Elliott Holloway is senior education content developer at Align, the company behind the popular Invisalign clear braces product. In this role, he creates materials to help dentists and orthodontists better understand and market Invisalign to their patients. While Align's products are today primarily sold in North America, Elliott reports a strong global footprint, with dedicated marketing teams in various international markets.
Prior to Align, Elliott worked at Cheetah Digital, ABB, and SunTech Medical; at SunTech, he was tasked with marketing a new blood pressure monitoring device internationally, starting in China. Planning for translation and localization at the start of the campaign generated messaging that worked globally, while resonating with the local audience.
“It is incredibly important to create genuine experiences and in order to do that, you can't take your Americanized box of stuff, pick it up, [and] import it to another country without there being some level of customization that speaks specifically to people in that country.”
For a meaningful entrée into new markets, it’s also important to find the right partner translation agency, Elliott advises, not just a vendor. He recounts his frustrations with translation providers who failed to respond promptly or hid or inflated pricing. At SunTech, working with the company’s existing in-country distributors and sales teams proved to be a more effective approach.
“Having a partner, that's sort of where that process starts,” Elliott explains. "If I can't get you to respond to my request or to engage with me, I’m probably not going to come back to you for things."
Initially overwhelmed by the sheer number of people around him, and the novelty of being the only non-Chinese individual in the room, he embraced the experience with an open and curious mindset, eager to learn from the experience.
"If you have the opportunity to experience something, say ‘yes!’ to that, go engage with something you may not have the opportunity to engage with ever again," he says. "Those are things that are going to widen your experiences and knowledge that you can bring back here to wherever you are." And it's an invaluable opportunity to learn how to break down stereotypes and biases.
Similarly, SunTech’s trade show presence in Düsseldorf, Germany evolved over the course of a decade, from a modest 5’ x 5’ setup to an expansive double-decker exhibit, all while collaborating with the same trusted local partners. Such gradual growth and relationship-building can be incredibly fulfilling, he says, and underscores the crucial role that translation and localization play in effective global marketing.
Elliott offers four key recommendations for marketers looking to expand internationally:
- Start the preparation process early by initiating international conversations and building your network, even if full-scale expansion plans aren't yet solidified.
- Find a language service provider that will work as a true partner, one that cares as much about the quality and effectiveness of the content as you do.
- Build in flexibility around timelines and deadlines to accommodate potential hiccups, rather than expecting perfection.
- Collaborate closely with in-country distributors, sales teams, and other experts to ensure the messaging resonates authentically with the local audience.
Elliott’s favorite foreign word is "abuela," the Spanish term for grandmother, because of the denotative (literal) and connotative (emotional) meaning of the word. "Abuela" translates to, simply, "grandmother," he says, yet it evokes a sense of warmth and comfort for him, evoking memories of his own family. His nuanced appreciation for language is a valuable asset in the world of international marketing.
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/relliotthollowayiii/
Connect with Wendy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/
Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
ATTENTION: Below is a machine-generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, here at Rapport International we talk a lot about how machine translation lacks quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest.
Wendy: Hi, thanks for joining The Global Marketing Podcast. Today we welcome Elliot Holloway, who has quite a background in international marketing. And so I'm looking forward to hearing lots of his stories. So welcome, Elliot.
Elliott Holloway: How are you doing, Wendy? I'm glad to be here, thank you for the invite.
Wendy: I'm thrilled. I'm really looking forward to hearing more in depth about some of the stories you [00:01:00] have to share. So he is currently a senior education content developer at Align, which does the Invisalign. I'm sure a lot of people have heard of that, but we'll get into that more. You're also a freelance consultant on marketing, design, and branding.
And you were a marketing creative director for Cheetah Digital. Thank you. and a brand manager at ABB and you work at SunTech Medical in marketing communications and as creative director. You have an MBA from East Carolina University and a bachelor's in graphic design from North Carolina State University.
So I am very, very excited. All right. I you a heads up on this. So, I'm so curious to know, what's your favorite foreign word?
Elliott Holloway: When I saw the question, it was immediate, honestly, what I came to, and the word is abuela, Spanish for grandmother, I've got three youngish boys, so it's got nothing to [00:02:00] do with Coco and having seen that thousands of times at this point, but, as an undergrad in graphic design, my professors always talked about the definitions of words, and the two definitions, whether you have the connotative definition or the denotative definition of the word, so what it actually means, and what it evokes.
Wendy: Wait, run those words by me again. I've never heard that talked about before. So there's the connotative.
Elliott Holloway: Yes. Connotative, which is what it evokes and denotative, that's the textbook definition of it. So, you know, abuela is Spanish for grandmother.
But the way that word rolls off my tongue and all of the emotions, not only my own grandmother, who's not Spanish. But the way that word makes me feel, I just love it. It makes me feel warm. It makes me feel like I'm sitting by a fire with my grandmother. Yeah, so that abuela.
Wendy: Special, right because it is a positive connotative and denotative word. Mm-Hmm. . I love it and I love that it's the Spanish, [00:03:00] it's not something you'd use, but you've brought it into your family at all?
