Gabriela Siebach 0:00
Just because you've selected a list of 20 languages to start and you do your marketing in 20 languages and you have your registration in 20 different languages doesn't mean that you'll need all 20 At the event, you're going to see who you were able to reach who actually registered and based on that information you plan for what languages will you offer at the event?
Sarah Fejfar 0:17
How are entrepreneurs like us daring bravely to build a stage? Ditch the sweat pants and step up to the mic? How do we create our own transformative events? So we can get our message out into the world in a bigger way. It's not only profitable, but it's actually something we can be proud of.
Sarah Fejfar 0:38
That's the question and the answers are inside this podcast. My name is Sarah Fejfar. Welcome to greenroom Central.
Sarah Fejfar 0:46
Today I brought in the greenroom central studios Gabriela Seebach, Director of interpreting services at Cisco linguistic services. With over 15 years of experience in the language industry, Gabriella has mastered the art of managing flawless, multilingual events, she applies her expertise to helping others reach linguistically diverse audiences, and create inclusive multilingual events. Gabriela supports the language needs of small meetings and large conferences throughout the Americas and Europe, as well as virtual and hybrid events anywhere in the world. Gabriella, welcome to Green Room, central studios, say hello to lynch foundation. Hello, hello. I'm so thrilled you're here today, this is gonna be super special, because we've never talked about this on the podcast. And I know that there are a pretty big handful of our listeners who are ready to kind of take things to the next level. And this is definitely a way of doing it by expanding into multilingual events and making it not just an English only, but embracing the other parts of our community around the globe. So I might have just tipped my hand a little bit on what your superpower is. But why don't you tell us? What do you think your superpower is as it relates to events?
Gabriela Siebach 2:07
First of all, thank you for having me. And I think that my superpower when it relates to events is languages, really being able to create a multilingual event,
Sarah Fejfar 2:16
you have this amazing guide, and we'll put in the show notes of it's called the definitive guide to flawless multilingual events. And I was reading through it yesterday and prep for our conversation. And there's so much solid gold in here. And I was like writing down questions as I went through it. And also feeling a little bit seen, because you call out in in here that people don't think about making their events, multilingual until the last minute, and that you really have this goal of bringing up awareness about it being a thing, and something that has to be planned for well in advance in order to do it really well. And I'm all about I'm here for excellence in events. And so that really rang true with me, because every event that I have been involved with, what has where we've had multiple languages. I have been brought that gift at the very last minute. And there's so much to think about. And I want to get into that today about okay, why? Why we should start months before we're ready, planning for this event to be multilingual?
Gabriela Siebach 3:49
Well, I mean, to start, there's multiple levels to having a multilingual event. And if you wait until the last minute to start, including the multilingual aspects of it, there are many steps that you're not going to get to take, you're going to come to the end and then all of a sudden have to provide something depending on the level of technicality of your event. Depending on the brand and the message that you're looking to share, you may not have enough time to ensure that the interpreters or language professionals that are going to support your event are able to do it and stay true to your brand stay true to your message. Not only that, but you miss out on a lot of opportunities of communication that can happen before the event takes place. Something as simple as a registration page. Having the registration page available in the event languages can really increase the number of participants that you have.
Sarah Fejfar 4:41
I'm always cautious about adding things like I call them shiny objects to an event that might distract from and put the event at risk of achieving the purpose for which it was put in play. I call that the the y times two Why are you doing this for the business and why are you doing this for or the community. And I'm really cautious about adding shiny objects too late in the game, because I think we just put too many other pieces at risk and adding language after kind of diving a little bit deeper into this than I have in the past. I'm realizing how much we put at risk. If we're not thinking about it early enough. I mean, yeah, it's, it can be a little bit confusing or stressful to do this. But in order to do it, well, it's talking we're talking about. We're talking about impacting so many things, and you touched on a little bit, things like venue, things like staffing, things like the materials, the written materials, like a registration page, or email sequences, there's a lot to think about, right?
