The Art of Finding Solutions

Image by upklyak on FreepikA small discussion group usually finds better solutions than any of its participants individually.

A few years ago, I took part in an experiment, in which each member of the group was asked to choose, separately, from a list 10 essential items to survive for a certain time on the Moon, in case of failure of the return ship.

Then, the same process was repeated as a group. The solutions were compared with NASA’s. The group won by a very high margin.

Before handing the problem over to the group, it is necessary to do something that, in general, the group cannot do: collect data.

If our sales are falling, the first thing to do is gather data: are sales falling for all of the company’s products, or just some? Are we losing customers or are they buying less? Is there a new competitor or a new product in the market? Is the competition going through the same? Are there new prices on the market? Is the team happy? Etc.

It is not possible to collect all relevant data. You have to know when to stop researching, otherwise you will not find a reasonable solution in time.

Sometimes, the reasons to the problem are known. When someone is in pain, usually the problem is not the pain itself, but rather what causes the pain.

The problem to be resolved must be very clear. Let’s consider, for example, the problem ‘exports to Spain dropped, why and what can we do about it?’. Maybe the group will better define the problem when debating it.

The discussion group should be small and the rules introduced at the start:

It’s not about arguing like lawyers or politicians trying to convince us of something they believe, even if that’s fake. The goal is to find the truth, the best solution.

It’s not about applying rhetoric or making long speeches, as in courts and propaganda.

It’s about applying dialectic, created by the Greeks 2500 years ago. They sought to know reality through dialogue, opposing ideas to other ideas, developing new ones as a result.

Each participant must be open to consider several proposals and its possible alternatives and improvements, not just setting for one (their own). The potential solutions are then analysed one by one, improved or discarded, until the best one is reached.

Finally, reviewing the process from data collection to conclusion will allow the decision to be qualified, widely accepted and carried out firmly and with a higher probability of success.

Translation is an essential part of business

You need to market your business to make your products available to potential customers.

Marketing helps businesses grow by increasing a brand’s visibility and establishing a recognisable presence in consumers’ minds.

There are several ways for marketing to impact your target audience and to raise their awareness regarding the benefits your company has to offer.

With so many advertising options available nowadays, you need to find ways to market your business that are both affordable and result-oriented. And this is where translation comes in.

There are several marketing strategies that can be more efficient if you implement translation as a key component.

Translation in Advertising

There is a common misconception that translation is only used in web content marketing; however, it can also be used in advertising. When you market your product or brand on a global scale, you realise that many of the channels available only display content in the local language.

Translation will allow you to reach a larger target audience and increase your brand’s visibility.

Translation can also help you create targeted advertising campaigns, specifically geared towards your target audience’s needs.

Targeted advertising can increase a brand’s awareness and bring new customers to your business.

In the current climate, translation is not an option; in fact, it is an obligation for any business seeking international expansion.

By translating your advertisements, you can create specific ads that meet your target audience’s needs and realities.

With targeted ads, you have the chance to increase your brand’s awareness and bring new customers to your business.

Marketing in Platforms that Require Translation

If you have a social media presence (e.g., Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest), in platforms with a global reach which often feature multilingual content, translation is going to help you reach a broader audience.

You can also use translation to reach your target audience in platforms other than traditional social media ones, such as blogs, websites and apps.

If you decide to market using social media platforms in a different language, you will be able to use translation to create content in those languages. For example, if you market in a Spanish platform, you will have to create your ad in Spanish. This is commonly known as ‘native advertising’.

Content marketing with translation

Content marketing is a type of marketing which consists in the development and distribution of content to consistently attract and retain an audience. Companies can create several types of content, such as videos, podcasts, e-books, blogs and even newsletters.

Content marketing is an affordable approach to generate leads and increase your revenues. However, if you choose not to create content in your target audience’s language, this strategy is highly unlikely to be successful. By implementing translation in your content marketing strategy, your content will be more efficient.

You can also use content marketing to advertise products or services that are already available in other languages. For example, you can create e-books in various languages and distribute them to your target audience.

