S05E11: Building and Scaling a Global LSP Team

Intro

Hello and welcome to the Translation Company Talk, a weekly podcast show focusing on translation services and the language industry. The Translation Company Talk covers topics of interest for professionals engaged in the business of translation, localization, transcription, interpreting, and language technology. The Translation Company Talk is sponsored by Hybrid Lynx. Your host is Sultan Ghaznawi with today’s episode.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Translation Company Talk podcast. Today I’m going to be speaking with Jordan Evans about scaling and building a global team for a language services provider or LSP company.

 

Jordan Evans is the CEO of Language Network, an Inc. 5000 fastest growing language company, managing director of Hire Global, a global talent platform, and prior board member for the Association of Language Companies. With experience in high growth software companies, he’s a second-generation family business owner and acquisition entrepreneur.

 

Outside of work, Jordan enjoys traveling, roasting coffee, and taking beach walks with his French bulldog, Tyson.

 

Jordan, welcome to the Translation Company Talk podcast.

 

Jordan Evans

Thanks for having me. Good to be here.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

For those of us listening for the first time, can you please introduce yourself and tell them what you do? I know you very well. A lot of people in the industry do, but there’s probably some who haven’t heard about you.

 

Jordan Evans

Sure. Well, most days I get to work on Language Network, and we’re a mostly US-based, but now global team. We provide language services, so similar to your audience and your listeners, and maybe I should say language solutions on the eve of what’s coming. It’s integration and workflow and troubleshooting, not just language services.

 

I’m the CEO, so I’m responsible for building the team, setting the strategy. We do a lot of mergers and acquisitions, so finding good fit companies to add into the fold, finding the right people, and getting them on board, and make sure we’re making an impact. It’s a fun ride, but it’s a messy ride, and I’m enjoying it. Absolutely. I think we’re about eight years into the industry, officially.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Please tell us what you’ve been up to since we spoke last time on this podcast. You shared your story about what you were doing at the time, but things are changing really fast in our industry, and in the whole world, if you look at everything. What have you been up to? What’s been keeping you busy?

 

Jordan Evans

Good question. I love the podcast, by the way, on every topic, to be able to jump into the industry. What have I been busy on, is a great question. I think it was maybe four years ago that we spoke and we were on the eve of a different world with COVID.

 

Now things have normalized. I’ve been growing language network. We’ve doubled down on building our team globally. When I say globally, a lot of South America, some Spain, some China. I’m very bullish on any company, not just our industry, building and scaling out their organization globally. So that’s something new that I’ve recommitted our resources to and we actually started another company to do that.

 

Then we’ve also been doing M&A. That keeps me quite busy. So, acquisitions, seeing if there’s a way to expand and grow the company through that route. And then what else have I been busy with? Well, trying to enjoy the ride. It’s easy as the CEO to look around and look at all the things that are not done or not done to the level that you wish that they were or if we were making progress here or there or there’s a problem here.

 

So, there’s a certain level, I guess, of living with imperfection, but still driving forward. So, that’s the most philosophical answer I could give to your question, I guess.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Well, that’s good to hear. You’ve been busy and you’re enjoying this ride, which is amazing. Now, speaking about the industry, about the business as a whole, give us your perspective of the language industry. What are some of the general trends and directions that you’re seeing these days?

 

Jordan Evans

Well, I guess I should have added it in my background that I come from venture-funded startups where you have an idea, and you want to go find a product market fit and change the world and raise funds and scale up a software or product company. So, I come to this industry with that perspective to a services industry that’s hyper-fragmented, that is services. It’s not as scalable as a software product. So, my perspective is reconciling the two of how do you deliver a great solution, pair tech with people with the know-how?

 

So, as far as perspectives on our industry go, I’m optimistic. I’m looking at the horizon and I see it changing as many do, with just how the world changes. We adopt new technology like AI on everyone’s mind. What does that mean for how we work? What do we need to let go of? What do we need to embrace? So, it’s very early days. My perspective is to be curious and to be close to the client.