Gabriela Siebach 5:54
They're absolutely is there's so many different aspects, because language is really about communication. So it's about all aspects of communication that go into the one event. So you can't have a multilingual event where everything is monolingual leading up to the event and following the event. And you only have bits and pieces that are multilingual throughout the event. Right now, when diversity, equity and inclusion are at the forefront of so many people's minds, really making sure that your event can attract a diverse audience and making sure that it's inclusive to those members of diverse communities that may speak a different language requires that you really think about it at every step of the way that you are marketing in the multiple languages that you're looking to attract that you have registration pages, or some way of being able to grab their contact information and their linguistic preferences, and that you also are able to supply the language and, or the information in the language that they need, whether it's written information, or all of the presentations that are happening throughout the event. And the larger the event, the more complex that can be.
Sarah Fejfar 6:59
Yeah, I want to jump in and underline what you talked about there about stages. So we've got all of these different stages of the process, right, we've got like the selling of it, the marketing, and then we've got the registration piece, and then we've got the the communication piece leading up to the event to ensure that the people who decided to register actually show up and are excited to do so and prepared to do so. And then we've got to see the event itself. And then we've got the follow up. And all of those pieces are important from the standpoint of, we're trying to drive revenue from our events as that's like the biggest reason why entrepreneurs are adding this to their businesses. And if it makes no sense in my mind, to decide, like, Okay, we're going to address our South American market and not just speak to our US market for this next event. And so let's add, is it it's called like a, it's an interpreter, right? When they're, they're interpreting the word, the spoken word during the event. That's what they learned from your guide. Translation versus interpreting translation is changing the written word into a different language. And then interpreting is changing the spoken word in spoken
Gabriela Siebach 8:26
or signed because we cannot forget our audience members who may also be listening Yes.
Sarah Fejfar 8:33
And so our minds might go to okay, this is easy, I just need to get somebody who can get into the Zoom and, and interpret for us during the event. But then backing up, like if our y times two is, you know, for the businesses to drive revenue and for the our community has to kick off transformation. We're missing the boat, if we're only doing in event, interpreting services and forgetting all of these other stages of the event that are absolutely critical to converting our guests into sales, right.
Gabriela Siebach 9:17
And unfortunately, that happens to many people. There's so many times what I where I get called last minute, there is an event they want a last minute Portuguese or last minute Spanish interpreter to join the event because they have one interested individual or five interested individuals that want to participate. If you're going to have the service, having had marketed the fact that the event was taking place in each of those languages, having had a registration form that the people speaking those languages would have been able to complete, you could have maximize the number of participants that attend the service and your investment would have gone a lot further, even though there would have been additional language elements that you would have had to invest in. Overall the event could have been more accessible, and you could have had higher conversion of individuals that speak those languages.
Sarah Fejfar 10:04
So good. So if we're now like, preaching to the choir and everyone is converted, yes. Okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm gonna do it well, and I'm gonna plan ahead. What does that look like? What kind of things do we need to think about?
Gabriela Siebach 10:21
So in our guide, we outline a couple of different things that you can think about. One thing that we do recommend in there is having a language partner. So unless you already know what you will need in terms of language, if you've been doing a lot of research, and you understand exactly what you need at each stage of your event, whether it's the planning, the pre work, the registration, and even the follow up, you might want to partner with the experts, people that know language that understand and can guide you through each of those stages to make sure that you have the right elements in place.
Sarah Fejfar 10:53
So what I'm hearing is there's, there's companies like yours, totally dedicated to flying into events. And I mean, like, you know, for the whole process, and partnering with the event host and their team and guiding them through this process. Absolutely. Okay, so. So you you call out things like, questions that we need to answer that you're saying then a Interpreting Service? Or what do you call it linguistic service company,
Gabriela Siebach 11:28
I call it language services, because it can include translation and interpreting as well. So all of the language support that may be required.
