1. MIAMI BEACH, USATHE LANGUAGE OF
THE BUSINESS OF LANGUAGE 17-20 MARCH 2013
Client Education
Your Weapon Against Commoditization
@gala_global
#galaconf Chris
Carter

2. WHY?
Why should we educate the market?
First, we caused the problem. So we can fix it.
The market doesn’t understand the intricacies of what we do, so we all tried to outdo each other in our
marketing. Now the market has what behavioral scientists call “knowledge by description”. Buyers only
know what they learned from all of our collective marketing. But that knowledge contradicts itself and is
confusing to buyers.

3. Gain Trust
Why else? So our existing clients will trust us more.
In 2006, the Judge Business School at Cambridge University conducted a survey of over 1200
corporations and found that companies who feel like they understand their B2B vendor more and can
better determine the quality of the process or deliverable are more likely to have a sense of control and are
more likely trust that vendor.

4. Gain Clients
“clients, who trust in
the service provider,
are prepared to allocate
more resources and
are more likely to
recommend this
provider to others”
̶ ̶ ̶ Bruce Weatherhill
Another reason, to win more clients!
A study by Joseph Alba and Wesley Hutchinson,
and a separate study by Akshay Rao and Kent
Monroe, both showed that the amount of prior
experience and therefore prior knowledge that a
client has about an industry directly affects their
choice of a vendor in that industry. In other words,
they may want you to be an expert, but they want o
know enough about your industry to feel confident
about choosing you.

5. De-Commoditization
George Akerlof, an economics
professor, won the Nobel Prize
in 2001 for his work on
information asymmetry. He
shows that when an industry
produces varying degrees of
quality, where the provider
knows how to determine the
difference before a sale, but the
buyer doesn’t, all buyers will
cautiously assume an ‘average’
quality, regardless of what they
get. This encourages low-quality
providers, which leads to lower
average quality, which leads to
lower average prices. It is
known as the “race to the
bottom”. In both price and
quality. And it is caused by that
information asymmetry. That
imbalance.
Okay. All of that is great, but we are really here to
see how educating clients will de-commoditize our
industry. That’s the real reason.

6. Last year when I spoke I mentioned that client education would one day cause de-commoditization in our
industry.
I said that when translation started, clients thought it was all the same thing. Demand grew during
globalization, so prices went up. Then the industry became successful, so competition grew. This
started commoditization. But now there are many different clients, with many different needs. We are all
still experimenting with the idea of translation as “fit for purpose”. And one day buyers will better
understand the different purposes and the different levels of quality, which will allow for different prices
again.

7. High Stakes (better quality)
Low Stakes (lower quality)
Direct marketing
User interface
Technical documentation
Other direct documentation
Written product support
Real-time support / Call center
Community support
Social communication
Some
human
TRA
fully
automated
And there are many types of source content that will be translated.
The higher the stakes of that content, the more that the client will pay attention to quality. And there will
be a much larger volume of content for translation that is considered low-quality. But those types of
content will be translated mostly by automated processes – no humans. But these services up here,
human translation, will also be the more expensive types of translation.

8. High Stakes (better quality)
Low Stakes (lower quality)
Direct marketing
User interface
Technical documentation
Other direct documentation
Written product support
Real-time support / Call center
Community support
Social communication
Some
human
TRA
fully
automated
If we teach the market that
there actually are variations in
quality and how to recognize
them before they buy, that will
reduce the information
asymmetry and let them
assign different money value
to different types of
translation.
And how many LSC, do you
think, use quality as a
differentiator? All of them.
That makes it the opposite of
a differentiator.
You can’t make other
companies be honest about
their quality output (they may
not even really know), but you
can show variation within your
own company. If clients see
translation at different levels
of quality, each with different
prices, it implies that not all
translation is the same. And
some will cost less and some
will cost more.

9. High Stakes (better quality)
Low Stakes (lower quality)
Direct marketing
User interface
Technical documentation
Other direct documentation
Written product support
Real-time support / Call center
Community support
Social communication
Some
human
TRA
fully
automated
When you compete only on price, you will always lose. Because even if you win the contract, industry
will just race to the bottom. And the next contract you win will need to be lower.
Make your clients loyal to you, not your price.

10. WHO?
Who should we be educating?
Do not try to educate everyone. You cannot
educate the entire world. Your time is valuable,
so you need to prioritize.

11. Your Clients
YOUR
TIME
SIZE OF
AUDIENCE
helps them
Most of your focus should be on teaching your own clients. There are less of them, and they are more
important to you. This education will also have more of a direct effect on your own company. For your
own clients, you decide what they need to know. Do not decide what information will help you. Build
relationships. Teach them information that will help them. Share information that is relevant to them. You
can even customize information for a single client.

