How is your Accent?

Speaking good English is not enough. English must be spoken clear and correctly. Here , correct and clear refers to your accent. What is a accent? . If you want to improve your accent, you can record your voice and send us the audio clip to
moderator@theenglishforum.com.
For better results you can participate in Free Online live discussions . Click on the link to know how it helps you to improve your accent?

6 Ways to Increase Sales

In this section, we will learn how making small changes in your attitude and words can give rise to sales.
1. Be confident: - It goes without saying that, self confidence is the asset of every sales professional. Be confident while telling about your product. The slightest of hesitation will work against you. Customers ask a lot of questions, so their questions must be answered.
2. Be honest: - Sales professionals are given weekly or monthly targets to achieve. Few sales professionals cracking under the pressure of these targets adopt a compromising attitude towards integrity. Always remember, for the customer you are the face of your company. The customer will not feel cheated by an individual, but a company.
3. Know your product:- As a sales professional you must know your product thoroughly, so that you can answer customer’s queries.
4. Don’t impose on customer:- Customers need to take their time to make a decision about whether or not they want to purchase your product. Be wary of the customer’s reactions. Instead of infuriating the customer, respect the customer’s decision. He might not need the product, but he might be interested in future. Allow him to make a decision.
5. Don’t call the customer at inappropriate times:- Calling the customer at inappropriate times upsets customers. Ask for the most convenient time when he can be talked to. Avoid calling customers after 18:00 hrs.
6. Speak customer’s language: - Never use esoteric terms or flurry words to attract a customer. Customers are least interested to see how smart you are. Speak easy language that is easy for the customer to understand. Sell products not words.

Does Color Speak?

At the very start of this article, ‘colors speak’, I think it would be worthwhile mentioning that different colors ‘tend’ to mean different things. You may wonder as to why I am stressing on the word ‘tend’? That’s simply because a color by itself does not have any meaning. It is we who assign meanings to them and create an association between them and different things. This is also justified by the fact that even the same color ‘tends’ to have diverse meanings in different cultures. For instance, I’ll take white. While white is the color for nuptials in the United Sates, it is a color associated with mourning in some Eastern countries. Now two different colors can also have the same meaning for different people. For example, in several countries the color associated with death is black, while in some others, it is white.
Another interesting fact is that colors can be an indication of your mood. I have personally experienced this. On occasions I am happy, I naturally choose to wear bright colors such as pink, orange, yellow, while on gloomy days, I tend to opt for black, grey and the like. This is entirely based on my color associations at that point in time and you or anyone else, for that matter, may not think the same. You could possibly associate some other colors with happiness or sadness. We create meanings for colors, so the choice varies from person to person.
Colors can go on to mean diverse things, while I’ll state just a few in this article. In general, red is known as the color of love, but it can also be tagged with warmth, violence or anger, as also it can mean a rise in blood pressure while purple signifies royalty, style, creativity or spirituality. Let’s take grey, what does it tell you? For me, it means, dull, boring or traditional.
Continuing with what colors speak, next I’ll take up blue. The first thing that strikes me is calmness. It can also be associated with words like strong, friendly, professional or cold. Pink is a color most often associated with the female clan and is therefore said to be a girly color. Pink can be well associated with baby girls, softness, romance or charm. Yellow and this is the case with several other colors too (especially red), can have absolutely contrasting meanings. While at one extreme yellow can be related to summer, sunshine, delight or enjoyment, at the other extreme it can go on to mean cowardice or pretense.


The English Forum

Reinstating Broken Business or Workplace Relations

Reinstating broken business or workplace relations can be a delicate issue to handle. These long time’s trustworthy associations are a blessing we have in this otherwise ‘not so friendly’ corporate world and it is highly essential to maintain them against all odds. It can assertively be stated that having successful business alliances, who have been working with you for years and are keen to give you candid suggestions whenever required, are an asset. Would you want to ever let go of such people? I am sure; not. Therefore, any harm done to such relationships, should be dealt with right away, but appropriately.
‘I want to fix up my broken workplace relationship, but I am oblivious about how it’s to be done?’ Did this question cross your mind too? No worries; you’re not alone. There are several others like you who are uninformed and unsure about what’s to be done to resolve differences and anxiety at work, and thus re-establish damaged relations. I’m here to assist you with such issues, by suggesting some techniques you could perhaps use to restore your broken workplace or business relations.
Do you always claim that you are right? Then rise above this ‘right and wrong approach’. This is one of the techniques as always attempting to prove yourself as right and the other as wrong, is not a workable solution. Learn the art of compromising and mull over what's best for both. Don’t allow obdurate arrogance have your relationship spoiled with a very useful ally.
It is vital that you fix the damaged, but important alliances and do not leave them unattended. Permitting such broken relations to continue festering can harm you emotionally and physically, in addition to reduced efficiency and performance. Here, immediacy is one of the techniques you can use to handle workplace bitterness and patch up with an old associate. This communication ability called immediacy means talking about the tricky relation honestly, overtly and instantly with the other person.
‘My damaged relationship is somewhat better as I have got talking with my ally’, what do I do next?’ Wait and don’t anticipate getting back instantaneously to your earlier level. The approach here is to get familiar again slowly, and spend some good amount of time communicating with that ally to ensure that you both have a common understanding of your expectations from each other.


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