Integrate offline and online marketing strategies

In online marketing, these strategies can be used to reach your target audience, and they can focus your efforts on offline marketing strategies. Both marketing strategies are extremely efficient separately; however, if you combine them, you can increase your return on investment. By merging both online and offline marketing strategies, you can reach your target audience more broadly by addressing them in their preferred language.

You can also create marketing materials in various languages, such as brochures, pamphlets, and posters, thus making your product or brand more accessible to those who prefer to read or access content in their mother tongue.

Translating your product descriptions

Your product descriptions are a crucial part of the sales process. If those descriptions are not made available in your target audience’s language, your sales are highly likely to be unsuccessful. To fight this, make sure your product descriptions are in your target audience’s language. In order to do that, you just have to translate the descriptions that are in another language to your target audience’s language.

Sales and translation

The motto of sellers, either of products or services, is to increase sales as much as possible. To achieve that, you have to attract as many potential customers as possible. Even when your target audience knows English, there are still opportunities to increase your sales by resorting to translation.

Since the beginning of e-commerce in the early 90s, the digital marketplace has become a global industry worth more than 265 billion euros, with China, the UK and South Korea having the largest share of e-commerce, when compared with total sales (https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/countries-retail-ecommerce).

Did you ever visit a website and find its content difficult to understand? This happens because the website was poorly translated or written, or because it is not even available in your mother tongue. This happens often, even with local companies.

So how can you make sure that you are using your website efficiently to reach your clients? How can you guarantee that your customers understand the content and information on your website?

The answer is simple: by resorting to translation services.

The superpowers of interpretation

When I say I’m a translator, I often hear the answer, “Oh, okay. Nice.” The second alternative, equally frequent, is “Oh, so you translate films and tv shows, right?” No, I don’t. Although subtitling is very present in our daily lives, in a very visible way, with tv shows and films consumed daily, news, video clips, documentaries and a whole catalogue of audio-visual consumption on streaming platforms where, for the most part, we see content with subtitles, translation is not just about that niche market. Today, however, I would like to talk to you about interpretation, a completely different branch of translation.

If, in general terms, translation is the passage from a text written in one language to another language using equivalent words, through a written medium, subtitling does the same with an audio-visual medium and interpretation uses an oral medium. In addition, it also requires several entirely different knowledge and techniques that have to be learned and trained.

Just as there are different types of translation (technical, literary, legal, medical,…), there are also different types of interpretation: simultaneous, consecutive, whisper, among others. My professional experience, although based primarily on technical translation, has expanded in recent years to also include interpretation, more specifically simultaneous translation.

Simultaneous interpretation is not just “saying what a person has said but in another language”; it is doing it at the same time as the speaker is talking. Using audio material, such as headphones, earphones or microphone, listeners can choose to either listen to the speaker or the interpreter communicating.

I don’t always find it easy to explain, to people who do not know the area, how complex this process of “repeating what one person says but in another language” is. Simply put, the interpreter must:

– listen to the speaker

– understand what is being said

– translate the speech in question in their head

– speak/say the equivalent translation

– listen to themselves while talking

– continue listening to the speaker to continue translating and doing an oral interpretation.

Sound confusing? It is. We are, in essence, speaking over another speaker, communicating at the same time as another person, but in a different language. And only the interpreter hears the two communications, since listeners choose one of the oral communications, either the original by the speaker or the translation by the interpreter.

The brain is still accelerated, it got used to working at 100 miles an km to process the information it is receiving and translating it to communicate to third parties, mentally searching for word equivalents, making sure the verb tenses being used in a sentence that I still don’t know how it will end make sense, trying not to speak too quickly but also not too slowly, using a lower tone of voice but without being boring or monotonous… all knowledge and techniques are being put to practice at the same time.

“To be worn to a frazzle”, “to burn the candle at both ends”, “dead on my feet”… the richness of our language only partly ‘translates’ the feeling I get when I finish an interpreting service, when I’m still trying to slow down, trying to regain the ‘normal’ speed of life. And getting ready for the next one!

Sara Pereira, translator, proofreader and project manager