There is only one thing that all startup or small business owners wish for their team: to pitch to international clients, agencies or stakeholders (like management boards and investors) with confidence.

Confidence (or the lack thereof) is a crucial factor when it comes to sales, marketing and business development, or even Human Resources, for your business.

More so if a lot is at stake, for example, during an important pitch meeting, presentation or negotiation.

However, the challenge of speaking English (a language other than their native one) may often prove catastrophic.

Have you ever witnessed a team member lose their words or freeze? Or find it hard to switch from formal to informal English and vice versa?

Moreover, there are cases where some of the team members have exceptional English skills while the rest struggle.

This discrepancy is very dangerous and risky for your business.

Those who can speak English well can do wonders and bring amazing results, while at the same time, the rest of the team may ruin what the former achieve with their poor English communication skills.

For example, your marketing team may do a superb job with a new client or investor, but when the latter come to speak with other departments (like sales or business development), they find it hard to communicate and move forward.

Regardless of how well thought out and prepared the pitch is, if your people can’t speak English naturally & confidently, the final outcome will not be the desired one.

This is also the case if your team’s business English level is not synced.

The question is: how can a startup or small business help their teams nail it in English? 

Investing in their business English skills (soft and hard) can be a game–changer.

Hard skills are about improving their English level, especially vocabulary and pronunciation, while soft skills are about how team members can write, listen or speak during various business occasions at work. For example, presentations, meetings or calls, networking events or negotiations.

Investing in both will make sure your team will communicate effectively and get their message across, no matter the circumstance or situation.

Before elaborating on the essential skills, a business or startup team must have to nail it with their English at work. Let me warn you about 3 common mistakes that can sabotage your team effort. 

They are very common among small teams where the team leader (be it the department manager or entrepreneur) decides to invest in their business English without having the whole picture or experience.

The 3 most common mistakes with a team’s business English

My year-long experience tells me that business or startup owners who want to improve their team’s business English make these 3 mistakes.

They have good intentions and deserve our praise for taking action. However, the execution and implementation of their choices make things complicated.

#1 English classes are fine

This is the easiest and most common choice for teams. English teachers can be found everywhere, and it’s the most obvious way to go.

By the way, isn’t it how we all learned English? This is the issue exactly.

English teachers can teach you English. You can learn how to write and speak the language by focusing on rules, books, and exercises.

In the beginning, all these are essential to grasp the English language. Especially when you are younger.

But in most cases, your team members already have a good enough English level, so memorising more rules and vocabulary won’t get them farther.

They need coaching and guidance in their efforts. To learn how to do things right when it comes to communicating in English at work and sync with each other.

This is where an English language coach comes into play, and the results can be amazing.

#2 Group English lessons can help

I’m sorry, but they won’t work wonders. Again, this seems to be the most obvious choice.

You find a time and place where all or most of your employees (at least the first-line ones) can gather, and the teacher does their thing.

However, this kind of activity won’t benefit the team a lot.

Don’t get me wrong. Doing things together as a team is super effective and can serve one of the most important purposes I’ve already mentioned in this article quite a few times: syncing.

The problem is the combination of teaching (not coaching) and herd behaviour. 

Lessons become boring for highly-skilled, super busy professionals. And most of them quickly lose interest, get bored or tend to secretly work on job-related matters on their laptop during the lessons.

Group coaching, on the other hand, can work wonders. You see, it’s the coaching that makes a huge difference. It’s not about rules, books and exercises. 

It’s about fixing the mindset and learning the skills that can help people improve their English once and for all.

It’s like the famous Chinese proverb with the man and the fish. If people learn how to fish instead of just being fed a fish, they become more skilful, and these skills make them competent for life.

The same goes for professionals and business English. Voila!

#3 A little practice is enough

Yes, practice makes a champion. However, it’s the way people practice that can make it or break it.

Usually, in business settings, all that participants do is a roleplay for some time using English. A manager or the owner decides on the topics and scenarios together with the teacher.

And team members execute. Roleplaying is good sometimes. But it usually intimidates people or is perceived as a light game for laughing.

This is not an effective practice. 15 minutes of roleplaying in English per week won’t get your team far.

You and your team members need guidance to do it the right way. First of all, it’s how people practice. There are a lot of methods I use during my sessions, and each one is very relevant and effective.

Second, people need to practice on an individual level, too. They need to be instructed and shown how to practice daily at work or home. The small daily practice routines and incremental improvements matter a lot.

This is how great progress can accumulate over time.

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So, now you know what mistakes to avoid at all costs. It’s not the end of the world, of course, BUT they won’t help you, your team and your business much.

Most probably, it will be a waste of resources: the business’s money and your team’s time and energy.

You need to find another more effective and sustainable way to hone your English communication skills.

5 essential skills your team needs to nail their English sustainably

Speaking of skills, what exactly does your team need to speak English naturally and confidently?

How can they improve their pitching, which is one of the most essential activities in a small business or startup?

Are there things of particularly high importance they need to focus on?

Yes, there are. Absolutely!

I’ve gathered the 5 most essential skills your team needs to nail their English at work.

I often say “sustainably”, if you’ve noticed. This is a great point. Listen to this: sustainability is about catering for the needs of the present without compromising the needs or resources of the future.

In other words and in the content of business English, sustainability is improving people’s communication skills in English and teaching them how to hone the necessary skills and fix their mindset so they can continue to speak English naturally and confidently in the future, without needing more coaching or (God forbid) lessons.

Here are the Top-5 skills for your team to nail it!

