This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 211, Contrasting Linking Phrases for Profit and Loss Statements.
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Hey there, Aubrey. How's everything today?
Hi, Lindsay. I'm great. How are you? I am excited to hear our recent results of our most recent poll.
Yes, this was a really fun one. Yeah, we asked, do you often lead meetings at work?
And it was pretty much split. We had 44% yes and 55% no.
So definitely more that don't lead meetings than do, but a good chunk of you are leading meetings at work.
Yeah. And this is something we're going to be getting into a lot more this spring and summer in 2024 is into meetings, right?
Because we know as you all progress in your company to higher levels of leadership, you're going to be leading meetings more.
So we will get into it on All Ears English and Business English this podcast.
Yes. Awesome. And I have a question for you, Lindsay, to start us out here.
Okay. What is your office like? Describe your office and can you contrast it with your ideal office?
Well, I would say, Aubrey, that currently my office is comfortable.
However, my ideal office, it would be more ergonomically correct.
Ooh, big word. I like that. Can you define that for us?
What does that mean? Yeah, it's a big word, right?
I don't even know if I said it right. Sounds good to me.
So it means that everything is set up properly for your body.
I spend so much time at my desk, eight hours a day, 10 hours a day sometimes.
And Sometimes at the end of the day, I can feel like my hips.
So I just got a new office chair, but now I'd like to get a monitor to have two monitors.
I heard you can work really fast when you have two monitors and you let your mouse move across both.
Have you ever seen that? Yes. Yes. My husband uses two monitors.
He has to do sales demonstrations and he almost can't work without them anymore.
And he's worked at having, I'm in the office right now that often we share it and he has a standing desk so it can go up to where he can work standing.
So there are definitely some perks when I get to record.
You guys know when you see the bookshelves behind me, I'm in the office and it's more ergonomically correct.
Yeah, it's good to take a minute to think about that, especially as we're moving into the new year.
How can you set up your home office or your office if you're more at the workplace in a way that's just good for your body?
You want to feel good when you step away at the end of the night.
Yes, absolutely. I asked you about this because I wanted you to give us a contrast and you used that linking word.
However, this is such an important skill in business English to be able to contrast ideas. and use linking words to do so.
So we're going to dive into that. But first, I want to make sure that you guys hit follow here, the Business English Podcast, wherever you're listening.
We have amazing episodes every week that you don't want to be missing.
Yeah, totally. Hit that follow button, guys.
You don't miss a single one. We do three episodes a week here on Business English, so don't miss them.
So Aubrey, why is this important to have this type of word?
Right. Think of all the different things that you have to contrast.
Sometimes we say contrast, sometimes we say contrast.
It's interesting how the syllable stress is different there.
But you might have to compare or contrast or share the differences between software, designs, advantages and disadvantages of equipment.
This comes up all the time and you need the vocabulary to be able to do that.
Yeah, and I think you also need to show nuance because the fact of the matter, whether you're a tiny micro business like we are or a huge corporation, it's never the case that everything is going great or everything is going bad.
That's what we imagine will be the case, but it's never true.
So you need to link maybe there's something not going so well.
And then maybe there's something that's actually going great or that we want to keep our eye on as an opportunity.
There's nuances when we talk about the status of a company.
Absolutely. Or the status of a project. If we're talking about the outcome of a project, maybe it wasn't ideal and we want to contrast it with what would be the ideal.
Yeah, we need the vocabulary for these nuances.
Totally. So where should we start today?
Yeah. So linking words and phrases show the relationships between ideas.
We recently talked about these when we were teaching linking phrases for cause.
That was in episode 205 here of the Business English Podcast, Don't Be Simple, Linking Phrases for Complex Grammar.
So definitely scroll up if you missed that one.
Okay. But today we're going into linking phrases to contrast your ideas.
And again, when we're making big statements, nothing ever lines up.
Right. There's always contrast. Yeah. Yes.
But we often use contrast linking words when discussing profit and loss.
Yeah. And especially in order to share details about profit, but contrast it with the fact that, you know, we still need to continue working toward goals or if we're sharing about loss and contrasting that with keeping a positive outlook and hope for improvement in the future.