 

I think that’s the most unsexy answer, working with clients and identifying solutions, whether it’s 100% human solutions or whether it’s 100% tech-based solutions. There’s this important middle know-how and value that we can create in our industry by being tightly in the middle between the supply and the possibilities and the demand, what does this client need? What are they trying to achieve?

 

Not to be so hypothetical, it’s just really, we’re a solutions industry and we need to be adaptive. I think that’s something that you said in our pre-call, is that adaptability is the key. Our industry has done that for a long time. But you can get complacent, and this is how things are. So optimistic, curious, and staying close to your clients and having conversations and being open to disrupting yourself is really where I am at this point in time looking forward.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Well, that’s a very, very interesting perspective. In fact, one that I share. But I’m interested more, Jordan, about your vision and you have demonstrated over the past few years that you have grown in this industry and grown your business in such a way that is thriving. That’s very exciting.

 

It’s actually a good case study for a lot of LSPs out there. Today I’ve invited you to speak about scaling up as an LSP and building up a global team, which you have. Please tell me at a high level, your view of how LSPs generally grow these days.

 

Jordan Evans

Yes, great question. So, the clients and the capabilities dovetail into what we were talking about. The intimacy of understanding who you’re working with, what they’re trying to achieve and how we fit in. So, how do we grow? Gosh, by sending cookies and going to trade shows. I like to say old school is new school. So, there’s a certain level of being out in the marketplace where your perspective clients are.

 

I also want to maybe bench this question of, how do you grow? Well, where do you want to grow and why, is probably the starting point. As a solutions company, it’s easy to just chase any type of requests that comes, that’s somewhat in the language industry across your desk. But how can you really carve a niche out for your company, and for yourself or your offering that’s going deeper, making a plan of who do you want to serve and how can you grow there?

 

So that’s how I approach the organic sales, who’s our target market? Where are they? What pains do they have? How do we speak to those? It’s truly a solution sales cycle. If you haven’t gone through a solution sales training, I highly recommend it. Executives and sales teams, there’s a bunch of methodologies, just pick one.

 

So, it’s nothing new there. Right person, right message, right time. It’s this, work every day. That’s what’s so frustrating about it, there’s no magic bullet. There’s no shortcut there. It’s just inconsistent. As a service company, it’s all about trust and as the buyer, can this person deliver? Can this organization deliver? I’m taking a risk by bringing them in. So, I want to make sure that I look good in my organization, that we achieve what we say we’re going to achieve.

 

All the fundamentals apply there. And there’s no going away from that. As much as I mentioned mergers and acquisitions, this is path one. This is foundational.

 

The next answer to your question, how do companies grow, is perhaps through acquisition and finding a good fit company that has a bundle of clients, that did many years of what I just described. Going deep in an industry or going deep in a geography and building a basket of clients and doing a good job delivering a service. There’s this stickiness there, and you can buy that bucket of clients and capabilities and the team that actually knows how to deliver the service.

 

That is a fantastic way to grow, and it is quite common in our industry to do that, because it’s faster than the first path.

 

So, no secrets there and then the other answer, Sultan, is yeah, how can I sell more? Either to the same people which is the easiest path to go or sell more, by getting more customers. So, I talked more about getting more customers.

 

The next answer to your question is, what other services or capabilities do my existing clients need, that we could supply them with? So, there’s a fantastic low-hanging fruit there, of how can I increase the relationship with my existing customers? Then finally, how can you grow and raise your rates? So, there’s not a lot of value, I guess being exchanged there but looking strategically if you haven’t touched your pricing schema or revisited that, or in contracts you don’t have some sort of clause or amendment to change rates.

 

I have seen a lot of people just get locked in for decades on the same rates and it’s like, even since COVID, inflation has been crazy. So there’s a certain element, maybe it’s not growth but it’s keeping up with things, looking at your rates and not ignoring those and not being afraid of reevaluating them and changing them.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Wow, that was a lot to take in. Let’s dive deeper, Jordan. Virtual teams and business enablement became very popular during the Covid era, as you talked about, albeit the language industry was semi-virtual for at least a decade before that, if not more. How are virtual teams structured within LSPs today?

