J: Hello I'm Jody and welcome to American Cafe!
Y: Sigh. Hello. 我是楊晨,歡迎您到美語咖啡屋。
J: Yang Chen, what's wrong? I've never seen you this down before.
Y: 哎喲,我心情不好啊。 你不知道我前段時間錯過了一個賺錢的大好機(jī)會?,F(xiàn)在后悔不得了。
J: You know, sometimes things happen that you think at the time are...are bad. But actually in the end ... it turns out to be a good thing. Did that make sense to you?
Y: Jody, 我知道你是好心,不過你的長篇大論我現(xiàn)在沒有心情領(lǐng)教。
J: I understand. But maybe you'll want to listen to our guest today. Erica. Maybe she can help you.
Y: Erica? 她是個心理學(xué)家嗎?
J: No, she's not a psychologist. She's a web designer.
Y: 網(wǎng)頁設(shè)計(jì)師。那她能幫我什么?
J: Well, Erica started her own business in web design completely by accident.
Y: 她是由于一個偶然的機(jī)會開始自己做生意。我得聽聽是怎么回事。
實(shí)錄1: Erica: I started my own business by accident really. I was laid off a job that I didn' t really like which was actually perfect for me. It was the best thing that could have happened to me.
Y: Erica 說她被laid off,被解雇了。
J: That's right - no work.
Y: 工作也沒有了,她還說這是好事?
J: Well, she was laid off a job that she really didn't like. So, that's not really bad news.
Y: Well, 我知道她不喜歡原來的工作,可她至少還有個工作啊,那總從比失業(yè)要好吧!
J: Just hold on to your horses. I mean, take it easy. I mean, wait just a minute. There's more to the story. Here again is Erica...
實(shí)錄2: Erica: But by getting laid off, I didn't have to feel guilty about quitting a job to start a business. So while I was looking for a new job, I started doing websites for people and then I started to make myself a portfolio, a website, and it just sort of rolled from there.
Y: 她剛才提到一個詞Portfolio。在這里就是積累工作經(jīng)驗(yàn)。
J: Exactly, a collection of your work experience. Something you can actually hold onto for example photographs - or even something you can't hold onto like a website. You know, Erica brought up so many great words related to starting your own business. In the next there's more. We're going to hear "Getting money in the door"
Y: 賺錢的意思。
J: Right. "Pool of clients."
Y: 一批顧客。
J: And "coming out of the woodwork."
J: "Coming out of the woodwork" is a slang expression meaning all of a sudden and from every direction.
Y: 就是你莫名其妙地出現(xiàn)了一堆顧客。
J: Coming out of the woodwork, yes.
Y: 那一定她的幸運(yùn)特別好,所以人們一個傳一個說Erica是一個非常好的 web designer 所以大家都來找她。
J: 等一下,等一下。You're getting ahead of the story. Here's Erica.
實(shí)錄3: Erica: I did end up getting a fulltime job for a while just to get money in the door because it takes a long time to start your own business. And it took me a long to get clients. It took me about a year to start to get a pool of clients. But the economy picked up again and then it was basically a full-year cycle. And when I hit one-year I had clients coming out of the woodwork. It was amazing.
Y: 你看,我說什么,我猜得不錯吧。她的生意非常好所以顧客遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不斷地來找她。
J: Again, Yang Chen, you were right. When she hit the one-year mark, clients started coming out of the woodwork. And now she has a large pool of clients. She even has to turn people down.
Y: 就她太忙,忙不過來,有的時候別人來她,她就告訴他們“我實(shí)在沒有時間接你們的生意。”
J: She has so many clients that she can undercut other businesses.
Y: Erica,生意之所以這么好可能還有一個原因,那就是她的要價(jià)比別人底。是不是?
J: Exactly, that means she's undercutting other businesses.
實(shí)錄4: Erica: To this day I' m still overwhelmed by clients. I'm undercutting a lot of other businesses. I should be charging much more than I am. But you know, I' m working with small businesses and I like working with small businesses.
J: So, Yang Chen, the lesson here is don't worry about a lost opportunity. It could lead to an even better opportunity.
Y: 其實(shí)從Erica身上我看到有時候那個機(jī)會自己會來找你!機(jī)會自己就會來敲門!
J: That's the right attitude. Thanks for joining us on American Cafe!
Y: 謝謝你收聽美語咖啡屋,我們下次節(jié)目再見。