Shadowing Practice: Preparing My Business for 10,000 Orders a Month in China - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
201 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
It can be a huge order for us, it's over $150,000.
2
In Australia, building materials alone is a $240 billion industry.
3
And almost none of that money is the product.
4
Almost every building material passed through five sets of hands before it ever reached you.
5
A factory, an exporter, an importer, a wholesaler, a retailer, every single one of them is adding their markup to the price.
6
Business is all about streamlining operations, and this is literally where it's all happening for us today.
7
I'm taking you inside the machine that we're building at BloomBuild.
8
12 different supplies spread across China, thousands of samples, and one decision that changes what this business can achieve.
9
So when we hit 10,000 orders a month, nothing breaks.
10
China is such a great place to be able to do business from.
11
I mean, it's why we're doing what we're doing.
12
Because you can get that efficiency, you can get that scale.
13
Huo ai zhongguo.
14
Huo ai zhongguo.
15
I've been working Chinese factories since I was 15.
16
10 years coming here and now I've moved my entire life for this and here's the thing, the demand already exists.
17
Hundreds of thousands of Australians already know who we are.
18
Thousands are already buying.
19
Wanting it was never the problem.
20
It's one problem to the next but it's exciting and it's good problems to have.
21
So the real question isn't whether the orders are coming, it's is the process we have in place going to support us getting 10,000 orders a month?
22
So this sample box is what we send directly to customers.
23
Look at this.
24
We ship our tiles directly to them, this sample, from the factory straight to the end customer.
25
Now this whole experience where they open it, they look at it, they're like, oh man, is this the tile that I want to put in my house?
26
Is the first real customer touch point that we have.
27
And this leads them to them buying 20, 50, 100 to 500 square meters of tiles, which in some cases can be tens of thousands of dollars in one single order.
28
Our current system is cooked.
29
The problem is we have an entire network of supplies that we use on the ground here in China.
30
And whenever a customer orders a sample, our best employee, Matthew, has to drive around, pick those samples up, put them in a box, and then send them straight to the customer.
31
Now that's okay when we launched, but that's not gonna get us to 10,000 orders a month.
32
And so we need to set up a better system, a better process where we can consolidate all of our samples together
33
and find a way to be able to efficiently get them to the end customer.
34
I really like them.
35
Even some of the wall tiles over here are really, really nice as well.
36
But I've got to be careful not to get carried away.
37
Add.. add.. add one million tiles to our website.
38
This is one of the 12 factories we buy from.
39
12 different places, 12 different ways of doing things, and a customer ordering samples doesn't care.
40
about any of that.
41
They want one box, one size, that matches perfectly with the images that they saw online and shipped today.
42
But here's the problem.
43
A tile factory makes tiles.
44
You ask them for 10,000 samples and they can't help you.
45
Samples aren't a product to them.
46
What they do have, stacked to the ceiling, is full-size tiles.
47
So we stopped asking for the thing that they can't make and started buying the thing that they can't run out of.
48
Just done a quick little pit stop.
49
We're heading to lunch.
50
Again, we're obviously in China and so we have to make sure we have the most authentic Chinese food possible, which is nice.
51
And we've got Matthew here, a number one employee.
52
And we've got Nick here, my brother, who helps me run the business and do everything.
53
It's really special and Nick hasn't been in China for a couple of months now, so he's very aware of what's going on.
54
But to be able to see it all happening
55
and see how far we've come with the business over the last couple of months is pretty incredible.
56
What do you think?
57
How far do you think we've come?
58
I looked at some of our old meetings in general and the stuff that we were talking about months ago, we were talking about how do we even get a good freight rate.
59
Now we've got the freight rates down to sell quick enough.
60
So it's like it's one problem to the next but it's exciting and it's good problems to have.
61
Remember the time when we almost started, we didn't even have supplies.
62
I mean when we started we were running around trying to find supplies.
63
We didn't have any contacts, we were just starting.
64
Nick was literally doing all the supply communications and everything in between.
65
And so I just think when you're in China and you're watching these sorts of videos like what we put out, whilst it may seem quite advanced now and we've come a long way over the last few months,
66
You know, everyone's gonna start somewhere.
67
And so if you still haven't started and you're at ground zero, that is literally no better place to start than there.
68
The best time to start was yesterday, the second best time to start is now.
69
So hopefully it takes like inspiration of what we do here, and you know, what we've built and what we're building, and you can channel it into your own thing.
70
But on that note, yeah, we're gonna get some food.
71
With lunch out of the way, I want you to understand why.
72
Where you put yourself matters more than anything else you'll ever decide decide.
73
This whole country is full of places that solve problems you couldn't solve anywhere else and none of them are ever advertised.
74
They're not a Google searcher way.
75
For example, our logistics partner, the one that changed everything for us, we found by being here on the ground in China.
