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General Education Office
BUSINESS ENGLISH
LA.231/LA.331/LA.3501
Unit 6: Sales
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Objectives
By the end of this class you should be able to…
1.
Identify what types of jobs involve sales.
2.
Be familiar with English vocabulary for buying and
selling.
3.
Use the past simple and past simple references.
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Buying and Selling
In the past, salespeople traveled from house to house to get
people to buy their goods and services.
Advertising changed that by telling the buyer where to go to
get the best deal, and nowadays the Internet does this same
thing.
Can you think of how the Internet has replaced door-to-door
sales?
Email, Spam-mail, Pop-Ups, and even SMS advertising
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The Internet
Nowadays you can shop on the Internet for anything you
want.
We surf the web to compare prices, get quotes, and if the item we want is in
stock we can place an order without going to a store.
But some things will never change, like providing excellent service and
creating relationships with customers, even online.
Modern sales force techniques are focused on increasing sales by getting the
(1) buyer’s interest, (2) building desire for the product, (3) showing the benefit
of the product, and (4) closing the sale.
The Internet does not change this philosophy.
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Relationship Selling
 A successful salesperson is someone who builds relationships with
customers. We call this a “customer base”, and making a new
customer is more expensive than maintaining an existing customer.
 When you have “customer loyalty”, your customer’s keep coming
to you for business because they trust you.
So a solid customer base is done by getting your customer’s trust.
 With customer loyalty you will have a continual stream of
residual income, or better known as “repeat business”.
It all centers on closing the sale; what we call increasing sales…
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Sales
A) Listening
Listen to three people talking about the products they buy and
when they buy them. Complete the chart on P50.
Speaker
Product
Place
1
clothes
mail order
2
3
How often
online
once a year
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Sales – Adverbs of Frequency
B) Using the products in Exercise A. How often do you buy
them?
Use the words in the box.
usually
once a week
at the weekend
sometimes
everyday
C) Re-arrange these words to make sentences
Tubtim / 8.00 / at work / before / is / usually
Tubtim is usually at work before 8.00.
how / business / do / often / on / travel / you / ?
How often do you travel on business?
John / a / Sous Chef / times / helps / the / three / week
John helps the Sous Chef three times a week.
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Sales – Choosing a Product
A) Vocabulary 1
Read the Delfos sales leaflet. Find expressions which mean
the following:
1 There are some good offers.
2 The buyer pays only a small amount of money at the
beginning.
3 The buyer pays some money every four weeks for a year.
4 There is no cost for transporting the goods to the buyer.
5 It doesn’t cost extra to pay over 12 months.
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Sales – Choosing a Product
B) Read these sentences. Does a buyer or a seller say
them? Write B or S in each box.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
We offer great deals.
I’d like to place an order.
Do you give a guarantee?
I’d like to compare prices.
Are the goods in stock?
Can you pay a deposit?
We always deliver on time.
Can I make monthly payments?
S
B
B
B
B
S
S
B
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Sales – Choosing a Product
Listen to a conversation between a buyer and a seller.
Underline the correct answers.
1) Which model does Karl want?
PS7 / TX7
2) How long is the guarantee?
three years/two years
3) How much deposit is needed for large orders?
4) What does the seller say is a larger order?
5) Does the seller always have goods in stock?
15% / 10%
over 50 units/over 25 units
yes / no
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A Success Story
A) Before you read the article, discuss these questions.
1) some business start very small, then become global
companies. What examples can you give?
2) What do you know about the company IKEA?
B) Match these words (1-4) to their meanings (A-D)
1) distribute
2) specialise
3) stylish
4) range
a) sell only or mainly one type of goods
b) attractive and fashionable
c) a set of similar products made by
a particular company
d) supply goods from one place to
shops or customers
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A Success Story
C) Look through the article to find out what these numbers
refer to.
1 17 2 150 3 2005
4 6,000
5 17.3
D) Decide whether these statements are true or false.
