Over time, remote and hybrid work models have altered the fabric of all business operations, allowing corporate firms to suddenly become aware of the untapped potential in the international market. Now, everyone wants a taste of it.
However, expanding your business globally presents a whole new challenge, even more complex than that of your local market. You have cultural, financial, and legal aspects to deal with, and above all, the complexities of the language barrier.
Without gaining mastery of the dialect of your intended market, your business will not thrive. So, how do leading firms break the linguistic barriers when taking their businesses to the international stage?
That’s the answer you’ll get from this article. I have highlighted these tips based on real-world implementation and evaluation. Read on to learn more.
Tips to Breakdown Language Barriers During Global Expansion
If you want to be taken seriously by international employees and business prospects, your communication skills must be top-notch. Otherwise, your lack of fluency might lead to misinterpretation of ideas, mistrust, and disruption of business deals.
Here are 9 tips to get you started:
Adopt translation services and tools
In today’s digital space, translation services are your best bet if you want to be a global player in no time. Every top-tier multilingual firm knows that. These services can translate your written or spoken content from one language to another without losing the tone and purpose of the actual content.
For instance, if you intend to expand your reach from a UK-based market to a Spanish community, adopting a Spanish to English audio translator can facilitate seamless conversations with Spanish-speaking employees, business prospects, and partners. And the cool part? The translation process can be fully automated, giving you access to real-time communications.
Also, you would be happy to know that these tools can also finetune your content such that it resonates with the cultural nuances. With such an atmosphere that facilitates multilingual customer support, you can build trust, and loyalty and gain workable insights that allow you to expand successfully.
Collaborate with SEO agencies
Information travels at light speed in this era of smartphones and social networking. So, when expanding your business overseas, you must have an online presence to engage your global audience. That’s where multilingual SEO content writing agencies come into play.
For instance, if you run a SaaS business, SEO agencies that focus on SaaS content writing can professionally translate your content-think articles, blog posts, or product descriptions into different languages, and then professionally optimize them using region-specific keywords to rank high on search engine results pages. That’s not all.
When you hire SEO writers, they meticulously examine local search behavior and your competitors, to personalize your content to suit specific needs of your target market. These bridge the language gaps while boosting your online visibility and engagement.
Narrow down your market
The global market is ever buzzing with lots of market potential to uncover. However, you must get your facts and figures before hiring or expanding your reach. You simply can’t crack every market out there.
Rather than getting overly excited and unfocused, choose the market with the highest advantage and channel all your resources to specialize in it. With that, you can adapt all your marketing materials to resonate with the language and culture of your target market.
Once you have successfully localized your marketing language, it becomes easier to build trust with your local audience, promote engagement, and generate more sales.
Take language lessons
It’s not a bad idea to start learning a new language, don’t you think? In fact, it’s the most straightforward way to break down any linguistic barrier. More than 80% of leading international firms now invest in language training programs to enhance global expansion.
No doubt, being fluent in another language is an extremely valuable skill, however, it’s not always necessary to master every dialect. You and your team members can learn basic vocabulary such as exchanging pleasantries, general work phrases, and warnings.
When you foster a work environment where employees can learn the predominant language of your target market, it becomes easy for them to co-exist and relate well with customers.
Hire new talents from the target market
If you want to win your customer’s trust, you can start by communicating with them in their local language. It’s that easy. However, the main concern is that your team lacks skilled personnel who can converse freely in their native dialect. You’ll need to hire a new talent.
It’s advisable to recruit talents from the same locality since they’re familiar with the terrain. This ensures your business prospects have the best experience possible and leaves a good first impression of your organization.
Moreover, your new native-speaking employees can be useful in more ways than one. First, they can ensure that translation services deliver content that resonates naturally with the target audience.
Additionally, they can be your organization’s mouthpiece when you deal with new clients or disseminate information to your market audience.
Implement visual communication
When you take your business abroad, you should use visuals more often than written texts since they convey information effortlessly and more compellingly. Irrespective of an individual’s native language, visuals allow them to understand information through images, icons, and symbols.
As such, it would come in handy when training your employees or engaging clients with different linguistic backgrounds.
You should keep in mind that visual aids are not restricted to photos and images. They can also be videos that illustrate a point or come in the form of quizzes, games, or educational apps.
In addition to simplifying seemingly complex ideas and concepts, visual cues can enhance information retention, and minimize the risks of misconceptions that may arise when dealing with international clients and employees.
Do away with slang, idioms, and unwarranted gestures
When conversing with international employees or having business discussions with foreign clients, you must steer clear of using informal slang words, idioms, or jargon that may not be recognized in other parts of the world.
While you may perceive those words and gestures as norms in your culture or local market, foreigners might misinterpret them, get confused, or take offense to them. This could sabotage your reputation in the global market.
In a nutshell, you must keep it professional by using formal English when dealing with foreigners. Additionally, this isn’t just about you, ensure your local team follows suit.
Present your team to your new clients
Now is the time for familiarity. If you want your customers to treat you as one of their own, you must give them a reason to. They must have the impression that you are one of them, and it’s not difficult to do.
You need to make them see that your organization promotes diversity, and as such, consists of individuals from their community.
Simply arrange events that allow your newly recruited employees to meet, exchange pleasantries, and converse with business prospects.
With these, you demonstrate a level of familiarity with clients, bridge the gap of language barriers, and accelerate the growth of your business.
Obtain feedback
Learning a new language and adapting to a new market is not always a walk in the park, especially in a foreign country. There are bound to be loopholes and areas of improvement.
If you want to assess the effectiveness of your communication practices, seek input from your employees, clients, and stakeholders. Ask them for their opinions on how to perfect your language and cross-cultural communication.
Once you’ve collated the inputs, analyze the feedback you get and develop actionable ways to implement the given suggestions. Occasionally, evaluate the effectiveness of your communication strategies using pointers like performance metrics, satisfaction, and engagement.
The World Is Your Oyster And You Are the Pearl
A lot of potential exists in the global market. Potentials capable of transforming your business to a whole new level. If you want to successfully expand your business globally, you must put in a lot of effort in bridging the linguistic barrier.
There will always be an impediment with language, however, with careful preparation and implementation of the above-mentioned tips, your business is sure to thrive.
