📘 Part 3: Business and entrepreneurship

This episode's vocabulary

Boxed into (phrasal verb) – To be forced into a situation or role with limited options. → People are no longer boxed into the same professions.

Run in the family (idiom) – To be a common feature or characteristic in a particular family. → These professions have run in families for decades.

Family ties (noun phrase) – The strong connections or bonds between family members. → It's important not to let family ties get in the way of the business.

Get in the way (idiom) – To obstruct or prevent something from happening. → Sometimes family ties get in the way of making good business decisions.

Intimately (adverb) – In a very close and personal way. → You know the people working for you fairly intimately.

Fallout (noun) – A serious argument or disagreement. → If you have a fallout in the family, that could affect productivity.

Detrimental effect (noun phrase) – A harmful or damaging influence. → The strain of running a business might have a detrimental effect on family relations.

Go down the tubes (idiom) – To fail completely. → If international trade relations go down the tubes, local companies might become more important.

Strike out on your own (idiom) – To start doing something new and independent. → Many people choose to strike out on their own to gain financial independence.

Channel your passion (verb phrase) – To direct your strong feelings or energy towards a particular activity. → It’s a chance to channel your passion for something and turn it into a source of income.

Risk taker (noun) – A person who is willing to do things that involve danger or risk in order to achieve a goal. → In sectors that reward risk taking, a risk taker might do better.

Broad generalization (noun phrase) – A statement about a group of people or things that is too general and not always accurate. → To say all men are better at business is a very broad generalization.

Questions and Answers

Maria: Do you think family businesses are common in your country?

Rory: I'm not sure to be honest. Though I imagine they're less common than they were since people are no longer boxed into the same professions that have run in families for decades. People have a lot more freedom of action these days.

Maria: What makes a successful family business?

Rory: I'm not sure it's that different to other businesses. Is it? They need a market for their product and good management. I suppose in a family business, it's important not to let family ties get in the way of that, but that's all I can think of.

Maria: What are the advantages of running a family business?

Rory: I imagine you don't have to worry about trusting employees as much since you know the people working for you and you know them fairly intimately. And you might benefit from having your family as a source of labor which could be cheaper since family members might be more tolerant of being paid less. Especially if it helps in the long run.

Maria: And what are the disadvantages of running a family business?

Rory: Well, if you have a fallout in the family that could affect productivity and the strain of running a business might have a detrimental effect on relations in the family more generally, since you don't really have a place to escape to at the end of the workday.

Maria: Do you think family businesses will still be popular in the future?

Rory: I'm not sure they're that popular now, to be honest. But either way, I don't know. It depends on so much, like if international trade relations go down the tubes, then you might find local companies run by local families people could trust are relied on more and more. So it's certainly a possibility. I don't know how certain of a possibility that is, though.

Maria: Why do some people choose to start their own company?

Rory: Well, lots of reasons. It might give you financial independence, a chance to get creative and fuel or channel your passion for something and turn it into a source of income. Oh and of course, people just want to make money and not have to answer to anyone, which is what striking out on your own can get you, usually.

Maria: What skills are needed to be a successful business person?

Rory: I think that depends on the market sector you're going into. Some of them require great patience and organization like running a farm, and others might need super specific skills like running a tech startup. I don't think there's just one thing you need for that sort of thing.

Maria: Are men better than women at running a business?

Rory: I'm not sure really. It's a bit like what it takes to be a successful business person in general. It's too broad. However, since men tend to take more risks than women, it might be that in sectors of the economy that reward risk taking, men would do better running things there. But that's a very broad generalization, isn't it?

Discussion

Maria: Right dear listener, if you have nothing to say about family businesses, and your country, please Google it, learn about family businesses. Yeah, and just businesses in general. It's very useful for your essays as well, for ideas in speaking and essays. Family businesses are less common. Rory, what you call if a business is not family business?

Rory: I don't know, just a regular business.

Maria: Regular business?

