Listening Content

[3:30] English Listening Practice: Analyzing Proposals in Business Negotiations

　Tip:It takes [3:30] to read this article.

Listening Content Display

This article presents a real business negotiation listening example, focusing on how proposals are made and discussed, to help learners improve their business English listening and communication skills.

Select word → Click 🔍 to translate"

Content

Now that you've seen some examples of how people make proposals, let's listen to an example of this stage of a negotiation. What happens after someone makes a proposal? You'll recall from the last lesson that Trey McEvers wanted to rent a parking lot for his event. Andy Paulson represents the company that owns one of the lots. As you listen, think about these questions. Who mentions the price first? What is his proposal? Is his proposal accepted? And last, does this seem like a friendly negotiation? Trey McEvers, hi Trey, it's Andy Paulson. Andy right on time. Thanks so much for getting back to me and agreeing to discuss the parking lot rental. I'm glad we could find a time to discuss this. I'm sorry we need to do this by phone, but I'm headed out of town today. Why don't we start by your telling me a little bit what you need? You mentioned a dependent in your email. Let's see if we can work something out.

Right, as I said in the email, we're a small tech company and we're having an event on the evening of March 16th nearby your lot at Misha's Gallery. Oh, what a great menu. We think so too. So we would like to have a lot from about 5 pm until midnight. The event starts at 7.30. We're expecting about 200 guests, but of course not that many cars. We would need someone there as an attendant and people will probably be coming at different times. That lot holds 52 cars. It sounds like you're going to need that whole space. Here's the thing, Trey, we can't just close it at 5 pm. We would need to close it for the entire afternoon, but we'd still need someone there to make sure your team gets in, bothers don't. Sure that makes sense. And I'm wondering, did you need the attendant to park the cars or just control who comes in? The reason I ask is, I've got a couple of boys who park cars downtown for us. If they park the cars, we can get more cars in there. But we need two people if we do that.

Well, that's something I hadn't planned for. Okay, so now we're talking about running a lot from noon to midnight and hiring two attendants for 12 hours. I don't know if that's going to be within our budget. How much would that be? I know you want at least one attendant, but two would really make everything smooth. Let me propose this. We could offer the parking lot for 12 hours with two attendants for $1,200. Those boys are really professional. They will do an amazing job for you. How does that sound? It's still a little more than we plan to spend. Ideally, we'd like to do this for 800 bucks.

Trey, I'm not sure we can go that low. But I'd like to find a way to make this work. Let me think. How about this, Andy? I like the idea of having both your guys there. But I'm wondering if they both need to be there all day. What if one of my guys was there for the afternoon and your people come on later at six? If we did that, would you be willing to come down to $1,000? I like the way you think. That's a great solution. I think we have a deal.

Listening Comprehension

propose
verb
1. present for consideration, examination, criticism, etc.
e.g. He proposed a new plan for dealing with terrorism
She proposed a new theory of relativity
Synonym: project
2. propose or intend
e.g. I aim to arrive at noon
Synonym: aimpurposepurport
3. make a proposal, declare a plan for something
e.g. the senator proposed to abolish the sales tax
Synonym: suggestadvise
4. ask (someone) to marry you
e.g. he popped the question on Sunday night
she proposed marriage to the man she had known for only two months
The old bachelor finally declared himself to the young woman
Synonym: declare oneselfofferpop the question
5. put forward
nominate for appointment to an office or for an honor or position
e.g. The President nominated her as head of the Civil Rights Commission
Synonym: nominate
attendant
budget
noun
1. a summary of intended expenditures along with proposals for how to meet them
e.g. the president submitted the annual budget to Congress
2. a sum of money allocated for a particular purpose
e.g. the laboratory runs on a budget of a million a year
solution
noun
1. the successful action of solving a problem
e.g. the solution took three hours
2. a method for solving a problem
e.g. the easy solution is to look it up in the handbook
3. a statement that solves a problem or explains how to solve the problem
e.g. they were trying to find a peaceful solution
the answers were in the back of the book
he computed the result to four decimal places
Synonym: answerresultresolutionsolvent
4. the set of values that give a true statement when substituted into an equation
Synonym: root
5. a homogeneous mixture of two or more substances
frequently (but not necessarily) a liquid solution
e.g. he used a solution of peroxide and water
negotiation
noun
1. the activity or business of negotiating an agreement
coming to terms
2. a discussion intended to produce an agreement
e.g. the buyout negotiation lasted several days
they disagreed but kept an open dialogue
talks between Israelis and Palestinians
Synonym: dialoguetalks