Elliott Holloway: No no. My mom is Grammy and to my kids.
And my wife's mom is Grandma. So no, Abuela, no, unfortunately, no.
Wendy: That's so funny. When I was a kid growing up, my grandmothers were Grammy and Grandma.
Elliott Holloway: Oh, nice.
Wendy: My mom is actually Meemaw to my kids.
Elliott Holloway: Okay. Yeah. I am an only child.
My wife has got seven siblings. So her mom is called multiple different things by different people.
Wendy: Oh, no way! They didn't pick the same one? I figured it was the first grandchild. Yeah, wow.
Elliott Holloway: Our three are the last grandchildren. So she's meemaw to a couple.
She's grandmom to ours. I think she's grandma to a few others. So yeah, she's all over the place. Same thing with Jim, my father-in-law.
Wendy: Oh, that's hysterical. Well, then she's got to think about how to sign things for who she's giving it to, and oh man, that's crazy.
Yeah, I've never thought about that. I'll have to start asking other people [00:04:00] whether they have the same name for a grandparent. Yeah. All right, so tell me, what was your first exposure to another language or culture?
Elliott Holloway: 10th grade, Spanish class. Miss Witter.
I sat in her class for two years. And she was fantastic, fantastic Spanish teacher. From boots on the ground being in another country, the place that I've spent the most time is Dusseldorf, uh, in Germany.
Wendy: Wow. Okay. So you're working at Invisalign now? I mean, in a line right now who does the Invisalign products. So tell me a little bit about what you do there.
Elliott Holloway: Sure. Titles are always interesting things, they sometimes are dead on exactly what it is that you do.
And sometimes there are just words on a piece of paper. Luckily mine is the former, it says what I do. So I help create educational content for dentists and orthodontists to then deliver to other dentists and orthodontists to help them understand Invisalign and the specifics of tooth movement, or whether it's how to market, how [00:05:00] to talk to customers about Invisalign and the products that Align has.
Because it's not just the Invisalign product. There is also a mouth scanner that we have called the iTero that's a pretty fantastic piece of equipment.
Wendy: Okay. So I do know what Invisalign is because my dental hygienist had talked to me about getting it. So it really is like adult braces.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah, it is. I mean, if I'm building content, a lot of it's PowerPoint content, so there are a lot of before and afters and to see what people's teeth look like before and then after in a much shorter span of time than braces.
Yeah, it's crazy to see. It's crazy to see what the product can do.
Wendy: Yeah. All right. So right now you're not translating much for Invisalign because you're mostly in the US.
Elliott Holloway: Correct. Correct. We do a little bit with our counterparts up in Canada.
So some of the content that we create goes there and that team focuses on translating that content for that specific market. It's really one or two of our courses that that [00:06:00] happens with currently.
Wendy: And do you have any plans to go international and other places?
Elliott Holloway: Not currently. In general, as far as life or specific to Align?
Wendy: Specific to Align. Because you've had a very big background, so I want to get into that. I think it's wasted talent if your company is not tapping into you to take them global.
Elliott Holloway: No, no, no, no. Align is a huge organization. They've got, tons of people that work on that stuff that are quite amazing. So not only, you know, our Canadian market, but also all over the world, whether it be South America, Europe, Asia, all of those places, it's one of the most talented organizations that I've ever worked in before. That's just looking at the organization, seeing where people have come from, seeing actually what they're doing right now. It's a great place to work.
Wendy: Wait, so run that by me again. So you're Invisalign or Align only sells in the US and Canada.
Elliott Holloway: No, no, no. So this is a global company. There's presence, all over the world. South America, Asia, and all of those [00:07:00] markets. I can't speak specifically to all of that cause I'm not in all of those conversations, but specific to those other markets, things are growing, things are moving significantly in those places.
Wendy: So how's the company set up to do marketing across the different countries? Are they all separate?
Elliott Holloway: Yes. So there are different marketing groups for specific countries. A lot of organizations, from my understanding, set things up this way where you have a global team that is creating content that is doing marketing work.
In addition to that, there's a singular brand team that serves similar purpose that is working globally. And then there are different marketing teams nested throughout other countries. From a model perspective, I think that makes sense and it works really well because not only do you have centralized messaging coming from a global stage, but then you have marketing teams, and other teams that are working in that market that are specific to that market that know what that market needs and can create content specific to that [00:08:00] place.
Wendy: Okay, you're creating content for education courses, but there's a whole separate global marketing team that creates the global marketing message. That is a global message, but then they push it out to the marketing teams who do it. So do they have a marketing team in Spain and one in South America?
Elliott Holloway: South America, I believe. I'm not sure about Spain, actually.
Wendy: Okay, that would then handle the whole, like all the Spanish speakers in that area.
Elliott Holloway: Yep.
It's a cool model.
Wendy: Yeah, I've seen that and I've seen some problems that teams run into and I've also seen where it's done out of corporate and what they run into.
So, tell me about your company, why you think it's a cool model and why it works there.
