How to do marketing in localization? How important is it to choose the right marketing and sales strategy for localization? Find out in this interview with Hila Shitrit Nissim from BLEND.
Andrej Zito
Hi, Hila. Thank you and welcome to the podcast.
Andrej Zito
Hi, Hila. Thank you and welcome to the podcast.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Thank you for having me. I’m very excited to be here.
Andrej Zito
First usual question is Where exactly are you located right now? Where are you joining us from?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I’m located in Israel, Tel Aviv.
Andrej Zito
Is that where you’re from?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Yes. I’m originally from Israel.
Andrej Zito
Yes. So I’ve never been to Israel. I think I did one interview with one guy who used to work from Microsoft for 20 years, and then he moved back to Israel. So if I, if I went to Tel Aviv as a tourist, where would you send me? Like, what do you think is the one thing that people need to see.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
First of all, Tel Aviv is a nonstop cities, so like New York, lots of places to see lots of culture and great food, bars, Museum, I would send you to this either to send your Tel Aviv, like the television museum, or to the Jaffa area where you can work the flea market, which is a very nice experience right next to the beach. So we have beautiful beaches too.
Andrej Zito
Do you think the city has changed a lot in the recent years? What you remember in when you were growing up?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I think it evolved, you know, right now it’s ranked as the number one most expensive city to live in, in the world. Really? Yeah. In terms of, you know, everything, I guess, apartments food. So, it’s very expensive. I think that’s one change. Other than that, you know, we are the startup nation. So, lots of startup companies, lots of entrepreneurs. And tech activity in Israel in general, and also in Tel Aviv.
Andrej Zito
Why do you think that Tel Aviv, and Israel in general is becoming the startup hub?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Oh a lot was written about the reasons, you know, but I think, like historic reason is that the way the Jewish people are kind of survivors, like, had to fight for our country, and to actually survive a lot of historic things that happens to us. So I think this survival mode and the passion or the willing to succeed, innovate, we also at the age of 18, all of us go to the military service to the army, and it really trains us to be you know, some of us are fighters, some of us become, you know, go to the special units. The you know, even cybersecurity is very strong in army or service. So, lots of people come and with a lot of technology, background and experience. So they say that every second Israeli person has a startup working startup. So it’s very, very strong here.
Andrej Zito
How did you personally start to working like what was your first job?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So it also has to do with my military service, I served as an officer in the Israeli spokesperson unit, it means that my my role was to do public relations to the Israeli Defense Forces. So that’s how I learned how to work with Press, reporters, always tell the truth and build a stronger, you know, image and improve the positioning of the Israeli Defense Forces. So PR, that’s my first role. I would say that’s my first day scheme that I learned after the after high school. After graduating at university. I started working in the high tech industry. I started with the events and conference production. And then I moved into the venture capital world VCs. So I worked for the largest private equity group in Israel that invest in technologies and startups. It’s called Viola. That’s where I started as a marketeer. And that’s where I grew and learn the profession and I eventually I became the vice president of marketing for Viola. And after working in the funds in the financial world, in a way consulting and advising to startup companies and entrepreneurs, I decided to move to the other side and take an operational role as the VP of marketing in a startup company. I started in a company called Promo.com, which is a video creation platform. And most recently, after spending some time as a CMO for other areas, stage startups I joined BLEND in July this year. So yeah.
Andrej Zito
Thank you for giving us your journey. That’s basically answers my next question which I have for you, like how did you get into localization? Because a lot of the guests that come here, you I was like they started in localization right away. But for you, the journey was slightly different. So localization was definitely a new, that’s a world for you, right? I think that your previous company before BLEND had something to do with like combat drones or something like that, if I’m not mistaken.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I spent a year in providing marketing services to early stage startup. One of them was a cyber company, one of them was a drone company, and also some consumer brands. And so I came from the marketing side, and then BLEND happened to be one of my clients, and then I joined them. So localization is still new to me, I have to say that I’m still learning the industry. Having spent this last six months as a full time CMO at BLEND, I learned a lot, but it is a very unique industry. And I would say, yes.
