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Vijay Shrivastava (Name Changed) is a Chartered Accountant by profession. Currently he sits at the top position of Chief Financial Officer of his company in Indore.
He started as an accountant in 2004. Fast forward to today, he now heads more than 200 people under him.
Today, his needs are different from when he joined. He wants to live upto the position he holds in this company.
Why? Because his responsibilities as a CFO compels him to regularly deal with bankers bankers and Board of Directors of many companies.
Hence, he wants to improve his English language and communication skills for better professional growth and personality development.
But due to public speaking phobia, he often gets nervous and anxious in front of a group.
Moreover, the atmosphere in his workplace is not English-friendly. So, that’s another challenge for him to overcome his anxiousness.
It eventually leads him to have low confidence because he wants to set new benchmarks with his role.
And for this reason, he often commits mistakes while converting Hindi words to English in his mind before speaking.
He studied in a small town Hindi-medium school in Bhopal. Hailing from a small background, his financial position was not at best. He had to do part-time jobs along with his CA Articleship.
Mandatory with the job he was doing, this training was important for him to become an Articled Accountant.
The road to becoming a CA was challenging. Initially, he pursuing Bachelors of Science. However, his father told him to pursue Masters in Computer Applications.
But, Vijay didn’t want to study MCA. Insted, he opted for CA; for which he had to start from the scratch because he was from Science background.
He found it difficult to understand the basic concepts of Accountancy, when he started studying it from scratch.
He read the 11th and 12th commerce textbooks to understand debit and credit. But he was clueless because he couldn’t understand the concepts.
Besides studying, he also used to do part-time jobs to earn some income for the family.
The financial position of Pramod’s family was unstable.
Moreover, everything was in English which put more pressure on him.
Alongside his Articleship, part-time job, and studying, he joined English classes in his neighborhood.
During his Articleship, his first attempt at CA exams was due which he failed by scoring less than required marks to pass.
The struggle kept going when he failed in another two attempts too.
The situation was depressing for him which also made him put on extra weight.
He decided to change the approach for studying in his 4th attempt. And fortunately, his hard work paid off when he passed the final year first group exams.
Vijay’s struggle didn’t stop there. Once he completed his Articleship, he took another job as a cashier in a multiplex in Indore to keep the flow of income.
Fighting a long battle to achieve his dreams, Pramod started attracting more support from his family and friends.
His efforts reaped the results he wanted when he passed the CA final year. And while waiting for the results, he applied for his first-ever job interview.
In 2004, he joined the current company as an Accountant. Since then he has been bringing in many laurels for his company.
The company’s turnover was 4-5 Crores in 2004. But now, it has gone up massively up to 10000 Crores with him becoming the Chief Financial Officer.
Once completing his CA final year and landing a job, Vijay’s priorities also changed.
He focused diligently on his new job while earning from other two side hustles.
His elder sister got married, so he brought his other two sisters with him in his Indore home.
He started to get into a routine to bring a discipline in his daily life. He joined sports and gym to keep his physical health in check.
Working in a corporate office and conversing with the colleagues brought a new issue on the surface.
He was not as comfortable as others in speaking English in his office.
Why? Because Vijay was from a Hindi-medium school. He started feeling that even if he tried hard he felt behind people from English medium.
The feeling was not good as he started feeling inferior to them because of his language.
Due to the inferiority complex, he often got blank while in the middle of conversations.
He found issues with his vocabulary when framing sentences. It led him to convert Hindi words in English in his mind before speaking.
He also struggled with fluency because of lack of practice.
Vijay didn’t give much thought to his spoken English because his grammar was better. Hence, he could still read and understand the office work.
Even though he felt inferior, he didn’t let that affect his work. Moreover, he didn’t feel the need to improve his spoken English communication because office atmosphere wasn’t conducive to English.
It carried on till the Covid lockdown happened amidst the pandemic.
Working from home changed his thinking because lack of interaction made him realize his communication skills need improvement.
So, he started doing something about it.
He started speaking in front of the mirror to get back his lost confidence. He also watched videos on YouTube and BBC to learn spoken English.
Besides, he started watching English movies to work on his pronunciation and vocabulary.
But nothing worked because it lacked daily practice and consistency.
He needed a proper system to follow that can make him disciplined about improving his communication skills.
His dedication led him to come across an Instagram ad for BBR English. And with that, he found the perfect solution with:
When Vijay was searching for a program, he had his goals and priorities sorted. He wanted:
When he attended the BBR English foundation session, he got an insight on his problem areas.
In this 1-hour session, the teacher Vandana analyzed his spoken English skills and provided a calibration report at the end of the session.
Through the calibration report, Vijay figured out the following:
So, through the 15 sessions he attended with his assigned mentor Varsha, he saw a massive change in him throughout the entire course:
As per the roadmap in Vijay’s calibration report, BBR English recommended him to choose the course for English for Finance Leaders
Why? Because in this course, Vijay will learn to improve specific areas that would help him grow in his career as a CFO through:
Here’s how his transformation journey progressed:
Sessions 1 to 5
In the beginning, Vijay mentioned to her mentor that he knows what to speak but needs to be able to frame sentences quickly. Vijay was very participative. He scored 50% on his vocabulary test which is extremely impressive for his mentor Varsha.
With Varsha he found out some excellent exercises to improve himself in terms of structuring his speech, bringing variety with voice modulation, and recording his voice to understand the pronunciation. While role-playing he was able to apply the communication skills
From the fourth session, Vijay saw improvement in his speaking abilities, confidence, and he began to express herself freely. He gave a speech on "Internet and its effects on the Youth". He didn't make many grammatical errors and his vocabulary was good too.
He makes very silly mistakes in prepositions. So, with few worksheets he was able to correct some wrong habits regarding prepositions.
Sessions 6 to 10
Till the seventh session, Vijay became more active and asked questions to solve his queries. He incorporated points and used them to structure his speech. When given a topic in advance, he could present it well by taking care of all the aspects of communication skills.
He was participative and his grammar and vocabulary were great. He just needs to practice his pronunciation a bit more. He was able to speak confidently but makes minor grammatical errors while speaking.
From the ninth and tenth sessions, he was able to conversate effectively and deliver the contents. He could also speak confidently and tries to include gestures and facial expressions.
Sessions 11 - 15
Vijay was able to speak but lacks usage of advanced vocabulary. He is able to speak with expressions and voice modulations. However, he still needed to pay some attention towards facial expression too while delivering a presentation.
He learnt how to grab the attention of audience and hold on to it, by adding an element of interaction. He was able to structure and speak at length and made sentences with advanced vocabulary.
Vijay now started exploring different avenues like blogs, videos, and interviews to polish his content and ideas for spontaneous speaking. In the last session, Varsha saw a change in Vijay, who was now more confident. He could understand the difference between formal and casual conversations. His debating abilities also improved with longer duration.
In the end of the course. Vijay was proud how far has he come and thanked BBR English from the bottom of his heart.
Like Vijay, do you also struggle to find the right words and structure the correct sentences while speaking to colleagues and juniors?
And do you also find it challenging to build relationships with overseas clients while negotiating for your company's success?
If your answer is yes to the above questions, sign up NOW for the BBR English foundation session at Rs. 499 ONLY!
