The Worldly Marketer Podcast

Kirill Soloviev has 13 years of experience in the translation and localization industry. He is the co-founder and product manager at an early-stage technology startup, ContentQuo.

Over the years, Kirill has worn many different hats in his quest to help tech businesses succeed globally. One of those hats includes his current role of Quality Management Representative with TAUS, the Translation Automation User Society.

Besides running his own startup, Kirill is a consultant to other startups and small businesses on how to go global in a lean, agile, data-driven way. He also works with larger companies and translation agencies to help them deliver better content in more languages for less money.

You can read Kirill's blog articles about multilingual content quality via the ContentQuo website.

Links:

• Content Quo website
• TAUS website
• ContentQuo on LinkedIn
• ContentQuo on Twitter
• Kirill on Twitter

Miryam Lazarte is a serial entrepreneur who is working to connect the Canadian and Latin American innovation markets.

She is the Vice-President of Business Development at Go South! Consulting Inc., which helps Canadian high-tech companies gain a foothold in Latin America through market research, trade shows, negotiation assistance, and more.

Miryam is also the co-founder of LatAm Startups, a non-profit organization helping startups to scale.

Miryam is passionate about Latin America and Canada, and is working to develop better ties between entrepreneurship, innovation and technology.

Links:

• Go South! Consulting Inc. website
• LatAm Startups website
• Miryam on Twitter

Christian Höferle is a cross-cultural trainer and an intercultural consultant who has extensive experience working with multinational companies. Through his coaching, mentoring and consulting work, he helps develop global business leaders.

As the President & CEO of The Culture Mastery, Christian and his team help multinational organizations and their employees to work better together across cultures.

Christian has also contributed articles on the topic of cross-cultural communication to publications including the Harvard Business Review.

German by birth, American by choice, and Bavarian at heart, Christian is a fan of building bridges instead of walls. Known as The Culture Guy, he hosts a podcast of the same name.

Links:

• The Culture Mastery website
• The Culture Guy Podcast
• Christian's most recent article in the Harvard Business Review
• Christian on Twitter

Michael Michelini is an American who moved to Hong Kong in 2007, and has spent the years since then learning and then sharing everything he can about how to do business in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Michael is the author of two blogs: Global From Asia: A Blog for Your Hong Kong Business; and a more personal blog about his Chinese adventures in business and in life.

In 2013, he started the Global From Asia podcast, which has become a great resource for anyone looking for information on how to open, operate, and grow an international business from Hong Kong.

Michael is also the co-host of another podcast: the China Business Cast, which is all about business and entrepreneurship in China. I've interviewed his co-host and fellow expat entrepreneur, Shlomo Freund, on Episode 005 of TWM Podcast.

Most recently, Michael is the author of a new book called China Startup: Experience and Insights. It's a very honest first-hand account of his own experiences, combined with practical, actionable advice for anyone who may be looking to start a tech company in China.

Links:

• Michael's website
• Global From Asia website
• Global From Asia podcast
• Michael's business blog
• Mike's Blog
• China Business Cast podcast
• Michael's books on Amazon
• Michael on Facebook
• Michael on Twitter

Shlomo Freund moved to Beijing, China, in 2011, where he founded Startup Noodle, a growing community of entrepreneurs whose aim is to build their own startup mainly focused on the Chinese market.

In 2013, he went on to found AppInChina, which is a service that helps foreign apps get distribution in China via the 20 biggest Android stores there.

Shlomo is passionate about startups and entrepreneurship as a way to pursue your dreams and lifestyle. As an organizer of the Lean Startup Beijing Meetup, he has become an integral part of the entrepreneur community in Beijing and he contributes to it in many different capacities.

Along with Michael Michelini (who is featured in Episode 006 of TWM Podcast), Shlomo is the co-host of the China Business Cast, a podcast about business and entrepreneurship in China.

