Does Your New Business Need Professional Translation Services?

Many individuals, couples and partners seek to start up a small business of their own, often because they have grown out of working as an employee, or they think they have just the right business ideas and think it is a way to make a decent living. There are so many aspects that a new business has to grapple with that some things tend to take second stage. One of these things is the need to translate key items of communication in their business into another language.

This sounds perfectly obvious to anyone considering expanding overseas, but this is rarely something that a new business actually contemplates doing as soon as they start up. But how about potential customers and clients who live all around you, in small or large communities where English is not necessarily the main language used? In fact, there are few western cities these days where a cosmopolitan cocktail of languages is not spoken.

Ex colonial countries such as France and Britain have attracted many of their former colonial nations’ population to study, work and take up residence. Then there are large migrant communities in places like Germany, Norway, Canada, the U.S. and Australia. What attracts migrants to these nations is the economic opportunities in their new home or simply because they have fled oppression and war.

Just who are going to be your customers when you start your new business? If you leave these naturally non English speakers out then you may be denying yourself a large percentage of the business pie which could go instead to a rival business which might just take advantage of your naivety.

If you are indeed going to benefit from any amount of translation, it could range from simple things like notices on your door or window, information on your website, a menu if you run a restaurant and so the list is endless. Of course, if you are going to start up an Indian restaurant and specialise in North Indian cuisine, having a menu available in Hindi or Bengali makes more sense than having one in Cantonese or Thai!

There is an obvious limit to how much money you spend on translation tasks if you are just starting up but that should have been part of your business plan before you started and if you live in a multicultural and multilingual social milieu then hoping that you can get away with English alone doesn’t make financial sense in the long run.

Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to take short cuts on translation quality. If you do have a potentially large market which speaks a particular language, engaging a professional translator who has the expertise in that language is important. If you are looking for translation services in Australia then make sure he or she has NAATI translation credentials and in other countries there are comparable bodies that you can trust.