Sarah Fejfar 11:35
Okay, so language service company, is what we're looking for. And you call out some great questions like, we need to figure out what languages that we want to do this in, we need to figure out what languages are going to be spoken during the event? Are we just speaking in English, but we want to interpret it to like, Portuguese, talking about the materials going through all this stuff, like you said, and get agendas and websites and registration stuff? And then I love that you you're also putting your guide like stuff about? When do we need interpreters like for what parts of the event and even staffing of the event? And what What needs do we have there? Tell me more about those kinds of questions that a language service company can help us answer.
Gabriela Siebach 12:31
First of all, you touched on a lot of different parts that happen at different stages of the event. First things first is what is the goal of the event. And I think that's the first thing that can help you start to iron some of those questions out. If you understand what the goal of your event, let's say the example that you gave earlier, you want to open the Latin American market, you can either do the research and understand what languages would be beneficial to offer, because you're trying to enter the Latin American market, maybe Portuguese, because of Brazil, and Spanish, because of all of the Spanish speaking countries that are in Latin America. But there are other languages that are also spoken in Latin America. And depending on who you're looking to target, who you're looking to bring into your event, there is may be things that you need to consider. So what is the goal of the event? What are you hoping to do with the event and that starts to identify the diverse audience that you're trying to reach. And this is something that we all do. We know who our target audience is, we know who we're trying to reach and why we're trying to reach them. You bring in a language partner, you partner with them, you inform them of the goals, and if you don't have the languages already, let's say for example, even if your audience since the U. S, the US is very diverse. In terms of the languages that are spoken, there are so many different communities that speak different languages. If you have a B to C, and you're trying to reach individual consumers, that may be requiring your services, you may be considering multiple languages, even though it's an event that targets individuals in the United States, they can even be targeted, being those in a single city. So again, either doing your research and understanding who your target audiences are partnering with a language services company that's going to be able to help you identify the languages that you may consider can help you in some of those initial stages. And just because you've selected a list of 20 languages to start and you do your marketing and 20 languages and you have your registration in 20 different languages doesn't mean that you'll need all 20 At the event, you're going to see who you were able to reach who actually registered and based on that information you plan for what languages will you offer at the event and even at each part of the event. Maybe your event has multiple sessions and most of your Spanish speaking audience is only interested in one of the sessions
Sarah Fejfar 14:46
Okay. So let me let me break this down for linchpin nation because we typically do two different types of events we do. So We'll talk about it in terms of a funnel, so top of the funnel versus kind of more in the middle or bottom of the funnel. So I think sometimes we're doing an enrollment style event where we're casting a really wide net. And this is a relatively cold audience, it's going to be in the room. And typically those are done virtually. And that's where we're leveraging the virtual platform in order to be able to cast that super wide net. And when we're talking about those type of events, where we don't totally know, our audience, yet, this specific people who are going to be in the room, we're casting a really wide net, I can see how what you're describing is okay, yep, we feel like we've pretty much tapped out or tap the the US market. And now we want to go for this event into Europe and into perhaps the Australian market, and perhaps in the South American market, or, and I'll pick one. And you're saying we could engage a language services company to translate to work with them and be like, Okay, we really want this European market for this event, you could, we could work with a company like yours to identify, Okay, these would be the five to 10, or whatever major languages that I would recommend translating your marketing and registration materials into, we'll go ahead, we'll cast the net will run the ads, we'll see who we get. And then you're saying at that point, we can pause and say, Okay, we didn't, we marketed and five, but really, two were the predominant in terms of who we've gotten out in the room. And so now, we go forward from that point, and only translate in those couple of languages and only provide interpretation services during the event. And those languages in my track interact,
Gabriela Siebach 17:02
which is part of a marketing strategy as well, right? You have a be testing, you have multiple collateral marketing collateral that goes out, you're able to track how well, you know, certain copy does versus others, and you're able to get the kind of information that will help inform what, where you need to make the investment. Yeah.