Elliott Holloway: It is incredibly important to create genuine experiences and in order to do that, you [00:09:00] can't take your americanized box of stuff, pick it up, import it to another country without there being some level of customization that speak specifically to people in that country.
Just like you want people, if your company is based out of the US and when they pick up your stuff, when they pick up your content, when they read your blog posts, they are reading it from the standpoint of it hitting things that Americans know and understand that may not necessarily work in Spain, that may not necessarily work in France. So having people in groups on the ground that are able to craft content specific to that country, specific to that region is going to create those genuine experiences that are going to become inclusive for people in that region.
Wendy: Okay, yeah, and then when you're talking about the level of customization and really connecting, do you think there's a difference between B2C and B2B products?
Elliott Holloway: Possibly, yes. From a B2B [00:10:00] perspective, at least in my experience, there can be more of a focus on the stuff that's in the box, the materials that you need to make the widget work, whether it's the quick start guide, whether it's all of that stuff that comes in the box, so some of that stuff doesn't necessarily need to have the same level of customization that something like a B2C company would need, because with a B2C company, and this can happen with a B2B company as well, but there are going to be very specific messages that need to be given to the audience. What was the example from the seventies? I believe it was Ford with pinto in terms of what that word meant in other countries.
Yeah. You don't want problems like that to arise, especially in our 24/7 news cycle, how everything is so completely connected and someone with a Twitter account can be engaged with your CEO in seconds if they desire to. That difference between B2C and B2B, making sure that the stuff again in the [00:11:00] box is translated and folks can understand it.
But at that B2C level, really being able to dig down into the brand and say, these are the things that we're trying to evoke. These are the thoughts and the feelings that we're trying to evoke with our stuff, with our content. How do we make that message work somewhere else?
Wendy: Right. Right. And so, have you seen any differences, and this is a little bit out of your area with Invisalign, but have you seen any differences in how they would do the messaging in local markets?
Elliott Holloway: I haven't, honestly. I am curious to see a little bit more about that in terms of that product is, and I'm sure we'll loop back around to SunTech, has been in the past, not nearly as much as it has been, but is very much a challenger brand in terms of wires and brackets, that's how you have moved teeth for a very, very long time and to have something new to come in and disrupt that, how is that positioned in a [00:12:00] completely different culture, a different country? I think I've been at Align for about a year. I am curious to see how that works.
Wendy: Right, right, because I certainly see it if you're selling sporting equipment, and I think I've talked about this before, if you've got soccer balls, who you're going to put as your face to represent that is going to be extremely different with colors and everything and types of terminology.
But I would imagine something that people get to straighten their teeth. You want to look better, you want to be healthier, I would think the messages were more similar. So yeah, I was just kind of curious. We'll have to have you back on and dig in. Yeah. Yeah You did mention SunTech and I wanted to get into that because this was your first company really doing international business, right?
Elliott Holloway: It was, yes.
Wendy: Tell me more about how you started there and what you were doing?
Elliott Holloway: My interview at SunTech, and I'll make this story short, but my [00:13:00] interview at SunTech was on a Thursday. I had my first child on a Tuesday.
Wendy: The Tuesday before or after?
Elliott Holloway: Tuesday before. So I had to call and reschedule that interview for the following week. ,
Wendy: I am so glad to hear that. I can't imagine showing up two days later and
Elliott Holloway: probably not having slept but no, SunTech was and is a blood pressure measurement device and technology company. You know, you go to the doctor and you have your blood pressure taken with an automated device, in a lot of cases, SunTech is providing that technology on the back end, like actually in the device, the board that's doing that.
They also have at that point two finished goods that were incredibly popular that everyone knew the name of, but not enough people knew the name of SunTech. So, I was brought in right as they brought in a new CMO. They were trying to rectify that situation.
Like, people know what this Oscar 24 -hour ambulatory blood pressure monitor does and they know what this Tango stress exercise monitor does. But Who is SunTech [00:14:00] Medical?
Wendy: So you were brought in to help gain visibility on the name and so what was your first assignment?
Elliott Holloway: I think that the first big assignment was in the marketing level, marketing communications level to help launch one of their new devices.
And it was a device that was intended to speak more to family practitioners, general practitioners, as opposed to specialized cardiologists and things like that, like the two products that I mentioned before. So that product was a product called 247. I believe they still have that product in their portfolio.
I'm not sure. But seeing that come together and helping push that out to market was for lack of a better term, pretty cool. Uh, I was, I was fresh out of business school, and being able to really see both the business side of things, as well as the design and creative side of things and how those married together was fascinating.
And again, also helping to lead some of those efforts was pretty gratifying.
Wendy: Now, were you told launch it in the US or [00:15:00] launch it globally?
Elliott Holloway: It was launched specific to the US. There was a global launch later on, but not right out of the gate.
Wendy: What led up to the global launch?
Elliott Holloway: You know, I think companies can do one of two things. You can look at a separate market as a place for you to create your products for you that are then brought into the states.
