This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 375, Improve Your English Around the Margins.
Welcome to the Business English Podcast from All Ears English.
Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.
For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
Do you tend to freeze up in English conversations?
If you're at the intermediate B1 fluency level, we now have a study plan to get you to the B2 level and tons of ways to practice speaking with our community and our teachers.
But this week we have a special offer on B1 fluency, which does expire on February 23rd at midnight.
You can get our complete B1 online fluency course plus a special bonus course and you will save $50 off the normal price.
Go to allearsenglish .com slash save on B1.
That's allearsenglish .com slash S -A -V -E -O -N letter B number one.
See you there. Hello, Aubrey.
How are you doing today?
I'm great. Lindsay, how are you?
i'm fantastic but i have a question to start off the episode are you ready yes ready so aubrey have you made any changes around the margins in your life or are you planning to make any changes around the margins in 2025 i have i decided to make a change i love a glass of wine with dinner or like while
i'm cooking and i read an article that was talking about how bad it is to drink alcohol with food while eating food.
And so I've really made a goal to try to avoid that, right?
If I'm going to have a drink, it would be like socially, not when I'm eating, because I guess your body has to burn the alcohol before it can burn food.
So I'm like, this is a health choice that I need to make.
That's a really good example.
There was just a huge study that came out that kind of brought us up to speed about kind of the dangers of alcohol consumption for brain health and heart health and all these things and i know a lot of people that are reconsidering their drinking habits when do they drink how much do they drink i also we
like to go to breweries it's a big part of what we do but we went last night to a brewery and i decided instead of getting a six ounce drink i just got a little baby three ounce drink you know what i mean tiny little glasses yeah and so it's we're all kind of make maybe a lot of us are making changes
around the margins when it comes to alcohol.
That's really interesting.
Yes. It makes sense.
I know there was also sort of a myth for a long time that a glass of red wine had health benefits.
And then I read a study that was like, no, that's not true.
It makes me nervous because I think about, well, the research is looking really bad for alcohol.
It's looking really good for coffee.
Like they're saying that coffee is really heart healthy.
I read this stuff all the time.
But then I think, is this, are these the same researchers that said that wine was, red wine was so good for you?
right studies being done by the coffee industry.
I usually are. Anyways, that's a great.
So I love how you said, you know, we said around the margins.
Aubrey, what does that mean around the margins?
Yeah, this is sort of small changes at the outskirts.
It's not a huge change to the main part of something, right?
That wouldn't be that big of a change to my life.
That would be sort of a minor thing that I would change.
Exactly. I love that.
And that's honestly how big change happens is by making little changes in our lives.
And this is a great time to be talking about this at the beginning of the year.
But first, before we get into the episode, go ahead and hit follow on the Business English Podcast.
We publish three days a week and we'll drop right into your queue.
So Aubrey, when you think about accounting, just accounting, the topic of accounting, the profession, what comes to mind?
Oh, it sounds so boring to me.
I have a good friend.
I was playing volleyball with her and And she's a CPA.
And she was, she's like, why did I decide to do this?
Like, it's not that fun.
Like, it's a good job, you know, but, you know, we use it every day.
It's vital. Yeah, I was just on the phone with our accountant on Tuesday.
And I think the conversation, he was talking about what he was going to do with our tax returns.
And I think the conversation literally put me to sleep.
And by the end, I did not know what follow up questions to even ask, because i didn't understand what he even said i said okay you know what you're doing i'm not going to ask any more questions we're just going to trust you to know what you're doing because it's just boring us to tears yeah but the the fact
is you know it doesn't have to be that boring because what happens in daily english is we actually take some of these terms and put them into our daily lives and so this comes from a question in youtube from Matin Lai Chinon 7978.
I'll go ahead and read it.
Hello. Thanks for your videos.
Could you introduce common words in the accounting field?
I think accounting words are involved in our daily life.
And I would say yes, they are, Aubrey.
Absolutely. Right. Your conversation with your accountant might not be thrilling, but a lot of vocabulary could come out of that, that we use daily in business English.
Yeah. So let's break it down.