Andrej Zito
Do you think it’s advantage to sometimes come to an industry that you know, don’t know about much, because you have like this, let’s say, beginner’s mind, and you’re curious about many different things. Because, you know, like, in my experience, typically, when you have people with a lot of experience, let’s say they’re used to doing things in a certain way, and sometimes it’s fresh mind can bring a lot to the, to the table.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Right. I think it’s an advantage because you come with a fresh, you know, mind, and they can look at this story, the ways you know, the way you tell the story, the way you do things in any way. So and you you’re curious about things, and I think it’s a it’s an advantage, I think marketing in general is something you can take from one industry to another, I think, eventually, it’s about making people buy your product or providing value to your customers. So some people say that consumer brands and b2b companies have totally different, you know, marketing, I think there are lots of similarities. At the end of the day, it’s always people on the other side, you’re selling to people, whether they pay with their corporate credit card or with the personal credit card, you have to convey the message and convince them to, to use your product. So in this case, you know, it’s a different product and industry and service. But again, we are selling to marketeers, localization, managers, CEOs. So I think in this regards, I always like to sell to people that are, you know, in marketing, and it’s also a product that they can really understand and relate to and use as a user. So it’s also easy, when when you sell cyber solutions, or even drones, it’s harder to as for me, as a marketer, it was harder to a, you know, really understand all the bits and bytes of their products.
Andrej Zito
Rights. Right, that makes sense. Did you did you personally have a need for localization in your previous jobs as a CMO?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Yes, definitely. In my previous company, we did we wanted to localize we wanted to expand from, you know, US-speaking countries to English-speaking countries, sorry, mainly US to Latin America, to Brazil to, you know, so it was a big project for us understanding how to start, how to do it, how to localize the website, and then the product, and then pricing and currencies, and you know, so that’s the first time I faced this issue. And even you know, deciding to which market to go first is a big question. And also in BLEND when we just, we can talk about it, we rebranded the company, we built a new website, and we localize the website. So I was the customer of my own company. opportunity to use the product to use the service and to see how it feels.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, that makes sense. So technically, you had experience with localization before as a customer,
Hila Shitrit Nissim
not much very, very, just from from the outside, we hired a localization person to help us but I was facing the Yeah.
Andrej Zito
So I’m wondering for people who are, let’s say, in a similar position, as you, you know, like high level executives, and they come into industry and they bring their expertise from different fields. How did you start learning about localization about the business like, did you? I don’t know, talk to the customers of BLEND, did you try to understand the operations? How did your let’s say first few weeks of training, though?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Yes. So BLEND is a exists since 2008. So it’s not a young company. There’s lots of people that work in the company for many years, and I was I had Then the opportunity to talk to people within the company, obviously, the founders of the company that founded it. By the way, it was founded under another name, it was called One Hour Translation. So I think my my main name, I first two weeks, I was talking to people, I was talking to the other air leadership members, I was talking to the founders, I joined some customer calls, I wanted to talk with like to see what the customers are saying. I think reading materials, I also talked to other advisors, this BLEND is working with like a people from Nimdzi and Slator, if you’re familiar with these media outlets and research companies, and this was also a very helpful conversation. And who else did I talk to? So I think mainly, mainly reading stuff, reading some of the areas saw the story, good presentations, and then and the marketing collateral and talking to people within the company. And some some outside Yeah.
Andrej Zito
Was there some moment where you were surprised by something that you learned about localization, that you didn’t expect it?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I didn’t know much about it. So even though I explored the issue, or I heard about it in my previous company, I didn’t I realized I know nothing. You know, you heard the names of Smartlink, or a TMS or, but I didn’t realize how complex this process of localization is, how many tools and software and AI tools and machine engine machine translation engine and so I think this quite surprised me, it’s not like the company has one, technology or IP. And that’s what it’s using to provide a service like many other companies. In other words, it’s like, as we like to call it, it’s an orchestration of tools and engines and people, by the way, the community, the translators, you see that the BLEND has 20 5000s freelancers all over the world. And then you realize, without these people, we couldn’t provide the service. So this is the core of our business also. So I think these things were things I wasn’t aware of, before I joined the company, also the you know, the number of languages that exist out there and some languages that I didn’t know it. So I think that stuff is always there. But you know, learning about cultures, other countries languages, it’s very interesting.