Or you can look at that as a place where we are going to put down roots and we are going to have people that work for our company that are part of our family. And we're going to have sales folks, boots on the ground, all of that kind of stuff there. That's what SunTech elected to do.
So building out there, wanting to build out in China specifically, but largely as well on the Asian continent, that's what led to that 247 launch, but also launches for some of their other products really into that Asian market.
Wendy: So they say, all right, you're going to launch this product over there.
What was the first thing you guys did?
Elliott Holloway: So where we started was, and there will be some overlap here between the 247, but also some of the other products as well. [00:16:00] Largely where we started was with our sales guys that were there.
They were folks from that region. They were native speakers. They looked like the people that they were talking to every day. So what is it about this product that will be attractive, you know, to this market? And we have all of these things, like we've got this quick start guide, we've got this manual, we have all of these pieces and parts.
We describe things this way. How does that work here? At that point, we had already largely redesigned the look and the feel of the company.
My team and I were responsible for that. And when we did that, that new look and feel was largely, it was pretty open, lots of blues, but lots of white. So a medical device company.
Wendy: Yeah.
Elliott Holloway: Those worked fine. Those worked well in that country. But then that gave us enough room to be able to say how does language, how does typography need to fit on to these materials, and things were open enough that we were able to accommodate different languages [00:17:00] for those regions.
Wendy: Oh, because you left enough white space in your design so when you translate it, the expansion could still fit in. That's a key thing.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah, it is.
Wendy: Did you just happen to design it that way or did you have any inkling about it?
Elliott Holloway: There was a little bit of both. Not speaking ill of anybody, I do think part of the reason I got that job at SunTech is I was asked about their current creative, I gave my specific thoughts and opinions and they happened to line up with the new CMO.
He was not a fan of that look and feel. So he was like, yeah, come on in.
Wendy: Oh, that's awesome. That's great.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah, really wanted to move away from a lot of blue, like a lot of blue and minimal amounts of white. So the page was full. And having areas for stuff to breathe was important for me, particularly again, given that it was a medical device company, I wanted that pristine feel to come across in the materials and using that as how we move forward, it did allow for [00:18:00] translated content to fit into that framework very easily.
Wendy: Ah, that's so great. That's where you really go, 'Oh, thank goodness I left that space in' because we teach about that a lot and run into problems with having to reformat All right. So let's go back to the sales guys. You started there asking, you know how that'll work. Somebody from your company went out and said, we're going to hire.
How did they do that?
It's hard enough to hire here in the United States.
Elliott Holloway: So hire the sales guys or hire the folks that were going to be helping us do some of these things in China? You're talking about the sales guys, right?
Wendy: Right, because the first thing you did was to go in and hire salespeople so they could work with you.
Elliott Holloway: There was a presence, a smaller presence in China that SunTech had already. So there were already people there that were sort of starting that process. There was a long-term distributor in Japan that SunTech had worked with.
I think it was established in 1984. So they've been around for a long time. Having that person in Japan and having some sales managers and distributors [00:19:00] in and around China, that really helped sort of centralize things at SMC, SunTech Medical China.
Wendy: And were the sales reps bilingual?
Elliott Holloway: Yes, for the most part. Unfortunately, I speak a little bit of Spanish, but beyond that, if you're coming to me and it's broken, I don't care as long as I can understand you and you can understand me, but yes, they were bilingual.
Wendy: Okay. So you can have your communications back and forth. Okay. You started the market really with this distributor relationship built from there to hire. And they really advised you on the culture and what to do there.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah. And there's one or two ways you can sort of do this.
I mean, you can go big or you can go really small. And we decided to go small in terms of you can sample sizes of one or two or three or four, as opposed to widely canvassing folks to determine ways to go. So we elected to use that sort of sample size of one or two to really guide us because [00:20:00] many of those sales guys, like I said, they'd been there for a little bit already.
So they knew what customers were looking for. They knew what their competitors were doing in that region. So we had a leg up from my perspective. We had a leg up moving into that market.
Wendy: Okay, which is not unusual for companies. They might go and then meet a distributor and one of the biggest mistakes I hear is hiring the wrong distributor because breaking that relationship can be hard.
Elliott Holloway: It can be.
Wendy: Oh, you're smiling and laughing at that. So you had issues with that?
Elliott Holloway: No, not me specifically, but at points in the past, you know, not everybody is going to see eye to eye on everything and occasionally language barriers can play a part into that, as well as cultural differences.
So yeah, I did see a little bit of that, definitely, but there are guys that are at SMC are still the people there when I left three or four years ago.
Wendy: Oh, we're still the same sales people that came on and are there. That's good. So that's been a nice long relationship.
Elliott Holloway: Indeed. [00:21:00]
Wendy: All right. So you had the design and you had the space to do the translation. Who actually did the translation for you?
Elliott Holloway: The SMC team relied on those distributors, those sales guys. And we had a really amazing contact within SMC that we were talking with regularly, and they found the translation house. We were better served when we went through them to have content translated. Either it would wind up being a little bit more expensive when we did it, or it would not necessarily come back the way that we needed it to come back when we went directly to other folks.
