Having a discussion: key phrases

by | 13 Feb 2021 | Business English, General English

 

Today is the day! The meeting has started, everybody is ready. What is decided here will change the direction of the company, maybe even my position or of my colleagues.

 

The meeting starts at 0900am, sharp. There are sixteen of us, many ideas; some good some maybe not so good.  

 

William in advertising ‘leads the way’ (goes first)

‘To improve revenue, we need more clients. The only way to get more clients is through marketing. I think we should treble our marketing campaign; it will potentially triple our revenue.’

 

If we agree we could say:

 

That sounds like a good idea!

It is worth a try.

That could work.

I like the sound of that.

There could be merit in doing this.

 

If we disagree:

 

Personally I don’t like the sound of that because… the issue is that our outgoings are too high

We are not sure that three times the advertising will produce three times the amount of revenue.

Sorry, as good as it may sound to some, I am not convinced this is going to work.

That will not work, we have tried this before!

What worries me is that the quality of our advertising could be better than what it is.

 

 

Maybe someone has some other ideas:

 

What we could do is…. survey our clients as to what they think of our service.

I have got an idea…. why don’t we hire a market analyst?

One thing we could do is… wait until the next quarter when we expect to have a better cashflow.

I wonder how everyone would feel if we… changed the whole marketing department?

Maybe someone has another suggestion? 

 

After hearing all the suggestions:

 

Am I right in thinking that you…. would like to change the whole department?

Would it be possible to consider the suggestions that have been made today?

So, to recap, we are going to…. wait until the next quarter.

In a nutshell, Sally is going to …. put our ideas to the directors at the board meeting next week.

Shall we take a vote on this?

 

______

 

Above are some possible expressions. There are many more ways to respond or react including interchanging some of the mentioned ones from positive to negative etc.

Do you have a favourite?

 

______

 

What would you do?

What would you suggestion be?

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