Cultural diversity and

socialising
Building a relationship

#business
B) Welcoming visitors

1. What happens when a visitor arrives with an appointment to visit a

company?
2. What are the typical stages of the first meeting? What conversations
take place?
2. Listen to the recording in which Klaus Ervald arrives for a meeting with
Lars Elstroem and Louise Scott of Evco S.A., a Swedish advertising agency.

a) Is the meeting between Klaus Ervald and Evco formal or informal? Give reasons for
your answer.
b) Do they know each other quite well?
c) Klaus has a problem. What is it?
d) Think about how Louise talks to Klaus. She interrupts him at the start. Is this
acceptable?
e) Lars begins to talk about the programme for the day. Is this appropriate at this
stage?
3. Make a dialogue based on the following flow chart.
 4. Vocabulary – Describing relations

• Break off - to end a relationship

• Build up - to create, establish, develop
• Cement - to make something such as an agreement or friendship stronger
• Cultivate - to try to develop and improve something
• Cut off/ cutoff - a fixed point or level at which something is stopped
• Damage - to harm (*pl. = money that a person/ organization is ordered by a court of law to pay to
another person/ org. because they are responsible for harming them in some way)
• Disrupt - to prevent something from continuing as usual or as expected
• Foster - to encourage the development or growth of something
• Improve - to get better
• Jeopardise - to put something in danger of being harmed or damaged
• Maintain - to keep in existence
• Promote - to encourage or to support
• Restore - to return something to an earlier good condition
• Resume - to start again after a pause
• Sever - to end a connection with someone or something
• Sour - to become unpleasant or unfriendly
• Strengthen - to make something stronger or more effective
• Undermine - to make something weaker, often gradually
5. Homework: Choose the correct verb in each sentence.

1. Sales staff who are impolite to customers disrupt / damage the reputation of a company
2. We are planning to promote / establish branch offices in Spain next year.
3. By merging with a US company, we greatly strengthened / maintained our sales force.
4. Relations with customers have been fostered / undermined recently by poor aftersales
service.
5. Thanks to a new communications system, we are souring / improving relations with
suppliers.
6. A strike at our factory last year resumed / disrupted production for several weeks.
7. We could not agree on several points, so we broke off / cut off talks regarding a joint
venture*. (* business activity that two or more people/ companies work on together)
8. The success of our new product launch was cemented / jeopardised by an unimaginative
advertising campaign.
9. In order to gain market share* in China, we are building up / cutting off relationships with
local agents. (*the number of things that a company sells compared with the number of
things of the same type that other companies sell)
10. Business relations between the two countries have been severed / fostered by official visits
and trade delegations.
Thank you for your attention!