Andrej Zito
How did you view localization, let’s say from Microsoft, or Google, you know, as a consumer, like how they localize their products, because I know that the previous guy that I was mentioning, who is also also Israeli, he was very much promoting, or he was saying that, for example, Netflix and Spotify, they did a very good job localizing their apps into Hebrew. So how did you think about I don’t know the localized products or services that you have in Israel, let’s say maybe even after the training, like did you look at it through a different lens?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So Hebrew is a very tough language, okay. And when you translate to Hebrew, most brands, unfortunately, they use machine translation there and then there are lots of mistakes, which are hilarious. It’s like I as a as a consumer, I really like or prefer to use English or like when I browse my Facebook apps or LinkedIn or even, you know, shopping apps like Amazon I prefer the English version over the Hebrew I guess it is because the Hebrew is not so fluent or native. So I think but some brands do an amazing job as he said, I guess Spotify Netflix, when I watch Netflix subtitles, I do put the Hebrew and most of the time it’s great. Some other apps like Are you familiar with Wolt – the food ordering app? It’s I guess it’s any reputable. Very strong in Israel. They have very funny mistakes in their app so. Yes. So it’s like, hard to use or my memory is good. You they make you off, you know?
Andrej Zito
But do you think okay, so from the marketing perspective, do you think this is this is a bad thing like for their brand because you say that it makes you laugh? And you sit, I think in a positive way.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Definitely not good. I can give you some examples. Okay, there are two do away funny examples. So where there is a Are you familiar what the pita is? Pita bread? Yeah. So pita bread. It’s in Hebrew pita I think I don’t know if we have this word in Hebrew, which is written the same way you write pita, which is in English, it’s seduced, like to seduce someone. So imagine four letters that create a word that has two meanings in Hebrew. And then they translated it to seduce. Alright, schnitzel, which is in Hebrew, you can read it as a word that means exploited. So it’s so funny or that many of these mistakes though I don’t think it’s good for a brand, I think that if you localize, and you want people to use your Europe, you know, in, by the way, in this case, it was the other way around. It was from Hebrew to English, this mistake. So it’s even funnier, you know. So I think you should make sure that it’s done by human people, or at least young people or editing or reviewing the translations. People feel that they’re being taken, taken serious, you know, it’s like, seriously, yeah.
Andrej Zito
So as we’re talking about these mistakes, I think in one of the earlier podcasts when I was doing this segment called localization news, we were discussing, let’s say the latest news from the industry or like, what happened articles. And I think there was one article about Amazon, opening their store, I think it was in Sweden, or some somewhere some Nordic country. And there were a lot of machine translations that translated some products in a very, like sexual way, like sexual references. And I’m wondering, again, like to tie it back to to marketing. Do you think like, in some cases, these mistakes are actually very beneficial, because they create a lot of PR around the mistakes, and people maybe just want to go and see the mistakes and just have a laugh about it.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I think you should find other ways to create bias or PR on your brand, rather than doing mistakes in advertising or in marketing or in anything that has to do with your brand. Because the end of the day. I don’t know, maybe people will remember the mistake. And we talked about your brand, but I don’t think it’s doing a good service. I think not every publicity is a good one. Yeah, there are brands even you know, when they do outdoor campaigns, signage, you know, sometimes it’s funny to see like, their mistakes, I think people should take it more seriously and make sure that they are when you are entering a new market, you should have local people work on your, on your language on your on your brand. And then that’s what we provide. We have local people in every local, combining the technology, of course, but also the human part, just to make sure the nuance the culture, you know, sometimes even the colors or the way you speak to people, you know, it’s very important.
