VIP Class Notes (Mike)

Pronunciation

college – colleague

island – Iceland

Vocabulary

attire/dress code

crab (n): 螃蟹

connoisseur: an expert

i.e. You are a wine ~ then?

I am not a coffee ~, Jason knows much more about coffee than I do

-Yeah, so I was wondering if you could give the marketing team some support. We are kind of struggling right now.

– Oh, what happened?

-It’s just that we are running a tight budget, and it’s limiting what we can do with branding, so I wanted to ask you if it’s possible to get a 10% raise on our budget, that way we can do a lot more to build our brand and gain trust from customers.

-10% is not bad, I can give you that. Just give me the graphs on current spending and a brief plan of your strategies.

-Awesome! I was so nervous just now, but you made it so easy! Thank you, this will be extremely helpful for…….(write the benefits of this raise, but make it concise and less formal)

-No problem at all, any other troubles from work? (joking tone)

– haha, I don’t think I would call this “trouble”, it’s just that our team is a little dispirited/has pretty low morale right now, we could use a pep talk from the boss, haha.

-pep talk? from me? I might make you feel more blue! (laughs)just kidding! Alright, what do you want me to focus on?

-Just some general encouragement would be helpful, I think our whole department is a little lost right now, and we are having confidence issues. So maybe you could talk a bit about the tough times you have went through before?

-Sure, I will stop by on Monday afternoon then, how’s that sound?

-Absolutely perfect!

TIPS:

1. Use a more informal tone when talking, see him as a friend you just made at a bar. If you don’t know how to make it informal, start with some random chats about life in general, like “how’s Shanghai so far?”, “Your 2 sons are both in college? How’s it like to be free again?”, “How were things during Covid?”, “What’s your sport?”. etc.

2. Make sure it’s a conversation, don’t just memorize the dialogue above. Make it real and relational.

3. Ask him questions and be a good listener.

4. Don’t dominate the conversation, watch how others respond during the meal, make sure others get a chance to talk, too.