— You will hear another five recordings.— For each recording, decide what reaso

I used to work for an employment agency which supplied staff to civil engineering companies. We were growing fast, opening branches in more countries every year Well, that was great. But instead of investing properly to get a good location for each branch, the company preferred to rent cheap premises and to pour resources into the head office, which of course very few of the customers ever saw. It made most of the staff in the branches very unhappy.

Some years ago I set up a small company to produce high quality food. I found organic farmers to supply all the ingredients, and used traditional recipes from around the world. We were producing small quantities so it was hard to keep prices competitive, but we managed it. My decision to sell through small, independent food stores was a mistake, though, because many of them were losing customers to the supermarkets, so sales were much lower than I expected.