Links:

• Startup Noodle website
• AppInChina website
• China Business Cast podcast
• Shlomo on LinkedIn
• Shlomo on Twitter
• Shlomo on Periscope

Luna Vega is a successful digital marketing consultant and the co-founder of Ecommerce Academy.

She's an experienced podcaster, an active YouTuber, and a sought-after speaker. She's also the best-selling author of a book called The Global Influence: E-commerce Marketing Tips For Small Businesses.

Living and working in major cities around the world - such as New York, Miami, Paris, Berlin and Singapore - Luna has developed a unique ability to seamlessly launch and manage global fashion campaigns.

She has worked on a range of initiatives - from product overhauls and e-commerce optimizations, to mobile and 360 digital campaigns - and for an impressive list of clients.

Luna's goal is to share her knowledge about global marketing with fashion start-ups.

Links:

• Luna's website
• Ecommerce Academy
• Luna's book: The Global Influence: E-Commerce Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
• Luna's YouTube channel
• Luna on Twitter

Trajan King has over 20 years of experience in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. He is a world traveller and the founder of 15 startups. I first discovered him through an episode of the Culture Matters Podcast (with Chris Smit), where the topic was what startups are facing internationally.

Currently, Trajan is the CEO of two companies: ExactConversion.com and Invincible Robots, which includes his online training community, Invincible Startup.

As a public speaker, he uses stories from his own experiences to teach other entrepreneurs how to grow their businesses and build a company they can be proud of, as well as a lifestyle that suits them.

Trajan has built a business that allows him to travel to the world, living in countries like France, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Brazil while studying the language and connecting with the people in each city.

Links:

• Invincible Startup website
• Episode 054 of the Culture Matters Podcast
• Trajan on Twitter

Renato Beninatto is a native Brazilian who speaks five languages and has lived in seven countries around the world. He has over 25 years of experience in the translation and localization industry.

Renato has served on the executive teams for some of the most prominent companies in the language industry. In 2001, he co-founded Common Sense Advisory, the first market research company focusing on the language-services space.

Renato is a frequent speaker on globalization and localization issues at industry events and at universities around the world. He is also the author of two books on global business, including "Innovate Globally: Making the Case for Global Growth".

Currently, he is VP of Business Development and Marketing Communications at Moravia, a leading translation and localization company, which is headquartered in the Czech Republic and has offices around the world.

Links:

• Moravia website
• Moravia Blog
• Moravia's Globally Speaking podcast
• Renato on Twitter

Becky DeStigter is an international marketing expert, a cross-cultural management trainer, and a public speaker. She specializes in the Technology and Professional Services industries, and she advises companies on how to realize their overseas potential.

Becky combines impressive academic credentials with real-world entrepreneurial experience. She has owned a successful strategic marketing company, served as Chief Operating Officer for start-up technology companies, and worked in marketing and sales roles in the healthcare software industry.

Becky is a self-professed language junkie and she speaks four different languages (so far). She also volunteers for cultural exchange programs to support high school students seeking cultural immersion experiences.

You can follow Becky's excellent blog articles via her website, The International Entrepreneur.

Links:

• Becky's blog
• Becky's latest article on FITTNews's Trade Ready Blog
• U.S. government website on exporting
• Canadian government website on exporting
• Becky on Twitter
• The International Entrepreneur on LinkedIn

Welcome to the very first episode of The Worldly Marketer Podcast! I'm your host, Kathrin Bussmann. This particular episode is a relatively short one (under 15 minutes). It's just an opportunity for me to introduce myself, to explain why I created this podcast, and talk a bit about what you can look forward to in future episodes.

A bit of background about me: I'm a German-Canadian who was born and raised in the province of Quebec. If you're not familiar with Quebec, it's one of the 10 provinces of Canada, and it's the only province where English is not an official language. In Quebec, the majority of the population is French-speaking, so the official language is French.

