From pitch to profit

Abi | Feb 17, 2025Mar 28, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

• talk about sales tactics and sales stages;
• learn and practise vocabulary for discussing sales;
• watch a video about the owner of a pet food company who takes a sales challenge.

With this lesson, students discuss sales strategies, watch a video about a challenge to boost sales at a company and talk about a salesperson’s job. They share their opinions on skills a salesperson needs, discuss the different stages of a sale and learn vocabulary to talk about the subject (e.g. generate profit, pitch a product, highlight benefits, etc.). Students also share their experiences and role-play sales and negotiation situations.

WARM-UP AND VIDEO

This lesson which explores vocabulary for discussing sales starts with a warm-up. Students read about an experiment where fans chose how much to pay for an album. They then discuss questions about the impact and effectiveness of that strategy. Afterwards, students watch a video about the owner of a pet food company who completed a challenge to boost sales. They read sentences and guess the correct options. Following that, students watch the video and check their answers. Next, they discuss questions about marketing strategies, sales techniques and factors influencing purchasing decisions. After that, students analyse different sales channels and discuss the key skills or qualities a salesperson needs for different types of sales (e.g. door-to-door sales, online sales, phone sales (telemarketing), etc.). 

VOCABULARY AND DISCUSSION

At this point in the lesson, students match sentence halves to describe sales stages. Then, they practise vocabulary for discussing sales and match words and phrases (e.g. patronise, build rapport, etc.) with their definitions. Next, students think about their last major purchase with a salesperson’s help and discuss their experiences. Students then complete gaps using the correct form of words in comments related to sales. After that, they read the statements again, choose the ones they agree with or disagree with and give reasons. Afterwards, students complete gaps with prepositions in the dialogues between a salesperson and a customer. Then, they finish the customer’s lines using sentence starters (e.g. What if…?, Thanks, but…, etc.). Finally, students get cards and role-play situations in pairs. They use the information on their cards and their own arguments to reach an agreement in scenarios for sales and negotiation.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson plan also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students find misplaced verbs and put them in the correct sentences in the right form. Then, they replace parts of sentences with their own ideas. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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