Three Mandarin phrases worth learning before your first video call with a Shanghai-based counterpart (from a Mandarin-for-work teaching team)

We teach Mandarin for work settings, and this post is the short version of what we tell anyone facing their first video call with a China-based counterpart. No links, just the phrases.
The first thing we tell people: don't aim to hold as much of the call as possible in Mandarin. The realistic goal at beginner level is to open and close in Mandarin and let the middle run in English. Bookending the call reads as respect. Struggling through the middle puts a burden on the other side.
1. "Nín hǎo, hěn gāoxìng rènshi nín" — "Hello, very glad to meet you."
Use it once, right at the top, when introductions happen. The detail that matters is nín, the respectful form of "you." Using it with someone senior or client-side signals you bothered to learn the polite register, not just the tourist one. Say it slowly. Nobody expects speed.
2. 请多指教 — "Qǐng duō zhǐjiào" — roughly "please share your guidance."
A set humility formula to close your self-introduction with, especially when you're the junior person on the call (as an intern or new hire, you are). There's no natural English equivalent. One honest register note: on a Shanghai call this phrase can land slightly formal, even bookish, coming from a foreigner. That's fine. It's understood everywhere and the formality reads as care, not error. An everyday alternative you'll also hear from mainland colleagues is "Duōduō guānzhào" — "please look out for me."
3. 谢谢您今天抽空见我 — "Xièxie nín jīntiān chōukòng jiàn wǒ" — "thank you for making time to meet today."
The closer, worth learning in exactly this form. A word-for-word translation of "thank you for your time" exists, but it sounds like a translation. This is what people actually say at the end of a business call, and using the natural version is a small, audible sign you learned from humans rather than a phrasebook.
The face-saving note: at some point they will compliment your Mandarin. That's politeness, not assessment. The move is to deflect, not accept. "Wǒ hái zài xué" — "I'm still learning" — is the modest response a native speaker expects, and it lets everyone move on gracefully. Accepting the compliment at face value and then being unable to continue in Mandarin is the awkward version. The deflection closes the topic cleanly and keeps the goodwill you just earned.
One caveat: three phrases won't carry a negotiation, and pretending otherwise is worse than staying in English. What they carry is the signal that you'll meet people partway, and on a first call that signal does real work.