Parador this is Andrew at Crown Academy
of English today's video is an English
speaking video so in this video you will
hear a business meeting between two
native English speakers so the first
person is mrs. Jones who is American and
she works for a company called Venus
Systems and she is the CEO the chief
executive officer and the second person
is mr. Lewis who is British he works for
ABC solutions and he is the sales
director the meeting is at Venus Systems
New York office and mr. Lewis has a
business proposal for Venus Systems
after the meeting I explained some
useful vocabulary okay so that is the
context get ready here is the meeting
good morning mr. Lewis pleased to meet
you I'm mrs. Jones CEO of Venus systems
please take a seat
good morning mrs. Jones I'm pleased to
meet you - thank you very much
did you find us ok yes thank you the map
and directions you sent me were a big
help that's good to know did you have
any trouble finding a parking space no
it was fine
by the way I really like your offices
what an amazing view yes I never get
tired of that view it's one of the
advantages of working on the 50th floor
have you been to New York before
no this is my first visit it's
incredible how big everything is I know
what you mean I've lived here for five
years and I still feel very small well
thank you very much for agreeing to meet
me today you're welcome
I have read the email you sent us so you
would like us to sell your products in
the USA please tell me a bit more about
your company ABC Solutions is a British
software company founded in 2010 our
head office is in London and we have a
second sales office in Manchester in the
north of England so you have two offices
how many employees do you have in total
we currently have 143 employees across
both offices and we expect that to grow
to 160 before the end of the year it
sounds like you're growing very quickly
what positions are you recruiting for
those new positions are in sales IT
developments and tech support
tell me briefly about your company's
products we develop and sell accounting
software to small businesses the product
which is called ABC accounts tracks
expensive sending Reuters managers
income generates balance and income
statements and other reports and how
convene as systems help
we would like Venus Systems to sell our
software in the USA
we understand that you already sell
networking products and services to
small businesses we believe your clients
would also be interested in our products
I see you've done your research it's
true that we have a lot of existing
clients who could be interested in some
accounting software
I would like to schedule another meeting
with you mr. Lewis to discuss this in
more detail in fact this will probably
need several meetings how long are you
in New York for I'm here for at least a
week although I could extend my stay if
necessary how about tomorrow morning at
10 a.m. yes that's fine for me what
would you like to discuss I'd
particularly like to discuss prices
payment terms technical support and
training that's fine I agree that we'll
probably need several meetings to
discuss all of let's have the first
meeting tomorrow and then we can play it
by ear after that good idea well thank
you very much for your time mrs. Jones I
look forward to seeing you tomorrow well
thank you for coming all the way from
London I'll see you tomorrow good bye
goodbye
okay now let's look at
vocabulary so mr. Lewis says those new
positions are in sales IT development
and tech support so IT what does this
mean well it is in fact an abbreviation
and it means information technology IT
is information technology and it simply
means it's the field of computing so the
subject of computing example we can say
I work in IT so this means I work in the
computing department or I work in the
field of IT my job is in computers
another example mark is studying IT at
university okay
so IT development here this in fact
means computer development which means
computer programming so they were
recruiting some computer programmers
tech support tech support this is an
abbreviation for technical support and
if you have a problem with a computer
awesome software then you call tech
support to help
so sometimes called a hotline or a
helpline example my computer won't start
I'm going to call tech support
okay
another word was said by mrs. Jones so
she said I would like to schedule
another meeting with you mr. Lewis
schedule and in fact this has two
different types of pronunciation and
this is the American pronunciation
schedule schedule okay but there is also
a British English pronunciation schedule
schedule okay so here we are using it as
a verb to schedule and it means to
organize the date and time of an event
or appointment example let's schedule
the interview for next week and schedule
can also be a noun and it means so your
diary or your availability the manager
says let's have a meeting when are you
available and Mark replies I will check
my schedule
and call you okay so this was the
British English pronunciation I will
check my schedule and call you and with
the American pronunciation mark would
say I will check my schedule and call
you okay and finally play it by ear
let's have the first meeting next
Tuesday and then we can play it by ear
after that so play it by ear is an idiom
it's an expression
so it's not a literal meaning and the
real meaning is to decide how to manage
a situation as it develops so in other
words we are flexible we are not
following a strict plan let me give you
a better example so the context is Jane
and Mark are going to the cinema before
the film they have this conversation
mark asks would you like to go for a
meal after the film
Jane replies I don't know let's watch
the film and then play it by ear so Jane
is saying let's not follow a strict plan
let's not decide now we will decide
later okay so play it by ear and the
origin and literal meaning of play it by
ear well it comes from music so to play
a musical composition without reading
the music so without reading the music
if someone plays the piano or the violin
without reading music then they are
playing it by ear okay so that's the end
of the video I hope it was useful here
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