick up if we dedicate some more time and effort to it.
Nice.
These are all great examples.
Yeah.
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Okay, Michelle, we are back.
So have you ever made a last ditch effort?
Or do you want to ask me?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm trying to think.
I mean, yeah, the one more block rule is my best example that I can think of off the top of my head.
I'm trying to think of something in business.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's hard for me to think of it right now.
Lindsay, is there anything you can think of that?
Maybe you've thought oh, maybe we're not sure if this is working, so we're going to put it.
Give it one more try.
Nothing specific actually right now, but this happens a lot.
I mean, companies have a lot of products.
They have a lot of ideas.
And then...
But not everything works out, right?
So we have to know how many tries to give it before we, as we said, pivot.
I think that the politically correct thing to say is pivot.
Because it kind of masks a sense of failure a little bit, that word, I think.
Right.
We're just pivoting.
We're not giving up.
We're just pivoting.
Exactly.
But I think any good business knows that some products are just not going to resonate with an audience the way others do.
And that's okay.
You know, that's totally okay.
So this is a good, useful phrase.
Yeah.
So a couple other extra things you could say that are similar.
So one of them is do or die.
It's do or die.
So let's try for one more month and that's it.
It's do or die.
Yeah.
And sometimes the stakes are a little higher with this phrase too.
Right.
It has to hit a certain revenue level.
It adds a layer of pressure, this phrase, I think.
But it means basically the same thing.
Yeah.
Or one last try or one last shot.
We haven't given her enough of a chance.
Let's give her one last try.
Yeah.
And that can be hard, too.
Sometimes you make a hire and the person is disappointing, but it's hard to give up on the person.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, and to admit to yourself that maybe you made a mistake in the hire.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, that can happen.
For sure.
For sure.
Um, or this one's a little bit more formal sounding final attempt.
Um, Okay, we will keep going for it, but this is our final attempt.
Final attempt.
Yeah, sounds a little more formal.
Or one more or final push.
If we can give this quarter one final push, I think we could really be successful.
Sorry, my voice is not good.
Another good example, right?
These are all getting at the same meaning.
Right.
So you could say one more push or a final push.
Right.
However you want to put that.
But yeah, again, and with some of these, it doesn't always have to be about stopping something.
It could be that you're doing a project and you just want to put all of your effort into it before the end.
So like the final push.
Sure.
So, but yeah, these are all really useful for you know, talking about your progress and your goals and when it's good to pivot.
So let's do a role play, Lindsay.
Here we are.
Working together and we're going over our quarterly figures.
All right.
Okay, good.
All right.
Here we go.
Yes.
Okay.
So it seems like the June campaign wasn't really a hit.
Yeah, but I don't know.
I say it's worth one last ditch effort.
You think?
One last try?
I don't know.
Yeah, honestly, I think our team could give it one final push.
If we send out extra emails and even do some ground marketing, it could work.
Okay, that makes sense.
We will do one final attempt, but it's do or die.
Thank you.
And this happens too, right?
Sometimes one team member is really done with the thing and the other one is more invested in it.
Maybe it's the person who's put all the work.
It is hard.
It's like the sunk cost principle.
When we've sunk so many costs and costs could be money, costs could be energy costs, could be creativity.
We sink our creativity, our energy into something.
It becomes harder and harder to say this is a failure.
We need to move on.
But that's a part of successful business skills is knowing when to move on from something, you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's trying hard to not get your emotions involved too much, right?
Because like you said, I loved how you said it, you fall in love with your ideas.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
There's this emotional piece.
I mean, you even feel it.
I even remember that, like, I think a teacher said that to me once about writing, right?
When you have to cut words, right?
Or just have to make a speech shorter or just cut out some of the fat.
And you've fallen in love with it and you don't want to, you know, it can be really hard.
Oh, what is that expression like kill your darlings or something?
I think that's the expression.
I don't know.
I think that's regarding editing, like being ruthless with your editing.
It's like because we do we fall in love with our work.
We think we're so creative.
So great.
But it's just it's a lot of words.
So that's why people have editors and publishing houses.
Right.
That come in with a neutral perspective with more of a like, how is this book going to sell?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's the same idea as when you're trying to get you know clean up your house and you fall in love with the items.
And if you've got a neutral person in there, they can do it so much faster.
Oh, it's so true.
We see the world with our own glasses.
Right.
With our own eyes.
We get attached.
It's so true.
It's so true.
Especially when it's art.
It's like work, you know, our work is our art and we love it.
It's like your baby.
It's your baby.
Yeah, it's your baby for sure.
All right, let's go through the role play real quick, Michelle.
Okay, so you said, I don't know, I say it's worth one last ditch effort.
And then you said, you think one last try?
I don't know.
So you're skeptical.
Yeah.
And then you and then you said, yeah, honestly, I think our team could give it one final push.
And then you said, OK, that makes sense.
We'll do one final attempt.
But it's do or die.
Yeah.
So you're going along with me, but I'm raising the stakes a little bit here.
And by saying it's do or die, I'm saying like, this really has to succeed.
Otherwise, you know, it's over.
It's done.
It's done.
Okay.
Nice.
Good stuff.
Michelle, what's another episode our listeners could check out right now?
Yeah, guys.
So in episode 479, we did, are you logical or rational?
And a lot of these words really kind of relate to this episode, because sometimes you have to use your logic and it's hard because there's emotion involved.
But head on over to that episode.
We really dig deep into these words.
Yeah.
And any final takeaway for our listeners today?
I mean, I think we covered this idea of Oh, not falling in love with your ideas.
Staying objective is kind of the bottom line here.
Right.
I think it's kind of a muscle.
You kind of probably have to practice it.
It's hard for everyone.
But I think the more you do it, the more as someone in the business world or even in your personal life get used to just saying okay, like it's time it's over, you know, and I think You can get more used to that.
But I think it's a universal feeling.
Yeah, and I like that.
You said it's a muscle, because I think part of what we struggle with when we struggle to let go of our genius ideas that are just not making any money or not doing well on the market.
We feel it's an insecurity.
We think we can't come up with the next great idea.
Right.
So if we build the muscle of creativity, we know there's a whole supply of ideas coming down the pipe.
This is not the only great idea you're ever going to have.
Right.
And we also have to think about how like, yeah, exactly.
Like this, pivot may be what you needed.
It all builds on each other.
So it may be just what you need to get to the thing that will work.
Right.
Or maybe there is a really successful part of that original project that you could then take and apply to something new.
Right.
And that would become the success.
It's just there's a lot there.
There's a lot there.
Yeah.
We've done just from one phrase, Michelle.
Look at that.
Yeah.
All right.
Great stuff, guys.
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All right.
All right.
Thanks for chatting about this with me today, Lindsay.
And guys, thank you for listening.
Bye, Michelle.
Bye.
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