Sarah Fejfar 17:24
Okay, I'm tracking. And so then there's another type of event where perhaps we're throwing a conference for our existing audience, we know exactly what languages they speak in. And so we would be able to pull them, get our get our list of languages, and kind of percentages, in our in hand, right away, make the decision from the beginning of pay everything now is going to be in these these two languages, or these three for this event, everything from the registration, because we're not really typically marketing much if they want to be there anyways, we'll get the registration, the event and the post event stuff, all in these couple of languages. Correct? Yeah, so just a little bit, it's perhaps even an easier lift than when we're doing the AV testing that you described, and kind of marketing in a whole lot of languages to cast a wider net for to a cold audience. So Oh, that's so cool. I love that I just had never thought about it that way, that we could choose that wider net of more languages for the marketing side of things at the beginning, and then use that as a test and then kind of narrow down from there. So good.
Gabriela Siebach 18:52
And it's part of entering a new market, sometimes you don't know what you're missing out on. If you're not allowing yourself to expand into other markets, many of us, especially when we have smaller businesses, we, you know, tend to grow our business through a lot of referrals. And sometimes just putting little tidbits of information out there in other languages helps us understand whether or not there's interest in these other markets that we're currently not accessing.
Sarah Fejfar 19:22
Yeah. Oh, I love this so much. Okay, let's move on. You mentioned in advance one of the or one of the reasons why we would want to plan ahead is that even the venue plays a role in the success of interpretation inside of an event. Tell me more about that.
Gabriela Siebach 19:45
So first of all, if you're doing an on site event, which I know that's not something that many of your listeners will do. Oh you have to make we do
Sarah Fejfar 19:54
because yeah, in person and virtual. So let's
Gabriela Siebach 19:58
talk in person first. You need to have a space and a venue where you're able to fit in the interpreting equipment. An interpreter is standing next to a presenter and having to repeat everything they've said, is not going to be the best experience for all of your listeners, most people are going to half of the time be listening to a language they don't really understand. So having equipment so that people are able to simultaneously listen to the event and every single language is going to be ideal to be able to accomplish that you need to have equipment, and you need to have your language partner that's providing the equipment partner with your AV team to make sure that the audio is coming in equipment is being distributed to those that need to listen to each individual language, and that everything happens seamlessly. If you're in a small room that sits 20, and you have 20 individuals coming. There's no room for you to fit the equipment and all of the necessary things that will be required to provide the seamless multilingual event. Now let's talk about virtual. If you choose the wrong platform, or you don't know how to work, the interpreting features within the platform that you select, you can have a very similar experience. There are so many times when we provide interpreters, we partner with our clients and we say hey, we noticed that you're going to use Zoom, have you used the Zoom interpreting feature before? The answer is like, Oh, yes, we have tons of experience, our interpreters show up and the event wasn't configured correctly, or the standard languages that are available on Zoom are not sufficient to cover the languages that are being provided for the event. Without those changes being made ahead of time, you can't make them on the spot in zoom, which means that now you've paid for a service that you cannot offer to your listeners, and you have no way of informing them that it is due to technology that you're unable to provide the service after all. So there's little things like that, that you need to think about and you need to work through and understanding the venue understanding the platform are key to being able to ensure that you have double check and confirmed each step to make sure that you will be able to provide the multilingual experience you're looking for.
Sarah Fejfar 21:59
Alright, so what I'm hearing, I love to recap, what I'm hearing is, if we're doing an in person, event space is important, we want to have enough space. And then we also want to make sure that we're partnering with a production company that will partner with a language services, you know, with the language services company that we've hired to talk through these things well in advance and can come up with the obviously the space plan to fit it all in. But then also the logistics plan to be giving out the equipment and making sure it's working all that stuff. And then what I'm hearing is in a virtual scenario, it's just making sure that the language services company is connecting with our production company, while in advance of even the Zoom link being handed out to guests, so that we can configure that meeting appropriately. Yeah, because it's pretty easy. Relatively, we just got to do it in advance. But it's not something where if everybody's already in the meeting, it can be changed,
Gabriela Siebach 23:07
right. And also looking at the type of experience that you're looking to provide. You know, we've talked about zoom, because that's something you and I had discussed previously. But there are also specialized platforms that exist that are designed for multilingual events, where even things like presentation slides can be provided in different languages. And they would be advancing simultaneously for the individual based on the language that they have selected to listen to. And they would be able to see the content in the language and listen to the information in the language that they've selected. There are some that even automatically use machine translation to translate chat messages based on the language that the user has selected to read all of the chat messages. So even between participants are able to engage with each other across different languages. So there's multiple levels of the experience that you can provide. And again, partnering with the language service provider, if you don't have the time to do the research on your own, will help you find exactly what will provide the experience you're looking for.
