This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 514.
Phrasal verbs to amp up your business English.
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Hello, Michelle.
How's it going?
Everything is good, Aubrey.
Happy to record with you today.
How are you?
I'm great.
I have a question for you. is there anything that you got lax about?
So then you had to step it up, maybe a goal or a habit.
I got lax about everything.
I mean, working out, working out.
I'm really.
It's not.
Not a strength of mine is to follow through on things like oh, I'm going to get organized.
I think this is the situation for a lot of us, right?
Eating healthy, working out like we'll do really well for a while, and then We get busy or we get lazy, and then we got to step it up right.
We have to recommit.
Yep.
That's why I worked out today.
So I was trying to recommit.
Amazing.
Well, this is fun.
This was inspired by an episode of All Ears English in episode 2534 in the role play.
There was a question that was, did you vote?
And Lindsay accidentally changed it to, who did you vote for?
And then she said, oh, we upped it a little bit there.
And I was like, ooh, that's fun to use upped like that, like a verb.
And there are a few ways we say this, and we use it a lot at work.
So we're going to share those with you today.
Awesome.
Yeah, definitely.
I remember that.
I remember that episode well.
So yeah, so upped, U-P-P-E-D, means escalated or intensified.
Exactly.
So for example, we upped our development timeline to release the update sooner.
So we often talk about this with deadlines or goals.
If we either make it a deadline sooner or if we up our performance in order to reach a deadline, we'll often use this verb we upped our output or we upped a deadline.
Or to retain top talent.
The company upped its professional development budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
So Right.
So they increased their budget.
Exactly.
And this is a great way to say it.
And it's not too informal for work.
We'll say this, oh, we got to up the budget or they upped the budget.
And that's U-P-P-E-D in the past tense.
So it looks very informal, but especially for conversations at work, we say this a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Very common.
And another thing that we say is this one, to save.
Step it up or stepped it up.
So yeah, you're upping something.
It's basically the same thing.
You intensify it.
Another way to say it.
Yeah, the sales, the sales team, stepped it up after the first quarter, so maybe they tried harder, they got scrappier, so hopefully they were more successful.
Exactly right, they're increasing efforts, making their goals more intense or rigorous right, some in some way they're stepping it up.
Or, after seeing the early results, the volunteers stepped it up and doubled their door-to-door outreach.
So yeah, it just means increased effort intense, more intense effort.
Yeah, exactly.
And I love this next one.
Amped up.
How do you spell that, Aubrey?
Amped up.
Yeah.
A-M-P-E-D.
Amped up.
So you can amp up something.
Same.
To intensify it, escalate it.
There are actually two meanings of this.
So the first one means the same as upped and stepped it up.
You might say they really amped up the goals for the second half of the year.
Just means they're making them more impressive, harder, right?
Increasing effort.
Right.
But so there is that other meaning and that means to get motivated or excited.
So, for example, the CEO amped us up with a motivating speech before the meeting.
It also makes me think of Aubrey.
When you go to like a comedy show or a concert and there was always that hype guy at the beginning that's getting you excited, right.
Yes.
When we went to SNL, when we were living in New York, It was Jason Sudeikis.
He was like the hype guy that amped up the crowd.
And it was so funny.
It was like the best part of the show was his stand-up routine amping us up.
So who was the host and musical guest?
Well, it was one of those Thursday night election specials when like, it's an election year and it's close to the election.
They'll do these Thursday night.
So it was like weekend update, only for the election, but they still had the hype guy come and amp us up.
And it was amazing.
That's so fun.
That's really fun.
Yeah.
So this, you'll also hear this with sports, right?
That a coach will amp up the team, or like, let's get amped up, but we use it in business a lot too, for both of these meanings to, you know, increase effort, or also to get motivated about something.
Yeah yeah, definitely.
And guys, we're going to teach you one more and i love this one cranked up, cranked up, c-r-a-n-k-e-d up.
Yeah, like we had to crank up production last week after a major retailer doubled their order at the last minute.