We have four or five ways that our listeners need to know phrases they need to know because they'll hear them not necessarily in business but out in the world just connecting with people at a party or at I don't know any kind of a happy hour for example let's actually start with around the margins in business
Aubrey what does it mean yeah so technically this means something that happens at the edges or on the periphery of a situation so or of like an idea right exactly exactly so it can be used literally or figuratively.
So in business, we could say we've made some changes around the margins when it comes to our budget this year.
So you're just kind of tinkering.
I love the word tinkering.
It came up in an episode of Allers English recently, right?
Yes, right. This means it's not an overhaul.
It's small changes, little fixes we can make that, like you said, Lindsey, end up having a really big effect.
Yeah. And actually, I like that you dropped the word overhaul.
That's a good bonus for today.
That's the opposite.
An overhaul is completely changing everything.
And most of the time we don't do that, whether it's in our personal lives or our business lives, we make changes around the margins.
Or if that's the goal, it might not happen, right?
These smaller changes around the margins, they're more likely to actually be manageable, doable.
I also think as businesses get bigger, they're more likely to make changes around the margins, right?
If you work for a large, large company, like when was the last time Pepsi made an overhaul of their product generally not right usually well marketing changes style changes brand redesign that really is a change on the margins yeah because it becomes risky for companies to make these huge changes they
have a payroll they have responsibilities it kind of is a paradox we end up stuck in this place where you know you do need to reinvent yourself at times but it becomes harder to do right so for example all we're doing is changing things around the margins we're not doing anything groundbreaking so again at the top
of the show aubrey you told us about a change around the margins in your diet or what you're consuming also really common to throw that into our daily habits for sure right and be like this isn't groundbreaking but it would make a change a pretty big change for me yeah exactly now i love the the word
asset that would be our second one aubrey what does this look like in accounting actual accounting let's just break that down Right.
As an accounting term, it's, you know, on a balance sheet, things you own.
So cash, a trademark, you know, technology, equipment, inventory, all of these things would be assets in accounting.
Yeah. It could also be the people on your staff.
Like if they have skills, right, that is also an asset.
You have an ability to do something that another company may not have.
And then we also use this when we go to talk about our personal professional skills, right?
So for example, your time is an asset, your skills are an asset, and your network is an asset.
Aubrey, out of those three, which do you think is most powerful as an individual professional?
Definitely time, at least for a busy mom of four, right?
Time is the one that I can't get back.
It's limited. It's the trickiest for me, at least.
I agree with that. even in my personal life, right?
I bet you feel that as a parent too, you can never get those moments back with your kids.
So I'm on the same page, Aubrey, time is the most important asset.
And then what is a common question we might get, for example, in a job interview?
Yeah, you might be asked, what would you say is your greatest asset?
And that you need to have an answer for this, right?
That it's a little tricky, you might have to brag about yourself.
How can you do that?
What phrases will be professional, but really highlight your greatest assets?
Yeah, for sure. And sometimes in an interview, it's good if you can think about what the company needs.
Obviously, you're answering honestly and genuinely, but tie those together, right, in a strategic way.
That's how we could get the job.
Absolutely, right? You're trying to fill the need that they have.
You have the experience.
Sometimes you do have to sort of spin it to make sure they see that you're the best fit.
You got it. So we have assets, then we also have liabilities so a company obviously i know we have listeners in our audience who are accountants so we don't need to tell them this but a liability is a financial obligation or a debt that you owe right for example maybe your company took out a loan or on the personal
side you have a mortgage so the remaining amount due on your mortgage is your is a liability right yes and this is interesting because we will also hear people sometimes called a liability, an asset or a liability.
If there's something that is a negative or a potential negative, then you might describe someone as a liability.
Oh, that's a really good point.
For example, when companies hire influencers, and if that influencer gets canceled, that could be a massive, they say something racist or something that could be a massive liability for that company.
Yeah, which has definitely happened.
Or if they become really vocal about politics, sometimes a company will drop them as like a brand ambassador because they've become a liability.
Super interesting. Yeah.
Interesting. And then here's another sample sentence.
The influx of new companies in our market is a real liability for us, right?
