This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 434, Ups and Downs in English, Part 1.
Have sales hit rock bottom?
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 With your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.
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it felt like a lot of things kind of happened at the same time that were challenging for me for sure like around the recession that was a challenging time i lost my job right around that same month that the stock market crashed and that kind of felt a little rock bottomy for me, I guess.
I was living in New York, and it was just kind of a bit of a scary time.
What about you, Michelle?
Yeah. Good question.
Yeah. I mean, I've definitely had some very low points for some things postpartum for me.
And also, yeah, I would say when I first moved to New York and I had a really hard time, that's the thing about feeling rock rock bottom is, you know, you say once you hit rock bottom, there's nowhere but up, right?
Right, right, right, right.
For sure. And everyone's rock bottom might look very different.
Rock bottom for one person could be very serious.
And another person, it could be serious for them, but maybe not as dire in terms of like life situations, right?
It's very different for everyone.
Wow, this is a big topic.
How does this relate to business English, Michelle?
out yeah well we're gonna see uh and we're gonna be talking about it um this is gonna be really useful uh for our listeners uh so we have a question today from uh rahik and he's from sudan and this question comes from youtube so guys you can ask your questions over on youtube yes guys all ears english has a channel on youtube so go over to youtube type in all ears english and you will find the all ears english podcast okay i'm gonna read the question so hi Lindsay Michelle my name is Rahik and I'm from Sudan I just wanted to say your podcast makes doing the dishes way more enjoyable thank you
for keeping me company that's so great Michelle isn't that wonderful I love it thank you I love I hope your dishes are nice and clean very shiny clean right I love it I've been hearing the expression I hit my rock bottom quite a lot lately could you talk about what it means and how it's used looking forward to your answer?
Oh, it's a good, it's a good question, right?
Yeah. Yeah. This is a really good question.
Thank you for that.
So, um, Lindsay, what does it mean to hit rock bottom?
I think it's like I said, it's different for everyone.
It's, it's means to be in a situation where everything seems at its lowest point to hit your lowest point in life, um, where you feel like you can't go further down.
Yeah. And this is about conditions in your life.
It could be at work.
It could be in your love life and sometimes it's like all these things happening at the same time yeah yeah yeah i mean this is definitely a very intense expression for very low points but it can be used as in a lighter way as well so we're going to talk more about this in just a second but we want to say thank you to those who have reviewed us yeah guys we want to know what you think of business english of this podcast so a huge thank you to GTX seven to four eight from Taiwan and Petra Rajab in in from Slovakia these two listeners reviewed us they left us both five -star reviews by the way Michelle so we
want to know what you think of the show so if you haven't done it yet go over and rate and review business English wherever you listen and we will do our best to announce your name on the show all right so looking forward to checking those out yes okay well thank Thank you guys so much. Yes.
So again, so why are we talking about this on the Business English Podcast?
Yeah, I mean, you could be used to forecast certain situations to plan for a problem, maybe like a market crash or industry crash or a downturn.
Let's give some examples, Michelle, of what this would mean for business.
Yeah. Okay. I really hit rock bottom when I was laid off from work, but then everything started to turn around.
I finally found out what I really wanted in life.
Yeah, sometimes it's the silver lining concept, right?
Sometimes a bad situation actually turns into a great one in our career.
Or what's another example, Lindsay?
I don't think this will happen.
But if our sales hit rock bottom, we can try to bounce back by making a giant promotion for our clients that would give it a jumpstart.
Yes, we're kind of planning for anticipating these issues, right?
Yes, for sure. Do you find yourself using this, Michelle, when you talk about your career, for example?
I don't. I don't know that I use this frequently, but I have heard it.
I've heard it in a couple movies.
I think it's in the movie, My Best Friend's Wedding.
I think that's the one.
but it's very it's a very well known expression right yes um yeah so and the other thing is it's often used or at a turning point yeah right so again you hit rock bottom and then they might say like oh there's nowhere but up right there's nowhere else to go but up so it might help you actually that place of desperation that really hard time might help you figure out your life or your goals, or maybe it's a big change that needs to be made.
And Lindsay, you've talked about this before about that moment of being laid off from your teacher job in New York City and then starting your own business.
I mean, you mentioned it already.
So it sounds like you felt like you had hit rock bottom.
Yeah, I think that was the moment for me.
There were other things also going on in my personal life at that time.
It was the month when the recession happened.
And I lost my job and that's a pretty rock bottom for me at that time yeah but what happened is I decided to start my own business so often you do get that silver lining that mindset shift where you say I'm never gonna work for anyone again that was what I decided and all sorts of decisions come out of hitting rock bottom but it is kind of reassuring that we can't go any lower we feel we can go any lower.
Exactly. Yeah. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void?
