Kael Campbell, President of Red Seal Recruiting Solutions, is all about family, kids, business, enjoying life and water! In this episode the theme of water permeates our discussion of language, travel, his recruiting company, and translation.
As the sponsor of the podcast, Rapport International, provided an appropriate tidbit to launch the episode. Did you know that both Finland and Sweden have a word to describe that beautiful long reflection of the moon’s light on a lake?!
In Finnish, the word is “kuunsilta” (Google Translate defines it as “moon bridge” even though we don’t have a meaning for that in English) and in Swedish, the word is “mångata” (which Google Translate inaccurately defines as “many”).
As an avid fisherman (see his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@fmb-fishingmeansbusiness), free diver, and lover of all things water, that was an appropriate tibdit to launch Kael’s episode. Even though we didn’t discuss where his company got the name Red Seal – I would guess that it has something to do with water. Red Seal Recruiting specializes in recruiting for manufacturing, mining, and construction industries for management, engineering, trades and technical roles. With a shortage in hiring around the world for these positions, he leverages his cultural and language knowledge to help people who may not speak the local language fluently, or at all, to find professional jobs to leverage their experience. He has intentionally hired a diverse team that speaks 7 languages to help recruit expats, immigrants, and even second generation immigrants who might be more comfortable speaking in their home language.
He notes that currently, Toyota in Toronto is recruiting and interviewing in five languages to attract good employees. If employers can understand a person who speaks with a heavy accent or build systems to accommodate non-English speakers, they have a huge advantage in recruiting qualified and experienced employees, particularly in the fields his company focuses on.
Currently, with the influx of refugees from the Ukraine, he is helping highly trained people find new jobs in Canada and the US. He talks of a Ukrainian woman with limited English skills who was the lead materials engineer for the largest Ukrainian construction company. As he tried to figure out her experience, she showed him pictures of the work she did and they used Google Translate to navigate the discussion. She has tremendous experience and technical abilities to share with local engineers. He is confident that he will find her a good job.
As for employers, we spoke about their interest in hiring non-English speakers and their tolerance for language issues. He asks at the beginning of each engagement about their willingness to hire people trained outside of Canada or the US since many are underemployed or underpaid. He said that 95% of the employers are open to diversity and many company leaders may have come from another country or travel extensively. And, many executives started with international assignments so they have connections and appreciation for people’s skills from around the world.
Plus, companies in his target industries struggle to find good people, so they are open to new sources of good employees.
If he notices any hesitation or discriminatory practices in the discussion about working together, he does not work with the company as he knows they won’t be a good fit.
Of course, in a discussion about no or limited English skills, the topic of translation arose.
He said that after 18 years in business, they should have a fully translated website that is optimized for search engines. Yet when I asked why he hasn’t. He had a simple answer, “Squirrel.” It’s a common characteristic of entrepreneurs – “squirrel brain” means that you have lots of things to do and you get distracted as you focus on the many areas. He is excited about the new recruitement manager he hired from Latin America that speaks Spanish and his leaderships teams adoption of EOS. EOS is short for Entrepreneurial Operating System which builds a process into your business to make it run smoother.
He and his team meet quarterly to set the upcoming goals. If the team decides this is a priority, he knows that he could get his website translated and optimized in a quarter. (We first connected because his marketing manager reached out to Rapport International to discuss translating their website.)
We dove deeper into the strategy for his website translation. Even though it seems logical to translate content for the job seekers journey through the website, he explained that with all the bilingual managers looking to hire, it also makes sense to translate content for the employers.
We talked about options:
- Translating the whole website, which can be expensive.
- Developing a microsite with 5-10 pages of key content.
- Having a landing page that is search engine optimized.
He recognizes that even if he does a landing page in 5-10 languages and spends $300-500 per language, it would be of great value to the company.
As Kael reflects upon translation, he mentions that even MrBeast translates his videos into Spanish! (MrBeast is a YouTube sensation that does random videos that get lots of followers.)
He also talks about how important good translation is – one word can drastically change the meaning. For example, in English a cabinet maker makes cabinets whereas in Russia a furniture maker makes cabinets. With the help of pictures, he helped a Russian furniture maker look for cabinet maker jobs!
Getting people the jobs is the first step, I asked about his clients and how they fare after building a multicultural team – what do they do to be inclusive. That may be a future episode on the Global Marketing Show podcast.
His final recommendations –
- Keep the dialog going with non-English speakers to find hidden talent.
- Go beyond the resumes of your current employees to find experiences they may not have shared about their international experience to help with engaging your teams.
- Share your vision as a leader of building diverse teams.
His favorite foreign word – “Nuance”, the name of his Toastmaster Chapter. Nuance means the same thing in three languages – English, French, and maybe Spanish. (I looked it up on Google after the episode and learned that nuance is a word in many languages such as Albanian, Danish, Dutch, German, Irish, Portuguese and maybe more.)
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/@fmb-fishingmeansbusiness
Connect with Wendy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/
Connect with Kael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaelcampbell/
Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
ATTENTION: Below is a machine generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, at Rapport International, we talk a lot about how machine translation is not good quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own your language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest.
[00:00:34] Wendy: Welcome to the Global Marketing Show! Of course, by now if you've listened to it, you know that the podcast is brought to you by Rapport International, who connect you to anyone anywhere in the world by translating your words into 200 different languages. A hundred percent satisfaction guarantee on all their work.