Yeah. 100 and this comes down to you know if you're a leader at a company or leading a team you need to keep your team um motivated right and if they feel like things aren't going well there needs to be an angle so that you can make sure people stay invested and and feel hopeful about the future of the project exactly so let's dive into some vocabulary here our first linking phrase you used at the top of the episode however yeah so give us an example here lindsay All right.
So however, here we go. We were hoping to make a profit this quarter.
However, our costs were higher than expected.
Yes. So we're sharing why, right? Instead of just throwing out there, we didn't make a profit this quarter.
We're using this to contrast and giving the reason for why this happened.
Yeah. You're giving your team more context and context is what people want.
We talked about that in the last episode, right, Aubrey?
Exactly. Yes. We always need context. The more you have the bigger picture, the more buy-in you will have for this company's success.
Love it. What else? Do we have another example?
Yes. You might say, I created a profit and loss statement.
However, I'm waiting for this week's numbers to finalize it.
So still showing contrast where you're stating the current situation and contrasting it with expectations or what we're waiting for.
Yeah, there's always something coming. More numbers on this.
We're not sure about next month and this.
Or maybe we did better than we thought. Lots of nuance here.
All right. Absolutely. Our next one is nevertheless.
You might say we're in the red at the moment.
Nevertheless, we feel confident next quarter we'll see much more profit.
So this is where we're talking about sharing that things aren't going perfectly, but contrasting it with our expectations and hopes for the near future.
Yeah. And the next one, we've incurred quite a bit of debt this year.
Nevertheless, we've managed to record a profit.
Love that. I like that word incurred. We've incurred.
As a bonus phrase today, Aubrey, what does that mean?
That is good. Meaning we've taken on, right?
We've built up quite a bit of debt. This is a very high level, impressive word to incur.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. Okay, Aubrey, do we have another vocab term here?
Yes, our next one is a linking phrase, in spite of this.
So you might say, after all costs were paid, we had a profit this year.
In spite of this, let's set aggressive goals for the new year.
So let's not rest on our laurels just because we made a profit this year, we're now in the next year and we need to keep being aggressive. right yes oh great idiom rest on our laurels just meaning to be happy with the status quo and stop aggressively trying for the future yes a lot of good vocabulary coming out today aubrey loving it all right all right here's the next one currently our costs are higher than our income so we're operating at a loss in spite of this we are optimistic because we just landed three new accounts Yes, usually we're sharing sort of something that's not ideal, right?
We're operating at a loss, but then we use that linking phrase in spite of this to share positive things that are coming.
Yeah, so there's a fourth phrase that we can use to link ideas.
What is it? Be that as it may. This one's fun.
You might say, at present, we have a negative net profit.
Be that as it may, we are excited for the future as sales projections look promising.
Yeah, I feel like I've been hearing this one a lot lately.
Do you feel like this is trending up for you in what you hear out in the world?
I feel like this one feels more popular.
It feels more modern, definitely appropriate for any situation.
It feels really hopeful and positive. Be that as it may, we're recognizing like, okay, that's not perfect.
We're sharing something a little negative, but let's stay upbeat about what's happening.
Yeah, I would recommend this phrase. I like this one.
Here's another example for our listeners.
We're excited to announce that we're in the black.
Be that as it may, it is vital that we continue working toward our goals.
So of course, like I said, can't rest on our laurels.
We have to keep going, keep working towards our goals.
Like it. Yes, and a little grammar note here.
The punctuation is the same for all of these linking phrases, that after them, you either need a semicolon, the linking word, followed by a comma, or the other option is to end the sentence before the linking word with a period then you have your linking word that starts a new sentence and a comma following the linking word so for each of these we had both of those right so after all costs were paid we had a profit this year period in spite of this comma let's set so you can use both but you have to be careful that you either use one or the other right a period with a new sentence or a semicolon yeah i like to break it up with periods just to make it clean i think also for our listeners when we're speaking these words it's good to break it up into two separate sentences just be for print to make sure you're understood right if you're worried you might not be understood by your co-workers the worst thing is to string a bunch of words together Absolutely, right?