12. Your Clients
Potential
Clients
YOUR
TIME
SIZE OF
AUDIENCE
helps them
helps a
group
But you should also try to spend some time educating potential clients or markets. Consider who you do
not work with, but would like to. Other customers in the industries that you support. Other industries that
you want to get into. This is almost as important because it could help bring in new clients. You can show
your expertise, but also help set up realistic expectations when they start asking you for quotes or
projects. This information should not be targeted to a specific client, but rather to that industry overall.
This will show that you truly know that industry.

13. Your Clients
Potential
Clients
Public
YOUR
TIME
SIZE OF
AUDIENCE
helps them
helps a
group
helps GILT
And if you still have time – some of you actually will – you can help educate the market overall. Or even
the general public. Now when you try to teach or create educational content for the general public,
however, you can’t address all of their needs. This is where you do talk about your own needs. Or more
specifically, about the needs of the language services industry. Create information that fights broader,
more general myths or misunderstandings about language services. Such information would work best in
public relations, being published in professional journals or papers, or maybe even advertising. Show
your expertise about our industry.
That’s a lot of people. How do you narrow that down? Within those groups, who do you try to educate?
Anyone that is willing to listen. Technical or production professionals are better. There is no need to
spend a lot of time educating procurement or contracting professionals. They don’t know what they are
buying, and they probably don’t care. If you can convince the people in their organization that use the
services, those people will advocate for you to contracting.

14. Yourself
If you don’t know your clients, your markets, how can you educate them? Study your clients. Study their
industries. Study your own industry. Earn credibility by already knowing about them. Validity goes both
directions. Ask your clients outright, they may have questions and not know it. Or maybe they just don’t
ask the questions. Don’t just ask “Do you have any questions?” Get specific and explore what they do
and don’t know. But you can’t inform your clients if you are not well-informed first.
And who is the MOST important person to educate?

15. WHAT?
What should you be educating? What should you be teaching these people?
Well that isn’t for me to say. I am not here to tell you what are the facts and truths about this
industry. I am not here to tell you what your clients should know. Those things should be
decided by everyone. By each of you. By other companies. By our organizations. Every
stakeholder deserves to have input.
But a few guidelines on the type of information we should teach.

16. Expectations
Turns,
Crossings,
Construction,
Police,
Tolls
First, obviously you should be
clear on what you do. Success
in business is based on
expectations. Make sure
everyone has the proper
expectations. That means
preventing misunderstandings
or assumptions. In our industry,
problems often arise over
different definitions of what
editing or proofreading means.
Or even translation. Is it one
round, two rounds? Is DTP
included? Many LSPs have per
word rates. But we all include
different services in that
“translation rate”. Of course
clients get confused.
And we can help each other if
we just take these problems
seriously.

17. GILT Problems
Think about problems that the language services industry faces. Don’t
try to solve your own problems. Usually, if you have a problem, but
the industry doesn’t, that is your own fault. Not the industry’s. And
certainly not the client’s. That’s when you need to fix yourself, and
stop trying to fix others. If other companies legitimately have a better
product or service. You can’t stop that with education. So work on
problems we all share.

18. Coordinated Messages
Part of the problem is that clients are receiving
mixed messages. If marketing is about repetition,
then we should organize and coordinate our key
messages. Hearing the same thing over and over
from different sources reinforces that message
even more. That doesn’t mean you can’t use
marketing to show your own unique selling
propositions or your differentiators. But don’t
redefine the basics. Show how you compare based
on standardized measurements. That will improve
the average quality from our industry and how to
recognize it. And that will stop the “race to the
bottom”.

19. Positivity
But finally, be positive. Don’t be negative. Don’t whine. Don’t complain. People are naturally attracted
to positivity.
There are so many changes happening in our industry. Don’t let your clients think that that you’re just
bitter or angry about innovation or some disruptor. No, you’re just realistic about it. Sure, innovation is
great and you are dedicated to staying up-to-date with as much of it as you can. But your job is to help
your clients see through the marketing so that they will know the good and the bad, and then they can
make an informed decision. Because of you. You’re not teaching your clients, you’re empowering them.

20. HOW?
How can we teach them these things?
How should we be teaching them?

21. Be Prepared
First. Be prepared.
Think about the questions from clients that you
answer more than once. Or the information
you have to keep telling them. Have a list, and
each time it happens, you or your staff can
add to that list. Write down answers to those
common questions and make them available
for the entire staff. You can also learn which
topics your own clients need the most
information about. This lets you prioritize. You
can create content for your staff. Or content
that you can distribute: white papers, short
videos, charts and infographics, statistics,
facts, personal stories and anecdotes, or even
a glossary of industry terminology. It is much
easier to spontaneously teach, when you have
a library of content already prepared.