So same meaning as these, just like increase, increase production, increase efforts.
We had to crank it up.
We'll use this for music to crank up the music, but we also use it to crank up your effort.
Yeah, yep, exactly.
Or here's another example.
When sales slowed, the marketing team cranked up their social media outreach to attract new clients.
So, yeah, they started doing more.
So, yes, same idea.
They increased it.
But what a more interesting way to say this instead of they started doing more social media outreach.
All of these phrasal verbs, if you can use them instead, it adds so much color to your language.
Even at business English, even at work rather, in business English, we want to show our personality.
So we want to use these more interesting phrasal verbs instead of just saying increase effort, do more.
Yeah.
Yeah, we want to have many different ways to express ourselves and to sound different and to use our own personality and choose what we want to say.
So these are really all great.
I'm going to help you do that.
All right, Michelle, let's do a role play.
Here we are meeting for a strategy check-in.
I'll start us out.
Hey, Michelle, quick update.
After the competitor's announcement yesterday, we upped our development timeline.
We need that feature ready two weeks earlier.
Ooh, okay, got it.
I'll need to crank up the testing schedule.
Thank you.
I also wanted to let you know the sales team really stepped it up this morning.
They've already booked three new demos.
Whoa, that's awesome.
I'm really excited about the energy for this project.
Everybody seems pretty amped up.
Yes, let's keep the momentum going.
Nice.
So we used them all here.
I first said, you know, after this announcement, we upped our development timeline.
So we're realizing our deadline is too far out.
We need to up the timeline, up the deadline and be finished sooner.
And then I said, oh, got it.
And I said I'll need to crank up the testing schedule, which means I need to do it faster, in a more intense way.
Exactly.
And then I was letting you know, the sales team stepped it up this morning.
They booked three new demos and we'll do this often at work.
We want to recognize efforts.
And this is great vocabulary to do that, to share, that someone stepped it up means they went above and beyond.
They did something extra, increased effort in some way.
Yeah, I think, yeah, this one I really like.
You might hear just someone say like, wow, you really stepped it up, right?
As a compliment or something like that.
So very, very useful one.
And then I said, I'm really excited about the energy for this project.
Everyone seems pretty amped up.
So they seem excited, energetic about it.
Exactly.
Yes, these are so useful for work.
Instead of like we were saying, just saying, The sales team worked harder.
They increased effort.
These are more exciting, motivational, and just more fun.
So definitely you want to add these to your conversations at work especially, like we were saying, if you're giving credit to someone or talking about increased efforts.
This is a much more interesting way to say that.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I love it.
So Aubrey, is there going to be a part two to this?
Ooh, yes.
Guys, follow for part two.
We're going to share some idioms with this same meaning.
For example, turned it up a notch, kicked it into high gear, raised the stakes.
We use a lot of interesting idioms at work that have the same meaning.
So be sure to hit follow right here on the Business English Podcast so that you don't miss that.
Yes.
And guys, as always, if you're wondering where Lindsay is, she will be back um, so don't worry.
But um, aubrey and i are excited to have some time to record together as well, so also check out.
Episode 513 we did here on the business english podcast was how to own your apology at work.
Yes awesome, that was an amazing series really.
There were three episodes on all yours english and the business english podcast that you and lindsay did about apology apologies, apologizing.
If you guys missed that, be sure to follow right here on Business English and the Alders English podcast.
You're missing some great content.
Yes.
All right, Aubrey, what do we want to leave our listeners with today?
Yeah, like we were saying, this is great vocabulary for connecting at work, for sharing others' achievements.
If someone steps it up, you want to recognize that.
It feels so good at work to have that be acknowledged.
If you do go above and beyond, if you put in extra effort, and these are great phrases to do that.
Yeah, love it.
All right.
Well, thanks so much for bringing this to the Putsness English podcast today.
And it was fun recording with you as always.
And guys, we'll see you next time.
Awesome.
See you next time.
Bye.
All right.
Bye.
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