#1 Vocabulary

Choosing the right words is an art and science. You need to have the hard skills (i.e. rich and relevant for your job word pool) and the soft skills (i.e. mindfulness and knowing which word to use on each occasion).

It’s not about memorising word lists. This won’t get you far, and despite the benefits of spaced repetition, you will soon forget when and how to use a word. You may learn a few new words, but you won’t be able to use them appropriately.

I wrote a comprehensive article about improving your vocabulary without memorising words, but here are the main points.

• You have to learn the right new words (i.e. words that are relevant for the desired purpose)
• You need to learn them in context to understand how they are used and when.
• Practice using them as soon as possible. Don’t let them sink in your brain without being brought to the surface soon after learning them or often.

#2 Gap fillers

On business occasions, like important meetings, calls, presentations or negotiations, hard to respond to, uncomfortable or tricky questions or circumstances can arise. What happens then?

It’s not that your team members don’t speak good English, but being presented with a situation that puts them in an awkward position can make people freeze or lose their words or even say the absolutely worst thing.

This is why gap fillers are essential. Regardless of the occasion, there are ways to respond to such situations without losing your temper or regretting saying something that sounded inappropriate.

Mindfulness can help significantly, and this is why I use it in all my sessions. It helps professionals stay in the moment, think clearly, take it easy and slow, and find the proper way to navigate the situation consciously.

#3 Presentation skills

Pitching usually takes place during a presentation and I’ve heard stories where otherwise highly skilled and talented professionals somehow ruined the momentum of a new idea, concept or pitch for your startup.

And the reason was poor English presentation skills. 

Your team needs to know how to talk in English in front of an audience, present the idea, highlight the right data and use their body language to signal competence and trust.

Delivering impeccable business presentations in English is not a matter of personality or character (introverted or extroverted, it doesn’t matter). What matters is that your team members adhere to these two golden rules: preparation and mindfulness. 

The former will help you excel in the technical skills, whilst the latter will help you cope with all sorts of personal issues that create blockages.

Group coaching can help with both.

#4 Negotiation skills

Negotiating at work, especially when a lot (literally) is at stake, is challenging and stressful.

On the one hand, your team members need to keep calm and protect the company interests, aiming for the best result. On the other hand, they need to interact with the other side and successfully manage the process. 

If all this occurs in a language other than their native one, it can become even more challenging.

Add personal and linguistic blockages to it, and you can realise how big a challenge it can become.

First, you need to change your mindset and shift from win-lose situations (“We win, you lose!”) to win-win outcomes (“We all win with this agreement!”). Such a fundamental change can facilitate negotiations and bring out the best in both sides.

To do this your team needs to adhere to specific values, like transparency, honesty, empathy, positivity and creativity, and learn how to express themselves through these values in English.

Adding mindfulness into the equation can significantly ease the tension and lead to fruitful negotiations.

Being guided about how to do all this can help your team members nail it next time and your business to achieve its goals and hard-sought good results, like agreements, contracts and sales.

#5 Writing skills

Last but not least, writing in English effectively is another key area of improvement.

Although meetings, calls, and presentations usually take place orally, the largest part of the work is still conducted in writing. 

Be it emails, reports, writing the text for presentations or messaging with colleagues / clients / stakeholders, you need to master writing and manage to get your message across using the least resources (words, time, energy).

The bad news is that writing is usually irreversible. Once you hit the SEND button, everything you wrote can hardly be unsent or undone.

Wrong or inappropriate word selection can ruin things. The same goes for failing to get your message across because you wrote vaguely and ambiguously.

There is nothing more frustrating than figuring out what the email sender means because that adds extra work, for example calling back for clarifications.

Do yourself, your team and your business a favour and invest in improving your English writing skills. They can be a deal maker or breaker!

How Group Coaching can help

Now you know which areas and skills your team needs to focus on in their English communication skills.

The question remains: How can a team nail them? What is the best option to go about it?

Group coaching is the answer. Group lessons, meh… I wrote why further above.

Group coaching, on the other hand, combines the best of all worlds: teamwork, syncing, mindset fixing, sustainable results.

Instead of wasting time, money and energy on English lessons, you can opt for a professional who can coach your team towards perfecting their pitching in English.

What works best is deploying a hybrid coaching model (often even more customised to the company’s specific needs).

This hybrid model includes:

• coaching your employees in smaller groups + providing individual support if needed
• working on their presentation, negotiation and networking skills in English 
• practising a lot, the right way, so that they can perform at their natural best next time

So, before deciding on your course of action, weigh the pros and cons, and choose accordingly.

An English business coach can help you and your team nail the 5 essential skills for nailing your pitching in English: vocabulary, gap fillers, writing, presentation and negotiation skills as well as body language!

Group coaching with mindfulness can bring both quick wins & sustainable improvements.

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Here at ProEnglish, this is my end goal. To empower teams of non-native, highly-skilled professionals like yours to claim what the business deserves by breaking down the language blockage in a safe, kind and trustful environment.

I am Vera Daskalaki, your mindful English coach. You, being here and reading this, really means a lot to me. Let me know if anything above hits a nerve, and feel free to send me any questions.

If you want to talk about your company / startup goals in English and create a customised plan, just like I did with many other teams in the past, book a free Clarity Call by clicking below.

BOOK YOUR FREE CLARITY CALL

It’s a free 30-min call. No commitment, no obligation. We will talk about your team’s challenges and needs for business English and lay out a path to achieve your team goals. 

No catch. Let’s talk and take it from there.