Rory: Yeah, normal, a normal business.

Maria: A non-family owned business.

Rory: Oh, there we go. There we go.

Maria: A non family owned business.

Rory: I don't think that's the technical term. There will be a technical term for that, but I don't know what it is.

Maria: So you can say that family businesses are quite common in my country or they're not common and there are more large companies, a lot of companies which own businesses in my place.

Rory: But the reason why they might not be so common is because people are no longer boxed into the same professions. So if you're boxed into something, you are forced to do it.

Maria: Yeah, you can say family businesses and non-family businesses or you can say just independent companies or corporate, public businesses, private companies. A successful family business needs a market for their product. So they need an audience, people, and they need good management.

Rory: That's people running the business. Speaking of running, we skipped over professions that have run in families for decades. So if something runs in your family, it's like a tradition or something, like a genetic thing that carries on or continues from one generation to another. So, here, a profession can run in a family, like one parent is a journalist and the child is a journalist as well, or one parent is a plumber or an electrician and then their children do that.

Maria: When we talk about a family business, we talk about family ties. Family connections.

Rory: Strong connections.

Maria: Ties. C2 word, by the way. Band nine.

Rory: Is it? Is the colocation family ties? That's a... Oh, my God.

Maria: Yeah, family ties.

Rory: I'm a nine.

Maria: So the friendly feelings that people have for other people or special connections with places as well. Like diplomatic ties, close ties, family ties. Pretty much like the connection you have with your family. It's different from the connection you have with your friends. And sometimes family ties get in the way. So they disrupt the business sometimes.

The questions could be about the advantages and disadvantages of running a family business. So you can paraphrase like benefits and drawbacks of running a family business. And the benefits are that you don't worry about trusting employees. So usually you trust your family members, your relatives. Again, usually. So trust. They're honest with you. You know people intimately. So you know them quite well, you are close to them.

And you can use a verb benefit from. You can benefit from your family as a source of labor. Labor means work. And the family labor could be cheaper. Your family members could be cheaper than other people. So you just pay less to your family than you pay to other people. This is horrible, actually. Could be true though, yeah.

The drawbacks. You can fall out with your family members. Which means that you can argue with them, have disagreements, arguments. And they could get worse because you're intimate, you are close. Lots of things, parents, children. People often fall out with their family members. And disagreements could have a detrimental effect on relations and business. So have a detrimental effect on means to have a bad effect, negative. And you don't have a place to escape at the end of the day, because where do you escape? You go home and you see your family. They are at work, they are at home, so they're everywhere.

Rory: Oh, they're too close. Too many of them, no escaping.

Maria: Go down the tubes. That's a lovely idiom, Rory.

Rory: Right?

Maria: C2 idiom.

Rory: It's an idiom. Hopefully, it's C2, but even if it's not, it should be, and going down the tubes means something is getting worse or not going so well. Going very badly.

Maria: Fail completely. So if this business went down the tubes, it failed, went bankrupt. And here you can say that if international trade relations, so if international business goes down the tubes, then family businesses will be more popular. And you can say that people tend to trust family businesses, people tend to trust local families, they rely more on family businesses. You can start your own company or you can set up your own company. So start your own business, set up your own business.

Rory: You can strike out on your own, which is an idiom for being independent. Oh, yes.

Maria: Strike out on your own. So some people prefer striking out on their own. Well, they want financial independence. So they want to be independent from the corporate world, from private companies. So they want to be creative and they want to channel their passion for their own thing. So if you channel your passion somewhere, you focus your passion.

Rory: Use the passion Maria.

Maria: And they usually turn something they are passionate about into a source of income. So it's kind of like, choose something that you enjoy doing and you will not have to work for the rest of your life. A successful business person...

Rory: Could be a man or a woman.

Maria: Needs to be, yeah, yeah, a business person, an entrepreneur, should have great patience and organization. Okay? So to run your own company, you need to be patient, organized. And a person needs super specific skills.