Sarah Fejfar 24:08
That's fabulous. I that you just said even a couple of things that just wouldn't have even occurred to me right off the bat, which was translating the chat. And also the PowerPoint slides. And then it gave me just like a little bit of angst because every presenter ever wants to give you their slide deck at the very last moment. And if we're doing this event in three different languages, and we want to make sure that the slide decks are also in that language, that that requires a little bit of advanced planning.
Gabriela Siebach 24:42
It does and even if you decide not to translate the slides, providing them to the interpreter so that they have the opportunity to prepare on the in the content, understanding what's going to come up and even recusing themselves if it's a topic that they're not familiar with, because even if we present the initial Topic, you know, once you actually look at the presentation materials, you could come to realize that it's not something that's necessarily aligned with your expertise. Doing all of this ahead of time allows you to bring in a professional that has that experience and expertise that will provide the best possible service.
Sarah Fejfar 25:15
Yeah. Okay. So, so good. We talked about how it's important to find a language services company that fits your needs, what would we? I know, there's probably many out there. Are there things that we should be thinking about when we're shopping around for a language services company?
Gabriela Siebach 25:38
Absolutely, I think one of the biggest things to look for is experience. When you go and you shop, there are so many different language services companies that exist, and some of them are well ranked by Google. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to match up to the type of event or experience that you're looking for. So looking into what kind of experience do they have? Do they have experience with interpreting events or multilingual events? Or does their experience primarily lie in providing interpretation and legal or medical type settings? Somebody that is a professional and has a lot of experience and legal or medical settings might not be the best person or best suited for a larger event? Or just any kind of multilingual event? Because their experience is unique to that other setting? Sure, looking at things like that experience, how many years of experience whether or not they've worked, if you're doing a virtual event? Are they in the virtual space? If you're doing an in person event? Are they in the in person event space? Do they have equipment, so if you're partnering with a language service provider, and they have the interpreters, but they don't have the necessary equipment, that means that you another person, another company will have to be brought in? And it could be somebody that you manage? Or that they manage? So looking at those different elements? And understanding how much do I want to do? And how much do I want them to do? And do they have the knowledge and expertise to do it?
Sarah Fejfar 27:03
Yeah, and I'll just like, slide into coaching mode here, I would advocate that if you're looking to hire a language services company, that you find one that is as full service as possible, so that it's taking less, you know, less requires less of a lift on your plate inside of the business, you just like there's too many other things to be focusing on. And I would advocate that you find a partner that knows what they're doing, and has kind of the full menu of options that they can offer so that you're not having to piece together a solution. You know, it's like why people advocate for using Kajabi. And of course, I'm a massive like Kajabi fan, because it's all under one roof. As you're getting started. You don't need to think about piecing together different pieces of technology, one to host your email and another to build your funnels and another one to host your website, and another to host your community and another host your podcasts, like all under one roof. That's kind of the way you should be thinking about hiring a language services company, like find somebody who is coming to the table with everything that you need.
Gabriela Siebach 28:24
Yeah, and I would agree, and I think most, you know, event professionals and even entrepreneurs that are looking to take on the event planning on their own. That's what they're looking for, they're looking for those that have the skills to be able to cover all of that aspect of the events so that they can really focus on the content. So they can really focus on the one area that they need to prioritize.
Sarah Fejfar 28:46
Yeah. And so to drive this home, we're looking for a language services company that can translate all of our written materials can provide interpreters for any live interpreting that we need done has the equipment that we can rent has the ability to coach our own partner with our production company to give them the advice they need on setting up zoom for example, or advising us on space needs instead of a venue. That's kind of the range that we're looking at. Right?