 

Jordan Evans

Our industry has done a good job of globalization way before, way ahead of the curve, open to working and partnering with people all throughout the world. Where it’s been slow is imagining working with somebody like in an office setting. I’m going to have my bookkeeper be in Spain and I’m in California, or I’m going to have my operations director in Argentina. So, this concept of internal roles, I think, is becoming more widely accepted.

 

I am so bullish on this trend as well, as work remote can be work anywhere and for any role, as long as it doesn’t require you physically on site, even customer facing roles. So the global teams I’m so excited for, you can hire the best person for the position, regardless of geography, whereas before we had to look, you know, you draw a circle around your office, the commute, and you’re only limited to that talent pool of people that live in the area or willing to relocate to the area to hire them for your company.

 

So, we’re in this fascinating time where you can get the best mind at the best price. It’s truly a global competition now. That’s something I believe people are sleeping on. In order to be competitive, you must get the best people. That’s our edge, especially in a services and solutions company, as our product is the deliverables, the end results. And in my experience, that requires the best people.

 

So, there’s a couple of ways to approach this. Number one is where are your customers and what type of time zone, what type of availability do we need to have? I think that’s principle number one. Be as close to your customer as possible in all aspects. So where do those people live? It’s not in a geographic circle around your office. Where do they need to work? So, for us, we’re on the West Coast, the United States, primarily. We’ve since grown outside of that. But when we were starting, it was very important that everyone worked in some sort of overlap or alignment on West Coast time zone.

 

Then second to where your customers are, it’s what type of services or capabilities do we offer? Where does that talent live? We don’t need to have them on the same kind of time frequency. So, an example of that, I know a lot of people have gone to India because of the talent. You know, Microsoft many, many years ago went there and opened up their, I think they call them their business process outsourcing. I think they call them global capacity centers now or capability centers, which is a better rebrand.

 

But then you’ve got these highly trained people in Microsoft that you can hire for your DevOps team remote. So, the equivalent to our industry has been hiring people, let’s say for Argentina, where we’ve got a lot of colleagues, where they’ve gone through a great university program. There’s a lot of other language companies that work there. So there’s a talent pool there.

 

That’s number two. Where’s the talent and how do we need to align them for time zone and how we work together? The next approach I would look at is scaling. It’s really hard. It stretches people and it breaks processes. So, what’s the capacity of one project manager or one team? How can we group them together in an adaptable way that it doesn’t break people? So, we’d like this pod structure where, let’s say it grows to eight to ten people and you’ve got one pod leader, because as you add people, you need people management.

 

This pod structure is very lightweight where it allows us to have some form of management. They’re usually a team lead. So, they’re a player coach and allows us not to have too much bureaucracy, still have some intimacy. You can organize the pod in several ways. One, you can do it by function. So, this pod is just in charge of this service line. So, let’s just say interpretation that they just go deep on that service. It doesn’t matter. Vertical doesn’t matter. The customer, it’s just the service.

 

I know it’s quite common and we don’t have this approach, is you just bucket people in. You give them some sort of workload or basket of clients and say, okay, here’s your work throughput. You’ve got 100 clients and you kind of plan around the growth or the contraction and they do all the things to support. Maybe you got an account manager. You got production people. So, those are the two ways that I’ve seen it done in our industry. Right now, we’re more of a function.

 

Then scaling people. Gosh, this is the never-ending challenge, finding customers, keeping customers, finding people and growing people. That’s what keeps me up at night. Scaling people requires, I think, the right culture. A place that embraces that diversity. If you’re hiring globally that there’s some flexibility on, you know, time off.

 

If you’ve got different cultural holidays, it takes the right tools to be communicative as a group. Maybe I’m going off on a tangent, but there’s a lot here tactically and strategically that we could talk about. It does take some forethought, I guess, is what I want to give, but it’s not any different. It’s not different than hiring and working with a team domestic in your country remotely.

 

It takes just some sensibility, understanding culturally. There might be some differences with time off and when people need to work and making sure you’re compliant with those labor laws, but more importantly for me is the delivery and the end goal is. That you meet frequently together.