22. Be Viral
Be viral. Make content easy to forward to other people, to systems, to social media, to anything, and to
everything. And allow people to respond, comment, or even rate your content. And make sure that when
you need to, you reply back. Viral educational content is really content marketing.
But why speak to just one person. We
usually educate one-to-one. But we should
also be educating one-to-many.

23. Be Relatable
Be relatable. Choose words and
terminology appropriate for the audience.
Avoid complex terminology unless that is
what you are explaining. Use analogies
that they can relate to. When you’re talking
to an industry, explain something in the
context of that industry. When talking to
one person, ask them questions to find
what analogies will be effective for them.
Or tell a story. Humans are naturally
emotional. Most people engage with and
remember stories and emotions better
than just facts. Also, people are
statistically more likely to believe in or
become emotionally involved in a story if it
is told from their point of view, or the point
of view of someone like them, a relatable
character.

24. Be Believable
Be believable. First of all,
the best way to do that is to
tell the truth. If you’re adding
to the misinformation in the
market, you are adding to the
distrust and the confusion.
You are helping the race to
the bottom. You are helping
commoditization. Build a
reputation for being
trustworthy. Admit when you
are wrong. Don’t exaggerate.
Be specific and use metrics
and facts. And when you can,
use supporting evidence or
references.
These days, people are
skeptical of “facts”. People
decide in the first few seconds
if they will continue looking at
content. But if their own ideas
are validated, they keep
reading.

25. Be Believable
The company Less Accounting knew this and they
used it on their web site.
Neuro-marketing research shows that if the reader
agrees with the problem or the pain, they are much
more likely to agree with a suggested solution.

26. Be Simple
“Ain’t nobody
got time for that.”
Sweet Brown̶ ̶ ̶
Be simple. People can only learn small amounts of information at one time. And no one wants to read large
amounts of data. Pictures are shared on social media much more frequently than articles. We prefer
headlines. Infographics are also appealing.
Small packets of information though. A theory called Cascading Flow of Information says that people want to
receive new information, repeatedly and continuously. But only if that information is relevant at that time to
them, and if it arrives in small amounts. It’s also easier to remember what you just read. Today, we all spend
so much time in social media, where micro-published content is coming at us so quickly in such large
volumes; we have trained ourselves to filter. And anything too complicated or too large will usually be
ignored. We just don’t have time for it.

27. Be Fun
And lastly, be fun. When possible, make it interesting. No one likes education to feel like education. Have
contests or competitions that actually educate. Make websites or infographics that are interactive. Use
games or puzzles or trivia. You can even tell jokes or funny stories.

28. WHERE?
Where should we be doing this education?
Everywhere! A variety of studies were conducted by Ann McFayden, Albert Cennalla, Janine Nahapiet, and
Sumantra Ghoshal, and all of these studies came to the same conclusion. The more contact two parties
have with each other, the more information sharing happens. And that increases the knowledge that both of
these two parties have about each other. And that creates a subconscious emotional connection, and they
both develop similar goals. In other words, you don’t simply know more about each other – both of you are
more likely to want to collaborate to solve problems.

29. Your Web Site
But more specifically, where? Your web site, obviously. Web sites
should already include education. FAQ pages are nice.
Knowledge Centers, or Resource Centers are better.
Make your Knowledge Center free. Make your
information free. Don’t require people to sign up or fill
out a form in order to access your information. No one
wants to be added to another mailing list or be afraid of
a sales call just because they want to look up some
information. What is the point of creating all of that
content if most people never see it? Make it free so
that a lot more people will see it. And make some
content easily downloadable. But, put your branding all
over it.
But people only go to Resource Centers if they are
already looking for information. You can also sprinkle
education throughout your site. They don’t have to be
searching for education and they’ll get it anyway. Talk
about standardizations and certifications on pages
about your quality. Don’t just say you have quality, say
what the industry has or is working on, then tie that to
yourself. Don’t just say what languages you do. Set up
expectations about working with specific languages.
Issues with bi-directional languages, writing systems,
languages with very low literacy or no standard dialect.