Gabriela Siebach 29:23
Absolutely. And also make sure that they provide the languages that you need. There are some companies out there that only provide one language or only provide two languages. If you need, for example, American Sign Language and Portuguese, you want to make sure it's a company that will be able to provide both, okay? Otherwise you also have to be coordinating between multiple service providers. Okay.
Sarah Fejfar 29:46
Very good advice. So, let's talk a little bit about the materials piece. This was surprisingly eye opening. For me, I think it's just something that I don't think about all day every day. And so when you brought up that we need to have the materials in the right languages. Give me just a smattering of examples of what we're talking about. I know we've talked about the registration site and emails, but chat, what else are we talking about here?
Gabriela Siebach 30:28
Well, let's, let's talk, let's start with the on site events, right, it's an on site, or maybe even a hybrid event. And you have people that show up, they only speak Portuguese, which is the language that we keep going back to, but all of your signage, the arrows that are pointing people, to where to go the program and agendas that are standing, that are on next to the doors, all of the information is only in English, you're going to have individuals that are not able to navigate your event very well
Sarah Fejfar 30:58
are also forms, those are very important.
Gabriela Siebach 31:01
Offer forms, yes, offer forms. We talked a little bit about slides, but even slides. And sometimes you don't have to have the full slide projected in the language, you can have a QR code, hey, if you want to follow along in Spanish, scan this QR code and open up the slides or key notes on your phone. And that's where the important links are. And that's where the important information is going to be. So that your audience that speaks other languages is able to access the event and at the same level that someone who speaks the primary event language is able to access it.
Sarah Fejfar 31:38
Yeah. In every piece of that registration site from present or BIOS to the schedule to brush, even social media content, probably to write
Gabriela Siebach 31:54
it, even your website to be honest, if if you're looking to have a large event to bring in more customers or even to sell, you know, upsell to existing customers, making sure that they're able to access the information that they'll need to access, not just landing pages for the specific content that they're sharing. But some of those other key pages that they might find themselves navigating to, could help you grow the number of people that convert Yeah.
Sarah Fejfar 32:20
Okay. And then more, but let's talk more about the marketing piece. So we talked about social media, we talked about the registration, but obviously, we're probably also talking ads, right ad copy. What else
Gabriela Siebach 32:40
can emails I think that's one thing that a lot of people forget, you know, they think about the ads and the banners and the posters, and the flyers, and they forget about the copy and the email. And if somebody doesn't understand even your subject line that arrives in their inbox, they might never open up your email, right?
Sarah Fejfar 32:58
So we just got to think like every piece of the marketing funnel needs to have be translated into the other language. Okay, that's just a different lens. And of course, I'm big on follow up. And so all of those materials, if we're planning on using event follow up to close sales or to nurture, those need to be in the additional languages as well. Let's, let's shift over to event team. What should we be thinking about to make sure that in person and virtual guests are taken care of during the event? 20?
Gabriela Siebach 33:50
That's a That's a great question. Because this is something that we cover in our guide. And it was a little controversial, because as a language company, we really have nothing to do with your staff, your team, the people that are going to be there to greet your guests, but it really, people like to hear their language. I know many times we see, you know, foreign delegations that go into a country. And even though they don't speak the language, they'll offer a greeting in that language. Can you imagine having your entrepreneurs, these great leaders, opening up an event and greeting all of the participants in each of the languages that the event is being presented in before jumping into the content? So simple things like that, you know, just a welcome or hello in multiple different languages can really make a difference. And then to go take that another step further, having some of your events staff, where labels I speak this language and speak directly to individuals in the language that they are most comfortable with. That's going to be another level of quality and customer service that's going to be exhibited throughout the year. Then they're going to create a rapport and a straight connection to somebody that's part of your team. During the event, now, you can always bring in an interpreter to facilitate a conversation. But if you invest in just having one or two bilingual staff that are there for one or two of the key languages, it helps build that connection. And they're more likely to convert and more likely to accept an offer, if there's somebody that speaks their language that they'll be able to communicate with, beyond that day of the event.
