Speak Like a Manager: 8 Better Ways to Say “IMPORTANT”

Do you use the word “important” too often? Watch and learn 8 ways to express the same idea in advanced English. Understand the meanings of "a top priority", "a decisive factor", "a major problem", "a leading expert", "a central role", and more. You can use these collocations in job interviews, meetings, and presentations, as well as in emails, resumes, and reports. Upgrade your business English, right now! Then test your knowledge with the quiz: https://www.engvid.com/speak-like-a-manager-8-better-ways-to-say-important/

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In this lesson:
0:00 8 words to use instead of "important"
0:54 Replace the word "important"
2:20 a key figure
3:19 a powerful position
3:45 a top priority
4:32 a leading expert
5:03 a central role
5:48 a critical decision
6:53 a major problem
7:11 a decisive factor
7:37 – Review –
9:15 – Test –

TRANSCRIPT:
In this lesson, I'm going to teach you eight different expressions that you can use in
a business context to sound more professional.
Now, all of these expressions express the idea or convey the idea of "important" without
using the word "important", alright?
So "important" is a very popular word, people use it all the time, but what we should not
do is to use it too often, alright?
Because otherwise, it sounds a little bit boring, and it also sounds like your vocabulary
is not very extensive and not very wide.
So let's see first what happens when we use the word "important" too often, and then I'm
going to show you the eight expressions that you can use to replace these ideas and to
sound much more professional, okay?
So, let's look at this first.
Now, this is a sample letter that somebody wrote, it's kind of like a letter of reference
for someone, and that person who wrote this, their vocabulary wasn't very extensive, okay?
Wasn't very advanced.
So they use the word "important" all the time.
So let's look at it.
Mary was an important person in the company.
She held an important job.
Her most important goal was to become an important expert in her field.
For five years, she played an important role in our department, making important decisions
and solving important problems.
I believe the most important factor in her success was her people skills.
Okay?
Now, obviously, on purpose, I used the word "important" in the entire paragraph to show
you what can happen when you're only using this word or when you only have that expression,
okay?
But now, I'm going to show you how you can optimize this and how you can upgrade these
ideas with eight new expressions, okay?
Let's do that.
So, let's start with the first one.
So, if you want to convey the idea, express the idea of an important person, so what could
you say instead?
You could say "a key figure", okay?
Say it after me, "a key figure".
Now, in this case, we actually changed two words, right?
Instead of saying "important", we said "key", and instead of saying "person", we said "figure".
Now, "figure" can mean also "person".
So, this business expression where two words, two or three words, usually two words are
used together.
This is also known in English as a collocation, a business collocation in this case because
it's used very often in business English and business situations, okay?
Say it after me again, "a key figure".
Good.
Now, suppose you want to give the idea of an important job, then you could say "he has
a powerful position".
Say it after me, "a powerful position".
Good.
"She is a key figure", "he has a powerful position", okay?
Good.
If you want to give the idea of an important goal, alright, or objective, you could say
"this is a top priority in our company", "a top priority".
Now, sometimes the word "goal", "priority" not exactly the same, but the idea is basically
the same here, okay?
So here also, we replaced "important" with "top", and we replaced "goal" with "priority".
"Priority" is something that is very important, okay?
And in this case, "a top priority", it's an important goal, alright?
Say it after me, "this is a top priority".
Good.
Okay.
Now, suppose you want to express the idea that "she is an important expert".
Now, you wouldn't usually say that in any case, but what you should say instead is "she
is a leading expert".
Say it after me, "a leading expert".
That means there are many experts, and she is one of the top ones, one of the best.
She is the most well-known, a leading expert, okay? […]