Introduction

Hello and welcome to 30 Days to a More Powerful Business Vocabulary, an introduction to the vocabulary of business. As we look at the language business people use, the words they say and  how they say them, we will gain insights into how business works today. And by focusing intensely on this goal of improving your business vocabulary over a 30-day period, you can not only  achieve your goal more efficiently, you will establish a habit of enhancing your vocabulary-building muscles that, with commitment, will last a lifetime.
Business is just like any sector or topic with its own language, customs,codes, and terminologies. Different aspects of business can have their own distinctive terminology, which can also  overlap, For instance, words and phrases from the realm of sales can also apply to management or finance under a variety of circumstances.
This book presents five hundred words and short expressions from a variety of different business categories. Some of these words and phrases will no doubt be familiar to you, at least in the  sense that you may have heard them before. Others may be entirely new. But there’s a good chance you may be encountering this material for the first time in a business context. Some  terminology may seem academic and technical—yet this is also important to understand for anyone who really wants to see how the worlds of money and commerce function.
Each chapter of the book introduces approximately twenty-five words.First presented is an informal conversation using the vocabulary in context.Then we discuss each word or phrase and its  definition. Finally, we reinforce the word and its meaning with another example in a sentence. There are four chapters on banking and finance, four on marketing, and four on negotiation. Other  chapters focus on sales, entrepreneurship, human resources, e-business, leadership, and remote working. The book’s intention is to be entertaining, informative, and inspirational and to  encourage you to learn more about the topics that are covered.
There certainly is a lot more to discover. You will hear familiar words appearing in a new context along with strange or technical sounding words and phrases. This is certainly not “the last word,” so to speak, on the vocabulary of business, but it’s a good start toward a wider and deeper understanding. If you return to the book more than once and gain some real familiarity with the  language, you can go on to use terms like “SWOT matrix” and “roll the tortoise” in your own everyday vocabulary. 
Along with the informative effect of these chapters, one other aspect of the book deserves special attention. You may be amazed to see just how much the language and thinking styles of high  technology have become the mainstream of business communication. Perhaps one could argue that this isn’t surprising in a world where at least half the people on any busy street are talking  on or looking at their smart phones. On the other hand, strange as it may seem, two decades ago not many people even owned a smart phone. Now the smart phone owns us. Technology has  not only changed the physical means of our communication, but also the content of what we say and how we think. As you’ll see in these chapters, today’s business discourse is irreverent,  uncensored, ironic, and unsentimental. It would also have been completely incomprehensible a few years ago. As the world changes, language changes with it—and both are changing very  fast.
Thank you for reading and please enjoy the book. It’s like putting socks on an octopus, and if you don’t know what that means right now, you will know very soon.