Do you avoid asking questions?
One of my clients told me they get really, really nervous when they have to ask a question.
She was like, Anna, I really need to focus on this because it's really hard for me in meetings to feel confident enough to speak up.
I'm sure you might be able to relate to that as well.
And I guess my objective here today is just to help boost your confidence, even if it's just a little bit, so that next time you will feel more comfortable to actually ask a question rather than staying silent.
Let's crack on then.
Hello, and welcome to Confident Business English.
This is the practical podcast for senior managers who want to build their confidence, but don't have a lot of free time.
You're here with me, Anna, your host and neuro language coach.
By the way, if you love the podcast and you want to get the full transcripts and also an extra practical exercise every week, sign up and become a free member of the podcast.
The link is in the description box for this episode.
How is this going to work?
I'm going to give you a little bit of context and then I'm going to instruct you to ask me a question.
I'm going to leave you a little bit of a gap to say out loud or in your head wherever you are, and then I'll go over the answer and give you some tips also as well.
Let's ease into it then.
We're going to do some easier ones first and then we're going to build up to some longer questions.
Imagine we're a networking event.
You meet me. You don't know me.
We haven't worked together before.
And you want to ask what my job is.
What would you ask me?
If you answered, what do you do?
You're absolutely correct.
That is the most common and natural way to ask somebody about their profession.
Often I get people saying, OK, yeah, but what about what you do for a living?
How do you make a living?
Honestly, let's just keep it simple here.
What do you do? It's universal.
You can use it in any occasion.
Imagine that we continue that conversation.
You find out that I work at a specific company and you want to ask me about the length of my tenure in that company.
Now, don't worry, don't freak out.
I know you're thinking about the word tenure and you're like, what on earth does that mean?
It's spelled T -E -N -U -R -E.
And essentially it's just a posh way of saying the period of time that you've worked in a job.
So you want to ask about the length of the tenure in my company.
What would you ask me?
If you answered how long have you been working in your company, that would be the best answer, the most natural one.
Moving on. New situation, new vibes.
You're visiting another office.
You're going there for a meeting and you're waiting in the reception area.
It's not your office, of course.
You don't know where things are.
And as you're waiting, you're like, oh, actually, do you know what, I think I should go to the toilet before it starts so then I don't have to go during the meeting.
Right. Perfectly understandable.
What do you ask the person on reception and here really what I'm looking for is an indirect, not a direct question.
I know you can say, where's the bathroom?
But what would be a more elegant way of expressing that?
I think the best way of doing this is could you tell me, excuse me, could you tell me where the bathroom is?
It's a lovely, versatile question that you can use for many things, vending machine, bathroom.
Oh, and while we're on this topic, a lot of people ask me, should I should I ask if where the toilet is or where the bathroom is?
Well, it doesn't really matter.
Both mean the same thing.
But honestly, I think bathroom is a little bit more elegant and slightly less literal than toilet.
Next, we're going to stay with the office.
You're still waiting for the meeting.
They're not ready yet, and you're kind of getting a bit fidgety.
They only have those really bad magazines on the tables, you know, the ones that nobody reads, and you're like, actually, do you know what?
They did ask me if I wanted a coffee on the way in and I said no.
But now that I'm waiting here, I might as well just ask for a coffee.
What would you ask the person at reception?
I think a couple of lovely questions that you could ask here is number one, would it be possible to get a coffee?
Before I go into the meeting?
Or secondly, is there anywhere I can get a coffee before the meeting starts?
If you didn't say these ones, it doesn't matter.
Okay. It's not black and white.
There are other questions that you can ask that gets the same answer.
But these are two that I think sound really natural in that case.
Let's move on then.
We're back in our own office and we are chatting with our manager who works in our team, and you really want to know at a general and high level about the team performance so far this year.
What would you ask me?
Probably the most natural way you could ask this is to say, how has the team performance been so far this year?
What do you make of the team performance so far this year?
What do you make of is another way to say, what's your opinion on?