Wendy: Really? Yeah.
So you had a hard time finding a good translation agency to handle the translation.
Elliott Holloway: Yes, yeah.
Wendy: Okay, so when you tried to do it on your own, what did you run into?
Elliott Holloway: Folks just not getting back to you, there's that issue, obviously.
Prices being higher than you would expect them to be just given what it is that is being done. Really the not getting back to you was the stuff that drove me nuts, I [00:22:00] think.
Wendy: I'm always surprised to hear that.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah. And I've run into that stateside as well.
I don't understand that part of business necessarily, but yeah, I have experienced that here in the US too.
Wendy: So you call or email or go online to their company and they just don't get back to you.
Elliott Holloway: SunTech is not the largest organization by no means, but I've had that happen at large organizations that I've worked at in the past. I'm one person in one department, but I would imagine lots of organizations would want a foot in the door to some of the places that I've worked at in the past, not being a braggart by no means, but personally, if someone came to my business and was like, from this X organization, hopefully I can get your business, but everybody else in that building's business, so I'm going to respond as quickly as I can.
And that has not always been my experience.
Wendy: Wow. I mean, I'm kind of speechless here because I'm like, Oh, what are the competitors doing or what? And you're just saying Reply and give reasonable prices.
Elliott Holloway: [00:23:00] Yes, for me, I want to work with an organization, what I am looking for is a partner.
I don't necessarily need you to care about the business as much as I do, day in, day out, but I want somebody that is not just, for lack of a better term, an order taker, that if something comes in and there is an issue that they identify that they're going to come back and say something to me about that before I see it, if that makes sense.
So having a partner, that's sort of where that process starts. If I can't get you to respond to my request or to engage with me, probably not going to come back to you for things.
Wendy: No, I mean, that's it. That's just common decency too.
Elliott Holloway: Yes. Agreed. Agreed.
Wendy: Calling in with a potential business.
Yes. So you look for a partner and what else would you look for in an agency?
Elliott Holloway: So this is a little bit of me, and this is a little bit of the partner, is timing. There are going to be times when there are fire drills, and that's just with everything and that would be on my side, but that's also going to be on their side.
So having a good enough [00:24:00] relationship with that partner to be able to say, hey, we've got this coming down the pipe in two weeks or hey, this exploded overnight. Is there any way that you can slip this into the things that you're working on right now and being able to have a good conversation with an org such that I can make that request, but they can also make the request with something that's due tomorrow.
Hey, Elliot, look, we've had something pop up. Is there any way that we can push this to Friday or Monday week, as opposed to getting it to you tomorrow. And that's again, where the partner comes into play. Yeah, of course you guys have been not only on time, but early for me every other time.
If you need to push something one time, I'm more than okay with that. The last thing really is from a prep perspective, I need to be doing that research beforehand to identify a few folks that I can reach out to at the drop of a hat to say, Hey, I'm going to send over this quote, let me know how things are going.
You have a clear idea of [00:25:00] when you're going to get this stuff back, reasonably how much it's going to cost, those types of things. Business moves quickly and not having your ducks in a row, that's not good business.
Wendy: Okay, so you ran into problems finding a good translation agency to handle it to you, so it was easier to push it off to the distributor, and they handled it.
So you're not even talking quality issues with somebody here. You're just talking purely getting it done.
Elliott Holloway: Correct. And in most of my experience, I have not had any quality issues. There have been a couple of things where a Brazilian Portuguese translation came back at SunTech and a specific distributor in that region is like, hey, technically this is correct.
Is there any way that we can transition that word or that phrase to this, specific to my region just because it's going to hit differently here than it would two or three reasons over, where it is more commonly used.
Wendy: Right, that's a good translation.
You have a review and what's comfortable for the people who are going to be using it.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah. But [00:26:00] once I was able to engage with someone and secure work, the work moved quickly. Very, very minimal: hey, this is incredibly wrong.
Like, I don't know that that ever happened in any of the translations, whether it be at SMC or any of the other places that SunTech did business globally.
Wendy: So, sometimes I'll hear that the distributors actually changed the messaging and you might not know back in the corporate office.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah.
Wendy: Did you run into that or any other problems?
Elliott Holloway: We have run into that and you can look at it from the standpoint of they know what their market demands better than probably I do, but there's also sort of words and phrases and terms that need to not change, and whether they have been identified beforehand as those words that don't need to change or, or phrases as it were.
If you're changing a sentence or two in a brochure, but the meaning is still correct. I'm okay with that, but if there are those specific core messages that people need to really get, yeah, [00:27:00] I would prefer that stuff not to change, How did we find that information out? I mean, over time, you're going to either be talking to people or you're going to find out through the grape vine, or you're just going to be talking to somebody and they'll tell you that, hey, we changed that.
And it's up to you at that point to say we need to change this back or to let that go. But what that speaks to for me really is, and we did not do this initially at SunTech, but having a clear idea of what you want to be conveyed having a clear sense of, you know, blood pressure measurements and be translated this specific way across this region.
