5 Alternative Ways to Say ‘Increase’ for Business Meetings
If your work involves dealing with budgets, sales, costs, or anything that is associated with KPIs and numbers, then describing graphs and trends will be common activities in business meetings for you. Furthermore, one of the words that you probably use often is ‘increase’.
‘Increase sales…’, ‘Increase costs…’, ‘Increase the budget…’
You may say expressions similar to these….
“Expenses increased by 10% last quarter.”
“Bigger investments in advertising led to an increase in sales this year.”
In this post, I teach you a variety of alternative and interesting ways to say ‘increase’. So the next time you have to talk about numbers in a business
Additionally, this article will help you identify alternative ways of saying other words you find yourself repeating by following the same steps:
Step 1: Learn ‘Increase’ Synonyms
The first step to replacing repetitive words is to learn synonyms. Here are some synonyms which you can use to directly substitute the verb ‘increase’, without having to change the preposition or structure of the sentence:
Example: “Sales increased by 30% last year.”
To climb
“Sales climbed by 30% last year.”
To grow
“Sales grew by 30% last year.”
To rise
“Sales rose by 30% last year.”
To go up
“Sales went up by 30% last year.”
To improve
“Sales improved by 30% last year.”
To surge
“Sales surged by 30% last year.”
Step 2: Use Different Word Forms
Next, you can use ‘increase’ as a verb or a noun. This also gives you the opportunity to use a slightly different sentence structure, which in turn, adds variety to your English.
Example:
“There was an increase in sales of 30% last year.”
“Last year there was an increase in sales of 30%.”
Then, where possible, do the same with the synonyms:
To grow / a growth
“There was a growth in sales of 30% last year.”
“Last year there was a growth in sales of 30%.”
To rise / a rise
“There was a rise in sales of 30% last year.”
“Last year there was a rise in sales of 30%.”
To improve / an improvement
“There was an improvement in sales of 30% last year.”
“Last year there was an improvement in sales of 30%.”
To surge / a surge
“There was a surge in sales of 30% last year.”
“Last year there was a surge in sales of 30%.”
Step 3: Include Adjectives
To make the word, ‘increase’ and its synonyms sound more interesting you can add adjectives to describe the level of the increase. You may want to emphasize, for example, that the increase was bigger than normal, or it was small and consistent. Here are some adjectives to add emphasis to the extent of the increase:
‘Significant’ = bigger than normal
“There was a significant increase in sales this week.”
‘Steady’ = consistent
“We saw a steady rise in sales last year.”
‘Dramatic’ = sudden and big
“Last year there was a dramatic improvement in sales.”
‘Sharp’ = sudden and big
We have seen a sharp surge in sales this month.”
‘Slight’ = a little
“There has been a slight increase in sales this year.”
Other adjectives you can use include:
‘Sudden’
‘Rapid’
‘Gradual’
‘Slow’
‘Fast’
Step 4: Include Adverbs
Another way to be more descriptive is to use adverbs. These are words that come after the verb and are used to emphasize the level of increase as we saw with the adjectives. You can often add ‘ly’ to the end of the adjective to form the adverb. Here are some adverbs you can use:
‘Significantly’
“Sales improved significantly last week.”
‘Steadily’
“Sales have been growing steadily over the last ten years.”
‘Dramatically’
‘Sales have risen dramatically this month.”
‘Sharply’
‘Sales climbed sharply last quarter.”
‘Slightly’
‘Sales went up slightly last year.”
Other adverbs include:
‘Suddenly’
‘Rapidly’
‘Gradually’
‘Slowly’
‘Quickly’
Step 5: Use Linking Words to Connect Ideas
Above, we looked at how we can substitute the word ‘increase’ with synonyms, change the form, and add adjectives or adverbs to sound more emphatic or descriptive.
When you combine these ideas with linking words, your speech will sound much more elaborated and sophisticated when presenting graphs and numbers.
For instance, when we talk about results (i.e. an increase in something) we often mention the reason why the result happened and the consequences of it.
Linking words help you connect the reason to the result, and then to the consequence. They also add sophistication and elaboration to your speech.
Here some examples using the Reason – Result – Consequence structure:
Example 1:
‘Due to’ (linking word for giving a reason)
‘A significant rise’ (The result: adjective + synonym of increase)
‘As a consequence’ (linking word for explaining consequences)
“Due to hiring a new ambassador for our flagship product, we have seen a significant rise in sales. As a consequence, our forecast for the next quarter has changed and we’ll need to increase production.”
Example 2:
‘As a result of’ (linking word for giving a reason)
‘Climb steadily’ (The result: synonym of increase + adverb)
‘Consequently’ (linking word for explaining consequences)
“As a result of the economy getting back on track, our turnover climbed steadily in Q1. Consequently, we won’t have to lay off any more staff for the time being.”
Example 3:
‘Because of’ (linking word for giving a reason)
‘Go up gradually’ (The result: synonym of increase + adverb)
‘Therefore’ (linking word for explaining consequences)
“Because of lower interest rates, demand for mortgages has gone up gradually. Therefore, our outlook for the next few years is a positive one.”
Conclusion
In this post, you have learned alternative ways to say ‘increase’ by using synonyms, adjectives, adverbs, and changing the word form. Then I showed how you can combine all these with linking words to sound more interesting and structured.
You can also use the same approach for the word ‘decrease’. The only thing which will be different are the synonyms.
So the next time you have a meeting in English where you have to talk about results and numbers, have a go at exploring this new vocabulary!
