Ok! think that suddenly you came to know that you have to attend a formal meeting. What are you gonna do? Are you confident enough or still think you need to learn some extra 5% to outshine?
Communication is very vital these days. This article will assist you to find out useful phrases to introduce yourself, answer suggestions and concepts, and ask questions during a business meeting.
By the way, if you want to read my basics of communication before reading this, you can click on the links below:
1. Top 5 Tips On Communication Skills Which Makes You Shine!
2. How Convince Your Customer On Phone?
How to introduce yourself?
I want you to imagine you’re within the meeting, and therefore the chair has asked everyone to introduce themselves. What are some phrases you can use? Sometimes, you’ll be in a meeting with people you don’t know or the chair will ask for quick introductions to break the ice.
There are three things you should do that are given here:- Tell your name - Tell your designation- Describe your responsibilities. For example, ‘My name is _____’ or, if the meeting is more informal, you can say, ‘Hi, I’m_____’. For your position title(designation), use ‘to be’, just like for your name.
Then, decide if your position is the only one in the company, or if there are others who have the same job title/designation. For example, if you're the sole secretary, use ‘the’: I’m the secretary. If other people also have this position in the company, use ‘a’: I’m a project manager.
If necessary, you'll say which department you're employed in. You can use the preposition ‘in’ plus the noun: ‘engineering’, ‘marketing’, ‘finance’, etc. For example, I’m in the engineering department. Or: I work in the marketing department.
Finally, you'll briefly describe your responsibilities, like this: I manage each project from start to end. I’m liable for web analytics and testing. Or: I handle purchasing and our negotiations with suppliers. You can see that using verbs and phrases like manage, be liable for or handle are often useful here.
Here is an example of a full introduction in a formal meeting with people you do know or don’t know well: My name is Gourav Bhat and I’m the Marketing Manager. I handle online advertising and web analytics.
Here’s an example of a more informal introduction: Hi, I’m Gourav. I work in the sales division. I manage our sales team.
How would you introduce yourself during a meeting? You can give it a try now. Now that you’ve introduced yourself, the meeting will begin.
How to present your Agenda?
During the meeting, you might need to give your opinion on the different agenda items which you are discussing. You might also need to react to other people’s suggestions. How can you do this? While suggesting, modal verbs can be very useful.‘Should’, ‘ought to’ or ‘might want to’ can express something you think is a good idea, but not an obligation: We ought to give new clients a present from the corporate.
We might want to think about trying to find another engineer to assist with this Or: I think we should make this a priority for this month.‘Have to’ and ‘need to’ can express something that's an obligation: We need to improve the way we collect and record sales data. Or:
Remember, you can also use these to make negative suggestions: We shouldn’t rush this—we need to think about it carefully. Or: We don’t need to hire new staff at the moment. Now, it’s your turn. Select a perfect phrase according to the situation and make a suggestion for something better in your own company. Next, what are you able to do if you would like to reply to a different suggestion?
Well, if you think that it’s an honest suggestion, you'll show you accept as true with phrases like I accept as true with _______. That sounds good. Or: Let’s accompany this concept. Here, accompany means you agree with this concept and think you ought to put it into action. However, what if there's a suggestion you don’t agree with?
How to disagree with someone's suggestion?
Here are some good, professional ways to disagree: To be honest, I’m unsure about this concept. Good suggestion, but I can see a couple of problems…Or: I see your point, however…After a phrase like this, explain your point of view. For example, I see your point, however, I don’t think advertising in a magazine may be a good idea. People don’t read them as often these days. Or: To be honest, I’m unsure about this concept. I think improving our website UI may be a higher priority immediately.OK?
Now, take the suggestion which you made earlier. Just pause reading here and write down two sentences: one to agree, and one to disagree. Use the language you just learned. Now, let’s move on to
What is the appropriate way of asking a question?
If you’re in a meeting where you can ask questions at any time, there are a few good phrases you can use. For more formal meetings, you can begin with a phrase like ‘sorry’, or ‘excuse me’ to politely bring the attention to you. Then, you can use phrases like: I have a question. Why is…?How…?Or: Does this mean…?
For example: Excuse me, how would the new requirements affect the project's deadline? Or: Sorry to interrupt, but I even have an issue. Does this mean that the new IT systems won’t be in action this year? If there is something in the meeting that you don’t understand, you can use phrases to ask for clarification: I didn’t understand…Can you elaborate on this…? Or: Can you clarify…? When using these phrases, it’s important to elucidate exactly what you don’t know or invite clarity on something specific that they said.
Again, you can use ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ in more formal meetings
Now, it’s your turn. Practice asking
What to do next after the decisions are taken?
Next, imagine that you’ve discussed the agenda items and are available to an agreement on the important decisions you needed to form. You might get to show what you’re getting to do about these decisions after the meeting has finished.
Here, you'll offer to try something employing a few different phrases.
For something that you simply plan to do at that moment for the longer term, you'll use ‘will’.For example, I’ll call the client tomorrow. Or: I’ll discuss this with the rest of my team and get back to you by the end of the week. If you had a plan even before the meeting began, you can use ‘going to’ or ‘planning to’: I’m going to get a team together for this project. Or: I’m planning to do one more round of testing, and then we can go live.
If you want to make an offer, you can use ‘can’, could or shall: I can contact the supplier next week if we need to. I could put together a report if you think it would help. Or: Shall I talk to our engineering team and get a cost estimate? On the other hand, what if you are asked to do something that you cannot do?
What to say when you cannot do something?
Well, there are some useful, polite phrases you can use: I’m afraid I can’t…I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can…Unfortunately, I won’t be able to…Think about this.
What if someone asked you to move your project deadline forward, but it wasn’t possible? You could say: Unfortunately, we won’t be able to complete the project any sooner because we don't have the supplies yet. Or: I’m sorry, I don’t think we can finish by the end of this month. We need at least another six weeks.
At this point, the meeting is wrapping up and hopefully, you have been able to make good suggestions and offers and take part in discussions effectively.
If you are going to attend a meeting in English soon, Hopefully, some of these phrases be useful for you!
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