Shadowing Practice: "Why Do We Stop Selling When Client Work Gets Busy?" - Learn English Speaking with Video
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We build websites.
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So WordPress websites for enterprise client.
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Enterprise, okay.
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So we deal with digital media to start with, but mostly marketing.
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How big is enterprise?
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Has to be like a thousand employees.
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It's like has to be a million page view per day or higher.
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That kind of traffic.
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So it's like it has to be custom built.
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Everything's custom built.
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There's a lot of integration.
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There's like some banking companies marketing.
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It's like super cool how'd you get it i mean well we don't have time for
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that but look like very interesting okay
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so you've got this i yeah i totally want to hear the story
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but we will not
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so what's what do you want to do why like what
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what do we need to do to grow your company
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so last year new new clients and but within clients they will add projects
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and expand they want more people there so like those we've been doing
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but also we have two big wells so we have two big companies
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that are like 90 of our revenues so like we wanted to not do
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that because we had that experience i think year two or
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so right yeah one leaves and you're like yeah we had
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that happen because like one of our clients got merged by new division
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or some some other companies and then they kind of decided not to use us
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but we quickly got another whale which was good
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but we've been kind of having trying to what did you do
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when you had to quickly get another whale well we were very far
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so yeah we like we literally like sell sales sales sales like both of them
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and then you're like okay now i've made enough money again
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so now i don't need to do sales sales sales sales yeah
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and also like we both of our own both owners are still very hands -on
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so we do a lot of client work okay so
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if you say both owners you mean you
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and the 50 percent okay okay you said okay like the owner of acquisition .com um yeah
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so co -founders and then he and i we had a third partner
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but we have to buy him up and all those stories after
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that so we when there's a client work that always takes precedent
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so like some of the things that we split it out
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so he's doing sales and um and financial
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and i take care of marketing and hr and other operations are kind of shared including account management
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so when there's a client work that gets busy like one of us gets busy
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so one department or whatever the operation kind of gets behind
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so that always happens it's been our struggle to then I would try to hire some people
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but I didn't know too much about other departments
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so like this hiring didn't really work out I did I kind of mentioned
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that too you need division of roles between you
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and the co -founder and then you need to not step over each other's like territory
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and no one owns new businesses just why you don't have new business that's actually my question
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because because his client got really busy so he's on sales so i felt like
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sales i'm like i can help but normally we really separate it out
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because we figured it out that accountability actually worked better
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if you split it out the divisions so it worked out good
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but last year for some well
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and by divisions you mean you have one client he has the other client
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so oh no no not that anything so like it excels is him
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so like i wasn't really touching the sales part
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and by sales you mean like internal sales like trying to upsell them
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and just get them to buy more from you the outbound sales actually outbound sales
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but you're not getting any customers from that so far got it yeah
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so outbound is not it's pretty dried up so inbound
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like is
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that i don't know the sales team to actually figure in bounds like someone reaches out to you outbound
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you reach out to them first that's all yeah
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so inbound has been fine but like outbound hasn't been
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so i mean because we didn't want the two wells we wanted to do more outbound sale
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but that hasn't been successful all last year and we're hearing
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that because he's a part of like a mastermind for agencies
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that last year was pretty bad
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but i think that's kind of like a bullshit you know excuse
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that there should be some way to figure out
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we can get new clients there is a way to get new clients i promise
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but i wanted to figure like well
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so i don't think it's all his fault
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but like how can i convincingly put a measure that we can kind of like make sure this is done
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people so like and it's also we're both owners
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and like we have a we both are very responsible
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but at the same time do we need to have some sort of measure
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that we always kind of make sure
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that hey we still have to leave this i mean this is how partnerships work yeah
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and so that's also why division of roles is important and
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so if you're like i will take over 100 of delivery
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if you go get as customers and then if you don't get as customers then one of us isn't necessary and
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so i'm just being like really real
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this is me just reading between the lines from what you're saying um honestly i just think like
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when you needed to go get a new client
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and get a good new whale you got a new whale fairly quickly it sounds like
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which means that
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if you need to go get business you know exactly what to do go get business you just aren't doing that Right.
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Right.
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And so the question is why?
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And it means that one of you is satisfied with the amount of income
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and the amount of work that they have right now, which I say is fine if you both agree on that.
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But if one of you doesn't agree on that, then you have conflict.
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And so that conflict turns into direct conflict or it turns into when you're becoming resentful.
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And so I'd prefer if you just, if you or the other person, whoever, just says like, we,
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like the way that, I'll explain something that might be helpful for everybody.