When I was born, my parents had just immigrated to Quebec from Germany. So I grew up with three languages: German at home, French outside the home (including at school), and English in certain other social circles and through the media.

Because I used each language in separate situations and with different sets of people, I learned from a very young age to switch not only between languages but also between cultures. So I was able to experience first hand the ways in which language and culture are naturally linked, and how they shape people's perceptions of - and interactions with - the world around them. I guess that's why I've always been fascinated with languages and culture, and the dynamics between them.

While pursuing a degree in Communication Studies at the University of Ottawa, I discovered the field of Linguistics, which is the scientific study of human language. I was smitten, and became particularly fascinated with historical linguistics. So I went on to get my B.A., M.A., and eventually my Ph.D. in Linguistics from Humboldt University in Berlin. What can I say: I had lots of encouragement, and there are a lot of academics in my family. I guess I always figured I'd pursue an academic career too.

By the time I finished my Ph.D., though, I was ready to leave academia and get out into the "real world". I felt like I wanted to start working on more practical problems and do something that would be truly helpful to people.

Around that same time, my daughter came along – and as any parent knows, life doesn't get much less theoretical than when you become a parent. In fact, raising a child is probably that most hands-on, practical occupation there is, especially when that's your full-time focus.

Fast forward to May 2014. I originally founded Verbaccino as a kind of boutique communication-services agency specializing in creating multilingual content. But what it really turned into for me was a crash course in entrepreneurship and marketing. In fact, I became completely fascinated with marketing in general, and with international marketing in particular.

So over the past year or so, I've also been busy pivoting my business. I'm now much more focused on marketing strategies for international growth. My new mission is to help North American brands leverage today's new digital marketplace, which – like it or not – is becoming increasingly global, social and multilingual.

Because I'm a recovering academic, the first thing I do when I want to become an expert at something is to throw myself into lots and lots of research. I figure out what the issues are, who the thought leaders are, and I start reading everything I can get my hands on. And because I'm a huge fan of podcasts, I also try to find relevant podcasts that I can learn from.

Unfortunately, in the case of international and global marketing, I've found the podcast pickings to be rather slim – though I did discover some excellent podcasts dealing with related topics, and I've recommended them in a recent blog post.

So full disclosure: my reasons for creating The Worldly Marketer Podcast are not entirely altruistic. Really, I'm scratching my own itch. It's the podcast that I wished already existed, so I've decided to go ahead and create it myself. And I hope that it will become a helpful resource for anyone else who wants to learn more about what it takes for brands – even small ones – to "go global" in the Digital Age.

Now I'm happy to report that there are a few new podcasts in the works by other people in the global marketing industry, and I've already had a chance to talk to some of them in the context of this podcast. It's very exciting to see these new podcast coming up, because as a consumer of podcasts myself, I say: the more, the merrier. There's lots of room for fresh contributions to the topic global marketing, which is a very wide and very complex field. They can include everything from translation and localization issues to international SEO, social media strategies, cross-cultural communication, and the latest insights into particular foreign consumer markets.

This podcast is going to be a weekly interview-style show. My goal is to talk to a wide variety of specialists in the field of global marketing, and to learn as much from them as I can. In the process, I hope to create a body of content that will be helpful to other entrepreneurs and marketers who are interested in exploring today's global possibilities.

If you have a particular question that you'd like to ask a global marketing expert, I'd love to hear from you. The best way to contact me is through the Verbaccino website. And while you're there, please join mailing list, so I can keep you in the loop about future episodes of the podcast.

That's all for this first episode. Thanks for listening! I hope you join me for another, proper episode of The Worldly Marketer Podcast - where the motto is:

"Keep on learning, and keep on growing!"

Links:

• The Worldly Marketer mailing list
• Verbaccino website
• Blog post: 10 Great Podcasts for Global-Minded Marketers
• Verbaccino on Twitter
• Verbaccino on Facebook
• The Worldly Marketer on Twitter
• The Worldly Marketer on Facebook