[00:00:57] And we have a tidbit from Rapport International. It's a moon bridge, would you like to know about what that is? Well, in Finland and Sweden they see a lot of the moon in the winter and the finished language has a word for the beautiful long reflection of the moon's light on a lake, it's " kuunsilta." That's not one of my languages, so I'm not sure if I got the pronunciation right, but it's "kuunsilta." And in Swedish, the word is "mångata." So if you actually know how to speak these languages, record it on the Facebook group and let me know if I got it right or how far off I was. But thanks for Rapport International for that tidbit.
[00:01:42] And the reason we were talking about water is because today's guest, Kael Campbell, is all about family, water, kids, business, and enjoying life. He's traveled extensively and recruited skilled people from around the globe, and he understands the importance of language in both his personal and business life. So Kael welcomed so much to the podcast!
[00:02:11] Kael: Thank you, Wendy. And yeah, that's a, that's a great word to learn. Because I've, I've spent lots of time up in the north on lakes and I was just looking at a website in Sweden and they automatically translated it for me to English.
[00:02:25] I'm, I'm looking at buying a company in the fishing fishing reel. Fishing lure business. You know, I might not buy it, but I might buy a fishing reel from this Swedish company because they automatically translated it into English for me. And, you know, I had a great experience on their website and I would love to go look, watch the moon go down and, or go up and stay up in Sweden and, you know, in, in Scandinavia and, and learn, learn what that means in lots of other languages, as as well.
[00:02:54] It's a great express.
[00:02:56] Wendy: Yeah, that's, I, I, I love words from a lot around the world. I mean, there's no direct translation for so many words. And so when you capture some of those it's like, oh, yeah, now I don't have to describe it. I could just use this one word. So tell me about this website you went to it.
[00:03:13] And it, it picked up your IP address in Canada and knew you spoke
[00:03:18] Kael: English. It it must have, because I, I was actually looking for a US company that was started in Seattle called Danielson, and that had been, Purchased by a company called Calcutta. But my, you know, my, my typing and, and my, my spelling is not the best.
[00:03:35] So instead, the first one that came up was this Swedish Danielson, which is in an indirect competitor to Calcutta, but really direct to consumer website and amazing fishing reels and long history. It resonated with me. Like I, I am their target customer. I don't do that type of fishing, but I'm interested in it.
[00:03:56] And yeah, at a great time, just browsing their website. And the only reason I knew I was at international website is they had, I think it was Krons was the, the currency that came up. Mm-hmm. . So they, they didn't, they didn't automatically change the currency. But that's easy enough for me to do. The rest of it resonated with, Right.
[00:04:17] And yeah, it was, it was a good experience for somebody who's, you know looking for something and stumbles on a new, a new company with, with a website that's been translated quite, quite well.
[00:04:30] Wendy: Yeah, so I think that's, that's interesting. So it automatically came up in English cuz it could pick your location, but it probably was not automated, like machine translation because you said it resonated with you.
[00:04:44] So it really captured. The, the, the meanings and the words, but enough about those companies. I wanna talk about you. So you're into water first, since I gave that whole big introduction about water. What, what is it about water that draws you, or what do you do with water?
[00:05:01] Kael: Yeah, so I grew up on an island in Vancouver Island, one of the biggest islands in the world off the West coast.
[00:05:07] And. I started off you know, working for my dad in geology and, and having amazing kind of exposure to that industry in mining. But one of my first real jobs working with somebody else was on a commercial fishing boat. And I did that off and on paying my way through university. And, and had great experiences fishing all the way up to Alaska and down to the border between BC and Washington State.
[00:05:33] And I've really returned to that kind of in the last seven years. And I don't care if I'm under the water on top of the water. Near the water. I, I just really enjoy myself. We have some marine clients as well. I just, I just decided not to bid on a very large request for proposal for a company building coast Guard cutters and things like that.
[00:05:52] But I, I'm able to talk. Boats, marine shipping with, with any customers that come up. And yeah, I just, I, I enjoy anything that has to do with water. I volunteered for the search and rescue water side and yeah, I, I, I love it. And, you know, I'll, I'll go on vacation if, if we get a chance. Go down the coast, go down to Mexico, go down to California, Washington state.
[00:06:18] I, I've got a friend in in Boston. I'd love to get on the East Coast on the water and stuff. He's got, he's a big boater, so any, any chance I get, I will say yes to go into
[00:06:27] Wendy: water. I'm good. Well come visit me. I have a pool in my backyard, so we got a little taste of water and not far from the beach.
[00:06:34] Yeah. You know, my my. Son, I'll tangent off on here and then we'll get back to your, your company. But he took to water immediately and he could go off the diving board and swim to the side by himself with no flotation devices at a year and a half .
[00:06:52] Kael: That is amazing. Like that. Crazy. My, my kids wanna do that, but I don't, I don't know how to, You, my daughter, she's, she's a two and a half.
[00:07:02] My son is getting there and he's five. But yeah, it's amazing. Like we are natural in, in water and yeah, I mean there's, there's kids who fri free dive at one and two. Wow. You know, they just, you know, know how to hold their breath. It's natural to them. Yeah. You know, but also kid, kids do drown.
[00:07:19] So I, I, I, I have this du duality where it's, it's. Yeah, I, I want kids to be super safe around water and I want them to be exposed to water. Yeah.
[00:07:30] Wendy: I taught, I taught swimming, so I was able to you know, to assist when I saw he had the capabilities. Plus it wasn't my teaching, it was his determination to keep up with his older brother at that age.
[00:07:41] But anyway, back to you. So you've done all this traveling, you've been all over, you understand the importance of language and you start a company. Tell us a little bit about your
[00:07:51] Kael: company. Yeah, so I've, I've got a, a head hunting firm. It's called Red Seal Recruiting and manufacturing and construction clients are, are our biggest sectors.