30. All Communications
CRM
Marketing
Advertising
PR
Add education to your other
marketing materials too. Who
says you can’t teach a little with
your brochures. Or even in your
advertising. Okay, it’s not
obvious, or easy, but if you can
and it fits, why not. It could
even be part of the key
message, the call to action, or
the differentiator.
But honestly, it can go into all of
your communication. In your
blog is an obvious place. But
also in your newsletters. Press
releases. Any RSS feeds. And
definitely in your social media.
Some of you already do these
things. But we created this
information asymmetry because
our messages all conflict with
each other.

31. Trade Organizations
Client education should also come from our own trade
organizations instead of being the sole responsibility of LSPs.
We need guidance. But we also need representatives. Some
organizations have done some work and they offer us
resources. But there could be more. And it could be more
organized. And LSPs should not sit and wait for that to
happen. We are those organizations, so LSPs and other
members have to contribute time and content too.
Committees can make decisions and plans. Information will
also have more legitimacy if it comes from a trade
organization or a group, and not just from one for-profit
company.

32. Outside
Our Industry
And we should try to reach a broader
audience. Proactively go to other industries.
Post information in LinkedIn groups related
to your clients, not yourselves. Look for
people on social media or blogs who are
confused or who have questions about
what we do, and then respond. Give them
useful information. When you go to trade
shows or events for other industries,
prepare yourself to answer typical
questions. Better yet, offer to speak about
language service industry to that outside
audience. If exhibiting, your take-away
information can include industry education
along with information about your company.
And don’t forget that any one-on-one
conversation is an opportunity. Prepare
your salespeople and your account
managers on how to respond to common
questions or concerns. Even in their
personal time.

33. WHEN?
All of this advice is nice, but the big question is
When will de-commoditization happen?
Next year? The year after that? Five years?

34. Educating Buyers Enough
Yes. And no. Commoditization is just a process. Therefore,
de-commoditization is also just a process. There will never be a
complete knowledge equilibrium between providers and buyers.
Providers of language services will always know more about those
services than the buyers. And the buyers will always know more
than the general public. And because buyers will not know
everything, they will continue to ask for more, cheaper, faster,
better. They will always look to improve themselves and for you to
be more competitive.
The goal is not to equalize knowledge. But to educate buyers
enough that they can evaluate quality, and therefore buy on value,
not on price. So if, today, most buyers evaluate on price, when will
most buyers evaluate on value? Not next year. Maybe in five years.
Maybe more. I don’t know. But it will never happen if we don’t do
the work.

35. notenough
knowledge
enough
knowledge
TodayYesterday Tomorrow
Educating Buyers Enough
De-commoditization
Commoditization
Amountof
InformationAsymmetry
How much we know
100%
0%

36. Benefits
Right Away
So why bother? Well there are some
benefits you will see in the near future.
A more educated client might be less
frustrating. You won’t have to explain
the same thing over and over as often.
Or have to constantly defend standard
practices. And saving all of that time is
more time your people can work on
something more important. That is
added efficiency. Also, you can use it
in your marketing. Show your
expertise. Sharing this knowledge is a
value-add. Which again is putting
emphasis on total value, and not the
per-word price.

37. Habit
But most importantly,
don’t focus on when this
will happen. There is no
end goal. There will
never be a day when
everyone knows
everything. Think of client
education as a new habit.
Something you can do
without even thinking
about it. You can
contribute every week.
Every day. Just a little
bit. Anywhere. It all adds
up. The entire industry is
affected by this, so the
entire industry can share
in the work. Companies,
organizations, even
vendors. We just have to
be a little more
organized. We need
consistency. We need
leadership. But don’t
underestimate the power
of many people each
taking small actions.

38. Environmentalism story
Just look at
environmentalism.
People recycling,
reusing, reducing. The
most dramatic
environmental changes
are from you. And me.
And everyone else that
makes small changes to
their daily lives.
There is a company named OPOWER. And since 2010 they have been working with energy
companies to help those companies educate their customers about their energy usage. They notify
them about how much energy they use, which types, when, and how they compare to their neighbors.
They also compare them to other customers based on different demographics. OPOWER teaches
these customers ways to conserve energy. Then they help the customers set up energy use goals. And
they send them alerts when they are close to going over those limits they set. OPOWER helps
customers understand and change their behavior in small ways to use less energy.

39. Environmentalism story Down 15%
A study by the National Resource Defense Council of the United States found that modifying existing
behavior to reduce personal consumption of existing energy types through such consumer education
could potentially reduce national consumption by 2020 by 15%.

40. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead̶ ̶ ̶
We don’t need to change the whole world. But we can change our industry. As a group.

41. HOMEWORK
1)Talk to industry organizations
a)help to organize / centralize
2)Talk to each other
a)What are our key messages to buyers
3)Start your own library of educational content

42. Questions?

43. Thank you,
class