One of the quickest ways to increase your sales is through up-selling, or selling more pricy or add-on products to customers at the time they are placing an order.

It’s a great way to increase your revenues, since consumers are basically in a purchasing frame of mind at that time. This can work for products or services.

The key steps to a good up-selling program are to know the value of your products and services, to develop new options and to figure out what your target demand is seeking out when purchasing a product/service like the one you offer.

Know the value of your product! Value, like a coin, has two different sides: the value or profitability of the product to you, and the value or usefulness of the product to your consumer.

Figure out what others have bought, have a look at prior sales and see what products your consumers often purchased together. This will give you additional ideas and insight as to what add-ons go with what primary products.

We now have enough information to develop your up-selling pitch. This is as simple as asking your buyer “Would you like —- with that?” at the time of the purchase.

This can be applied for translation services as well by offering new options like DTP, IT, localization and content management services.

Another thing to note: There is often less price resistance at the point of sale for add-on products or services.

You are now ready to go…Happy up-selling!!!

Referencing the theme of my last post, this time I will go a little deeper into why using a professional language service provider to market your products and services is an intelligent choice. Previously, I demonstrated the benefits of using translation services to the growing Latino market sectors in the US, while discussing localization using the example advertisement in Puerto Rico.

A translation is not always just a translation.  As an Account Manager, I strive to understand as much as possible about each translation project in order to provide not only a simple translation, but one catered to the intended the audience.  The concept of providing translation services also considering the geographical and cultural perspectives of the audience is called “localization”.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the AT&T ad in Puerto Rico is a perfect example of ignoring localization.  The ad had been translated from English into Spanish. Grammatically speaking, it made perfect sense.  Their mistake lied in not taking into account the cultural nuances of their Puerto Rican audience.  The end result was creating a household situation that was very unlikely and perhaps even offensive.

Here’s another example of lack of localization with an early computer operating system in the 1980’s with something as simple as a desktop icon.  The same icon Americans interpreted to be the trash can appeared to be more of a mailbox to Europeans.  This example clearly shows that while European clients were intended to by the products, no one seemed to be consulted before the software was green lighted.  While this is a small, subtle example, it shows the importance of not throwing your trash in the mailbox, or really understanding who you’ll be communicating with through the sale of products and services.

While the importance of localization services can be easily demonstrated using marketing examples, it’s actually important for all translations.  Considering who you’ll be talking to and where they will be is important in any type of communication.  Some details that may appear small and subtle in some languages or cultures can often be glossed over when not considering the target audience.  Moreover, these services should be provided by and discussed with professionals who understand these nuances that help you conduct business in the easiest, most effective way.    We are a big world and, while many people may speak English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi or Arabic, we do not all think the same, act the same or approach life similarly.

There are a number of organizations who are advocates of the importance of language, localization, and global content. As frequent industry contributors, they organize events to promote quality standarization and help strengthen a community that spreads across the globe. Translation Manager, Localization Managers, Translation company owners and operators, among others, meet at such events to discuss the latest industry trends, ideas and insights from around the world. Below are a few of the conferences being held this year and early next year.

LISA Forum Europe: Building Quality, Building Customers

The program will feature tracks on defining localization quality, assessing quality, planning quality, and on the impacts of various technologies and development methodologies on localization quality.

The Multilingual Web: Where Are We?

The MultilingualWeb project, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the W3C, is looking at best practices and standards related to all aspects of creating, localizing and deploying the multilingual Web. The project will raise visibility of what’s available and identify gaps via a series of four events, over two years. This is the first event.

ATA 51st Annual Conference

The ATA Annual Conference is held each fall in a major city or popular resort area. This four-day event showcases panel discussions, expert presentations, training workshops, and scholarly papers. The conference also features a job marketplace, a vendor exhibit hall, certification testing, and networking sessions designed to build professional contacts for attendees.

GALA 2011: The Language of Business. The Business of Language.

GALA 2011 will bring together the community of professionals involved in global content delivery. This community consists of all parties charged with transforming original content (software code, website content, product information, technical documentation, marketing materials, and more) into translated and localized content for consumption by people around the world.

ITI Conference 2011

ITI Conference 2011 is the flagship conference of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, and marks ITI’s 25th anniversary. There will be plenary sessions, panel discussions, workshops and talks on practical aspects of interpreting and translation, such as technology for interpreters and translators, project management and running your business, as well as the training of interpreters and translators and professional development.

In a previous post, Justin had mentioned that there are language differences in countries where English is the official language (e.g. in England, the Unites States, Australia and Canada). There are also differences in countries where Spanish is natively spoken, for instance Spain, Latin America, and even Spanish speakers in the United States.

Although a large part of the Spanish language is shared by its speakers (what we call “Neutral Spanish”), there are many words, phrases, idioms, and mannerisms that are not found in all linguistic varieties.
Before we begin translating a text (novel, document, web page, etc.), it is important for the client to define the target audience in order to localize the product for that specific market, by accounting for the differences of each market.

What does localization mean?

One word can be used to talk about the same thing in different parts of the world. For example, peanut can be maní in South America, cacahuate in Mexico, or cacahuete in Spain. Although the national varieties of a term may be understood, even if it sounds odd, some may not recognize the term or will find it to have a negative or offensive connotation, which leads to a misunderstanding of the text. A translator who is a native Spanish speaker or a specialized translator will identify the difference and know which version to choose in order to produce a translation adapted to that target audience without losing the meaning or the tone of the original. However, if you want to cover a broad spectrum of Spanish speakers, a neutral version of Spanish is the solution. But we can continue to discuss that some other day.

Welcome to the official Spanish Translation US blog. In this blog, you will find tips, advice, and all kinds of information regarding the art, the science, and the wide world of translation, as written by translators, project managers, DTP specialists, localization and globalization experts, and all those involved in this exciting industry. We invite you to learn more about the many different facets of this field and keep informed of the latest news and updates from Spanish Translation US.