Selling English To Companies

[haltes]

Just for fun. Add any more if you can think of any

1. Our course is the one for you and meets all your educational requirements

Meaning: Our course is no different from those offered by my competitors but with some nice PowerPoint slides and colour graphs and charts, I am going to try as hard as possible to hide the fact that all we’ve done is photocopy Headway and put the chapters in a different order (possibly adding in some pages from Cutting Edge as well), and put the resulting pages in a different fancy book cover with our company logo on it. I am sorry to admit that I don’t know the difference between learning objectives and student outcomes, they are the same thing aren’t they? Bloom? Is that about flowers?

2. We need to measure the ability of your students so we can allocate them to different class levels

Meaning: We need to pretend to measure how good individual students are so that the textbook we will photocopy will not be far below/beyond the capabilities of the students. The test is rubbish anyway and would fail due to it not being reliable or even valid for what we are testing. Never mind, we’ve been using it for the last 15 years without changing it and even the original typos remain from when I first typed it into the computer and accidentally spilled coke all over the keyboard. We’ll just randomly allocate students based on surname anyway and hope for the best.

3. A pre test and a post test are a good idea

Meaning: It’s better for my chance of repeat business (and more commission) if we demonstrate with some nice shiny line graphs, the astounding effect that our twice weekly, hour and a half course has had over the last 10 weeks. The pre test will be impossibly difficult and the post test could be completed by a four year old, but the results will demonstrate a remarkable improvement.

4. You will get maximum return on investment

Meaning: The more motivated students might improve but most will continue with the same old problems and mistakes. Most students will still not be able to add –s to third person singular in the present simple or pronounce –ed for verbs in the past simple. They will still say things like “I working here since 2 years” and “Last week I went to shopping”. They will still not be able to tell the difference between “serious” and “stressed”. The students who improved would probably have improved anyway just from reading news.bbc.co.uk or the Bangkok Post.

5. The course will only take two or three weeks to develop

Meaning: I really don’t have the foggiest idea how long your course will take to develop and so I’m just saying random numbers that will hopefully get you to sign on the dotted line. A timescale that is too short would make you think we’re not professional, a time scale that is too long would make you look at our competitors. Once you’ve signed and I have got your commission, I don’t care how long it takes because I know it’s easier to stick with us rather than start the whole procurement process again.

6. Here is the total cost of the course

Meaning: Here is the maximum price that I think you are able/willing to pay but of course my price is totally flexible and I’ll almost certainly say yes to lowering it because we need your money and possibly your company name to show other potential customers. By the way, we already added your company logo to our webpage of “prestigious customers”. Yes our price is negotiable.

7. Here are our contractual terms and conditions

Meaning: This is a standard contractual agreement that we use for everyone no matter who they are, no matter what they actually want. If you bother to read it, you might want to change some terms which I will always agree to. I bet you don’t actually read it anyway so I don’t want to waste time drawing up a specific legal document that would actually be appropriate in this case. Please sign here….

Edited June 24, 2009 by haltes

[AjarnChan]

Just for fun. Add any more if you can think of any

1. Our course is the one for you and meets all your educational requirements

Meaning: Our course is no different from those offered by my competitors but with some nice PowerPoint slides and colour graphs and charts, I am going to try as hard as possible to hide the fact that all we’ve done is photocopy Headway and put the chapters in a different order (possibly adding in some pages from Cutting Edge as well), and put the resulting pages in a different fancy book cover with our company logo on it. I am sorry to admit that I don’t know the difference between learning objectives and student outcomes, they are the same thing aren’t they? Bloom? Is that about flowers?

2. We need to measure the ability of your students so we can allocate them to different class levels

Meaning: We need to pretend to measure how good individual students are so that the textbook we will photocopy will not be far below/beyond the capabilities of the students. The test is rubbish anyway and would fail due to it not being reliable or even valid for what we are testing. Never mind, we’ve been using it for the last 15 years without changing it and even the original typos remain from when I first typed it into the computer and accidentally spilled coke all over the keyboard. We’ll just randomly allocate students based on surname anyway and hope for the best.

3. A pre test and a post test are a good idea

Meaning: It’s better for my chance of repeat business (and more commission) if we demonstrate with some nice shiny line graphs, the astounding effect that our twice weekly, hour and a half course has had over the last 10 weeks. The pre test will be impossibly difficult and the post test could be completed by a four year old, but the results will demonstrate a remarkable improvement.

4. You will get maximum return on investment

Meaning: The more motivated students might improve but most will continue with the same old problems and mistakes. Most students will still not be able to add –s to third person singular in the present simple or pronounce –ed for verbs in the past simple. They will still say things like “I working here since 2 years” and “Last week I went to shopping”. They will still not be able to tell the difference between “serious” and “stressed”. The students who improved would probably have improved anyway just from reading news.bbc.co.uk or the Bangkok Post.

5. The course will only take two or three weeks to develop

Meaning: I really don’t have the foggiest idea how long your course will take to develop and so I’m just saying random numbers that will hopefully get you to sign on the dotted line. A timescale that is too short would make you think we’re not professional, a time scale that is too long would make you look at our competitors. Once you’ve signed and I have got your commission, I don’t care how long it takes because I know it’s easier to stick with us rather than start the whole procurement process again.

6. Here is the total cost of the course

Meaning: Here is the maximum price that I think you are able/willing to pay but of course my price is totally flexible and I’ll almost certainly say yes to lowering it because we need your money and possibly your company name to show other potential customers. By the way, we already added your company logo to our webpage of “prestigious customers”. Yes our price is negotiable.

7. Here are our contractual terms and conditions

Meaning: This is a standard contractual agreement that we use for everyone no matter who they are, no matter what they actually want. If you bother to read it, you might want to change some terms which I will always agree to. I bet you don’t actually read it anyway so I don’t want to waste time drawing up a specific legal document that would actually be appropriate in this case. Please sign here….

Classic, you hit the nail on the head.

But how did you get our business plan ?

[aussiebebe]

I would add:

8. We employ only highly-skilled, experienced and professional Teachers to deliver our course.

The Salesman’s Meaning: We will probably manage to get someone to turn up and teach your employees. Maybe. Refer to the Terms and Conditions, Section 18, Paragraph 3. The person we send to deliver our course may possibly have the necessary wherewithal, we can’t be sure yet, but they will have passed a rigorous email-based interview. Their name? No, not yet; we’ll tell you nearer the time, but we will definitely employ someone with a name. Does that clarify matters? No, yes we do have teachers….Punctual? Sober? Sane? We’ll get someone alright?

[haltes]

9. Lessons will be fun!

Meaning: the students will actually learn nothing useful at all but they might enjoy them and think the teacher is very good and give him good evaluations and then the HR department will be happy and buy another course. How do you spell “comission” again?