My Job: Find brand power in translation

Mark Berghan uses cultural knowledge to enhance clients' brands in foreign markets. Photo / Ted Baghurst

Name: Mark Berghan
Occupation: Managing director
Employer: A2ZTranslate
Age: 44
Working hours: All
Company pay scale: All staff are contract staff

Describe your job?

We are a multilingual marketing company. Our goal is to protect and enhance our client's brand in a foreign language/culture.

I work with translators, web designers and search engine optimisation (SEO) experts across about 50 countries and 30 languages.

My main role is to secure the business and to either project manage directly or assign to one of my project managers. We work in translation, multilingual online marketing (SEO, pay per click and so on) and email processing in foreign languages. We have two companies, one in New Zealand and one in Japan, and representative offices in Brazil, Argentina, China, Thailand, France and Italy.

What is your background?

I did a BSc in biology at Auckland, qualified as a dive instructor and then lived in Japan for 10 years working in scuba-diving training, education and then online marketing.

How did you arrive in this line of work?

I worked in Japan for three years, marketing a Japanese language school chain to overseas students. Came back to New Zealand in 2000 - at that time international education was booming and I saw a chance for translating and marketing New Zealand school websites overseas.

The role must be heavily dependent on technology?

Yes, online real-time project management software, VoIP, Skype and so on all play a big part.

How do your customers find out about A2ZTranslate?

Via search engines and word of mouth. So many clients are recommended by someone who knows someone. Ninety per cent of our turnover is from outside New Zealand and Japan.

You must end up keeping odd hours?

I work all sorts of odd hours, having a Skype conference with Houston, then another with Frankfurt. The flip side is that I can use project-management software to automate the implementation process. So most of my time is in direct contact with the client and then resolving any issues with the implementers (translators, designers).

So I work 70-80 hours a week but, with planning, it allows me to take extended holidays as I can work from basically anywhere that has an internet connection.

I spent three weeks in August in Japan with my kids mountain climbing and then camping at the beach, and still managed the business via 3G.

Are New Zealand firms aware of the need to translate product info into their customers' language?

Many New Zealand businesses, when they export, leave everything up to the local distributor. If they sign an agreement with a Japanese distributor, they leave all the Japanese-language marketing collateral up to that distributor. The challenge is, what exactly is the Japanese distributor saying about your product/service? Are they over/under-promising? Are they presenting it at a standard you would expect? Are they protecting and enhancing your brand, or using your brand to enhance their own? Many New Zealand businesses end up giving away control of their brand when working in another language, because they think it's too hard. It isn't too hard. The tools are there, now, to allow them to work directly with potential buyers.

Why is the job important?

As Germany's former chancellor Kohl once said: "If I'm selling to you, I speak your language. If I'm buying, dann mussen Sie Deutsch sprechen [Then you must speak German]."

The job's main challenges?

We usually deal with customers who are in the marketing department. And they have a definite view on their product/service point of difference but often a limited understanding of the mechanics of their marketing material. So two issues present themselves. One is that what may be a minor benefit in New Zealand could be a huge benefit in another market.

We worked with a home garden fertiliser exporter that targeted Japan. It believed its big point of difference was that its product was organic. But we found out that their big point of difference was that their product had no smell. (Perfect for balcony gardens in Japan.)

The second is that often the marketing managers have limited understanding of how websites are built, character-encoding issues, redesign issues due to text getting longer or shorter in translation or change of direction (Arabic reads right to left.)

The best part of your job?

Every day I deal with people from a multitude of industries and cultures, dealing in products and services that I never even knew existed. I can be working with a Brazilian company selling car parts to China today and an organic flower seller from Holland selling to Malaysia the next.

Any negatives?

Working at 2am with a client in Houston, knowing I have to talk to a client in Moscow at 4am.

Your strengths?

Stamina and flexibility.

Advice to those interested in a similar role?

Be prepared to be tolerant of different cultures and ways of doing things. Kiwis are typically efficient and respect deadlines but not all cultures work like that, and you have to understand and be prepared for slightly different ways of doing things.