1 Kamprad started IKEA over 60 years ago
2 IKEA began designing its own furniture in 1947.
3 IKEA’s strategy was to make original furniture at low prices.
4 IKEA entered the Japanese market 20 years ago.
5 IKEA opened a new store in London in 2005
6 Sales increased by over 6 billion euros in four years.
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A Success Story
E) Look through the article to find the missing word(s) in
these sentences.
grew
1 When his business _________,
Kamprad distributed his
products from a milk van.
increased
2 Demand for his furniture __________
rapidly.
went up
3 In the next 40 years, the number of stores _________
to
over 150 in 29 countries.
rose
4 Sales for the IKEA Group _________
steadily, year after
year.
What do these four verbs have in common?
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Language Focus – Past Simple
•
•
•
We use past simple to talk about completed actions in
the past.
Last year, we increased our sales by 15 percent.
We usually form the past simple by adding –d or –ed to
the verb.
save – saved launch – launched export – exported
About 150 irregular verbs form the past simple
differently.
cost – cost
be-was-were
grow-grew
spend – spent
give – gave
go –went
See P123 for most common irregular verbs
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Language Focus – Past Simple
A) Listen to how the –ed endings of these verbs sound
1 saved/delivered /d/
2 launched/worked / t/
3 decided/visited /Id/
B) Listen and put these verbs into the correct group(1,2,3)
started
finished
advised
lived
opened
missed
booked
decided
invited
C) Listen again and practise saying the verbs.
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Language Focus – Past Simple
D) Complete this Sales Report. Use the PAST SIMPLE of
the verbs in brackets.
Report on Sales Trip – South Korea
Last December, I _______ 1 (visit) our major customer from big department
stores in South Korea.
On 5th December, I _______ 2 (meet) Mrs Kyoung Ai Lee in Seoul. We _______
3 (send) 200 brochures in June.
On 6th December, I _______ 4 (make) a presentation to Mrs Lee’s sales staff on
our products and _______ 5 (advise) them how to display them.
The following day I _______ 6 (go) to Seoul, and our agent _______ 7 (introduce)
Me to Mrs Ha, the chief buyer of a new department store in the capital. She
_______8 (ask) me to send her 500 brochures. I _______ 9 (give) her some
samples of our products.
I _______ 10 (fly) back to head office in Paris on the 9th .
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Language Focus – Past Time References
•
•
Some time references refer only to the past.
The special deals ended two months ago.
Last week we sold 500 units – a record!
The prepositions on, from, for, in to and during often
refer to periods of time in the past.
He lived in France for five years. He moved to Germany in 1999.
The goods left the warehouse on 31 March.
They worked hard on the sales campaign from February to November.
During October, we reached our sales target for the year.
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Language Focus – Past Time References
A) Read the article on page 55 and underline the correct
words.
e.g., Miguel Perez studied business at Santiago de
Compostela University in Spain in / on / from 1999 to 2002.
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Skills – Presenting a product
A) At a trade fair, a department store buyer talks to a
salesperson about microwave ovens. Listen and
complete this chart:
Model: __R215_____ 1
Target market: people with _________
2 kitchens
small
white 3, blue, __________
silver
Colours: black, ______
4
Features: __________
6
unusual 5 design, easy to _______
use
85
Price: ________
7
within 3 8 days
Delivery: _________
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Skills – Presenting a product
B) Look at the Useful language box below. Listen to the
conversation again. Tick the expressions you hear.
Useful language
Buyer
Seller
Asking for information
Can you tell about….?
I’d like some information about…
Of course. What would you like to know?
Our most popular model is ………
Target Market
Who is it for?
Colours
What about colours?
Features
Does it have any special features?
Price
How much is it / are they?
Delivery
What about delivery?
It’s for people with / who …..
It comes in four colours.
It’s available in four colours.
It has an unusual design.
It’s easy to use.
It’s very reliable.
The trade price is ….
We can deliver within three days.
We offer free delivery within ten days.
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Summary
During this class we have learned how to:
1.
Identify what types of jobs involve sales.
2.
Be familiar with English vocabulary for buying
and selling.
3.
Use the past simple and past simple
references.