Sarah Fejfar 35:30
Yeah. So that's something where we would want to consider doing that at registration when we're welcoming people and giving them their materials. But then perhaps, at the offer table at the back of the room, or in the hallway, after the offer has been made, and people come up with their questions. That's probably a key place. And then I do I just think people love to hear their name. And they love to be, you know, always like beat the storm of just seen, heard and celebrated. And I think, if we have team scattered throughout that are able to that, like you said, if we're labeling them, so that it's easy to identify, I speak Spanish, whatever. And people can identify and know that they have someone kind of representing the brand, the business that they can go and talk to just milling about throughout the event. I think that's huge. Yeah. And I think is that something that can be hired? I imagine. So I used to do corporate events and destination management companies are a big thing that we lean on in the corporate space. And I know that it's a service that we could hire staff from the local area that just would know the ins and outs of where you could go for a run. Or if you had a little extra time you wanted to go shopping, or just wanted to learn a little bit more about the local area that we could just hire somebody and have them sitting at our registration desk. And they'd always be available to be the local expert. Is there something like that in the language space where we could just hire somebody to, we could train them up on this is kind of our our shtick.
Gabriela Siebach 37:24
So it depends on where the event is taking place. But yes, this is something that you can always do, I can tell you that we have partnered with universities, and university students are always looking for these types of opportunities. And it's a great place to look. And again, if you have a language service provider that has experience doing a lot of these events, and they they can help coordinate and facilitate some of this. But again, it's going to depend on the location and how diverse the population is of the specific location you have chosen. And
Sarah Fejfar 37:53
then I suppose we could always pay to fly people.
Gabriela Siebach 37:57
Yeah, which is another option.
Sarah Fejfar 37:59
I just think that feels so important and personal, and something worth exploring. But you also member mentioned, perhaps if cost is a concern, that we could set up a phone line or something, you know, having a sign there, kind of like if you're at the airport, and delta has those signs that say we just want to talk to somebody right now call this number. And that would kind of be an alternative where we, we're not paying to fly somebody in and house them. But we are paying to have somebody available all the hours of our event by phone. And here's the number.
Gabriela Siebach 38:41
Yes, and there's a couple of ways to go around that as well. Or about that. You can either have somebody that has been trained in the information that you are looking to provide that's available to provide it in that language. A couple of scripts can go a long way. But it could be a little complicated if they have to talk a little bit more about your offer and the things that you beyond the scripts that have been provided. You can also have an interpreting line, where you call in and you have the other individual with you. And you are the one explaining your author explaining the event explaining your content, your 32nd introduction, and you have somebody that's interpreting it for you.
Sarah Fejfar 39:21
Yeah, that's common in the virtual space where they'll make an offer. And then there'll be another zoom that people can go into and meet one on one with someone representing the company and they can ask their questions about the offer. And it would be very easy then to leverage zooms, interpreting services and have an interpreter in there. And for that, that one to one conversation that's been being having happening,
Gabriela Siebach 39:54
and it would just require some planning and coordinating because one thing about the breakout sessions within zoom is that they don't enable the interpreter. They're not, you can't have an interpreter in a breakout session. So they would have to be unique links. But if you're doing a zoom event with multiple unique links, you are able to do something like that. And you can even have the interpreters be flagged to join one room versus another, depending on what room needs the service. Okay.
Sarah Fejfar 40:20
And where my brain is going right now is we could have the workaround, we could have the interpreter stay in the main room, and then all of the English speaking can go into, or, you know, whatever the other languages can go into the breakouts. Another thought that's coming to mind is if cost were a factor, and we couldn't fly an interpreter in to sit at the offer table, we could have like a zoom station setup right there, where we have somebody interpreting, we have a virtual team member and an interpreter all in that zoom and they can just, they can have their conversation, it at the in a zoom instead of while still at an in person event. And absent back will be a little less expensive, of course, then flying them in and housing them.
