English-language communication for companies:
Translating, writing, coaching, consulting
Mid-sized family-owned engineering firm in the German-speaking countries. Nothing we can’t do! I love these companies. They are all completely individual. Each one has its own original inventions and its own particular history, and usually has some product or process that it has elevated to an art form. So, now hold tight because I have a hard thing to say. The websites of these companies – are often hard to tell apart. Conventional to the point of cliché. Is this how to communicate a USP – remember what the U stands for? – to a global audience? I have my doubts.
What would I suggest? How about if before you write your new website, we sit down together. Tell me you story! I’ll listen. And ask questions. Then draft texts directly in English. That’s the most important language for your international profile, isn’t it? I’ll misunderstand some of it. We’ll straighten it out. After 2–3 rounds of feedback and redrafting we’ll have a text that really tells your unique story. Anyone that reads it will understand how you are different from the competition. If they get in contact with you, they’ll experience exactly the same identity that came through in the text, in your brochure or in your website. That’s the quality I see in the presentations of English-speaking companies – and my ambition for you would be to make yours every bit as good.
Would you like to try that?
Here are a couple of examples of how that could work.
Translations
If you are looking for a translator who will care about your story, who can understand the the technical details and get your message right, then I might be who you want. I love the work of translating, and I have gathered a lot of experience in it over the years. Companies with engineering or science-based products often have to produce their content for different audiences and purposes – usually along a spectrum from hard-core experts to laypeople and end users. I have the versatility to support you across these different text types: for example, from technical handbooks to image brochures.
English first
Why write in German first and then (with the limitations that entails) translate into English? Instead of that, we could carry out a briefing, where you tell me all about your product, your project, etc., (in German, in English, a bit of both, with whatever materials you already have to hand) and I can draft a basic version of the story in English, which you/we can then adapt and develop for a variety of media and channels. And if you develop German versions based on the English, maybe that will help you avoid some of the usual phrases and clichés.
Writing coach
By now it is a given in many professional roles that you communicate a lot in English, including written communication. Do you wish that your writing skills in English could be better? Let’s have a look at that together. Especially if the texts you need to write are longer than, say, everyday e-mails, if they have to make arguments about specialist subject matter clearly and persuasively, and if you really need them to be read and for them to influence your readers in a certain way. Then I can help you with my coaching concept. Can we develop your own autonomous English competence? Yes, we can!
USP Workshop/Consulting
What is it that makes your company, your product, or your service unique? Can you explain that in German? And in English? Are all of your departments on the same page – your R&D people, your sales team, the people who are responsible for producing marketing texts? How about if we brought people from all these areas together and discussed your company/product story together, and in English? Would that be an interesting exercise? Almost certainly a good English exercise, but maybe we would also discovers some new things about how you’re communicating with your (prospective) customers. I would get to know your story, which would help me in text work. And if you like, I could write a summary of how I understand your USP based on what everyone said.