[00:08:01] We do service mining, utilities, municipalities and really those people who work outside. So either, you know, applied engineers foreman managers. Sometime up to GMs for, for companies that do deliver services that are not in high tech, they're not in accounting. You know, they, they move either move earth or they manufacture things.
[00:08:22] So it's the people who use their hands in their head. And there's, there's not enough anywhere in the world, right? You know, our demands for combating climate change. So alternative energy getting more efficient in production. The, the people who actually can do that stuff, there's not enough.
[00:08:36] You know, there's, there's often a shortage of high tech people but people who are. Kind of those applied skilled people the people who can translate, you know, how are we gonna build this bridge? You know, both, both from an engineering side but also a practical side are few and far between.
[00:08:51] And yeah, we're, we're fortunate to be Based in Canada we've got us employees we, we do business with US and Canadian clients and, and really want to grow that to include other free trade countries such as, such as Mexico, cuz we, we've got a new recruitment manager who comes from Deloitte and South America and, you know, really you, you can't just.
[00:09:16] Know, invent new technologies and change the world. If you're thinking, oh, you know, I'll just recruit locally and you know, I'll have the best company. You know, apple doesn't do that. Tesla doesn't do that. They think, okay, can I find the best people in the world to, to build, build our companies? And I, I really think most, most companies need to do that.
[00:09:33] Because there's, there's not a company I've talked to in the last kinda four years who. I've got enough people, I can hire them all locally. We're good at that. You know, we can target people locally. But even part of that is Canada, United States are just melting pots of cultures and languages. So, you know, if you're in the United States and you're doing recruitment, you need to have some Spanish skills, I think.
[00:09:56] Wendy: Right. So probably at this point listeners are saying, okay, I don't get it. You're, you're a recruitment firm. You, you, you know, you've got a specialty, which is manufacturing and construction, which is different than most other head hunting firms. You talked about translating, you know, Engineering into actual bridges, but there's a twist too that you have that pulls in languages and cultures, and this is why, I mean, your company originally reached out to us for some translation, and I thought it was a brilliant business model.
[00:10:30] Can you talk about those languages and cultures and what you do in that area?
[00:10:35] Kael: Yes. So fortunately we, we, we do have a great diverse team internally who, who speak at least six, seven languages and. We've had really good success recruiting I, I would say expats or recent immigrants domestically but also internationally as well.
[00:10:52] We, we've had some great success taking people from United States to come to Canada and also recruiting people from other countries to come as well, and, and really having people who speak the language makes a really big differe. Right. So we have people who speak tag log for, for a lot of people from the Philippines.
[00:11:11] There are many languages in the Philippines, but that's one of the, that's the national language. You know, we, we've, we've got people who speak Spanish and one, one thing we need to do is recognize those internal team players and promote their, their language skills but also use that as an attraction tool.
[00:11:29] Mm-hmm. , I, I saw Toyota is doing, doing interviews in five languages for a local. In Ontario. You know, and, and like, I, I, I was just flabbergasted because, you know, it's usually, oh, send us your resume in English and we require English. And, and I'm like like, it, it frustrates me cuz I'll find amazing people and they'll have two thick an accent for a client.
[00:11:54] And I'm like, you know, this isn't a person who's answering the phone at your company. Right. And everybody. Everybody has, has spoken to people with an accent. So nothing frustrates me more than a, a, a company that decides not to hire somebody because they don't communicate the same way as them.
[00:12:11] Right. So definitely we, we push clients. We'll ask clients off the bat and we, we won't take on a client who has that kind of view that you need to speak. Perfect. In their mind English and not have an accent. You know, we're gonna make sure that our clients are open to everybody. And then we also are really trying to promote for candidates and also owners of companies.
[00:12:31] There's a fellow who came and he's doing an mba, and he, he's ran, you know, probably 10 million companies in Peru and he's looking for a, a director or a GM role here, and I'm like, I'd love to talk to you. I don't know if I'll be able to place you with one of my clients, but I'll help you in your job search and, you know, down the road, I hope you come back to us and we will have stuff on our website that resonates with you.
[00:12:58] Yes, we've got some automatic translation but I, you know, I'd love to have, you know, some dedicated pages that really resonate with that, that audience that are not transla. By a machine because you always lose something. So, so, you know, really well translated and you know, it, it'll make, I think that person feel comfortable in reaching out to us, knowing that, you know, we recognize where they're coming from but also we recognize people who might come in the future as well.
[00:13:27] And, you know, it might be. Somebody who's second generation, but they speak another language in their home. Like, like at my home, we, we speak Korean at my home. I don't speak any Korean. I understand a lot of it. But my son speaks Korean almost as well as he speaks English. And if, if he goes to a website and he sees, oh, they have Korean, like it res, it'll resonate with him amazingly.
[00:13:50] Wendy: Right, so, so you're not only looking for employees for your clients that might, you're looking for good employees, but telling your clients, even if they have a heavy accent, this is a good person, but it's not only the heavy accent, you're, you're looking to place people that in Canada or the US that might not speak English.
[00:14:17] Kael: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, I think anybody can learn a language and, and this day and age you know, we, we just help some people from the Ukraine and, you know, I, I talked to this woman and I didn't quite understand what she did or what her husband did, but between Google Translate and, and photos, I figured out she's a materials engineer for the largest construction firm in residential construction firm in.
[00:14:45] So building tens of thousands of units and the sentiment due to the war in Russia towards Ukrainians is not great. So she wanted to get out and, and between, you know, just, just having a rudimentary understanding of English and using Google Translate, she was able to interview well with a customer.