Gabriela Siebach 41:18
One of the biggest challenges for those kinds of setups is sound. So making sure that maybe there's a specific tablet or computer stations with headphones, or specific rooms. So a specific meeting room, but it's really a virtual meeting room where the individual goes in and they're virtually meeting with the interpreter and a representative that's going to be able to share the information. Sure.
Sarah Fejfar 41:41
Oh, that's fabulous. Yeah, that's a great, like lower cost alternative, while still serving the people who are in the room really well. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, we've covered so much today. Gabriella, is there anything that we haven't touched on yet that you want to make sure we get into linchpin nations hands before we are done?
Gabriela Siebach 42:06
I think we covered everything. One thing that I will say when including, you know, deaf or hard of hearing individuals, sometimes we forget that there are unique needs associated with that. And partnering with a language provider can also be very helpful in that not just to acquire the interpreter or the close captioner. But to also help orient, what's the best way to broadcast the closed captioning, what's the best way or best location for the sign language interpreter, you wouldn't imagine the number of events that I see where the sign language interpreters are on the ground. So their visibility, so limited, only people seated in the front for seats are able to see the interpreter, anybody else who's deaf or hard of hearing will have to come to that area, otherwise, they won't have access to the event. So little things like that having a partner can really help you overcome some of those challenges. And you can always ask your audience, if you have deaf individuals, or even Portuguese speakers, Spanish speakers asking them what would be your preference, what would you like to see can give you a lot of insight as to what you should be providing for the event?
Sarah Fejfar 43:12
Yeah, because I'm guessing that we're, if people are raising their hand to come to an event, there are probably well versed in having done this before. And they kind of have preferences about how they love events to be interpreted and translated for them. That's
Gabriela Siebach 43:37
a request and you fulfilled it gives them one step closer to saying yes to your arm. Yes.
Sarah Fejfar 43:41
So good. I'd love to know. What are you reading right now? random question.
Gabriela Siebach 43:51
random question. And that is a random question. I am actually a big nerd. So right now I'm rereading the social linguistic process model developed by Dennis Coakley, who, it's a model for interpreting I do a lot of training of other interpreters. And as I prepare content, that is what I read, but I do have a couple of books that are sitting in my to read list that are more for pleasure. I just haven't gotten around to them yet. So
Sarah Fejfar 44:20
good. Okay, well, tell us what have you got going on right now that we should know about? And where can linchpin nation find you?
Gabriela Siebach 44:32
So you can find me on LinkedIn? Gabriela Seebach, I'll make sure that you have the link to be able to find me directly. You can find a lot of information about multilingual events. On our website, we have a blog, where we're constantly publishing new and updated information that relates to the guide and you can also find the guide on our website at www cscols.com.
Sarah Fejfar 44:55
Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. I am Thank you, sir. I'm just thrilled that we had this conversation today and grateful that our paths crossed. So we met and I've now got a language services company in my back pocket. And awesome. Thank you so much for being here today.
Gabriela Siebach 45:17
No, thank you. I hope that Lynch pension nation was able to find this information valuable. And don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Take care. Thank you. You too. Thank you, sir.
Sarah Fejfar 45:27
Thank you for listening to the green room central podcast. If you love this episode, then please take a screenshot on your phone and post it to Instagram. And be sure to tag at zero Fejfar and let me know why you liked it. And what you'd like to hear or who you'd like to hear from in the future that will help me know what to create for you. Also, if it's on your heart to host your first or next event this year and you need a jumpstart. Let's connect for a strategy session. Just go to greenroom central.com in a two hour intensive private session. I can help you pivot scale or start your event vision from scratch. Together, we will build an action that means that you feel competent and clear on your next steps. Go to greenroom central.com Right now, to sign up.
Sarah Fejfar 46:12
I appreciate your commitment to leveling up and learning the mindset and strategy of live events. Keep going, keep learning. If you want more, head over to green room central.com For show notes and all the links from today's episode.