The brilliant blood pressure solutions, which was SunTech Medical's tagline for most of the time that I was there, needs to be translated this way. Finding those terms that need to stick, that's vitally important from my standpoint.
Wendy: So if somebody's going over to China now and has a distributor because they're just starting their market, just sending the materials and blindly letting them go for it, you wouldn't do that.
Elliott Holloway: No, I [00:28:00] would not just the and I would not do that with not only the the words, but also the look and feel We talked about designing things in an open way, but from a look and feel perspective, these are the the elements that need to stay. And you can identify those with a partner to say these are going to work here.
These are not going to work here and how do we change the ones that aren't going to work here? And the same thing with terms and phrases - having the opportunity to talk to someone before you translate that stuff and not just, like you said, throw it over the wall blindly at them. You have to have a conversation to do it effectively.
Wendy: Okay. Okay. That's really interesting. So you really did need to have a partner translation agency that you could lead it off with to do the translation, but then you could manage it down the line.
Elliott Holloway: Yes. Yes. That goes back to the partner. I want them to care about the output just as much as I do. That's the [00:29:00] goal for me. And caring about that output means, Oh, I remember Elliot said he did not want this to be translated into this, that it needs to either stay in its native language or it needs to be translated specifically this way.
Having that partner in country or in region. Yeah, that's invaluable, so invaluable.
Wendy: Right, right. What we suggest is have a professional translator do the translation. If it's really important to have an equally qualified editor, then have an in company, in industry, or, you know, distributor review it.
Yep. And then it goes back to the original translator. So then you make sure you get all the grammar correct and the messaging correct. And if there's particulars they want to add in. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But what you set up controlled the quality.
Elliott Holloway: Yes, yes, yes. The process that you just described, I will co-sign that as well.
Wendy: Good to hear that because at first I thought you were just saying it was more dependable to get it from the distributors.
Elliott Holloway: [00:30:00] No, no.
Wendy: You had, you had a lot of checks and balances on that.
Elliott Holloway: I mean, that's how you are an effective salesperson. You have to have relationships with the people that you're selling with. However you can grease that wheel effectively from a sales perspective, I'm going to grease that wheel.
And sometimes to your point where you talked about words changing and things like that, that's where some of those things start to happen. So again, having someone who is providing those checks and balances too is very important.
Wendy: Wait, so I think you just said something that I frequently hear and it's so fascinating to hear again, is what you're saying is the distributor is a salesperson, so as a marketing person, if you've taken the time to create the message, the distributor will take your carefully created marketing message and change it to a sales message, which is usually better price, right?
Elliott Holloway: Yeah, yeah, the better price piece of things. Yes, definitely. From a personal viewpoint, all of everything, every input, every [00:31:00] output, all of it is marketing from my perspective. So that salesperson that's going to talk to a potential customer or a long term customer, like, yes, they are a salesperson, but in truthfully, they are a marketer for this organization, for this brand, for this product.
So that sort of divide, that sales marketing divide, yes, it's there, hopefully, if done well, and everybody is on the same page, those things won't happen, but they do frequently.
Wendy: You know what? I started my career in sales and then I got formal marketing training and there's a difference in your goal, you know?
And so there's a difference in terminology and we need both. It's not just wanting either one. I respect both. When you can get it to work together, that's when the magic happens. Here you are and you're launching the China market. How long until you started working on that and doing translations until you actually went over to China?
Elliott Holloway: Oh, just to clarify, there were a whole bunch of people [00:32:00] involved in that process, not just myself. I think I made the trip to the China Medical equipment Fair, I believe in 2010. I believe that that trade show was in February or April of that year.
We were probably a year to two years in really sort of figuring out how SMC was going to work. I was there for about a week, in mostly Hong Kong, so I spent a couple of days at SMC and, just to have the opportunity to be face to face with people that I had been talking with through email, through phone, for a while was great.
It was great. And to see their appreciation for the things that we are doing, but to then be able to give appreciation to them for the things that they're doing in market, it was a great experience. It was a great experience.
Wendy: Okay. So I'm sure it's always great when people go over.
And it's always challenging. Yes. Because the cultures are so different. Talk to me about some of [00:33:00] the challenges you had.
Elliott Holloway: Let's see. I cannot for the life of me, I cannot remember what market we were in, but there was a point, one of the first or second nights we were there.
And, I don't know that I have ever been. There had been that many people that were around me and like, you know, I've been to football stadiums, all that kind of stuff. There were seemingly people for days around me just in sort of this open market and it was a little bit overwhelming honestly, to see that many people in just this one space.
And, you know, I am in China. I am not Chinese. I am a black man from North Carolina in the United States. So, I am used to in the circles that I travel in being 70/30, you know, 30 everybody else, 70 white. That sort of makeup. So, lots and lots of people that was overwhelming, but one of the things that was
Wendy: one of you were the only black person among all Chinese.