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It really helped me out a lot.
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So you guys know the difference between an insult and criticism?
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Helped me a ton.
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So an insult is an attack on someone's character, right?
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You suck.
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You're an idiot.
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Whatever.
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A criticism is, you said this, you did this, these are not the same.
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It's the discrepancy between stated and reality, that's all it is.
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So you said you would hit this goal, this is reality, there's a difference.
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So this is criticism and here's some things we can do to make
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that up and ideally next time you say this
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and that's what happened awesome right and
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so it's not a attack it's a statement of fact it's an observation of reality
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and so being able to explain
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that be like you are responsible for sales we have no sales this gap is the problem
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that we have right now now if we did not want to grow this company
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and we both were aligned with that then we would have no problem
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but i do want to grow this company you are not currently doing the activities that would grow this company
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so what do we do either you change what you do
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or I stop being here just being really real
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so you presented with a sales problem
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but I think you have a hard conversation with a co -founder to have being really honest
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we had the conversation
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so we actually having we did a new partnership
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you have a what sorry we started a new partnership
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you started a new partnership no no no a partnership with a like a hosting provider company
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so like they're actually bringing more leads too so we're a development agency
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so like so like they're not like the competitors
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but we kind of went back to because we used to work together yeah
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so that actually bring in some outbounds so now we're getting
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that but he's well yeah
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so i'll probably have like another conversation yeah like you should like go back to like have the conversation
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and then i promise you if you really really have it
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and the thing is don't pull the punches if you're gonna have the conversation
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Be like, this is what I want.
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You're not doing that.
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And that's my fault too, because I probably haven't been clear about it.
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But let me be clear now.
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And if you don't want to do that, fine.
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Let's figure out a way that we can just work on separate things because I want to keep growing.
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Cool?
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I think you do that, the sales problem is all it's all.
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If you like this video and you're a business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling,
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I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million
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and three businesses past 100 million into a completely free scaling roadmap that I've used to go from zero to one,
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zero to 10, and zero to 100 plus.
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And so you can click here and you can check it out.
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Again, absolutely free.
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And since you're a business owner, appreciate you and enjoy.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “"Why Do We Stop Selling When Client Work Gets Busy?"”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: sale, client, outbound. This video has 148 sentences and 1637 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:54. The speaker talks fast, about 207 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| partnership noun | /ˈpɑɹtnɚʃɪp/ | The state of being associated with a partner. |
| whale noun | /ˈweɪl/ | Any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises. |
| founder noun | /ˈfaʊ̯n.dəː/ | One who founds or establishes (a company, project, organisation, state, etc.). |
| enterprise noun | /ˈɛntəˌpɹaɪz/ | A company, business, organization, or other purposeful endeavor. |
| custom noun | /ˈkʌstəm/ | Frequent repetition of the same behavior; way of behavior common to many; ordinary manner; habitual practice; method of doing, living or behaving. |
| hire verb | /ˈhaɪɹ/ | To obtain the services of in return for fixed payment. |
| insult noun | /ɪnˈsʌlt/ | Action or form of speech deliberately intended to be rude; (countable) a particular act or statement having this effect. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| bound adjective | /ˈbaʊ̯nd/ | Obliged (to). |
| helpful adjective | /ˈhɛlp.fl̩/ | Furnishing help; giving aid; useful. |
| suck verb | /sʌk/ | To use the mouth and lips to pull in (a liquid, especially milk from the breast). |
| whoever | /huˈɛvɚ/ | Who ever: an emphatic form of who. |
| expand verb | /ɪkˈspænd/ | To change (something) from a smaller form or size to a larger one; to spread out or lay open. |
| punch noun | /pʌnt͡ʃ/ | A hit or strike with one's fist. |
| acquisition noun | /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/ | The act or process of acquiring. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| break through verb | To gain popularity. | |
| dry up verb | To become dry (often of weather); to lose water. | |
| get behind verb | To come to believe or support something. | |
| step over noun | A dribbling move, or feint, in football (soccer), used to fool a defensive player into thinking the offensive player, in possession of the ball, in which the… | |
| work together verb | To be coworkers with someone; to share a workspace with someone. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 47 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: partnership /ˈpɑɹtnɚʃɪp/, acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/, integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/, observation /ˌɑbzɚˈveɪʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/, integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/, accountability /əˌkaʊn.təˈbɪl.ə.ti/, competitor /kəmˈpɛt.ɪ.tɚ/, ideally /aɪˈdi.ə.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like partnership, whale, founder.
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.