this is the Business English Podcast, episode 548.
Does your English have untapped potential?
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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 there, Michelle.
How's everything going today?
Everything is good.
Lindsay, how are you?
Good, good.
Um, so Michelle, quick question for you.
You ready?
Do you feel like business English has any untapped areas that we should be reaching?
Like in terms of topics that we're covering or not covering on the podcast?
Yeah, good question.
I mean, yeah, I think there's always ways for us to evolve.
Um, Maybe we could even do more job interview things.
Yeah.
Just expanding on everything.
I mean, what about for you?
I mean, as the CEO, is there something that you feel?
Yeah.
I mean, I think probably helping people if they're in a management position, talk to their teams or across different hierarchies in a company.
How do we adjust our language for who we're talking to at work?
Yeah, definitely.
So we were using this word untapped.
So that's what we're going to be talking about today because it's so useful for the workplace.
And just a really great word that can help us out.
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All right.
That's right.
So we use untapped a few times, Michelle, but what exactly does it mean?
Yeah, so untapped means it's not used or discovered or maybe developed, right?
So maybe a talent is unknown or a skill hasn't been utilized on a team.
It's just that you hear a lot of times untapped potential, right?
We're going to talk about that in a second.
But generally, it's this idea that something's being missed out on.
There's something that hasn't been tried.
What do you think, Lindsay?
Yeah.
Right.
Or it hasn't been tapped into.
So I like that expression for kind of the opposite, right?
When we have tapped into a talent or a skill or an ability, it means we're actually extracting that and using it right.
Yeah.
As opposed to untapped.
Yes.
Yes, exactly.
So Yeah, you might hear it like this.
So untapped market.
What does that mean, Lindsay?
What's an untapped market?
It's a market that has a need and isn't being served.
So, even though it feels like a lot of markets are flooded now, if you're an entrepreneur, you're always looking for ideas.
I totally get that.
There might be a market that, you know, many markets feel saturated, but some are just emerging.
And, you know, it's good to be a first mover.
Not always.
Sometimes it's better to be like a second mover.
Like I'd rather be Google than Yahoo, you know?
Right.
Right.
Right.
True.
But you know, there are, there are always going to be new untapped markets.
Right.
Exactly.
So you might hear it like this.
Vegas is definitely an untapped market that I think we need to explore further.
Yeah.
Okay.
Or untapped potential.
So this is talking about what teammates bring to the table, right?
Yeah. for example, our team has so much untapped potential.
I wish we could find a way to stand out.
Yeah.
So it's like unused talents.
We have so many things that we could do, but we aren't.
Um, yes.
So yeah, it could be used really for strategizing, brainstorming things.
Okay.
Well, we haven't done this.
We haven't done that.
This is, untapped potential.
We got to try it, right?
Yeah.
And I think it's important to say that generally.
I think this is said by kind of the management level or someone representing the company about the workforce in general.
It usually wouldn't be said by the employee themselves.
Like, I have this talent.
We have other really good phrases coming up later in the episode to talk about that.
If you feel you have a talent and it's not being utilized, right?
There are ways to say that, but this is coming more from leadership broadly about the workforce.
Okay.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I like that.
So.
Then there's also, yeah, we've already touched on this untapped skills or untapped talent.
Yeah.
So you could say he is an untapped talent.
We should give him a call and see if he wants to talk about the opportunity.
Or untapped resources.
We have so many untapped resources.
If we took the time to develop them, I think we would notice a huge difference.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I mean, when we we touched on this a little bit, but you know, I feel that this word is I agree with you used a lot for management by management.
Um, but yeah, and meetings and planning um, talking about employees, anything else you can think of.
Yeah.
I mean so the context where we might say it would be exactly what you said, Michelle strategy meetings uh, quarterly review meetings when you're talking about your plan for next quarter.
But then, in terms of what you're talking about, one thing that comes to mind for All Ears English is the volume of content that we have.
We publish a lot of episodes and then boom, there's the episode.
We move on to the next one.
There's so much that we could do with the episodes we have live out in our catalog.
That's a true source of untapped.
It's an untapped resource.
It's untapped potential. in, in what we've already created.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very good point.
I mean, why do so many things go untapped?
As we will say like I mean you met.
You just mentioned one, I mean time.
Um, You know, sometimes you just don't have the time.
I mean, that's a great idea about all our episodes.
And sometimes it's just not enough time to try something at a certain point.
Yeah, I think time, I think we get scattered.
We're trying five other things at the same time.
Money.
Any idea is going to take some startup money to get a project going, hiring the right person to deal with the resource.
Whatever you're working with,
Or egos.
Tell us about this, Michelle.
Egos.
Yeah, I'm just thinking like somebody might not want someone else's talent because they're threatened, or something like that.
Politics.
Yeah, exactly.
So political... things that can go untapped because of political reasons.
Um, yeah.
So did you?
Did you feel, when you worked in radio before, or any other job, did you feel like there was a lot of ego, a lot of politics going on that you had to navigate?
Great question.
Um, yes.
And, uh, no, I mean my, my radio department, they were Awesome.
But I think I did have other jobs or internships or even teaching.
It can happen to um where egos can get in the way.
So yeah, I definitely have had those experiences.
Yeah.
What a shame.
Right.
But you know, human beings are present at the workplace, right?