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Well, but it's important.
It's important. So our company hit rock bottom, once we stopped caring about quality, we need to turn it around.
So sometimes when places try to cut corners, well, that's don't go as well as they would expect, right?
Well, it's so true.
I that's what I noticed about a lot of companies, they're really good.
When they first get started as a startup, they get their funding.
And then they have a loyal fan base, and then they go public.
and then it's all about the margins.
It's all about the shareholders and they gradually make the service worse, but the price higher.
This is what's happened with my accounting firm that I'm working with now.
It's just incredible.
You see this trajectory to a lot of companies.
And it's like, how can that not be the case?
Right? Yeah, exactly.
Or you might say, I've hit rock bottom here.
I just think I need a new job, right?
So again, it's that turning point.
you know that you need to change, right?
The idea isn't that we hit rock bottom and we stay there.
The idea is that it's kind of a catalyst for a change.
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
So other ways we could say this low point, right?
We've reached a low point in our sales.
We need to reevaluate our next moves carefully.
Very similar, right?
Very similar. I'd say rock bottom is a more dramatic way of saying this, don't you think?
Yeah. Yeah. Rock bottom is pretty dramatic.
traumatic. It's quite traumatic.
Or in the hole, you could say.
I really think our sales are going to be in the hole if we don't turn this around and fast. And so this is a more conversational, kind of casual way of saying this.
Or in the dumps. For a while, everything was in the dumps, but that's when we had a consultant come in who really helped.
Yeah. So guys, this episode isn't meant to make you feel this episode is, you know, we should be using this as ideas for realizing that rock bottom, it's not always like, of course, it's a bad thing, right?
We don't want to have those times that sometimes we need a rock bottom to really turn things around.
I mean, Lindsay, what do you do if you feel like you're at a low point?
Oh, my gosh. So I try to get some context, I try to talk to people.
And I also sit down and think, okay, what can I do?
What can I do? In a way these moments actually create a lot of clarity, because your mind gets very clear, very still.
And you kind of you take action, right?
You're not you're not delaying action.
In some ways, we can do more in these moments, right?
If we can pull ourselves out, as long as we're not in a negative mind space, we can actually take very clear action.
Yeah. So, so, and then once you get out of it, you might actually look back on that moment with with a certain sense of nostalgia in a way, right?
Like you might think, oh wow, I was on my own team in that moment.
I was, you know, I was, you had that self compassion and you took clear action.
So I think it builds character.
I think it builds character.
Very good point. So let's do a role play.
So here we work together and we just got a report saying that our sales have tanked.
Tanked. What does that mean?
that's a great word gone to the bottom gone down really gone down very nice slang expression here all right yes okay oh man this isn't good we are definitely at a low point what can we do i know we're in the hole now but we've hit rock bottom before and we've always been okay that's true i just hate when i feel like we're in the dumps we'll be okay yeah nice nice um Yeah, it forces you to get really smart, really scrappy.
And then you realize maybe in this scenario, you were spending a ton of money you didn't need to spend, right?
You can get really tight on your P &L in this scenario, potentially.
Yeah. Yeah. And again, like notice here, well, we'll get to it.
But so you said, this isn't good.
We are definitely at a low point.
What can we do? Yes.
Love it. And then you said, oh, I know we're in the hole now, but we've hit rock bottom before and we've always been okay so interesting how we're actually using these expressions to show some optimism right so we're here now we've done this before so sometimes these expressions are used to acknowledge that but as a way to say oh look on the bright side we got this right yeah and there's a cultural piece here too I think I think this might be this the rhetoric here might be different depending on where you're doing business in the world i think in american business culture we have a bias towards
being positive right we have it's the narrative it's everything our movies and everything so i'm curious if that's the case in our listeners cultures too right very interesting yeah yeah and then you said that's true i just hate when we when i feel like we are in the dumps nice all right good stuff so michelle where else can our listeners go now what should be their next episode destination all right well recently an episode 420 of the business English podcast we did don't miss the mark on business relationships love it check that episode out and for a takeaway for today I like that we covered
this it is a very intense expression it is usually reserved for I would say maybe more often we hear it for people's personal lives it does make sense in the context of business but we do hear it a lot in people's personal lives, right?
So, we know how to use it in both scenarios now.
Yeah. And also, if you want to cheer up a little bit after hearing this one, go on over to the All Ears English podcast, hit follow because we will have part two coming out soon.
And that's talking about more the vocabulary for getting things back together, the more optimistic side.
So, that's going to really help connect this idea.
Nice. So, we're at the low point today and we get out of it over on All Ears English next time.
I love it. So guys, go over check out All Ears English, hit the follow button there for the part two of this series.
All right, well, you have a good day and I'll see you very soon.
All right. Bye, Lindsay.
Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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