Finding and hiring a localization consultant seems overwhelming because the process is quite time-consuming and hectic. However, you must back your global localization decisions with expert consultations, so that you can avoid issues and smoothly scale your business in a global landscape.
Businesses mostly don’t have enough cultural exposure, they lack regulatory understanding and don’t know much about market demographics, they must have a professional localization consultant by their side. Read this article to learn how to find the right consultants and work with them effectively.
Why Do You Need a Localization Consultant?
Professional consultations give you a lot of perks; it allows you to benefit from others’ experience and reduce the chances of errors. Here are some top benefits of hiring a localization consultant.
Market Expertise
Localization consultants deal with numerous clients on a regular basis and they very well know what works in a market and how to make things happen. They also know better about the best practices and strategies that may work well in a market. A consultant can provide you with valuable insights about a market and its culture that may otherwise be impossible for you to comprehend right away.
Save Time
Researching a new market, conducting customer interviews, and surveying them is quite time-consuming. When you hire an expert, you save yourself all the trouble of gathering data, analyzing it, and designing your strategies accordingly. A consultant will handle it all for you and provide you with the best expansion and localization advice. So, you can keep your focus on building effective strategies and managing complex business operations.
Cost Saving
Hiring a B2B localization expert may seem an expensive option and it seems like a liability. But, in fact, if you really hire the right experts, they can help you cut down your localization cost significantly and advise you to invest in the right things. It also reduces your margin of making mistakes and identifies the blind spots that require improvements. Consultants can also provide your professional linguists‘ guidelines to uplift their translations considering cultural nuances.
Realistic Risk Analysis
A third-party localization consultant sees your business quite objectively, and they are more likely to give you more realistic insight about things. It is good to have an outside perspective of looking at things from a third person who is not emotionally connected with the business.
Tips To Hire Localization Consultant
There are many ways you can hire professional localization experts for your business.
Job Portals
You find many localization consultants on job portals and directories, such as Upwork, Indeed, Monster, etc. By visiting the profiles of each candidate, you can pick and choose the most suitable ones for your consultations.
Referrals
It is also a good way to find reliable resources for your business consultations. You can ask your colleagues and other people in your network about some credible references with good work ethics and professionalism.
Social Media
You can also look up different social media pages to find people or agencies providing localization services. Not just that, because everything is quite transparent on social media you can also find comments related to a consultation service, which will give you some idea about the credibility of a resource.
Online Consultation Services
Another way is to just Google consultation services and you will find many websites offering professional consultation services online. You can compare the prices and credibility of different websites to find the right fit for yourself.
How To Work Best with Localization Consultants?
Here are a few tips that you should be following to effectively work with your localization consultants.
- Start with defining your localization goals, and you should make it very clear to your consultants what you want to achieve.
- Establish a proper way to communicate with your consultant through a video call or have a personal meeting with them. Clear communication leads to a better understanding of your localization goals, and objectives.
- Work with them to create a localization plan that goes in the best interest of the company following the market standards and protocols. Make sure your localization strategy is aligned with the business goals.
- There has to be some sort of transparency between you and your consultant. You must share with them your resources and tools. You can invite them to your localization management platform for better collaboration.
- Measure your localization results based on the defined metrics and KPIs. Moreover, have an end-to-end discussion with your consultants about the gaps in your outcomes and the actual business goals.