[00:15:07] And you know, I never wish ill of anybody. I was happy to take that person out of Moscow. Bring them to Canada where we're desperate for enough for housing like most regions in North America. And she can bring that expertise that she learned in the Ukraine and Russia and, and, and share that expertise with lo local engineers, help help them build residential units much faster.
[00:15:33] And you. I, I think the company is much better off. And if I just said, oh, you know, I don't really understand, but we took the time and, you know, I now have a really good understanding of what she did. And her husband did, and her husband works for a friend's company and entrepreneur, organization members company as well, right?
[00:15:52] So two, two great people helping grow the economy versus two people who were in a situation they didn't want to be in. And, and that's, Due to some of the changes we've had just in the last 10 years with technology, but also recognizing that, hey, you gotta take the time when somebody doesn't speak the same language as you, because between the two of you, you might be able to communicate really well, but don't just assume because you don't understand their resume or understand a message that you, you can't, I, I think, move the needle in business.
[00:16:23] Wendy: Right? So what languages do you
[00:16:27] Kael: work? I don't care what language people speak at this stage. You know it, the, definitely there are obstacles and, and some clients will will say, you know, their, their English level isn't, isn't at the right stage. But one of the questions we always ask any, any company is you have people who are hired in your company who were trained outside the US?
[00:16:50] And that, that gives me an idea because I'm really interested in diversity in hiring, but it also gives me an idea whether or not they are looking at that sort of thing. And they say, no, you know, we, we've only hired local people. I say, oh, are you interested? Because recent immigrants are usually.
[00:17:08] Underemployed, either, either maybe undercompensated or don't have full-time employment or aren't in the right field. So they're a really good target community to, to really headhunt to give them better opportunities. There's been so many times when we've helped somebody, you know, find the first job in their field after, you know, maybe four years of, of struggling to find that job and.
[00:17:31] Yeah, definitely making sure that employers are open to people who've been trained outside of their, their area. You know, not, not asking people to cut corners, you know, maybe hire a doctor who isn't certified, but you know, really are they interested in, in looking at candidates who are, are not what they might identify as the ideal fit because they didn't graduate from the right university or go to, you know, go to the right school or have that perfect.
[00:17:57] Wendy: Right, right. What percent of the clients that you're talking to do you think are open to it now? And you're located in can, what part of
[00:18:06] Kael: Canada? We're on the West Coast, so I'm in Victoria, British Columbia. So just, just kind of a stone's throw from Vancouver. I, I think, I think well over 95%. You know, I have had difficult experiences.
[00:18:19] We did have a, a company that. You know, was, was truly discriminating on, on their face of it that we had to terminate an agreement with. But most, you know, are open and if you see some hesitation in, in. Your sales process, we always like to dig a little bit deeper, right? And if we see that there's not a values fit you know, of, of, of, you know, diversity, we won't do business without company.
[00:18:45] You know, it's, it's not one of our written values that, you know, we, we pride in diversity. Diversity. It's. It's something ingrained. Everybody knows it, right? When you see you see our team, when we talk to each other, we're interested. We're interested in other holidays and stuff. So but most, most companies either have a good understanding of diversity hiring.
[00:19:07] Or they're interested in it. And, and especially in, in an age where you can't find enough people anybody who, who's, who's like, no, I, I just want somebody who, who looks and sounds like me. That that business is not gonna succeed in this day and age. No,
[00:19:20] Wendy: no. All the statistics show, I mean, if you've got a diverse, you know, like the, the 20 to 50% more productive and profitable from all the research that I've read,
[00:19:31] Kael: That's, I'd love to be, be 20, 20 to 40% more profitable.
[00:19:37] That's a good goal for any company. Yeah.
[00:19:41] Wendy: See, look at how well you're doing because of the diversity that you have. I mean, I have, I have not run into any other recruitment firm that focuses on hiring people with language skills in the industries that you're in. It makes a lot of sense. So I, I was just thrilled to see, you know, the, the area that you've carved
[00:19:59] Kael: off.
[00:20:00] Yeah. And, and that's, that's because, you know, both the United States and Canada, we export globally our, our talent as well, so, Some, my former coworkers used to start up pulp and paper plants in Asia. Mm-hmm. . And, and they came back later in their careers as senior managers domestically. And, and I was like, you know, I, I don't think we're ever gonna find enough really good people for excuse me, for this project.
[00:20:27] And they, they said, oh, well, you know, I, I worked with these great people internationally, right? And I'm like, well, why don't we. You know, and, and also once we bring them, why don't we find if there's more people like them already here, underemployed. And, and, and we see that we made a placement last week for a mining client and he was an electrical engineer in the Philippines.
[00:20:50] Mm-hmm. . And here he's an electrician. You know, definitely you know, going to be a leader with that depth of understanding. And, you know, we, we placed him last week and, you know, we, we have traditionally undermarket. To the Filipino community domestically. But you know, it's a huge. Huge immigrant population.
[00:21:08] So if you're looking at, within United States and Canada, you've, you've got people from Latin America, Mexico, China India Philippines. You, you really have to think, oh, you know, is there another 10 million people within our country or 3 million or 1 million people that I could tap into? Yeah. And it might, might be as easy as translating a page and then finding.
[00:21:29] Who within your organization might have that cultural background or expertise or interest. Right. And somebody might say, oh, you know, I traveled there. I, you know, I know a little bit. I know the local community here. Great, well, let's reach out to them. Let's start doing some outreach to that community.
[00:21:45] And, and I think that, you know, really, really makes sense. So who do you have internally that is interested and has experience? And then how can we market to them? And, you know, just adding a page to your, your website. We've been businessed 18 years. 18 years ago. We should have got started on, you know, doing a really good translation for those target communities.