Rory: What are super specific skills? Being able to code.

Maria: Code, yeah, if you are an IT specialist, right? So being able to set up, I don't know, newsletters and to create a website or a landing page.

Rory: Basically everything our producer does. I have no idea how that works.

Maria: You can also say that a successful business person should be a leader, should have strong problem solving skills, strategic thinking, should adapt well to everything, should be responsible, resilient. Do you remember, we talked about this word.

Rory: Was that a C2 level word?

Maria: Absolutely. So basically time management skills, leadership skills, financial skills, decision making skills, networking skills, or communication skills. And we say strong, a successful business person should have strong communication skills. And technical skills, like Rory told us super specific skills, so you can say technical skills. Specific skills. You can talk about hard skills and soft skills. So hard skills, like technical skills, financial, computer skills and soft skills, leadership, communication...

Rory: Organization.

Maria: Yeah.

Rory: I have good organizational skills. I'm not good at anything else.

Maria: Yeah, Rory, you have band 15 organization skills. The last question is interesting. Are men better than women?

Rory: Where did that come from?

Maria: She's just like are men better than women? Are women better than men? Dangerous question, dear listener.

Rory: I know. That doesn't sound like a very good question for IELTS, which is usually sensitive and neutral.

Maria: Yeah, they are usually neutral. But if you are asked something about men and women, who is better at what, it's better to be neutral.

Rory: It's better to say men.

Maria: Men. No, but if statistically, I think there are more men in business than women.

Rory: I don't think that necessarily means they're better at it. Have you seen the economy of my country?

Maria: You can say, I'm not an expert. According to Google, there are more men than women in business. But again, it doesn't mean that men are better at business. But according to some...

Rory: Some guy on the internet.

Maria: A trusted source.

Rory: Three years ago, 40% of people think that men make better business executives than women. Again, dear listener, it's just nonsense. Yeah. So we do not know. And you can just express your opinion. You can say, "I'm not sure really. Cause any person could be a successful business person, a successful entrepreneur." Or if you believe that men are better at running business, okay, explain why. You can say men are more practical, logical, they are less emotional. Or, for example, you say women are better at running a business because they are softer, kinder, more beautiful. I don't know. Dear listener, what do you reckon? What do you think about this?

Rory here is just very careful and cautious, neutral. And he says men tend to be risky. So men tend to take more risks. And that's true, actually. That's according to, if you read some psychology, that's true. Women don't prefer to risk.

Rory: As often as men. It's all relative.

Maria: Exactly. Exactly. That's why in a business, it could be dangerous because men will risk it and can lose everything, but also they can win. But women tend to be more stable. So they save stuff. So they tend to risk less often than men. So this is a very good idea. So you can say who is a risk taker, who is not a risk taker. And you can say that well, that's a very broad generalization, isn't it? So we are generalizing, we talk about all people in general. And you can just save yourself and say, well, that's a very broad generalization. And you can use a tag question. "Isn't, isn't it?"

Rory: "Isn't it? Isn't it?" No, it would be low intonation. "Isn't it?" Because you're confident that it is a broad question.

Maria: Or you just look at the examiner and say, what kind of question is this?

Rory: Sexist. That's what it is.

Maria: Sexist, yes. And also Rory, questions like who is a better driver, a man or a woman? Who is a better cook, a man or a woman?

Rory: Oh, how do you decide that? I mean, I imagine women would be better drivers if you say they have fewer accidents, but the accidents is the worst case scenario. It could be who makes more mistakes when driving on the road. Now that could be women, we don't know because there's no statistics on that. So how do you prove that one way or the other? It is a silly question. Do not be caught up in the silly questions, dear listener.

Maria: A very good answer is like, "We don't have any statistics on that."

Rory: We don't have any statistics, but we do have quality business vocabulary and grammar.

Maria: Oh, yes, we do. Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode. Okay?

Rory: Bye.

Maria: Bye.