This is an All Ears English podcast episode 103.
Improve your English by acting like a salesman.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Now, here are your hosts.
Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
USA.
What are four things that a salesperson does that you can do too, if you want to learn English faster?
Find out today.
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What are you up to today, Michelle?
What's going on in your world?
Oh, you know, just hanging out, doing some teaching, doing some working, recording with you.
Lots of good stuff.
Any sales going on today?
Are you making any sales?
Any door-to-door sales?
I am not making any sales today.
What about you?
Not really.
You know, guys, in American culture, we had used to have the concept of the door to door salesman.
Is that what it's called?
The door to door salesman where you know people would work for these companies like a vacuum cleaner company and they would go door to door and sell vacuum cleaners.
Right, right, right.
That feels like a thing of the 50s in a way.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I don't know how common that is anymore.
Yeah, but I do think that sales is everywhere.
That's true.
Yeah, and I'm stealing this idea from a TED Talk I heard somewhere by some smart person.
I don't know who, but the person said, we're always selling.
I think it was Dan Pink.
We are always selling.
We're selling ourselves.
We're selling an idea.
Right, Michelle?
I mean, I had to sell you on recording one more episode.
Not really.
No, not really.
But I mean, well, it kind of makes me think that quote of like... the personal branding we did.
Like always thinking of yourself as almost like I mean it sounds funny but like as a product in a way.
Completely.
So I think we also right now have kind of a bias in at least in my slice of American culture, sort of against this idea of sales.
With some of my friends
But I want to turn towards this idea of selling and being a salesperson and show you guys today how you can.
You know the qualities of a salesman that make you a better English speaker.
This is going to be interesting.
So we're going to dig down into parts of ourselves and bring out aspects of our personality that will help us improve our English faster.
That's why we're here, right?
Yeah, I love it.
So what's the first one?
It's arrogance.
Oh, that is a negative word.
That sounds awful.
Is it though?
I mean, can it be good to be arrogant?
I think there is some good in this, right?
So if you say that person's arrogant, that's obviously negative.
And, you know, you don't want to be self-centered.
You don't want to be rude.
That's arrogant.
But then there's another part of arrogance that really it's really just confidence.
OK, so that's the way we're talking about here.
You know, you tell yourself you're a great English speaker.
You say I can walk into that party and go right into the center of that group of native English speakers and start a conversation or tell a joke.
I can do it.
That's the arrogance we're talking about.
Right, right, right, right.
Just you can be super confident.
Why not?
Yeah, completely, completely.
So if that's what we're calling arrogance, then we should all have more of it.
Okay.
Exactly.
I love it.
Now we're going to talk about kind of the opposite, or but a complementary skill, which is what Michelle
Empathy.
So empathy is this ability to feel what other people are feeling, right?
And a salesman needs this because you need to understand others and show that you kind of feel them.
Yeah.
When you're when you're communicating and think of their point of view.
So you know, when you have like a conversation partner, you want to show that you have that empathy as well.
You understand people.
You've been through what they've been through or you know you understand them in some way, because this is going to change how you actually talk to them.
Absolutely.
And this could also be really useful at work, because we're always, in a way, we're always kind of changing how we are around different people.
We have to find that balance between I know who I am.
I have a core.
And then I'm going to soften or I'm going to harden a little bit around different people.
I'm going to be funnier.
I'm going to be this different.
This is being human, right?
So if you guys can do this, it means you're connecting.
And we talk about connection, not perfection.
Then your English is going to follow, right?
Because you're going to be having more conversations.
Exactly that is a good way of putting it, Lindsay.
Yeah, for sure.
And what are the next two, Michelle?
We've got two more skills that a salesman has, or saleswoman, that you guys need to be able to speak English better.
This one, I think, is very, very helpful as well.
So resilience.
So if you're resilient, you keep going, you don't stop, right?
And a salesperson, they might get a lot of no's right before they get yeses.
So they might experience setbacks or they don't, you know, reach some goal, but you can't stop.
You have to just keep on going because eventually people are going to start to buy.
So when you are, you know, speaking English, you know you can't let those setbacks really just have, you just stop.
I mean, you have to have the resilience of a salesperson.
Completely, Michelle.
We've talked in other episodes about having a new benchmark, and that benchmark could be striving to make 10 mistakes in a conversation, right.
That could become the goal.
That's resilience, because you said Michelle, you're going to get a lot of no's as a salesperson, which is kind of the equivalent of a mistake in English.
And you want those mistakes so that you then can learn and say it correctly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
You have so much to learn from mistakes. right?
Like a salesperson, they want to make that sale, they're hunting for it.
So you have to be willing to go through the details.
You have to go through tough moments, again, like we said, the setbacks, right?
Things, that's not the nitty gritty.
You know, to get to your And you have to see what your goal is, know how to get there and then do it and just keep on going.
Be resilient, like we said.
Yeah, completely, Michelle.
This also qualifies.
Let's say, you're living in the US and we know a lot of our listeners are and you have your dream job.
You've seen there's been a posting on LinkedIn and you want to apply for it, but you're not quite qualified, right?
Mm-hmm.
You're 75% qualified.
Well, most people would just apply for it.
So that's what you should do too.
If you're worried your English isn't good enough, you should apply for it and highlight your skills.
Go back and listen to our other episode about personal branding so you know how to do that.
But highlight your skills and take the emphasis off of your English.
Don't come in with that handicap, right?
And don't deliver them that handicap because that immediately sets you kind of at a disadvantage.
Instead, focus on what you can do.
Maybe you were a really skilled analytics person in your home country.
You can offer that and lead with that.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think that that is very helpful.
That's very practical advice.
Yeah, that's so good.
So guys, these are four things that a salesperson has, you know, characteristics that you should take on.
We want to challenge you guys to find the inner salesperson.
I love it.
I love it.
This is a very unique way to look at learning English.
And I think it's helpful.
And I think it's fun.
It's so good.
It's so good.
Guys, hit follow right now.
Don't miss a single episode.
Michelle, what's our slogan?
What is our vision here at All Ears English?
Connection, not perfection, right?
We're focusing on connecting with people, building those relationships.
And if you make a little grammar mistake along the way.
But you're focusing on connecting with people.
That's the important part.
Exactly, Michelle.
This is a new way to learn English, guys.
We're changing the emphasis completely.
So come and join us and hit follow.
All right, Michelle, I'll see you in the next episode.
See you soon.
Bye.
Bye.
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See you next time.
