Is Your English Good Enough For You To Get Promoted, Work and Study Abroad, or Make The Deal?
Is Your English Good Enough For You To Get Promoted, Work and Study Abroad, or Make The Deal?
3 Steps To Grow Your Career In High-Level Finance
You are a finance professional pursuing a career in trading, investment banking, private equity, venture capital, M&A, or cryptocurrencies.? As a financial professional, you might feel that you spend way too much time trying to improve your English.? However, you continue to have trouble expressing your ideas, recalling the correct vocabulary to use, and being comfortable with small talk during one-on-one conversations and business meetings.
For years you have watched countless videos, studied grammar books, and even spent money on courses promising better English in a short amount of time.? However, you are still not at the level you want to be in your career, and you are worried that you will not get promoted or reach your professional or personal goals.
You are missing opportunities to advance your career, get promoted, or work/study abroad due to your English communication skills.? You might think it is because:
What's Your Real Problem
The truth is that if you keep doing what you are doing, you are going to burn out before you ever reach the level of English proficiency you want.??
Instead of continuing to learn everything, you need to focus on what you need to become confident, persuasive, and trustworthy during 1-on-1 conversations, business meetings, negotiations, and presentations.? Instead of focusing on general English, you need to focus on the skills specific to financial professionals like yourself.??
Let me use an analogy to help you understand.??
Let's say your vitamin C level is low, and you want to fix it.? Instead of taking concentrated vitamin C pills, you decide to take multivitamin tablets.
You know what's going to happen next.? You can take multivitamin pills every day, but your vitamin C level will not improve as much as you'd like because you are not focused on solving the problem.???
It seems straightforward, but this is precisely what has happened to your English learning journey.
You have tried to learn everything about English. Still, you only need to learn the English that will help you become confident, persuasive, and trustworthy during 1-on-1 conversations, business meetings, negotiations, and presentations.
Follow These Steps To Get Promoted, Work and Study Abroad, or Make The Deal
Step 1 - Develop an understanding of business English culture, formal business language, and informal business language.??
Why is this important?? Because what is considered normal in some cultures can be regarded as rude in others!? Different cultures have different ways of disagreeing, asking questions, and giving feedback.??
Further, formal and informal business language can confuse the message for nonnative English speakers.? You need to learn some of these phrases and know how to ask for clarification without feeling ignorant or embarrassed.
You need to learn how cultures communicate both formally and informally in business conversations to avoid these cultural misunderstandings.? You need to understand how to disagree with someone "agreeably" without being rude.? You need to learn some informal business English, but more importantly, you need to know how to acquire clarification so that you don't feel foolish.
Step 2 - Develop the skills to connect and build collaborative relationships with people during one-on-one conversations, small talk, business meetings, and negotiations.??
Smiling, nodding your head, and avoiding language mistakes are not good enough during one-on-one conversations, small talk, business meetings, or negotiations.? Suppose you will build your professional reputation, create collaborative business relationships, and create trust. In that case, you need to make sure the other person feels like they know, trust, and respect you.
How do we do this?? We build empathy by showing interest in the person and validating their opinions, views, and self-image.? Empathy is not sympathy, agreement, or even liking the other person.? Empathy is having a clear understanding of the other person's motivations, beliefs, and point of view.??
By using the right communication tools and achieving this level of connection, the other person walks away from a conversation, sales pitch, or negotiation feeling understood and respected.? In turn, they feel understanding and respect for you.
Step 3 - Build presentation skills, for both in-person and online, that are persuasive and trustworthy.
Reading your notes, or worse, paragraphs from your research during a presentation is boring.? It causes people to look at the time, become tired, think about other things, and ignore you.? Saying "so," "um," and "uh" several times every few seconds does not inspire trust or confidence in the work that you have spent so much time preparing.??
When speaking with three or four people in a meeting or with thirty people, you still need to create a connection, but you don't have the time to focus on each person individually.? In this case, you need to learn to make a connection by using eye contact, appropriate pauses, and by being prepared to address unexpected interruptions and questions.? You need to show people that they can trust your message because you are confident of the work you did to prepare for the presentation or meeting.
Does It Work?
Almost all of my clients hated small talk and could not understand its purpose.? Now they don't think it's very hard, and they look forward to it.? Now they see it as an opportunity to forge deeper relationships.
Several of my clients hated giving presentations, so they either read their notes or their entire research paper, shared busy and complicated Powerpoint slides, and didn't look up from their report.? They just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible!??
After they learned to stop reading their notes, make eye contact, and slow down, their presentations became interesting, engaging, and even shorter!? After learning these skills, I've seen clients shorten their presentations from 20 minutes to 9 minutes, leaving time for questions that they answered comfortably and confidently.
Send me a direct message if you want to become confident, persuasive, and trustworthy during 1-on-1 conversations, business meetings, negotiations, and presentations.