美语咖啡屋35 Erica, Starting Your Own Business

J: Hello I'm Jody and welcome to American Cafe!

Y: Sigh.  Hello.  我是杨晨，欢迎您到美语咖啡屋。

J: Yang Chen, what's wrong?  I've never seen you this down before.  

Y: 哎哟，我心情不好啊。 你不知道我前段时间错过了一个赚钱的大好机会。现在后悔不得了。

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，不过你的长篇大论我现在没有心情领教。

J: I understand.  But maybe you'll want to listen to our guest today.  Erica. Maybe she can help you.

Y:  Erica? 她是个心理学家吗？

J: No, she's not a psychologist.  She's a web designer.

Y: 网页设计师。那她能帮我什么？

J: Well, Erica started her own business in web design completely by accident. 

Y: 她是由于一个偶然的机会开始自己做生意。我得听听是怎么回事。

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 说她被laid off，被解雇了。

J: That's right - no work. 

Y: 工作也没有了，她还说这是好事？

J: Well, she was laid off a job that she really didn't like.  So, that's not really bad news.  

Y: Well,  我知道她不喜欢原来的工作，可她至少还有个工作啊，那总从比失业要好吧！

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...

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: 她刚才提到一个词Portfolio。在这里就是积累工作经验。

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: 赚钱的意思。

J: Right.  "Pool of clients."

Y: 一批顾客。

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现了一堆顾客。

J: Coming out of the woodwork, yes.

Y: 那一定她的幸运特别好，所以人们一个传一个说Erica是一个非常好的 web designer 所以大家都来找她。

J: 等一下，等一下。You're getting ahead of the story.  Here's Erica.   

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，我说什么，我猜得不错吧。她的生意非常好所以顾客远远不断地来找她。

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，忙不过来，有的时候别人来她，她就告诉他们"我实在没有时间接你们的生意"
 
J: She has so many clients that she can undercut other businesses. 

Y: Erica,生意之所以这么好可能还有一个原因，那就是她的要价比别人底。是不是？  
 
J: Exactly, that means she's undercutting other businesses.

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: 其实从Erica身上我看到有时候那个机会自己会来找你！机会自己就会来敲门！

J: That's the right attitude.  Thanks for joining us on American Cafe!

Y: 谢谢你收听美语咖啡屋，我们下次节目再见。