IELTS Cue Card Sample 22 – Topic: A Successful Small Business

IELTS Cue Card for IELTS Speaking:

Describe a successful small business that you know.

You should say:
what the business is
where it is
who runs the business / how you know about this business
and explain why you think it is successful.

BAND 9.0 SAMPLE ANSWER: 

Nowadays, there is a new booming [1] trend of start-ups in my city; however, not all of them are successful. One of the businesses that I think is the most successful is X – a chain of restaurants and café boutiques.

I remember 2 years ago, they only had one business in our city. It quickly became one of the favorite [2] spots for the youth to get together. Now they have expanded with franchises [3] in almost every corner of my city. The fame of X has spread by word of mouth, and in my case, a friend told me about it.

The owner of the chain is a young woman, who is only 31 years old at the moment. Since I have always been [4] interested in opening up a small café/ restaurants of my own, I admire her work a lot. She has successfully created a brand name of real food, in the environment of a modern, energetic and urban café, introducing the foreign lifestyle to our rustic city. Every time I have visited this restaurant, it has always been full [4] and this applies to all other  locations in our city, not just one specific place.

Recently, the group announced that it had [5] raised a 5.5- million-dollar investment from overseas funds. This proves that X is considered to have great potential in developing further and becoming even more successful in the future.

USEFUL VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSIONS FOR IELTS SPEAKING:

 booming: [adjective] having a sudden increase in business, wealth and success. Example: The owner was able to buy new machinery, because his company was booming and he had money to invest.
 start-ups: [noun] companies that are just opening. Example: Many start-ups fail because they do not have enough money to survive their first year in business.
 chain: [noun] a group of businesses owned by the same company. Example: There are about 6 large chains of supermarkets selling food in the UK.
 boutiques: [noun] a small business that sells fashionable products. Example: A famous street in London is full of small boutiques selling all the latest styles of clothes.
 franchises: [noun] businesses which have been given permission by a company to sell its products in a particular area. Example: The largest restaurant franchise in the UK is McDonalds.
 word of mouth: [expression] The chain is famous because people have talked about it to each other. Example: The news of the accident spread by word of mouth, hours before it was reported on TV.
 brand name: [noun] the name given to a product by the company that produces it. Example: The brand name of the most famous trainers is NIKE.
 rustic: [adjective] simple – typical of the countryside. Example: It is impossible to see rustic styles of houses in Hanoi nowadays.
 investment: [noun] a sum of money that you lend to a business, expecting that you will make more money over a period of time. Example: The investment of money by the bank enabled the business to expand

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