Selling online

2.1
A: You set up the online book-selling company which became Amazon.co.uk.(亞馬遜) What do you need to do to create a successful online business?
B: Well, there's really, erm, two big questions here, and it relates to sales and to profits.



2.6
A: Now, the design of the website. Will we have book covers on it?
B: Absolutely. I'd like



absolutely: (ad)絕對地，完全地

5. Stress:

5.1 I think the major causes of stress at work today are firstly, increasing job insecurity, and what I mean by that is that many people these days feel they could lose their jobs, they don't feel their jobs are safe. They feel they may not have a job next month or next year. Secondly, working long hours is becoming common across the whole of Europe. There are problems with how much time people are spending at work compared to the time they spend at home - what is called the work - life balance, and how to get this balance right. In many countries, both in Europe and around the world, the typical family is a working family, with both members working, which causes problems for those families. So, working people really are experiencing problems which maybe 40 or 50 years ago they didn't have.

5.2 For people to manage stress successfully, they first have to find out the main reason for it. For example, are they stressed because the company they work for has a habit of working long hours which is causing problems in their personal life? Or is it that they have a boss who gives them orders all the time, a boss who checks their work all the time and doesn't given them freedom or independence to organise their own work? Or is it that they are a woman and they work for a company which makes it difficult a woman to make progress in their career, or to get promoted because the company is not flexible in its working arrangement? Each of these problems needs a different solution, so it's important for people find out what their particular problem is and then once they've done this to think about the possible solutions.

 

10 Conflict:

10.1

I can quote is one that I personally was involved in where a colleague at work and I had certain problems with each other. She had a way of working that I wasn't comfortable with and I was showing my frustration by being aggressive and assertive and we sorted the conflict out in a very constructive way because she addressed it with me directly. She asked me what was wrong, she listened to me carefully. She played back that she really understand my problems and concerns and then constructively we worked out a way together quickly.

 

11 New business:

11.3 You need a really good business plan. Again, you need to make sure that whatever you put on your business plan, you need to check it on a regular basis, whether it's weekly, monthly, six months or every year and you need to gauge where you are with what your business plan says. You need a very good relationship with your bank and your bank manager. But to me the most important thing is a really good marketing campaign, because if you don't have a marketing campaign that ensures that your customers know where you are, you won't have a business for very long.