 

If you’re remote, that there’s a connection point that there’s weekly meetings that there’s company wide monthly meetings that we do quarterly kickoffs. And for us, we’ve done annual all hands, where we fly everyone together. We spend a week and work side by side. So, you create connective tissue that you don’t have because you’re not in the same office.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

What are the principles of building a global team that is hybrid in nature where you have certain people working on site while you have others working virtually. So how do you get everybody on the same page? You were just talking about having these meetings. How do you make these people who are working virtually, an actual authentic and organic part of your team.

 

Jordan Evans

That’s good, authentic and organic. It’s hard to do digitally through a screen. It takes investment and time and getting to know people. You know, for me, part of it is the leader. Like, know your people. It really starts, top down. Then those pod leaders or those directors or managers, whatever you call that, need to be bought into, and that’s where the connection is.

 

People work for leaders that they feel supported in, that give them the space to grow. This gives them the space to earn. So. I’ll go tactically on this one. So, I have a company called the Entrepreneur Operating System. Called EOS. I didn’t invent it. It’s like the wheel and it works. Slap that thing on your car and let’s go.

 

So, I highly recommend that it’s just a framework to think about what you asked. Like how we build a culture and a communication point where we’re setting goals. We’re solving problems. We’re tracking our progress. We’re giving feedback. That’s like the no brainer. Look at some sort of methodology. Similar to what I talked about having a sales methodology.

 

Well, what’s your methodology for operating this company of people. EOS. I’m trying to think of other ones. They’ll come to me later. There’s like three or four really popular ones. There’s a book on it. It just kind of gives you these ideas. Whether you adopt it a hundred percent or fifty percent, it’s been a great foundation to build from.

 

So, I’ll give you an example. Every team does a weekly meeting in sync, and they have the same agenda. It covers everything, top to bottom. What are our numbers? What are we doing right? What issues do we have? What’s our status update on key projects or objectives we have in this quarter?

 

And finally, what’s our takeaways from this meeting? So, I think if we go to the base unit, having productive meetings is really the cheat code to building a really good global team. It’s a productive time together where people can see how they’re doing, how the company is doing, and you give them space to chime in and identify issues too.

 

So, there’s a lot there as well, but I attribute a lot of our success to that EOS model.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

About the EOS model, I remember you talked about it the last time, and it seems like it’s a framework of rules and certain processes that works very well together for an organization of our type. Let’s talk about technology. What type of challenges does that pose for a typical LSP, in order to scale up?

 

Jordan Evans

So, I think I did kind of start going down that path of technology. What’s our digital water cooler? So, everyone’s got email today. But beyond that, Slack is what we use, or Microsoft Teams might be what you use. How do we come together and huddle? That’s number one, I think, is having some sort of good chat connectivity and video call capability.

 

So, you can kind of tap each other and have informal meetings or schedule a sync on Google Meet or Teams. So that comes to mind immediately.

 

Then, of course, cloud-based technology has enabled you having systems where you can VPN and it’s cloud-based. That’s super important. Everyone’s got different tech stacks. When you look at an acquisition, it’s important that we don’t add complexity as we go. It’s important that we evaluate our tech stack and maybe the tech stack we’re acquiring and where do we need to merge together different tools.

 

So really, industry-specific example, we’re using this CAT tool. You guys are using that CAT tool. Is there a reality where we use both? Is there a reality where we consolidate? So, you have to go top to bottom and reevaluate. What’s going to be the better upgrade for the organization? And being willing even to let go of what you’re using to adopt something new.

 

So, it’s a two-way street. At a certain size and stage, maybe you just say, this is our tech stack. We’re not changing it and it’s just a matter of time before the newly acquired company would put a mod on the same systems. But it truly is imperative to, over time, coalesce and not be so complex. The caveat I have, technology changes are up there with death and divorce. They’re in the same category. They’re painful. They hurt. And maybe moving. It’s all in the same bucket.

 

Like moving your apartment, moving your house. It just sucks. So, it’s looking thoughtfully and judiciously at all the software the teams use and then deciding, when can we move this? What’s least disruptive for the clients? Again, back to that principle, be close to your clients and make those decisions from there.