Elliott Holloway: Yes, right. One of the [00:34:00] things that was good for my colleagues who were white to experience that as well and to be able to see a little bit of what I experience when I'm back in the States. Them having the opportunity to experience that, I thought was eye-opening for them.
Yeah, that was eye-opening for them. There were moments of laughter for me in terms of, yes. I kind of know how that feels a little bit.
Wendy: Well, that's fantastic. So, you have more of an experience of being a minority in a majority crowd, but here are the whites had never experienced that.
So, what were their biggest surprises?
Elliott Holloway: It's just a general level of not unease, but just, Oh, I am so used to being majority. So there is a level of unconscious comfort that is in that, you know what I mean?
So when that sort of stripped away, there is a, Oh, I am more cognizant of what I look like and how I am moving in this space, that for me is just kind of sort of every day. But yeah, so those were some of the experiences I think they felt. In addition to that, if I'm at a [00:35:00] trade show, not too many people are at trade shows right now, but, if at all, but if I'm at a trade show, my preference is to be at the front of the booth.
I want to engage with the people that are walking by, Just to talk to people, excuse me. So I'm doing that and I'm in the booth and it's probably 9:05, the show had been open five minutes and a mother and a son, maybe five years old, we're walking by nobody else near our booth and the kid is walking by and I see him stop and look at me and wide-eyed, completely wide-eyed, and he points. Like, it happened in slow motion, and his mom realizes that he stopped, looks down at him, and then looks up at me, and just shuffles him outta there as quickly as she can. , it's just like, come on, we've got to go, we've got to go. You don't need to be pointing at people.
That's a funny little thing. I'm sure any one of my kids at five years old probably would've had the same reaction, but yeah.
Wendy: With somebody who looks so different while you're over there.
Elliott Holloway: Exactly, exactly.
Wendy: Yeah, and did it feel scary or did you feel like you were more of a [00:36:00] novelty?
Elliott Holloway: Probably the latter. Definitely the latter. And I like traveling internationally because there is a level of comfort, you know, state to state there are differences, but I know how to operate in the US and I am less conscious of how I am moving through spaces.
And when I travel internationally, I have to be much more specific about how I move and how my body feels. I don't know if I'm describing that well, but I feel myself in that space and it's a conscious decision, I think to experience what is going on around me because I am in another place that I may not be back in for five years or ten years or ever.
So how do I need to move around in that space to enjoy myself, to have fun, to engage, and to learn?
Wendy: And so what recommendations would you give to people about how to enjoy that? They're going to be very aware that they're different when they're there. They want to engage and learn like you've had the benefit and enjoyment to do. What advice would you give?
Elliott Holloway: If you have the [00:37:00] opportunity to experience something, obviously if it's safe and things like that, you're not jumping off anything, but if you have the opportunity to go to a restaurant, you have an opportunity to experience something new that's specific to that culture, say yes to that, go, like engage with something you may not have the opportunity to engage with ever again.
Those are things that are going to widen your experiences and things that you can bring back here to wherever you are. And anything that you engage in, I can walk out my front door and have something happen to me that can change the course of my life.
So you don't know when you're saying yes to one of those things that it could be something that I want to do this all the time now. So saying yes and experiences like that, I think makes sense. My wife, prior to us meeting, she taught English to kindergartners in South Korea for a year.
Yeah. So she came back, and we met and she did not go back [00:38:00] thankfully. Lots of our conversations, you know, those first few months were about experiences that she had there and again, like saying yes to those things that we will likely go back there at some point, but that was 20 - 15 years ago.
So things are going to be different. Those are singular experiences that she had there that she probably right now won't have the opportunity to replicate.
Wendy: A lot of people are afraid of doing like the ugly American thing or offending people or mannerisms. Did you ever feel like you were offending anybody?
Elliott Holloway: No, um, have the opportunity to look at another person and look at them as a person. Look at them as a human. You know, I don't know all of your language or any of your language. How can we communicate? How can we engage in such a way that there is a mutual level of respect between us?
And really leaning on the fact that I don't know your language and I am going [00:39:00] to give you more respect and honor you more in that you are helping me. So, it's not really an even playing field to a degree.
I'm going to honor you more than I'm going to honor what I'm looking to do just because you're there to help me. Part of that ugly American stereotype is, you know, I'm coming over to the country and I know how things are running. No, not really. This is a completely different country, a different culture.
And you have things that you can learn from anybody and everybody that you run across. So, coming into situations like that with a learning mindset, I think will quickly destroy that ugly American stereotype.
Wendy: I love that. I love that. Keeping a learning mindset is what will keep you successful in doing international business.
Yep. Good. Well, we can't top that, so now we're going to get into some personal questions here.
Elliott Holloway: Sure.
Wendy: What's been your favorite vacation?
Elliott Holloway: My wife and I, [00:40:00] we go to Williamsburg, Virginia every five years. It's just a thing that as we were dating, and you know, sort of starting to plan for a wedding, she was a first or second year teacher.
I was in graduate school. It wasn't a lot of money running around in places. So we're somewhere close, and something that we can enjoy together and Williamsburg was it. There's a historic site there, but in that city, there's also an amusement park that we enjoyed as kids.
