Describe A Small And Successful Company You Know | IELTS Speaking Topics

Describe a small and successful company you know | IELTS Cue Card Answer:
My cousin has her own company and it’s very successful. She started it several years ago as a micro-business from home and it has grown phenomenally, especially in recent years.

She always loved cooking and baking when she was child and although she went to university and graduated with a degree in business studies, she wasn’t sure if she really wanted to develop a career in a large corporate environment. Anyway, she used to cook and bake for parties in her free time, a bit like a hobby - you know, for children’s birthday parties and parties or events friends would host. She was very popular and most weekends she was busy preparing and cooking and then delivering the food to the events. I used to help her out sometimes.

So after a couple of years working in a large company, I think she was in the marketing department, she seemed to be really fed up with her work and wanted to try something different. She developed a business plan and wanted to see if she could earn a living from catering for parties and other events – turning her hobby into a full time business.

She already had a small client base thanks to all the events she had catered for in the past and that was enough to get started. To expand her business she did some local advertising and by the end of the first year she already had two employees helping her out. She was still mainly catering for private parties and also baked for a couple of local stores which sold her cakes and cookies and things like that.

Things went really well for her and then she decided to try and branch out into a new market. She spent a lot of time doing market research and eventually she launched a corporate catering service for businesses in the area. This was something new for her but because she already had a lot of happy clients her reputation soon spread throughout the business community as well and she got a few clients who used her services for corporate events, lunches, meetings and conferences, things like that.

By now she was employing a small team of full time employees as well as several part-time helpers for when things were busy. Word soon spread about how good her catering service was and her business client base grew extremely quickly. She had to lease some bigger premises and upgrade a lot of the catering equipment she used, like getting larger ovens and mixers and stuff like that.

Now, she is tremendously successful and extremely happy doing what she loves, she has managed to combine her love of cooking and baking and also her field of study by being a business woman providing a catering service to the local community and for business clients, and she earns more now than she would if she was still working in marketing for someone else.

This seems to be quite a common IELTS speaking topic this year – as many IELTS candidates have reported being asked this question.
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Remember that in Part 2 of the IELTS speaking test, when the examiner gives you the cue card, you will have 1 minute to think about what you want to say in your response. Make some notes on the important points you want to include – and any examples and reasons – and make sure to include information related to the key points on the cue card. It is important that you respond to ALL the prompts on the cue card, so don’t forget.

IELTS Speaking Tips:

When you are talking concentrate on maintaining your fluency.

Try to be as natural and relaxed as possible – don’t worry about trying to use vocabulary you are not sure of.

Also, try to speak for as long as possible – 1 minute is the minimum required – but you should practice before the test and aim for the 2-minute time limit allowed for this part of the IELTS speaking test.

Generally, the more you speak – the better it is – because the examiner has a ‘bigger’ sample of your English speaking skills to base their evaluation on.

What’s more, the longer you speak the less nervous you become – many IELTS candidates perform at their best once they have been speaking for a while because they naturally become more relaxed and less nervous.

Good luck with your IELTS preparation!