But if you go with the option of the semicolon, you're creating this impressive complex sentence, but Lindsay make a really good point that you will definitely need to pause where that punctuation is.
Listening to those sentences, you guys likely weren't able to tell which was a semicolon, which was a period in a new sentence because that semicolon will hit when you're pronouncing it, you'll pause there just like it's a new sentence.
Yeah. So this talk around punctuation is really more about how you're going to write it.
It's not so much about how you're going to speak it.
That's really important. And that could be another episode for another day, working on pauses, strategic pauses of how to make sure we're understood.
Definitely. So important. All right, guys, we have a poll in Spotify.
Make sure to fill it out. And we want to know, do you currently have your ideal office?
Lindsay kind of shared what hers is currently and what her ideal office...
This is my ideal office, but I don't always have access to it.
I think you should take it over, Aubrey.
Take over that office. Lock it. No one can come in.
Yeah, I love it. All right, guys. Go and participate in that poll.
We want to know. And we're going to read that poll, those results aloud in another episode in the future.
So vote. Make your voice heard. Good stuff.
Yes. And we have a role play here. You and I, Lindsay, are co-workers at a bakery.
And we're discussing a profit and loss statement.
I'll start us off. I would love to work for a bakery.
I would too. It's so refreshing, right? We go home with cinnamon rolls every day.
Yes. Yes. I love it. It would be fun. all right i don't love going over numbers be that as it may i know it's important i agree i'd much rather be baking cinnamon rolls however we need to be aware of how we're doing it looks like after costs we had a profit this month does that take debt into account no it's calculated further down when debt is considered we had a negative net profit nevertheless sales are higher each month so i'm optimistic Absolutely.
We knew investing in marketing would result in a net loss for a few months.
In spite of this, we can stay positive knowing we'll soon be in the black.
Nice. I love that. Shall we go back through this, Aubrey, to see what we used?
I think we used some of these great linking words.
We first used however, right? Said I'd rather be making certain roles.
However, we need to be aware of how we're doing.
And I love this too, to link your ideas saying what you would rather be doing and contrasting it with what you have to be doing. yeah for sure for sure and then next i use nevertheless right so i said no it's calculated further down right further down on the p l when debt is considered we had a negative net profit nevertheless sales are higher each month so i'm optimistic so this is where we start that positive peace yes and i realized i missed the first one i had said be that as it may oh yeah it's important right i'm talking about not loving going over numbers be that as it may this is a fun use for it too to be like regardless of what i want i know it's important oh for sure like i said we recommend that one we're hearing that one more and more um not just in the business world but out in you know out in the world our social lives so make use of that one guys Yes, absolutely.
And then the last one, we knew investing in marketing would result in a net loss.
In spite of this, we can stay positive. So this is very similar to, I mean, they all have the same meaning.
They're all just contrasting ideas. They do each have a little bit different tone.
This one's a little more formal. In spite of this, this does feel a little more like what I would hear at a meeting, in a presentation, as opposed to in casual conversation.
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I'd say that one is the most up-leveled one, right?
It's the most formal one. Save that for when you're kind of on stage, when you're presenting to a group, I would say.
Yeah, I agree. This is interesting, though.
Especially when you're operating at a loss at work, it's vital to keep a positive outlook.
And when operating at a profit, it's important to keep working toward goals instead of getting complacent, resting on your laurels, like you said, or getting discouraged.
And today's contrast linking phrases can help you communicate this with coworkers so you can stay optimistic.
For sure. Business isn't simple. And I think the most important takeaway is if you are running a business, make sure you know your numbers.
Make sure you have that P&L and know what's actually going on because companies can go for a long time without really being aware of what's truly going on.
Absolutely. If you own a bakery, you might want to hear that person that just wants to bake cinnamon rolls all day, but that's business that shutter their doors.
They close down if they're not aware of the numbers.
It's so true, Aubrey. Well, thanks for being on the microphone with me today.
And guys, hit follow on Business English to never miss another episode of this show.
Good stuff. Awesome. See you next time. All right.
Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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