[00:22:07] But at least we're working on it now and we've had automated translation throughout our history. But if you don't invest in it, you're never gonna see the dividends.
[00:22:16] Wendy: So talk to me about the translation you, you know, I'm really interested in how you think about this as a business owner with experience that that values it so much.
[00:22:27] You say you should have translated 18 years ago and you're using automated translation, but you know the value of good translation. So where's, where's that stop gap in there as to why you haven't procured the quality translation and really made a focus on it? Squirrel, ,
[00:22:47] Kael: squirrel brain. Yeah. So as an entrepreneur and, and as an entrepreneur, there's so much going on, right.
[00:22:54] And you know, we're looking at costs of things, but, but also we need to see that roi. But also you need to listen to your team. Right? And I'm, I'm fortunate now that I do have we have a recruitment manager who. Comes from Latin America as, so we've got that. And then we also have team members who are mentioning, you know, I'd like to reach out to my community.
[00:23:16] I'm like, great. So let's, let's not only just reach out to the community, let's have a dedicated page that works with sel. Mr. Beast, the biggest YouTuber in the. Has fully translated videos. I think for Spanish, he has the same person who does spiderman's translation for the Marvel movies. So they're like, oh, why does Mr.
[00:23:38] B sound like Spiderman? Well, it's it's because he's translating the whole thing, right? So you know, it, it's really takes listening to my team who is diverse and, and, and. Getting them to, to take the initiative. Right. Because even though I say, oh, that's a good idea, it's really the team that's really gonna execute on things.
[00:23:56] You know, like I, I, I try not to be involved in the day to day decision making. We use eos mm-hmm. , and it can be one of our quarterly goals, like is one of our quarterly goals to get. To translate and, and get something up in 10 languages. Who owns that? And really that decision making power is distributed.
[00:24:13] Decision making powers is important, but having somebody who's accountable, and that's easily something we can do in 90 days. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't have to be, you know, one of your daily activities that, but it, it definitely should be you know, a possible priority in your quarterly planning or your annual.
[00:24:32] Wendy: Right, right. Yes. Cuz I think it was you know, you have a marketing person that reached out and she hadn't done translation before, which is we get so many calls like that and it was, let's, we wanna do the whole website and you've got a very extensive website and you're attracting employers and employees.
[00:24:53] And so I didn't see any value or potential ROI for translating the material geared at the employers because the people that are hiring are probably English speaking, if you're talking Canada and the us, which you, we were, you know, on that
[00:25:09] Kael: call. Yeah. But even, you know, there, there are so many leaders of, of amazing companies who you know, English is the second language to them.
[00:25:20] Right. Within Canada and the us Right. So just having one SEO friendly translated page and you know, they might be, you know, they might be vi visiting a subsidiary in another country. And, you know, I, I was in Quebec and my, my Google. My YouTube is still marketing to me in French. I don't know why but I'm sure if I search in in Google, I'll get some French YouTube videos that come up, right?
[00:25:49] So if, if somebody's down in Mexico and they, they have a manager resign and they, they search down there and they're like, oh, I'm looking for a, you know, a, a GM manufacturing recruiter in, in Seattle. We actually have a page that's in Spanish that'll resonate with that gm if they're down in, in, in Mexico and even a, even a Canadian or a US person down, down in Seattle, they might be, you know, they're on the wifi, it's showing up as in Mexico.
[00:26:18] They might get that translated page and be like, oh. And if they speak their English as a second language gm, they're like, oh, great. Oh, they've got a page in in Spanish for me. Oh. And then they've got everything in English. Great. And then all of a sudden we're differentiating from all these other firms.
[00:26:35] Right. So I definitely think having at least one seo friendly page is a, is a, is a great investment in, you know, at least five to 10 languages that you know, are, are very prevalent within North.
[00:26:47] Wendy: Okay. Okay. That's interesting that you say that cuz that's so, it it, it wasn't, cuz when I was having the conversation with her, it was, well these are the people that we wanna attract and that we're placing and so I couldn't see the need for that.
[00:27:02] But you're right. Doing a landing page with the employers no matter where they are, and, and pulling those people in that are going to be open to hiring others no matter what their language is or building that, that, that community Yeah.
[00:27:19] Kael: Language. Yeah. Yeah, because it's, it's amazing. Like, you know, we. We think, you know, we're doing a little bit of work on their, our holiday, but if you're in Quebec, if you're in Mexico you know, if you've decide to go to you know, China on your vacation you know, the, the search might be slightly different.
[00:27:34] And, you know, I have a good friend who's got a great manufacturing company. They're, they're a client. They build high speed. Seats to protect Coast Guard and, and military people at high speed. And English is his second language for him. So if, if he's searching for you know, a manufacturing recruiter while he's in, in China but he's searching for back here because he is lost one of his managers or his engineer, you know, and we've got a page that comes.
[00:28:00] It'll serve that page in in Mandarin or Cantonese first, and he'll be like, oh, great. All Red Seal. Yeah, I know them. Right. So it's just one of the things that. I need to think who, who can my target customer be? And they're not all, you know, a white HR woman who's 30 to 40. Right? Right. Definitely we, we think of our target personas, but you're really limiting yourself if, if you think, you know, my target persona is one person because, you know, they are, you know, we have diverse client base and, and we need to think about, you know, making that extra investment to to market.
[00:28:36] Wendy: Okay, that makes a lot more sense to me. So then, yes, if you were to boil it down, like you wouldn't have to do your whole website, but it's more than a landing page because you're targeting the employers and the employees. So you're really thinking about doing a micro site. So you've got the About us, something for employers and something for
[00:28:57] Kael: employees.