I mean, I don't want to work with all robots.
I don't know about you.
No.
So this is just kind of the the.
What we just end up having to deal with is egos, politics a little bit, but also the good side of being around people at work.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
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All right.
So, Michelle, there are different ways to say this, and it matters where it's coming from.
Like I said before, who's saying this, right?
Right.
So let's actually skip to your second one.
I'm glad we have this in the list today.
Underutilized.
So sometimes an employee might say that they themselves feel underutilized.
Yeah.
So that maybe they're not being called on to do certain tasks.
Maybe they know that they could do something and for some reason they're not being asked.
Yes.
And that's not good.
Maybe they are actually an experienced digital marketer that has experience in um I dunno Facebook ads, but they're actually just working in some other area like customer support.
So that's an example of being underutilized.
They could move to the next level and be able to contribute more to the growth of the organization, but they're just.
They haven't been asked to help with that yet.
Yeah right, that's a frustrating place to be, i'm sure.
Yes, what else?
But you can.
You can even use it to talk about a space, underutilized space, so you could say something like there are a lot of underutilized spaces in this building.
We should consider using them for our events for sure.
Yeah, we're discovering this now in our, in our home actually, because our home is small, it's a townhouse townhome, so we have to figure out how to build up, build shelves up on the wall for storage, you know, Yeah.
Yeah.
It's so crazy to think of when you see the designers and what they can do and how they can build all sorts of things.
If I just had all the money in the world, I would just Yeah.
I would build all these built-ins and cool storage things.
Yeah.
Do you ever watch – I think it's HGTV sometimes.
It's the tiny home show.
It's a show about building tiny homes for people.
I mean, I used to watch HGTV a lot.
I should watch it more.
It's such a good comfort channel.
It is a good – yeah.
But I –
I do remember tiny homes, but not as much as I remember other things.
But even the other shows, all of them.
You're like whoa, I would never think to use this space in this way.
I wish somebody would just come into my house and tell me everything to do.
Oh, I know.
I know.
It's true.
Get a consultant, a space-saving consultant.
I mean, if you live in like a big city, it's increasingly important, especially, right?
You might live in like a 500 square foot apartment.
But any time you can get stuff clutter, have clutter go away, it can help your mind state, right?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Exactly.
And then there's just the word hidden.
And this is often about talents, right?
Like a hidden talent.
So There's so many hidden talents in their graduating class.
Maybe we can contact the career counselor.
Yeah.
And this isn't people.
This is talents people possess.
Their skills.
Yeah.
Yes.
Their skills.
Yeah.
Perfect.
All right Michelle, let's go to our role play and see exactly what supervisors might say at work about these issues.
Yeah.
Okay.
So here we are.
We're talking about the next month at work.
Okay.
Okay.
I think we're missing out by not exploring other areas in the country.
I totally agree.
In fact, I've heard that Austin may be an untapped market that we should consider.
Yes.
We have also underutilized Tina.
She knows so much about the different markets.
Right.
She's amazing.
She has so many hidden talents that could really benefit us.
Yeah.
So underutilized could go both ways.
Like we said, it could be said by the manager or, Or it could be said by the employee themselves.
They feel underutilized.
So maybe they're looking for a new job, which can happen, by the way.
People can be disillusioned with their work if they don't feel like they're using their talents.
They feel that helps them stand out, right?
Yeah, yeah, really.
Yeah, true.
All right.
So let's go through it.
I, you said, I have heard that Austin may be an untapped market that we should consider.
Yes.
An untapped market.
So there's something there.
There might be people that need your product or service and no one is reaching them.
Right.
So it's like the term that there's also the term blue ocean, which is based on a book, an old business book that came out a bunch of years ago.
It's like, it's a brand new idea with a brand new market that's never been tapped.
Right.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And then we say, you said, yes, we have also underutilized Tina.
Um, yeah, it's kind of weird to utilize because it feels too practical, right?
Like a person's a person.
Right.
Right.
Almost makes it feel like the person is a tool, but it is a phrase that we use.
Right.
Well, what we mean is Tina's skills, you know, but we're like, we're not saying that, you don't need to say that, but you could.
I could say we've also underutilized Tina's skills, her background, her knowledge, right.
You could too.
Yeah.
And it's okay to just say, just to say we've underutilized this person.
We get what we're saying, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And then because she has hidden talents.
She has so many hidden talents that could really benefit us.
This is why we like to do assessments and like strengths finder.
And just talk to people.
Sometimes, when we have one-on-one check-ins, we'll ask are there any skills you feel you're not using?
Or is there something else you want to be doing at All Ears English, right?
Yeah, it's really important to check in with people about that.
And so that everyone feels that they are being used to their full potential and really find the job fulfilling.
So yeah.
100%.
Michelle, what's another episode our listeners could check out?
Check out episode 539.
That was finally the episode you've been waiting for.
Yes, good stuff.
And for a takeaway today.
I mean, this is just all about kind of getting ahead in your market, right.
Because that's how businesses get ahead is by finding something that other businesses are not essentially doing or reaching, and serve that market right.
Yeah.
Yes.
Exactly.
Well, Lindsay, This was really fun.
I'm glad we talked about this today.
Guys, use these in your conversations at work and let us know how it goes.
All right, Michelle, see you soon.
Bye.
Bye.
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