So every five years, this summer would have been our time to go. Obviously we did not go, every five years we go. So, and it has been amazing to track the progress of photos from just us to one kid, to two kids, to three kids. And yeah, I love that trip with my family.
Wendy: Oh, that's fantastic. And, you know, when you say Williamsburg, I get the connotative and the denotative meanings of that word too. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What was your most rewarding cross-cultural experience at [00:41:00] work?
Elliott Holloway: So, at SunTech, one of the things that we did was every year we would go to a Medical Equipment Fair, a trade show in Dusseldorf in Germany. And when I joined the company, the booth was incredibly small. It was five by five, five by ten for lack of better phrasing.
When I left SunTech ten years later, it was the size of a house, a small house. It was a double-decker and it was a wide open footprint. It was beautiful. The team that I had built there at SunTech helped create the look and the feel. So, we had just relaunched the brand and this was just the explosion of it in its physical form and it was magnificent.
But from a international perspective, we worked with the same booth builder from the time it was that big all the way back to when it was that small and growing with them and growing with the same account rep for all of those 10 years. And them [00:42:00] seeing us grow and us seeing them grow in an age over time and meet them every year at the show, I loved it.
I loved it.
Wendy: Oh, that's great. That is really rewarding because you're showing that cross cultural over the years again and again.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah.
Wendy: Favorite place to do business?
Elliott Holloway: I do love Hong Kong. I do. There is sort of that mix of it, it does feel like home a little bit, but there is that level if I open my eyes and begin to look at things, not from sort of that Americanized view of things, I'm going to begin to see things that I want to dig into and dive into. And I want to go here. I want to go here because that is not something that I would see in New York ,or LA, or in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I currently am.
So yeah, Hong Kong.
Wendy: You know what? You're really killing me right now, because you're getting all my travel bugs going mad.
I don't know if you heard, there's even [00:43:00] now airplanes that are taking flights that go up, go someplace, and then they come back to the same place just because people want to get on a plane and go.
Elliott Holloway: I love, I love. There's always that sort of trepidation of, you know, before the bell rings, you know, like the ding and, you know, that piece, but when I'm in the air, when I'm flying, when I'm looking out, whether it's over open ocean or whether it's over the ground, there is, there is quite, there's not a lot like flying. I love it. I love it.
Wendy: Mine is after you've landed and you walk into an airport on a country that you're not familiar with and the smells and the sounds and the people and the clothes like if I could just take that all in that's one of my favorite favorite times.
Elliott Holloway: I do enjoy that and there are some colleagues or folks that I've known in the past there, some of that I might not as enjoy it nearly as much, but I do it just enough for that magic to not go away.
Wendy: Yes. Yes. [00:44:00] All right. So we're coming to the end of our time. Do you have any final recommendations for marketers that might be looking at expanding internationally?
Elliott Holloway: I talked a little bit about it earlier, but it comes back to four things. And that is prepping, you know, moving things internationally is far off, you need to go ahead and start trying to at least begin those conversations, starting to identify people that you can talk to to help you with that process, even if those things don't come to fruition.
That's just expanding your network. In addition to that, finding a partner, not just a vendor, but a partner, someone who cares about that work just as much as you do. Allow for timing and allow for hiccups that people have. I may need it on Friday they may not be able to get it to me on Monday that's not a deal breaker and if I'm structuring my deadlines appropriately Monday will be more than enough time to get that to me it doesn't have to be Friday and lastly really working with [00:45:00] whether it's distributors, whether it's in-country translators to help create experience for people in those regions, in those countries that make them feel as at home with that content as you feel with that content.
Wendy: That's fantastic advice. I really appreciate that.
Elliott Holloway: Thank you.
Wendy: And if people want to find you, reach out to you, where can they find you?
Elliott Holloway: I am on LinkedIn. You can just search for R. Elliot Holloway III and you'll see my big bright smile and bald head.
Wendy: You do have a bright smile.
Elliott Holloway: I appreciate it.
Wendy: Yeah. For you listeners, we're doing the recording on a webinar. And so I've been able to see him and I figured his teeth were so pearly white because of Invisalign.
Elliott Holloway: Yeah, no, I mean, my oldest he has his Invisalign appointment next week.
So I'm very interested to see him come back from that.
Wendy: All right. Well, thank you so much, Elliot. I really appreciate it. This has been a [00:46:00] great conversation.
Elliott Holloway: Thank you very much for the opportunity. I really appreciate what you're doing here. Because business is not, it's not just next door.
It's not just down the road or in your state. If you're doing it well, it can be global. It can be big if you're doing it well, and from a marketing perspective, if you're doing those things that we talked about just a couple of minutes ago, it's going to be a great experience for you.
Wendy: Thank you.
Elliott Holloway: You're welcome.
Wendy: Listeners, thank you so much for listening, and I hope you learned something today or had at least a chuckle if you did tell somebody about this podcast, and you can find it on all your favorite places to listen. We'll see you next time. [00:47:00]

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