[00:28:58] Yeah. And then they can, they can go down one of your two streams or funnels, which for us is, can. And clients. Right? So we have two separate funnels and then they can, they can translate using the translate tool or if their English is good enough, which it likely is they can just continue to read on in English.
[00:29:18] Yeah. But you've spoken to them, right? Yeah. And you, you can see the difference when you're traveling and you know, they expect you to be. A dumb North American. Yeah. And, and, and you just say two to three words in, in their, their language, right? And, and say thank you in their language. Like, just little smile comes to their face.
[00:29:37] And you wanna make your customer smile even before they're your customer, right? So if you greet them, you're, you're well on your way to having a customer, or in our case our supply, our candidates, right? So we, we need to build those two funnels and get that supply chain.
[00:29:53] Wendy: Right. Right. That makes sense.
[00:29:55] And your website is like that. Hello? When it's done in language and you pull them in. Okay. Now you have talked multiple times about SEO optimized, but then also the machine translation. Do you, are you finding that people are finding you through the automated translation? I don't think of that as SEO optimized.
[00:30:19] Kael: Yeah. So definit. I think if you are seeing the experience of Ukrainians, because hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, actually millions of Ukrainians have left UK Ukraine due to the war. They are often doing their job search in, in Ukrainian and, and also in Russian, right? Mm-hmm. . But they are able to use other tools, right, to translate full websites.
[00:30:44] definitely. I think if they're doing a search and they're looking for jobs in Canada in, in a specific niche, if you have at least one page in Ukrainian. Yeah. And they're doing a search while they're in Poland. And I think they're likely, you're likely to be ranked fairly high if you have at least one page.
[00:31:05] But definitely SEO is is super important. And that to me is, is writing good content and lots of it, right? So if, if I was to determine that you know, 50% or 25% of our, our placements in, in the United States were coming from people who speak, sang Spanish as as a first or a second language.
[00:31:27] Yeah, it's, it's a great investment to, to spend $10,000, but at the very least, it's good to spend 300 or $500 to have at least one page that will work if they're doing a search in in Google, in Spanish or, or if they're doing a, a search while they're travel traveling, which they're likely, I have a good friend, he's, he's Born in Columbia.
[00:31:48] His, his daughter was born in Canada. He's in Columbia right now doing business. Right. And so if he's, he's searching and I'd have nothing on my website. I think the first thing Google will serve up to him is, is something in Spanish. So, you know, I really have to think about that. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:05] Wendy: Well, you know, it sounds like you got a little bit of work that you're planning on doing on your site and that Rapport International, what we recommend is think about your strategy, which you are clear on.
[00:32:16] Think about the technology and how you can leverage it. Doing, you know, like a microsite to pull people in, and then maybe leveraging some of the automated for translation for blogs and information that's not as important to bring them through the buyer's journey. Then you think about the process. How, you know, what's a simple way to get it done and where do I need the high quality versus the, the lower quality?
[00:32:40] So certainly you know, very interested in talking to you more about that so you can, to really,
[00:32:46] Kael: and, and are you, you seeing clients cuz like, this is a bit of a paradigm shift for me when I see Mr. Beast, he's got hundreds of millions of followers, but he's done dedicated channels. I've got a, a YouTube channel called Phish means.
[00:33:00] And actually one of my editors is in Argentina. And, and I'm like, oh, you know, why don't we do one in Spanish? And I can actually go into my analytics and see the number of people who speak Spanish as a or, or I think in the us and, and elsewhere. How many. Customers do you see that are saying, oh, we're gonna do a full investment.
[00:33:22] Where we're, we're, we're doing all of our marketing in both languages or multiple languages.
[00:33:28] Wendy: It depends. It goes back to the strategy. Yeah. So what I'll often see is people will start out with a language, a landing page, or a microsite, and then as they grow, they add more content in there, you know, or, or big com You know, we worked with a packing packaging company that had offices all over the world, but they only sold certain product.
[00:33:54] In those countries. So what they did was they built out a big spreadsheet and said, we want translation for these products in these countries, but not the other ones if we don't offer them there. So you know, you, you, if you think strategically about the content it, it works. It works better. And then the other thing is we'll see clients that will track their metrics and so they'll, like, we had one client that had a lot of people coming in from Germany, so they said, oh, okay, well we're gonna translate our website into Germany.
[00:34:27] And they saw their sales go up there. We had another client that was tracking their metrics and they could see that certain blogs were getting more hit hits. So they decided those were the blogs they were gonna t. For their, their language. So they might release a blog in English, but then a few months later they'd decide whether they were gonna translate it or like, cuz they could see how valuable the information was.
[00:34:53] So we see that's why we spend a lot of time at Rapport International talking about strategy. What are you trying to accomplish and who are you trying to speak to to develop.
[00:35:04] Kael: And that's great. And, and we kind of think about it. Anybody who's in the business to consumer side of things. I think Amazon is in Amazon and Costco are both in, at least over a dozen countries.
[00:35:16] Oh, easy. Yeah. Right. So anybody's who's, who's in that B2C space and, and you know, wants to sell, it's like, oh, how big is the market? And, and I'm, I'm looking at an acquisition and I'm like, oh, you know, we could sell globally. Who can help me sell globally. And it could be one of those partners. It could be Amazon or Costco, and you know, what markets are they in?
[00:35:38] How could I, you know, translate and then sell direct to the consumer? Cause we might get our gateway in through Amazon but we might then start to see traffic that comes directly from those consumers to be able to sell directly to them at higher margins. So yeah, it's a fascinating world when you, you, you.