So maybe your market was kind of a blue ocean and then it became a red ocean because a lot of people like AI, I imagine that's happening in AI right now, Aubrey.
A lot of AI companies are cropping up and that's a liability.
Yeah, right. And we use this in sports too.
If a goalie, like several shots get by, then we'll be like, oh, this goalkeeper is a liability to the team.
Exactly. Exactly. So we can skip the last example.
Let's move on to the next net new.
What is... Okay, this is a good one.
This one, I always tease the consultants in my life because I see them bringing this over into their personal lives when they discuss just daily interactions.
but generally this is something that is entirely new.
It's pure additional growth in the business sense.
So what would that mean for net revenue?
Yeah, so net new revenue would be money generated from completely new customers, or maybe a new line of business that's not related to anything else.
We would call that net new revenue.
Exactly. We could use this to talk about our travel experiences and you'll see this in the role play too.
But for example, I tend to travel back to the same places over and over but this time i decided to look for a net new destination the reason i think it's funny is because when you bring it into daily life i don't think you need it i think it's redundant by saying net new you can just say a new destination but i
think people sometimes uh bring it from the accounting world or the business world and apply it to scenarios like travel or life choices i could imagine if i were an accountant i think i because you're using this so much in business in your yeah you know work life that you can't help but bring it over
into your daily life so yeah i just we all have liabilities that we can be teased about it's okay absolutely all right bottom line is the next one on a profit and loss statement a p l it's the net profit of a company what is the bottom line what's at the very bottom of your sheet what is left at the end
of the month right yeah but we use it in just regular business conversations we might say you know we might disagree about how to do it but the bottom line is we both want what's best for our aging parents let's say so we're saying like the main idea the most important thing yeah or we showed some weaknesses
in the game but the bottom line is we won this is nice when you yeah there were some issues but hey let's focus on the important thing and that is that we won or this was the outcome it's a good way to kind of wrap up when you want to stop sharing those details and you want to emphasize what to focus
on using the bottom line is good exactly right i say this a lot this you know bottom line is like let's forget about the other details and focus on the bottom line yes and then due diligence is our last one for today this one is fun too because i hear this a lot in other places other than business but in business
this is an analysis that an investor might make looking at all the facts and figures of a potential investment if you buy a stock or if you're going to buy a company you would definitely do your due diligence you'd have to look at 10 years of tax returns and p l statements, things like that to make
sure it's a good purchase.
Yes. Or if you're buying a house, you always do your due diligence, hire an inspector, everything that has to be done.
And we use this all the time and day.
I hear this a lot, right?
I might say before my partner and I got serious, I did my due diligence.
Maybe this means you stalk them on social media a little bit or ask their exes about them.
Oh boy. Yeah. I mean, or it could be that.
It could also be as as meeting their friends and you know you can learn a lot about people from their friends or or maybe traveling together i think that's the ultimate form of due diligence to see how they act in stressed situations right and a lot of people would feel that moving in together is due
diligence a lot of people wouldn't get married before they had lived with someone and to them they would see that as just due diligence yeah that's kind of the common template at least in american dating is people usually yeah they move in together they get a dog and then they get married.
Make sure that everything's going to work out.
As much as possible, at least.
Exactly. Are you a review reader, Aubrey?
Are you someone who reads Google reviews, Yelp?
Yes. I always do my due diligence before going to a restaurant or booking a hotel.
I do check reviews.
Absolutely. What about you?
Yeah, most people do.
I would say so. So that's another example.
The next time you fly, upgrade your comfort to Emirates Premium Economy.
Sink into soft leather seats with raised leg rests and adjustable headrests.
Elevate your dinner plans with delicious regional dining, all served with complimentary premium drinks.
Enjoy endless entertainment with up to 6 ,500 channels, including live sports.
There's no other premium economy like it.
Fly Emirates. Fly better.
Okay, Aubrey, this has been a very example -heavy episode, but now we're going to go into a role play and see how these all come together in a fun conversation.
Are you ready? Yeah, let's do it.
So you and I are coworkers who always chat, but you are planning to take a sabbatical from work to travel the world, and I'm asking about details.