It's much more advanced, and this is one that native speakers use quite a lot.
You might have heard them use it as well.
Next, let's just do a really quick one.
Imagine same manager.
They went to a meeting yesterday and you want to ask them about the success of the meeting.
What do you ask them?
The best way that you could ask this is probably to say, how did the meeting go?
How did the conference go?
How did the call go?
How did the event go?
Answer, it went well, it didn't go well, it went OK, but what we don't say is it went good.
I would understand you perfectly, but it's not the way that we would answer that.
Next thing, same manager.
You want them to get back to you tomorrow because there's some information that you need before you go into a meeting with your boss.
How could you ask me politely to get back to you tomorrow?
Here, we're really coming back to your classics for polite questions.
Can you get back to me tomorrow?
Could you get back to me tomorrow?
Would you mind getting back to me tomorrow?
If you don't mind, would you be able to get back to me tomorrow just before the meeting?
A couple of really common questions I get about this.
Can you use may you when you're asking somebody to do something?
Short answer, no. It does exist, may you, but it's very antiquated.
We really don't use it in modern language.
Another one that sometimes people ask me is, OK, well, Anna, what about if I want to be really polite?
Could I say, would you be so kind as to get back to me tomorrow?
I mean, you could, but that sounds really, really formal and would only be, I would say, used in very few situations.
And certainly with somebody like your manager that you're working with on a regular basis, it would sound way over the top.
So be careful with that one as well.
Honestly, I would just stick to the ones that I mentioned before.
You really don't need to reinvent the wheel more than that.
Next, we're sticking with the same manager.
OK, you obviously spend a lot of time together.
You're always having catch ups, right?
Now imagine that you can see that you're running out of time and there's a conversation that you want to discuss, but you're like, OK, let's just continue the conversation next week.
What question could you ask me that's a suggestion to continue the conversation at a point in the future?
Here, what I was looking for is a question with Shao.
So if that's what you gave me then, fantastic.
Shall we continue the discussion next week?
Shall we pick this up next week?
Because I think we're running out of time now.
Shall we discuss this on Monday?
Because I think actually I've got to run to a meeting and I know you've got a lot of stuff to do.
So shall we just pick up where we left off on Monday?
Again, there are other ways that you could ask this question.
But this is the one that I wanted you to practise, because a lot of people don't feel comfortable with Shao questions.
Maybe you feel like this as well.
But I noticed that people really don't use it.
Why don't they use it?
It's not because they don't understand it.
It's because they don't feel comfortable with it.
Let's move on and do the final one today.
And this is maybe the most difficult.
So let me set it up for you with some context.
Imagine I'm your client and you're going to offer me a service and you've quoted me 70 ,000 euros for this service.
And I'm like, well, I'm not going to pay that.
You need to offer me a discount or something.
I'm sure that would sound very familiar if you're a salesperson.
So I want you to ask me a question in the second conditional to offer me some kind of discount or something to close the deal and try to use a phrase with would that work for you?
I'm going to give you some examples.
Anna, I understand maybe that's a little bit too high for you, but if we offered you a discount of 10 percent, would that work for you?
OK, Anna, I appreciate that that's maybe a little high.
But if we gave you an additional training session, would you be happy to go ahead on that basis?
Or if we take five thousand off the price, would that fit within your budget?
So imagine that you have to negotiate with me.
Ask me a question in the second conditional, giving me an offer.
All right, let's wrap up.
As I said, I'm going to put an extra practical exercise with the questions that we've looked at today in the newsletter.
If you want to get that, sign up and become a free member of the podcast.
The link is in the description notes of this episode.
Don't worry if you sign up after the episode has come out, because if you sign up after you're going to get a link where you can access all of the previous newsletters and all of the extra practical exercises that I've given you as well.
I hope that gave you just even a little mini confidence boost.
And as always, thank you so much for squeezing me into your busy schedule.
I'm sure you've got a lot on your plate today.
And I will be back again next week.
Bye bye.