 

Just know that a tech migration is going to be disruptive to teams. So, that’s why it takes time. You’ve got to lay down the foundation of trust building, familiarity, openness with the newly acquired entity and the people before you can rush in and say, we’re going to mess with all the tech and start moving things around. So, it’s very much a liberal art. It’s exercise as well as a tactical, scientific type cutover.

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Sultan Ghaznawi

So, when we were talking about scaling up and the localization industry being global by default, for example, in your case, you added all these different teams together. How can your organization or a company like yours be structured so that it can benefit from a global presence?

 

I mean, having teams in all parts of the world is all fine, but how you structure that, for example, where your production facilities need to be, where your QA should be, where your vendor management, account management should be, how do you structurally make those changes, in order to make sure that your clients get the best benefits out of your structure?

 

Jordan Evans

I think I started diving into this question with, where are your clients and how can we best support them? And then where can we get the most efficiencies of the team? Where’s the best talent? There’s no reason to hire everywhere around the world and add infinite complexity to your organization.

 

There are different stages of this. First things first, maybe you hire in Argentina and it’s going well, and you start scaling up a couple more there. There’s no reason to go from Argentina to Tokyo to, I don’t know, what comes to mind, Albania. There’s no reason to just add that complexity for the sake of it.

 

So, I would caution, yes, hire the best person for the right role, but don’t add one to two, here to there and add so much complexity too quickly. I think it makes sense to kind of think about this in a hub perspective. It also answers your question, too, like having this organic cultures. It is nice for team members to have serendipity and say, let’s go co-work at a coffee shop or a co-working space.

 

So, there’s a certain level of sustainability when you’re doing this, maybe hiring more in hubs. Well, the cost benefits are a big driver on top of the capabilities. So, what’s the situation in that country? What’s the average salary versus the average salary in another place? Oftentimes, you can achieve great efficiency and savings that way and allows your company to be more competitive. I’ve got lower overhead, so I can accept a different margin and allows me to compete and win business.

 

So, I think that’s one way how a language company could leverage this and compete in a really tangible way.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

From what I understand, basically, you’re looking at acquiring the best talent from wherever produces the highest level of expertise and specialization. So, for example, you would go to India to get IT talent versus you might go to Philippines for services talent where you could get project management support, right? Which is their area of specialization.

 

Jordan Evans

Yes, absolutely right. I will say I’m long on South America. That’s where a lot of our team is, and I think that’s where we’re going to be in North America. It’s very good for time zones. But you just mentioned some great hubs to globally that have good talent pools.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

What business units should or should not be scaled up globally with your approach above? Would you say that, for example, your IT team, given today that there’s so much focus on information, privacy, confidentiality and data breaches that are happening, there’s a lot of focus on those things.

 

Would you say, I’m just using IT as an example, that it’s worth scaling up globally, you know, with all these risks associated?

 

Jordan Evans

This question can be applied to the working remote domestically in the same country. So, there’s nothing new there as far as IT protocol and best practices and having their system set up correctly. Nowadays, fortunately, most things are software as a service, or a web application. Whereas before this was quite a bit more complex if you had your own software and your self hosting.

 

So, the complexities aren’t any different than hiring domestically. And best practices always apply, especially when it comes to sensitive information or how you’re handling that or what teams are touching that, or maybe contractually you are obligated to keep stuff in a certain geography. I’m thinking about the United States.

 

You might have contracts that require work to stay onshore. And so, then you just configure workflows and access to meet the contract requirements. Yeah, it’s not so difficult nowadays. And you can either self manage it or hire somebody to be the IT manager. Or there’s plenty of third-party IT companies that will do this for you and be your go to security and audit and permission control.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Everything obviously comes with a cost. Everything requires funding and investment. How should an LSP prepare and brace for the costs of scaling up or going virtually around the world?

 

Jordan Evans

Well, fortunately, this one I think is a high reward, a low barrier investment hiring. Let’s say you’re in Canada, I’m in the United States. They are more expensive, higher costs, and they have great direct clients. So, you can leverage the arbitrage of the cost of living. Hiring in South America or Eastern Europe is a popular pool, or Spain’s a popular pool. Philippines, as you mentioned.