76
That's the reason I moved my life here.
77
You cannot find these places from your desk and to prove this where we're going now is one of them.
78
We're in a place in China that doesn't exists on the map.
79
This is all about streamlining operations, and this is literally where it's all happening for us.
80
So we've gotten the car.
81
This is 100 meters from the supplier that we were just at.
82
And this is where we are going to be able to do thousands of samples a day out of.
83
So that supplier you just saw, we send every one of the tiles that they give us down as samples, as samples.
84
She's running.
85
And you can see here, we've literally got in the office, very Chinese.
86
We've got all of our samples that have been cut over the last day.
87
Oh my god, so heavy.
88
This was once a massive 600 by 600 tile.
89
And you can see literally the machine that's out there, I'll show you, is responsible for cutting all of this.
90
And so what this enables us to do is to get to
91
that scale that I've been talking about of tens of thousands of samples a day.
92
None of this would be possible if you were trying to do it in a place like Australia.
93
Because the efficiency here in China is virtually unmatched.
94
So you can see here, every single tile comes in, proper samples get cut, and then we can send them straight to our 3PL warehouse.
95
They can then get sent out directly to customers. That sample?
96
It look good?
97
Oh, nice.
98
Very good.
99
I love China.
100
I love China.
101
Awesome.
102
Thank you.
103
Bye.
104
So you see here, all the ladies cutting the samples, getting ready for customers.
105
It did just rain here in China.
106
Literally, we were driving here and it's bucketing down rain, so hence the puddles everywhere.
107
We've been looking at some of the samples
108
that we've been collecting for customers and how we're going to consolidate all of these together.
109
So you can see here Matthew's got one example.
110
So here, so this was once a 600 by 600 tile
111
that we've cut into a really small sample that we can put into the sample box, put three tiles and then send it straight to the customer.
112
And next step is we're gonna go and sticker the back of each one of these tiles.
113
So it's super easy for our third party logistics provided to know which tile is which.
114
But yeah, super nice.
115
It's come across really well.
116
Is that the new one?
117
Yeah, it was a pirate.
118
See how they're wrapped.
119
Yeah, okay.
120
So each looks nice.
121
Yeah, so when I hide from the box, the entry has the plastic to keep up here.
122
Yeah, it looks much better.
123
Yeah.
124
Remember the other ones that scratched up they were?
125
Yeah, it's because they were just what were they just stacking them behind each other?
126
And then just to...
127
Yes, of course.
128
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
129
Yeah, much better.
130
Great work for getting in here.
131
It's super cool, like, reflecting on why we do what we do here in China.
132
And, I mean, it's all about getting to the source.
133
Because I think that when you think about business, if you think about China, you might think about glamorous, these, like, high-tech modern factories.
134
But, man, I mean, this is how you win in business.
135
It's all about trying to do the things that other people aren't willing to do.
136
and for our business, it's about knowing where a tile is actually produced.
137
How can we get a tile sample to the customer as fast as humanly possible
138
and how we can build this efficiency in our business that no one else can compete with.
139
And so again, when you're thinking about doing business, it's not just thinking about, oh man, how can I get five orders a day, 50 orders a day, 100 orders a day.
140
That's not the problem.
141
The problem is being able to support that scale when you eventually want to get to a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand orders a day.
142
And so that's why I believe China is such a great place to be able to do business from.
143
I mean, it's why we're doing what we're doing, because you can get that efficiency, you can get that scale.
144
It would be so hard in Australia to be able to produce a tile, walk the tile down here to a place like this, have the tile cut in the same hour,
145
have the tile put in a box by the same person, and then ship to a customer.
146
It would just would never work.
147
You could never do that.
148
And if you did, it would be super expensive and you have to pass that cost onto the consumer.
149
And so that's why I think that as much as we would love to do all of this in Australia, we possibly can't. And
150
so our way of doing business is we want to use
151
the benefits of other countries of cheaper label markets places where things are done more efficiently get
152
that efficiency into australia being able to cut everyone else out
153
and then pass that efficiency and
154
that cost saving on to the end customer that's what puts
155
a smile on my face that's why we're here in the
156
middle of this on a monday i'm trying to make this business work
157
because I really do feel like we're having an impact and really changing the way that this industry is done.
158
The big boss.
159
We have a great partnership with these guys so we're going to get a nice big team photo.
160
They're so happy, so great.
161
Thank you!
162
Yeah, nice!
163
I did.
164
Oh, what, what I am about.
165
Oh, I love you.
166
Are they making fun of me?
167
No. Nice.
168
Oh, hey.
169
Thank you.
170
Am I looking by?
171
So that's the machine.
172
Tiles come in from 12 suppliers, get cut to one size, stickers are slapped on to the right product, and shipped out.