[00:35:56] Look, look past your, your geographic borders, but also think about these cultural borders that are within our countries and then internationally as well. Like the markets are immense.
[00:36:06] Wendy: Yeah. And that's what we see with e-commerce companies. If they don't take control of their global marketing, then what can happen is some of the platforms like Amazon or Shopify, I don't know about Costco.
[00:36:19] They, they may stick in automated translation and you're just, you're losing customers there. You're better off having it in English, particularly because consumers buy on emotions and you wanna connect them in with that, so you don't, again, you don't have to do your whole website and you wanna keep consistent across the language of what something's called.
[00:36:41] We've had companies where they used. One company that used us to translate all their product names and their packaging. And then, and this was years ago. They haven't, they haven't searched anybody else since then, but they decided to go to somebody else for their catalog that was going to their sales floor, and they gave 'em all new names.
[00:37:00] So the sales people got the catalog and they're like, we don't know what any of these products are. So they came back and they've never strayed from us. Cuz we keep that consistency of voice so people know what the products are and they know what to
[00:37:12] Kael: expect. Yeah. And it's, it, it's, it's very interesting.
[00:37:16] So in, in Russia and Ukraine they call cabinetry making furniture making. So in, in North America, it's like you're building cabinets or you're doing millwork and you know, I just couldn't understand what this one individual does. And I'm like, they sent me pictures. I'm like, oh, you're a, you know, you're cabinet maker, cabinet installer.
[00:37:37] And yeah, they, they have that consistency of f. Right. Which, you know, if you're marketing to Russia, you're marketing to Ukraine, you, you need to know but you know, until that translation happens and it, it didn't translate like when, when we're using Facebook translate and like, it didn't translate until I had the images.
[00:37:56] But then once you get on that same page and you wanna sell to people, consistency consist. You don't wanna be switching from Facebook translate to Google Translate, cuz it's probably gonna be wrong anyways. So yeah, definitely doing it the right way makes sense to me.
[00:38:11] Wendy: Yeah, and that's so fascinating. I love how you talk about using pictures to get more clarity on the types of jobs that people are doing.
[00:38:20] I mean, that's a brilliant way to communicate with people.
[00:38:24] Kael: Yeah. And it, it works for seo. So one of the, the ways that we, we've. I've been in this business 18 years and we, we talk about SEO and I'll, I'll have very smart people say, oh, well, you're not gonna compete with indeed.com and you're not gonna compete with Monster you, you're not gonna compete with, and, and I'm like, just watch me, right?
[00:38:47] Yes. And, and we've, we've had images on our job board forever. And if you go to Indeed, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars as an employer on Indeed, but you can't put up a lot of custom images. Every job ad we have, you can put a custom image in, you can embed a video. Right. And you know, we really have to.
[00:39:11] Images resonate. Languages resonate, right? Yeah. And, and you know, we need to be doing these things to help, you know, both get conversions, you know, whether we're asking for candidates to send their resume, clients to apply, or in the direct to consumer side of things, people to buy, right or sign up.
[00:39:28] Wendy: Yeah.
[00:39:29] Yeah. And, and images are so important cuz we'll work with clients on how are they culturally adapted. Like if the images just don't make sense, but what you're talking about is like a job and those images are gonna transfer through and add so much clarity and depth to the communication that you're doing.
[00:39:47] You know, you were talking about this couple places I wanna jump to. The first was, you were talking about this e-commerce company. Did I send you a copy of my
[00:39:55] Kael: book? I don't, I don't think so. I'm, I'm not an avid reader with two young kids, but I, I would love, yeah, I'd love to re read your book and, and yeah, I'm, I'm interested in, in writing a book myself soon, but yeah.
[00:40:09] Oh, I
[00:40:09] Wendy: can walk you through that process. I actually enjoyed it. There's probably few people that say that. But it's called the language of global marketing and it digs into all the questions you were asking. So if anybody's listening and is interested in it, you can find it on Amazon or Barnes and noble.com or any of the places you buy books.
[00:40:26] And I also did an audio recording, so if you listen to those, I, sorry, I can't send you a free copy of that cause I don't have it, but you can get the audio version off of great off of there. But it, it breaks down the whole strategy technology. Process and, and quality and all the special considerations that you'd need for, for consumer products.
[00:40:46] So I'll I'll send you a copy. I'll get your address afterwards. The other thing that I wanted to ask, and then we are out of time, but what are you seeing with your customers and how they're managing people that might not speak? The language of the majority of the workforce, how have they adapted to training and company meetings and all those company parties?
[00:41:11] Kael: Interesting. I, you know, I'm gonna have to ask there's, there's a, a firm on the East coast. They, they hired at least 18 Ukrainians and, you know, this is their first Christmas with such a, a, a big demographic sh shift influx. So You know, definitely one of the things I, I think is the bare minimum is recognizing other people's holidays.
[00:41:32] So I'm, I'm not one of these people who's like, don't, don't celebrate Christmas, you know, don't celebrate more. Yes, and like, you know, learn, like, send me the pictures. Like we, we've got team members you know, in, in, you know, on the east coast, west coast and, and several internationally. And yeah, and I, I'm happy to celebrate Christmas and, and, you know, talk about Santa and, and.
[00:41:56] You know, Christ. And tell me about Dewell. Tell me about you know, the, the celebration in the Philippines. Tell me about Independence Day, where you, where you're from, right. And, and share that cause in this remote environment. The, these things that kind of bring us together when, when you're like, Oh, that, you know, that's a big celebration for you.
[00:42:14] You know, whether it's Day of the Dead or you know, this is your first Christmas, you know, what does it look like? You know, what, what do people do? Right. And I think that's more important than, you know, sending a gift gift card or, or, or, you know. Having a great Christmas party where everybody gets drunk and doesn't remember it.