 

So, that arbitrage is fantastic. Perhaps you can hire two people, whereas domestically you can only hire one. So, it’s no different than making that investment and hiring domestically, but you could even hedge your bets if you really wanted to. You could say, let’s do trial. I’m going to hire two people for the role, especially in sales and it’s a 90-day pilot together. You say we’ll reevaluate on the 90 days.

 

So that’s one way to hedge your bets. Especially in sales and account management, as then you can do two for one. Then the cost, if you look at hiring people, you amortize that over 12, right? It’s their salary divided by 12. If you know it’s a role that you need, that’s going to be critical for efficiency or helping you win new business.

 

Then it’s not so scary of an investment, and having the ability to hire, but also the fire, which nobody likes to do, is the role of the manager or the operator. So, yeah, on the people side, it’s I think what’s scarier, not so much the economics of it. Perhaps maybe it’s hiring them correctly. Did I find the right person for this role with the right personality and mindset and skill set to succeed here?

 

That’s where the challenge is and I think more so, than the economics of it, you know, you should brace for that’s where the magic happens, is being able to hire people well.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let me ask you about something really important. In order to do all of these things. It is one thing to obviously have an office with a few people working in it. But it’s a different beast when you have people in different parts of the world all working together, whether virtually or physically. What kind of a cultural mind shift is necessary to make it all work?

 

Jordan Evans

I guess I would also say, I like to go on this podcast and share my learnings just because everything that I’ve learned is because I’ve picked it up from somebody else. It’s my responsibility to pass that forward. I’m also not a believer in talking about things you have no experience or expertise, so maybe it’s fun to hear people’s opinions.

 

My hope is sharing all of this, that there are some gems in here. That some people might apply or reach out to me if they are working through a problem. So, I want to say everything’s a work in progress and the most important thing is showing up and putting in the work and figuring things out, as a lot of our colleagues do in this industry.

 

But the cultural mindset shift, it’s important to create a common culture and a common ethos as a company when you’re hiring globally. What are we about as a group, as a collective. So, this might get to the business school, which I didn’t go to and I don’t always advocate for at all, is what is our mission?

 

What do we value here in camaraderie and colleagues and having that defined? So, you know what we’re not. That’s just as important. People can take pride in our values and take pride in what we are trying to do in the world. So that’s really important.

 

An example, not at Language Network, but before I worked for a company called booking.com as a part of a software startup. And we were acquired by booking.com, I’m grateful for that experience of being on the acquired side, not just on the acquiring side that we do today.

 

But it was based out of Amsterdam, and you have got to love the Dutch because it was thrown through a Dutch culture. What they had done globally was they had offices in every country to go sell the hotels and they did a good job of blending in the culture of that country of that people group. But then also layering in this is what we’re about at booking.com.

 

One of their values was to milk the cows every day, which is very Dutch. They love their dairy and they love their buttermilk. We did a company offsite in Amsterdam, and they’re walking around serving shots of buttermilk and sandwiches. And for me, I’m lactose intolerant. So, it was a nightmare.

 

But my point being is, they had a common culture, and I really respected the leadership because they made sure everyone knew their values and milk the cows every day means get up and do the work. These cows aren’t going to milk themselves. So culturally, I think they had to rethink at some point, like, what can we put in place of this that’s not so Dutch centric that, you know, our folks in India or Central America, it makes sense.

 

So that’s my long story to come back to. In the whole world, what is your company about? And that will attract people and also help you set a line in the sand of what people we don’t want.

 

And then the cultural mind shift, I think it’s important for some flexibility or some elasticity and figuring things out. There are so many holidays in those Latin American countries, like God bless them and even in Europe, too, like America, we work too hard, we work too much. So, you’re having policies that are flexible, that are thoughtful about allowing people to not feel guilty about taking time off or participating in a culture in that country. I’m not saying we’ve figured it out, but we’re trying. We’ve got a very flexible time off policy.

 

Then what other cultural mind shifts are necessary to make it work? I think respect is so important. And we often forget that. That’s one of our values. If you spell out Language Network’s values, it’s the acronym HEART, which is humility, empathy, adaptability and consistent improvement, respect, take action.

