Online Class Notes (Jesse)

Do some speaking at home – think of a topic that you can easily talk about (something that you did recently) and record yourself a few times.

do more speaking practice like today – focus on natural sentences and not using “and then” as filler.

4. Example of teamwork/Difficulty

Annual review of one of the key accounts during last year is another difficulty that I had dealt with.

The client very much wanted a price cut by saying that they would remove us from the provider list as they wanted to shortlist the number of providers from 6 to 4 if we kept the original price during the annual contract review considering we are the most expensive provider combining with the negative impacts from COVID. All of a sudden cost control became their top priority to run the business in 2020.

At the beginning, the leadership were not willing to do so as they thought the client were bluffing. Meanwhile, clients kept pushing us on the price cut and we proposed something that they were not satisfied with. The negotiation remained deadlocked.

However, me as the team leader knew that the client didn’t bluff and actually they did terminate the contract with another provider at the beginning of 2020 due to price issue but our senior management were not fully aware of this.

My action plan
1 is to call my client to collect information on the details why they terminate contract with the other provider and I was able to prove that the client didn’t bluff actually
2 is to collect information in terms of the price and charging rules from other providers and to see what was the price difference between us and other providers. So we can work on our proposal with the market information.

The leadership modified the proposal with the market information I provided and the negotiation ended within one and a half month. We became 1 of 4 prioritized provider in 2020. Actually this account achieved 30% YOY revenue increase by the end of 2020 after the price cut.

to summarize,
1. Make a decision based on your experience and judgement and fight for it：no one wants a price cut as we’ve been working so hard on driving the revenue. However, I am the expert on this account as I’ve been working on it for the past 5 years. I know that this client is not cost sensitive and they very much value our service in the past years. They won’t ask for the price cut unless they really got into some trouble on budget controlling. At this moment, as the key provider and long term business parter I should help them through the hard time and they will pay back with more revenue.

4. Example of teamwork/Difficulty

Annual review of one of the key accounts during last year is another difficulty that I had dealt with.

The client very much wanted a price cut by saying that they would remove us from the provider list as they wanted to reduce the number of providers on the shortlist from 6 to 4 if we kept the original price during the annual contract review considering we are the most expensive provider combined with the negative impacts from COVID. All of a sudden cost control became their top priority to run the business in 2020.

At the beginning, the leadership were not willing to do so as they thought the client was bluffing. Meanwhile, the client kept pushing us on the price cut and we proposed something that they were not satisfied with. The negotiation remained deadlocked.

However, I, as the team leader, knew that the client wasn’t bluffing and actually they did terminate the contract with another provider at the beginning of 2020 due to price issues but our senior management were not fully aware of this.

My action plan
1 was to call my client to collect information on the details of / regarding why they terminated the contract with the other provider and I was able to prove that the client wasn’t actually bluffing
2 was to collect information on / regarding / about the price and charging rules from other providers and to see what the price difference was between us and other providers. So we can work on our proposal with the market information.

The leadership modified the proposal with the market information I provided and the negotiation ended within one and a half months. We became 1 of 4 prioritized providers in 2020. Actually this account achieved 30% YOY revenue increase by the end of 2020 after the price cut.

to summarize,
1. Make a decision based on your experience and judgement and fight for it：no one wants a price cut as we’ve been working so hard on driving the revenue. However, I am the expert on this account as I’ve been working on it for the past 5 years. I know that this client is not cost sensitive and they have very much valued our service over the past years. They wouldn’t ask for a price cut unless they really had gotten into some trouble with budget control / having financial difficulties. At this moment, as the key provider and long term business parter I should help them through the hard times and they will pay us back with more revenue.

Grammar

putting lots of efforts – I put a lot of effort into it 

I don’t know what you said.
What did you say?

Regarding the price, I think it will be expensive. – introducing the subject 
In terms of the price, I think it will be expensive. – introducing the subject 

I talked to my boss regarding my salary. = about 
I talk to my boss in terms of my salary. 

I think you’re great in terms of your skillset. = great = high level skill set – clarifying the subject 
I think you’re great regarding your skillset. 

Pronunciation

quarantine – kwar ren teen 

I went to restaurant in gz and it’s really special which is running by the chef and then it’s like si fang cai – it means you don’t have to order when you went to the restuanrt the chef will decide your order. you just have to book time and you went there and eat it. it’s pretty funny I think – you don’t have to order. the chef is gonna decide it. It’s an old building like 3 floors building, and then the chef redecorated it into a really old decoration, make it look vintage. There are 3-4 tables on each floor so basically it’s a pretty small restaurant and then the chef he procured those ingredients and all kinds of things he needs to prepare the food.

I went to a restaurant in gz which is really special and is (being) run by a chef and then it’s like si fang cai which means you don’t have to order when you go to the restaurant the chef will decide your order. you just have to book a time and you go there and eat it / go there to eat. it’s pretty fun I think because / since / as you don’t have to order. the chef is gonna decides for you / decides it. It’s an old building with three floors, and then the chef redecorated / converted it into a really old vintage style building, There are 3-4 tables on each floor so basically it’s a pretty small restaurant. and then The chef he procured those ingredients and everything he needs to prepare the food.

Vocabulary

funny = makes you laugh / makes you feel strange
fun = makes you happy / excited / enjoy sth