Small-business owners and freelancers talk, and worry, a lot about pricing: how to charge a decent rate without frightening potential clients away. Price is certainly important, but it’s not the only factor motivating clients. I had confirmation of this recently from a new client. An Italian company had contacted me for an urgent translation of documents …
Tag archives: business
Getting paid. On time. With the EU’s help: the Late Payments Directive
If you run a business, cash flow is vital. Delays with payments have a pernicious effect: if you don’t get paid, you can’t pay your bills or your suppliers, and the chain-reaction can have a crippling effect on business, not to mention the wider economy. In the words of the European Commission’s Enterprise and Industry Directorate: …
Continue reading “Getting paid. On time. With the EU’s help: the Late Payments Directive”
The UK and Europe: in or out? Take our poll on EU membership
Time for a poll, I think, what with David Cameron throwing the gatto among the piccioni with his planned referendum on membership of the European Union. For some of us, EU membership is a business/market access issue, for some it’s all about annoying rules and regulations, and for others it’s emotional — we feel European. A …
Continue reading “The UK and Europe: in or out? Take our poll on EU membership”
GIGO… The brand
Oh Lord, I’ve just discovered a brand that’s a perfect marriage of product names and GIGO. (A pure coincidence, I swear). I bring you GIGO underwear, “100% MADE IN COLOMBIA”. Watch your back, David Beckham. By Marian Dougan
From GIGO to QIQO: the quest for quality
GIGO stands for “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. According to Wikipedia, the term was coined by George Fuechsel, an IBM technician/instructor in New York (but see also Michael Quinion’s version, at World Wide Words). Interestingly (well, it’s interesting if you’re a translator), Wikipedia’s definition of GIGO used to include the following: Non-computer-related use of the term The term …
The Wrong Way to name a car: international branding blunders
Product naming is an important part of branding and marketing, and one where international businesses can make costly mistakes if they fail to understand local language, slang, and all the connotations of a given word. Here are a couple of potential branding disasters in the car industry, courtesy of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting’s …
Continue reading “The Wrong Way to name a car: international branding blunders”
Nouning and verbing: an ask too far?
It’s been a while since I wrote about my (and your) favourite or least favourite words. But at Glasgow’s State of the City Economy Conference last week (9 Nov), some of the buzzwords and -phrases used by the speakers set my teeth on edge. And then I read a Macmillan Dictionary blog post on nouning and verbing, so …
Glasgow’s times present: international ambitions, but we won’t speak your language
I attended Glasgow’s 15th State of the City Economy Conference today. There was a lot of talk about the importance of global marketing, exports, tourism, international financial services: international business, in short. There was talk too about education, training and skills, from school to college to university to apprenticeships. But not one word about the …
A social networking rant. Tell us who you are, people!
Why do some business people go to such great lengths, on social networking sites, to avoid telling people who they are and what they do? Or to convey such a whimsical image of themselves on serious business platforms? I’ve just been up-dating my profile on KILTR, a social networking site for Scots or people who …
Continue reading “A social networking rant. Tell us who you are, people!”
Communicating with clients: crystal clarity or muddy murk?
Radio Scotland news recently featured a hotel booking mix-up. A group of French tourists turned up at the Jura Hotel, on the Isle of Jura (off the west coast of Scotland), saying that they’d booked rooms there. The hotel owner had no record of a booking, and the hotel was full. When he checked their …
Continue reading “Communicating with clients: crystal clarity or muddy murk?”