 

When I look back at some of the best team members that we had, they really resonated with that. It’s on our website. We talk about it in all our quarterlies. It’s how we hire and how we fire. Is there alignment in the values? There’s no secret sauce there. I also point back to that EOS book; Traction is the book by Gino Wickman. It’s got a good tactical way that you can look at this, so it’s not like a feel good, woo-woo, you know, MBA, what are our values?

 

It really, it boils it down to like, how does this help the business? How does this help our culture?

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Jordan, as we are scaling up, you talked about this briefly earlier that normally it’s easy to grow virtually. But are there risks related to scaling up too fast and too much?

 

Jordan Evans

Yes, absolutely. You know, hiring people and then letting people go at all. I’m thinking from the lens of a services organization, right? You’re hiring people because there’s revenue to support it. Or there’s going to be. And so, the risk would be over hire and or over forecasted for capacity and you brought too many people on.

 

So, then you go, shoot, that was my mistake. How can we repurpose? If we are running heavy with capacity. Are there higher value skills that we just acquired that we could put people to or there’s contraction? You know, we lost some key accounts and contracts. You pull back, pull back on hours.

 

So, there’s again, no different than hiring in the US in that sense of making that investment and forecasting how many people do we need? It’s a little bit easier when the costs are lower globally to feel more confident about scaling up. Scaling up, I’ve seen a lot of people on the sales front and the timeline. I’m going to hire a sales organization or I’m going to add more seats in my sales org.

 

It’s really important to understand the ramp period. You know, people don’t come in the door and start ringing revenue the next day. There’s a period of time where they need to just get oriented with your organisation and the services and capabilities etc. I think on the sense of scaling up, that’s where it’s easiest to make the biggest bets and then realize you’ve got to pull back.

 

I’m speaking from experience too. I’ve run tons of different sales orgs, and we have a growth forecast to hit. And we’ve got a number and usually you add bodies to hit that number. What are other risks of scaling up too fast? Management. So, with my managers, can they scale? That’s a different skill set. How do they communicate and support and coach and keep accountable their team?

 

So that’s the biggest challenge I think to scaling up, is evolving. The company evolves and we all have to evolve too, me included. Actually, there’s another book I’ll recommend. I’m a fan of books because I don’t read them cover to cover. I think that’s the biggest fallacy, read what’s relevant or read what’s going to be immediately relevant and then apply it. Like that’s the secret sauce.

 

I don’t need the mental stimulation anymore at this stage in my life where I need to read business books through and through.

 

I’m looking at my bookshelf and the book is called Scaling People by Claire Johnson. She’s a COO of Stripe, another tech company. But this is like her super tactical book on how do I grow my people? And that’s where the success is in a services company. To grow the company, you grow your team on a skill set level, on a mindset level.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Jordan, please explain what does scaling mean for supply chains such as our linguist community, given how diverse and how connected globally we are with our supply chains?

 

Jordan Evans

Supply side, globally. Gosh, I’m fascinated to see where we’ll be in five years. So globally, again, best person for the need. So, we’ve got a company called Hire Globo that we’ve spun off out of Language Network. It’s a sister company, separate entity, global staffing and recruiting. And I think that’s what’s really important is having a recruiting team, a discipline, somebody who can go out and find and vet the talent.

 

That’s a really important skill in answering the question you asked on the supply side of being aware of what’s available out there in the linguist community. I prefer still working with the lowest common denominator, which is one person. It’s quite old school. It’s what our industry is built on. Then there are companies that you can work with on the supply side that are specialists in specific languages.

 

So, you can decide what your strategy is there, lowest common denominator, or do it as a better serve, by going with the company. Yeah, so scaling is constantly reviewing who’s out there, how can we work with them, what’s the economics. That’s a never-ending thing. I think it’s important to always be open to new supply relationships while also being loyal and having a sense of connectivity on the supply side.

 

This is also something that keeps me up at night. I think I’m going to be thinking about this conversation, as I lie in bed tonight, Sultan, how can I create enough work and connection with our supply that they’re in business and it’s good for them and it’s good for us.

