The growth of technology is allowing small business owners to sell their products and services to a much broader and more diverse group of clients, and its important small businesses adapt to these economic and societal changes. Whether your small business is local or global, chances are you will run in to a client or customer who speaks another language, other than English as their first language. While you may not be marketing to a large or diverse population, in order to appeal to an entire customer base small business owners need to be mindful that their commerce practices are manageable for as many people as possible.
There are many services available now to help you work with foreign languages. Some things to keep in mind when looking for assistance in translation are:
• How often will you need translation help?
• How much material do you need translated?
• What type of material do you need translated (books, manuals, web pages, flyers, brochures, videos, etc)?
• How many languages and what languages do you need translated?
Here are some services that can be beneficial to your small business translation needs.
• Software
You can purchase your own software that will help you translate your small business material. This is a good product for smaller businesses who don't have a large budget to hire a translating company to do all the work. Having the software allows you to translate material any time you need it while only making one upfront payment for the software.
Systran Business Translator is a desktop software best for small and midsize companies. You can translate web pages, PDF files and e-mails as well as create new documents in a foreign language.
• Website Translation
If you plan on marketing directly to clients who speak another language, you may consider having your website translated to another language. You keep your original website and add a link to your home page that routs clients to your website in Spanish, for example. This is a good service for a small business that does a lot of business or communication through the Internet.
ICanLocalize Website Translation translates your website, manuals and customer communication, and also helps maintain your multilingual website.
• Translating Services
You can also have a translating service that you hire per translation job. These services are handy if you are only translating a few things once and a while, or if you want proofing and editing to be done to your translated documents.
Hamer Sharp does Spanish to English and English to Spanish translation, as well as proofreading and editing of any type of document. You send the document you need translated to them, pay online, and get the translated document back through e-mail, print out, CD or fax.