Andrej Zito
So, you think that the first impression matters? Matters a lot, yeah! We started talking about BLEND and One Hour Translation. So from our initial chat, I think I understood that you joined the team in the middle of the transition to BLEND. So be maybe you were not at the source when the decision was made to change the branding. But like, Why do you think One Hour Translation was not say good enough anymore? Why the founders decided to change to rebrand.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So I think it was great. By the way, it was a very strong brand, very popular service. People knew it. When they needed online translation, fast translation, they came to our website, it was the first I think online translation platform in 2008. So way, it was fast and easy, and you can do it on your own. And I think as the company grew and the industry developed, I think back then maybe localization didn’t like it was even before this, this became popular company shifted towards working with enterprise companies and larger businesses and expanding the offering to more localization services and managed services and way more technologies, not not just translation anymore, not just human translation anymore. And as this shift started, the company, you know, evolved and the decision was made to pivot or to rebrand in the name. You asked what was wrong with it? So I think nothing was wrong. But you know, sometimes when time when time goes by it’s it’s a good time to refresh, to change. In the One Hour Translation case, I think One Hour was the connotation was that it’s fast and that it’s maybe cheap, you know, when our photo was a term that people use in the US and they as we wanted to serve them. brands that are bigger brands, global enterprises, we understood that the company needs to blend that will reflect what we really do. And then then we decided that, you know, our vision or our mission is to help brands blend into new markets seamlessly become natively local. So that’s why we like that the name also, in One Hour Translation is still a very strong popular term, people are still searching for it on Google, and people are still coming to our website, looking for the service. And we still provide fast online translations through our wizard, which is like we have a self service saved product that is called BLEND Express today, we are now also providing manage localization services and voice recording services to enterprises. So that’s in a nutshell about the rebrand.
Andrej Zito
Understand, yeah, when I hear One Hour Translation, it really feels like something you know, like something simple, gets fast and maybe even cheap, like you mentioned. But yeah, if I was, I don’t know, let’s say, we talked about Netflix or Spotify, right? If I was Netflix, and Spotify, and I really wanted like a localization partner, I probably wouldn’t look for someone who’s called One Hour Translation, because you need like a bigger, bigger service. Right? So so this change into into a new focus, let’s say focusing more on the enterprise customers means that you now have different competitors, I would assume. And when we initially spoke, you said that it’s very important to make your brand stand up. So what do you think makes BLEND stand out?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
First of all, we do have competitors in both. I would call it business models, the Self Service and the enterprise. I think BLEND standard stands out. Like in our DNA as a company, we are a tech company, we are, as I said, startup nation, technology, focus technology oriented. So I think unlike other LSPs, and this language services, companies, we are more tech oriented. So everything that has to do with you know, customizations and developing new API’s and integrating new tools and customizing workflows to adapt to our customer clients, you know, where workflows or systems that’s something that we are really strong. And the Agile nature of the way we work, it’s not that we’re saying yes to any requests for us, it has to do to come with with them, you know, strong business tool, but we are more technology focused, we have a very strong r&d team, product team. So the product is also very strong, and we are developing it and expanding it
Hila Shitrit Nissim
all the time. I think that’s what makes BLEND unique in the this landscape of localization company. And as I mentioned, also the human parts. So we have a very strong
Hila Shitrit Nissim
technology for the allocation of product projects, to the human translators, for the screening, the vetting, the quality assurance, the way we allocate projects between teams and between people and building the teams also for clients. And that’s also technology, as I said, it’s people, technology to manage and orchestrate this process. And yes, I think the fact that we are an Israeli company has to do with this ecology, thinking ambitious, and the growth nature that we bring.