All right, here we go.
So your sabbatical is coming up.
Curious what's on your agenda?
Oh my gosh, great question.
I'm still working out the details, but the bottom line is I need a break.
Right, I totally get it.
And not just a few days off around the margins.
Sometimes you need an extended period of time to get away.
Exactly. And I've always wanted to do the great walks in New Zealand, so that will be on my list.
Yeah? Are you a hiker?
No, but hopefully that's not too much of a liability.
I plan to do my due diligence and follow the beginner routes for sure.
Your Portuguese language skills would be a real asset in Brazil.
Yeah, but I've been there.
I just want to go to new places that are net new.
I just want to go to places that are net new.
I don't like to repeat countries when I travel.
Nice. I kind of love that you corrected yourself at the end because it brings up a really good point that if you're going to say net new, that are net new, you wouldn't want to have already said new places because then it's sort of redundant.
Yes. And it's already, I think, kind of redundant anyways, but it is something you will hear people.
will say for sure. I usually just smile when I hear it.
So that's fun. All right.
So let's go through it.
So you're asking about the sabbatical and what's on my agenda.
And I said, I'm still working out the details, but the bottom line is I need a break.
And, you know, sometimes we can hear ourselves sharing too much, like oversharing and boring the person, right?
If I went into all these, oh, I've booked a flight here and there and that hotel.
You don't really want to hear that, Aubrey, right?
You just want to know what the bottom line is.
And this is a really good connection skill to, if you notice that, to interrupt yourself and just say, bottom line is, and then share kind of the main idea.
Yes. Don't bore people.
Cut yourself off before you get to that point.
Okay. What else, Aubrey?
And then I said, you need not just a few days off around the margins.
You need an extended period of time to get away.
So this is another way we use this, right?
We don't need just a minor vacation here.
You need a chunk of time.
Exactly. And then you asked if I'm a hiker, and I said no, but hopefully that's not too much of a liability, meaning a risk.
Hopefully it's not a risk.
And then I said I'm going to do my due diligence, do my due diligence, and follow the beginner routes.
I'm going to research the routes.
Nice. This is vital, right?
If someone is hiking, especially if it's an area they're unfamiliar with, to do your due diligence.
Find out everything you need to know about those routes.
Yeah. Get a compass, get maps, 100%.
If not, it could be a little dangerous.
Yeah, for sure. What else?
And then I said, your Portuguese skills would be a real asset in Brazil.
So this, any language you're learning, your English, everyone listening is a huge asset for you traveling and in business.
Exactly. And then I said, yeah, but I've been there.
I just want to go to places that are net new.
I don't like to repeat countries when I travel.
And again, you don't have to say net new by any means.
You can play with it and have a little fun.
Do know that it will, at least in my opinion it is redundant but i do hear people say this professionals who maybe i don't know they work in business and so they're used to using this and so it bleeds into their everyday speech i'm really curious if i'm going to start hearing that more if you guys out
there if you'll start hearing this because yeah it's new i think it's kind of new and trendy for sure all right avery what's another episode we could check out today yeah don't miss over on the all ears english podcast episode 23 43 how to say that two people don't mix well in english these are great phrases
also for work for business english right we want to be respectful still so be sure you're following allers english and don't miss that episode yeah and i think for our takeaway today you can take these topics that feel like they might be a little dry but we realized today we actually do use these quite
a bit to talk about our daily lives so don't be afraid to take something when you know it's used in American English or native English, use it to talk about your daily life.
We don't have to create such clear boundaries between work and everyday communication.
Absolutely. Just because accounting is boring, doesn't mean accounting phrases are boring.
These are all really interesting.
You got it. All right.
Good stuff, Aubrey.
I'll talk to you very soon.
Have a good one. Awesome.
See you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
Want more from All Ears English?
Don't miss our biggest and best podcast with 8 million monthly downloads.
Just search for the All Ears English podcast and hit follow to get four new episodes per week on fluency, American culture, grammar, and so much more.
Or tap the link in the show notes.
Remember, we believe in connection, not perfection, when it comes to learning English.
Follow the All Ears English podcast now.