 

That’s really the secret of our industry is that everyone works with everyone, and we have to. It’s really the folks that jump in the pool and think it’s a winner-take-all approach. Maybe this is just my opinion. I like to play nicer and not splash people, but we definitely need a sense of long-term relationship, not just, low cost, at all costs.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

What are your thoughts about LSPs that don’t have the growth mindset? How can they develop that vision?

 

Jordan Evans

Gosh, a lot of scaling service company is hard. My first thought is, pick a summit of growth. It doesn’t have to be a trans-perfect $1 billion a year company. But look at where you are and chart a path for growth, or there’s a lot of people that just kind of have parked it. They’ve hit a certain threshold and it’s just frustrating to push beyond it. So, optimize for where you are.

 

So, my answer to your question is not everyone should. Some people should just optimize for where they’ve grown and be good with it. Other people should push for it because it’s a lonely, it’s a tough journey growing a company. Not everyone’s got the fortitude or the capacity for it.

 

I’m not sure, I think being open to change is important and either you’ve got it, or you don’t. Being willing to show up and milk the cows every day, either you choose to do that, or you don’t. So, I don’t know. This is more of a question of whoever’s running the company, like what’s your vision? What’s your persona?

 

Maybe you’re not the right person. I’m not telling anyone they can’t do something, but I’m just saying, an honest assessment, are you the person to grow this thing? Or maybe you need to, do you want to grow it and you’re okay with relinquishing some of the control? Who do you bring in to help you grow it? Yeah. Mindset. A good therapist will help with mindset Sultan.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

In closing, Jordan, what is your advice for companies that are planning to grow, but they are experiencing a lack of understanding of the global landscape? Whether it’s economic, political and so forth.

 

Jordan Evans

Planning to grow. It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees and the meaning being, not being able to zoom out the “where do we need to go”? I’m so hyper focused on what we’ve been doing, how things have been done, what this client has requested.

 

So, my advice is, to gain perspective, whether that’s talking to other industry professionals, listening to the Sultan’s podcast, you’re reading books, hiring a business coach or a mentor to help you look at the landscape and where you fit into that landscape. So, understand where your company is in this whole ecosystem, and then decide where you want to grow.

 

There’s no reason to grow for growth’s sake. That’s what tumors do. Those are terrible. So, you pick a path and make it a great one and be adept and adaptable. So, my tactical answer to this is, who are your top clients and what do you do well?

 

Go find a lookalike, you make a list, your top 20 to 50 accounts that are just like your current bucket of clients. Make sure you can go talk to them, show up at the conferences and try and duplicate or double what you are today. That’s a great, fantastic place to grow.

 

Every company can find low hanging fruit in that approach. It’s just this lookalike approach. Where are we currently? What do we do currently? Well, let’s just go do that again, and to more people. And then beyond that, of course, I think there’s more strategy. Well, what services do you want to provide? What industry do we want to be in? That does take a leader that is willing to invest and push the org there.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Jordan, what an interesting and fun conversation. You always have a very interesting perspective of how things are done, in particular with, in your case, as you’re growing your company. It’s wisdom that you’ve shared, and I am glad we were able to speak on this specific, very important topic.

 

I’m sure our next conversation will be equally fun and engaging. And with that, let me thank you for your time and for sharing your wisdom with our community.

 

Jordan Evans

Sultan. Thank you, you’re the one that’s the curator of this podcast. So much wisdom has been shared out there, and that goes back to your question about mindset. Listen to Sultan’s podcast and benefit from brilliant minds sharing their expertise. So, thanks for having me.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Appreciate it. Thank you.

 

Okay. It’s time for my roundup of the interview and my analysis as to what has been discussed.

 

Scaling and growing an organization start with a vision and the courage to change. It is not easy, but it is imperative for the success and longevity of an organization such as an LSP. Having the right people in the right roles, aligning the company’s values with the mission and understanding the customer mindset to foresee how the organization will fit into the economics of tomorrow, are some of the key things that will foster growth.

 

Whether growth is organic or through acquisitions or mergers, having the right mindset and strategy will set you for success, as Jordan pointed out in our conversation today.

 

That brings us to the end of this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and please keep your comments and feedback coming. Don’t forget to subscribe to the translation company talk podcast on your platform of choice and give this episode a five-star rating. Thank you.

 

Until next time!

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