hi everybody welcome to invid.com i'm
adam in today's video we're going to
look at some business english
expressions but not technical business
we're going to look at business idioms
because remember even in business you
still have to have some casual
conversations some everyday situations
and when you're when you're talking or
dealing with your own
staff or with co-workers you're still
going to be very you can you can be very
informal still and use idioms however
you're not going to use most of these in
in writing some of them you can and i'll
point out which ones but most of them
are a little bit too informal for formal
writing so let's start with the first
one to get all of one's ducks in a row
and you can put all of or without the of
both okay get all ones ducks in a row
now ducks are like the little animal but
with
i'm not really sure where the expression
came from but i think it's from like
games where you have to shoot the ducks
if you put all your ducks in a row means
you get all the pieces ready so that you
can begin doing something so before you
start a project you want to make sure
you get all your reduction arrow you
have your in your investors you have the
people who are going to work on the
project you potentially have a client
ready to buy
whatever it is you're making or the
service you're providing so you have
everything ready
and then you actually begin if you don't
have all your ducks in a row there may
be problems down the line or
there may be no point in even starting
this project because it's not going to
go anywhere so basically get everything
ready have all the pieces in place
before you begin something now that is
actually very much
related to the next idiom
which is dot the eyes and cross the t's
so what you're going to do you're going
to dot the eyes make sure there's a dot
and cross
the t's
basically
it means make sure that all the details
have been taken care of
so especially when you're talking about
paperwork
you want to make sure
there are no errors nothing is missing
nothing is uh misspelled for example in
a contract if you misspell a word and
you mean something other than what you
intended it could be a huge problem a
contract is a legal document so you want
to make sure everything is perfect and
correct before anybody signs before you
go on with whatever business so make
sure all the details
the eyes on the the dots on the eyes the
t's are crossed nothing is missing
because if you don't do this if you
don't take care of the details and you
don't have all your ducks lined up you
may end up going back to square one
back to square one means back to the
beginning you have to start over
so if you made mistakes along the way it
doesn't matter how much work you did if
you have to go back to square one back
to the beginning to start the whole
process from scratch oh that's actually
a good expression too
from scratch
scratch means from nothing you're
starting from complete zero and you're
building your way back up back to square
one similar to from scratch
so that's a not a good situation
now when you're doing business some
companies
or different companies operate in
different ways some companies do
everything by the book
by the book means legally according to
the rules exactly as it's supposed to
happen
they follow the standards
other companies cut corners means they
try to take shortcuts or they try to do
things to save money
so for example if we're talking about a
building a lot of builders try to cut
corners by using cheaper material or by
not installing certain things or by
hoping that the clients don't really
notice that something is broken or not
working properly they're trying to cut
corners usually
this ends up costing everybody more at
the end
doing things by the book might be a
little bit more expensive and might take
a little bit longer time
but you will have no problems when the
project is finished when the production
is finished
so again
bad
good to do
now to get something off the ground so
uh
especially if you think about like a
startup companies but it doesn't have to
be any business or any individual who
wants to get a business started or to
get a project started he's trying to get
it off the ground off the ground means
working right so the first thing you
need to get a project off the ground is
money so you get investors you get
people to uh some the banks maybe even
to give you a loan you get all the money
so that you can get the project off the
ground and get it started get it
building towards the completion
if something comes with no strings
attached strings basically means
conditions
so usually for example if you go to the
bank
they
they will give you a lot of conditions
there's a lot of strings about getting a
loan from a bank you're paying interest
there's a deadline there's a monthly fee
they own you have to sign over your
house or some sort of collateral
if you go to a loan shark just say
here's their money no string is attached
except for one
if you don't pay me the money back with
50 interest i break your legs something
like that
in relationships people often use this
expression in relationships some people
say you know let's just be together no
strings attached means there's no
commitment
no conditions just have fun and when
it's over it's over
does it work i don't know some people
yes for some people know there's
actually a movie called no strings
attached you can watch that and decide
but this is a very common uh expression
when somebody wants to you to do
something for them and they say no
strings attached
remember there's probably some strings
attached somewhere
think outside the box now this is a very
very important
expression a little bit too popular to
be honest a lot of people use this
expression in their resumes or cvs they
say oh i'm a very creative person i like
to think about outside the box if you
write on your resume that you think
outside the box then actually you don't
think outside the box because everybody
is writing the same thing to think
outside the box means to think
differently to get out of cliche to get
out of the standard to be very creative
or very innovative a box has limits
outside the box limitless so this is
just a key if you're writing a resume
don't tell them you think outside the
box because every other applicant might
be saying the same thing
word of mouth so the best way to
advertise a product is not to spend a
lot of money on ads and promotions and
tv spots and youtube spots and all that
the best way is word of mouth when a
happy customer
tells his or her friends about your
product and they tell their friends and
they tell their friends and your
reputation grows and awareness of your
product grows as people tell each other
and as one person tells the other it's
called word of mouth
i'm telling you i'm telling you and it
spreads and it's spread in the spread
best advertising and
free
if you can do it
uh let's go cutthroat
when we talk about uh competition
some companies are very successful
because they are big and they can afford
to offer
cut throat prices
cut cut-throat means like the cheapest
of the cheap so that the nearest
competitor
can't actually compete with them because
the prices are so low to the customer
that if the competition decides to offer
the same price they will go out of
business this is how big companies
destroy little companies
they offer customers cutthroat prices
the small companies can't compete they
lose customers they go out of business
and you can also think about cutthroat
approaches
somebody does something in a way that
can't no one else can compete with them
it's very
i guess you could say it's mean
but business people are generally a
little bit mean i think if you're going
to be a successful business person you
have to be a little bit mean to be the
best
and last one it takes two to tango tango
is a type of dance
but you can't dance this dance by
yourself you need two people to make
this dance work
just like you need two people to make
certain relationships work so a business
for example a business cannot succeed
without the customer being involved
so if a business
owner or a manager tries to do something
because he or she likes likes it
it doesn't matter if the customer
doesn't like it you're gonna go out of
business because it takes two to tango
both sides have to
enjoy or want to do something in order
in order for it to work
also
if let's say there's an industry where
there's really only three big companies
if i want to push one of the companies
out
make basically make them go out of
business i'm going to need the help of
the second company because by myself i
don't have enough power and if the two
of them get together they can take me
out so i need a partner because it takes
two to tango it takes two to get
something done
okay so there you go there's some good
business expressions for you think
outside the box word of mouth
um
[Music]
get something off the ground buy the
book cut corners these are all
usable or
basically these are the most usable ones
in terms of writing all the rest can be
used in uh speaking a bit in formal
situations okay
if you have any questions about any of
these idioms please go to inkvid.com you
can ask me in the comments section there
there's also a quiz where you can test
your understanding of these uh idioms
and yeah i hope you liked it this video
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videos and come back soon i'll give you
some more idioms vocab grammar tips etc
see you bye