[00:42:30] We've had lots of those, right? But if, but if we, we can connect with our, our employees who are, are remote and, and find out what this holiday season means to them. I, I think that's, you know, a great opportunity. Because if somebody's looking at leaving you, which is a really important thing, you know, what is our retention gonna be?
[00:42:48] And your, your organization that not only just has things on their, your website but. Recognizes it internally and externally and talks about it and celebrates other holidays and other cultures, you're gonna be doing a lot better at retention.
[00:43:04] Wendy: Yes. Yeah. So, and I think that's so important. You know, we were talking about the marketing where, how do you attract, engage, and then delight, you know, you bring them through the buyer's journey.
[00:43:14] With hr, you have to at attract. Retain and then engage to make sure that they're really, they're not gonna leave. And you're, you're training all the time, so Yeah. Yeah. If you have any clients that you think are doing a good job that send 'em all over, we'll get 'em on the podcast here. So, yeah,
[00:43:33] Kael: it's, it's a perfect time to think about it, right?
[00:43:35] Cause this, this is a holiday season and. It. Christmas is different for every culture, right? You know, the winter season, and it means different things to other people.
[00:43:47] Wendy: Right, right. I lived in Mexico a couple years when I was a kid, and three Kings Day was really big down there, you know, it was in the beginning of January, so it was, you know, it wasn't Christmas and then it's done.
[00:43:59] The, it was the three king, but enough about me. Let's what final recommendations do you have for people that are doing global marketing or you know, attracting clients?
[00:44:10] Kael: Wow. Yeah, definitely. Just, just keep the dialogue going. You know, look, look for you know, look for those people right. You know, look at the bottom of their resume and, you know, ask questions.
[00:44:24] You know, tell me about your experience there, cuz you'll, you'll find a lot of people leave off some of their international experience and. You know, you might find that somebody who in in your team or somebody who's applying for a job at your company has lots of experience that can help you in the long run.
[00:44:42] And asking questions about their, their history you know, well before they, you know, came to the United States or Canada, is, is something that you should definitely do because you might be like, oh, in your three year or 10 year plan is, is to become a global leader. You, you might have some of those.
[00:44:57] In your organization, you might have people in your organization who know who those potential leaders are in their network as well, right? So ask those questions, say, you know, put it out there if your vision is to you know, Expand to Mexico or Latin America or globally. Put that vision out there in your, your, your, your vision.
[00:45:16] We run on our eos, which is an entrepreneurial operating system. Other people use scaling up. Lots of people do planning, but put that vision out there to your team and. Don't hesitate to say you wanna be the best in the world. You know, we're, you know, our, our latest move has, has, has been into North America and Latin America because of the free trade agreements.
[00:45:38] And, you know, our, our, our team has embraced it and they say you. Yeah, we wanna have the best, you know, the best talent available for our clients. And, you know, it doesn't matter if their first language is English, Spanish, or French. We wanna be able to get those people.
[00:45:55] Wendy: Oh, that's fantastic. All right.
[00:45:57] You, you've been exposed to all sorts of languages. You've been talking about 'em, you know, I gotta ask, what's your favorite foreign word?
[00:46:04] Kael: Oh I'm part of Toastmasters and Nuance. Nuance is the title of or name of our, our Toastmaster group. And it means the, you know, the same thing in three languages. So English,
[00:46:16] Wendy: French, and Spanish.
[00:46:19] Oh, nuance is the same in Spanish. Well, yeah, I never knew that. That's
[00:46:23] Kael: fantastic, . Yeah, I, I believe so. But yeah, I mean, I, I loved lot, lots of Korean words, lots of Spanish words, lots of French words. You know, I'm not fluent. The closest I got was learning Spanish and Guatemala and traveling through North central and South America many decades ago.
[00:46:40] But, you know, I, I enjoy. Watching a Korean drama or a Korean action movie because I pick up lots of the family stuff since my, my in-laws are, are Korean, so.
[00:46:51] Wendy: Oh, that's great. You truly are a global citizen. I love it. Where can people find you if they'd like to reach
[00:46:57] Kael: out? Yeah, so definitely Red Seal recruiting.
[00:47:00] I'm on YouTube under Red Sue. Recruiting, but also fmb Fishing means business is, is one of my passion product. Projects and it includes that marine, Marine water, water component. And I'm, I'm on every, everything else. But you know, definitely reach out to me through our website or About Us.
[00:47:20] Page is a great place to find us. Okay,
[00:47:23] Wendy: so that's Red Seal, r e d seal, like the water animal. S e a l recruit recruiting.com.
[00:47:32] Kael: Yeah, it's, it's a, it is a mouthful, but red Seal, kale, k a e l. And if you Google kale there's, there's somebody who's a hockey player I really respected in, in kind of the Michigan area, but I'm, I'm one of the only K A E Ls out.
[00:47:47] Wendy: Okay. Well, Cal, thank you so much for being on the show today. This was a really good discussion.
[00:47:53] Kael: Great. Thank you so much, Wendy. Talk to you soon.
[00:47:56] Wendy: All right. And for listeners thank you for tuning in. I hope you learned something from this today. I certainly loved getting kale's perspective on how he's looking at translation and growing as.
[00:48:07] And the, you know, the diversity and inclusion that he does. So if you have something you'd like to say to Kale or the group of listeners, you can go to the Facebook, it's Global Marketing and Growth and join there and get in with the community or by the book if you have more questions and wanna learn something.
[00:48:25] That's it for now. We'll talk to you next time. Bye-bye.
[00:48:28]