173
What used to be 15 steps living in the back of Matthew's car is now three.
174
But there's one step left and it's arguably the biggest unlock of the day.
175
So previous to this, we were doing everything ourselves.
176
I'm talking buying the boxes, literally constructing the sample boxes that we were sending to customers.
177
We were getting all these samples from all these different random supplies.
178
There was so much that we did that went into the process of just even sending a sample to a customer.
179
And again, we asked ourselves the question, is the process we have in place going to support us getting 10,000 orders a month?
180
And look, our honest answer was no. And so now what we've decided to do is exactly what you've just seen, which is properly buying full-size tiles from suppliers, getting them into one place,
181
cutting them properly, boxing them and using a third-party logistics provider, which is where we will send all those samples that you just saw to, and they'll take care of all of the fulfillment.
182
I partnered with one of my best friends, a guy named Daniel Daylan, many of you may know.
183
He runs an incredible business called Econflow.
184
So those samples there are going to be sent to Ningbo, which is where their main warehouse is.
185
And so when you buy a sample from our website, it's same day fulfillment.
186
Literally goes straight from the shelf into a box, label gets slapped on and straight to the customer.
187
So again, it's all about finding efficiencies in business and figuring out how you can build those processes for scale.
188
So that's it.
189
The business is now ready to withstand 10,000 orders a month without a single thing breaking.
190
But this does leave us with one final problem.
191
10,000 orders a month don't just show up.
192
Someone has to go and sell.
193
And that's really what this whole series is.
194
Yes, my business is focused on tiles right now.
195
But every problem I hit, every system I build, every deal I make applies to any business you could be building.
196
That's half the reason I document everything.
197
So take what I share here and go and use it on what you're building.
198
Every episode is right here.
199
And let me know in the comments what you're building.
200
If you enjoyed today, subscribe.
201
And I'll see you every Saturday.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
B21
541 sentences
How I Would Build a $10M Service Business (If I Had to Start Over)
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
269 sentences
03.e Solve a Problem Commentary - Effortless Business English
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
243 sentences
The $10k Per Month Etsy Store Blueprint - Follow This Thank Me Later
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
196 sentences
How Much Money My Importing Business Makes
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
187 sentences
startup diaries ep. 9 - taking on quizlet and duolingo
Business EnglishDaily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
27 sentences
Luyện Nghe Tiếng Anh Công Sở: Xử Lý Sự Cố Đơn Hàng & Kho Bãi | Song Ngữ + Phiên Âm IPA
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
47 sentences
How the next generation at the family-run ‘White Flower Oil’ is shaping its future
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
128 sentences
I Made 100 Meta Ads Variations With One Claude Prompt
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
243 sentences
Building a Brand – Redesigning a Business Start to Finish
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
134 sentences
A Day as a Purchasing Staff | English Story + Business Vocabulary I Intermediate B1-B2 Level
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
189 sentences
Crumbl: How We Built A Cookie Company That Brings In $1 Billion A Year
Business EnglishDaily ConversationWorking Adults
What You'll Learn from This Business Dialogue
This video is a goldmine for English speaking practice, especially if you want to discuss business operations or international trade. You’ll pick up skills like explaining complex processes clearly (e.g., "streamlining operations" or "consolidating samples") and describing growth challenges ("scaling to 10,000 orders a month"). It also teaches you to convey enthusiasm in professional contexts—phrases like "exciting problems to have" show positivity even when discussing obstacles. These are key for IELTS speaking practice, where coherent, context-rich responses are critical.
Listen For These Sounds: Connected Speech & Reductions
The speaker uses natural linking and reductions that native speakers often miss. Notice how "it's over $150,000" becomes "it's ovuh $150,000" (vowel reduction in "over"). Similarly, "I've been working Chinese factories" links "working" and "Chinese" into "workin' Chinese" (dropping the final "g"). Phrases like "what we're doing" shorten to "whad we're doin'" (flap T in "what"). These small changes make your speech sound more fluent—perfect for mastering the shadowing technique, where mimicking sounds is key.
Say It Like a Native: Rhythm & Stress
To mirror the speaker’s rhythm, focus on stressing content words. In "business is all about streamlining operations," stress "business," "all," "streamlining," and "operations" to emphasize the core message. The speaker also uses pauses effectively—after "so when we hit 10,000 orders a month"—to build anticipation. Try shadow speak with this clip: pause, repeat, and match the pace. Pay attention to how "Huo ai zhongguo" (though in another language) is spoken with natural stress, showing that rhythm transcends vocabulary. This practice will make your English sound more natural and confident, whether for daily conversations or exams.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been working · I've been talking · We've been looking |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've moved · hasn't been · we've come |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is cooked · are ever advertised · have been cut |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | possible, which is · seen, which is · provider, which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.