Andrej Zito
Are the founders of the company, tech people like all of them.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Yes. At least two of those, the three are tech people. Definitely. And the AI, you know, experts and technology oriented, lots of machine learning and AI technologies. And but we all the entire management team in the company come from technology companies. So our CEO, he came from Pioneer. Pioneer is a payment platform you probably heard of Yes, he was one of the first employees spending 16 years with them in Silicon Valley. Very strong sales guy that’s our CEO, we at you and other team members came from companies like you know, Fiverr and Wix and the outer startup like CyberArk, Israeli tech companies that maybe you’re not familiar with. But we all come from this DNA of growth and startup that’s also unique. I think about the company. Not many of us came from the localization industry. All right, Chief Revenue Officer Daniel Gray is better on a language expert. And obviously our sales team. Many of them are selling vocalizations for for many years, but some of the leadership team members come from other growth oriented companies.
Andrej Zito
One may be off topic question. You mentioned the startup, let’s say DNA that you have in Israel. And you also mentioned your CEO used to work for in Silicon Valley, right. And I think Silicon Valley is considered, let’s say, the number one, startup hub because you have a lot of startups there. And they’re also like a huge VC world there. Can you somehow or do you do you know how these two worlds differ from each other? Like, do you think that the Israeli startup world does things differently than Silicon Valley? Or do they try to adopt things from Silicon Valley?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So first of all, I would say that many Israeli companies have has offices in in Silicon Valley like Pioneer is an Israeli company, their headquarters are in Israel in New York, and they’re they have offices in Silicon Valley. I think we have lots of similarities in the way we do business, I don’t think you can see lots of difference between today Israeli startups and American startups are more similar. In the past, they used to do say that the Israelis are good with technologies and Americans are better in marketing and sales. But today, I think, is we also hire American people to our teams, and vice versa. Israelis work for US corporates, as you said, this guy from Microsoft. So I think it’s more and more similar. We do have lots of like a if you go in San Francisco, where it’s like same a culture of meetups and events and startup companies. So yeah, that’s, that’s what I personally think.
Andrej Zito
So going back to BLEND you explained to us what the name represents. blending with the local markets. One thing that I’m curious about is, is the course so I like color. So why did you pick Let’s say Black and White for BLEND?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So I think when we did the rebranding, we thought about all the cultures and all the, you know, nations and places and cities worldwide. And I think you can see that our branding is very colorful, if you go to our website, we combine the blue, and the red, and the green, and the orange. And all these colors together, create our color palette, but for the logo itself, I think we wanted to keep it neutral is like in order to really blend in, you really need not to stand out, you need to stand out, but like, the black and white are more neutral, you know, colors, so you can play with them alongside all these colors too. Limiting, not their max thought put into this, you know, color selection of black and white, but I think it worked well with all the other colors. We wanted to combine in order to convey this variety of cultures, variety of places, and multidisciplinary, you know, nature or culture of the company.
Andrej Zito
I like it, it’s clean. Do you think that black and white kind of makes it look a little bit luxurious or?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
techie innovative clean? Yes, I agree with you. I think you you asked me about how bland stands out in this landscape, I think, you know, coming out with this new branding, new language new way, even then story and content. You go to other websites, you see something more traditional, more legacy more corporate. So I think that’s also part of the differentiation and how we stand out in our industry.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so that was a few sharings about BLEND. Now, let’s talk about marketing. In general, I would say marketing game localization. And I think that since you’re the first marketing person to come to the podcast, I think that a lot of the audience is maybe not that familiar with marketing, maybe some of them do. Marketing localization, but they don’t know much about marketing per se, which I think is quite helpful if you understand what you’re localizing and can understand it from the let’s say, marketing perspective. So maybe I would first start by asking you this very general question. What do you think is the difference between marketing and sales because sometimes, in some companies, you can have, I don’t know VP of marketing and sales, sometimes it’s combined. In your case you You’re just the CMO. So how would you what do you think is the difference between marketing and sales?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So first of all, marketing and sales must work very closely together in order to succeed. And I work very closely with our sales team and with our Chief Revenue officers officer who leads the sales team Daniel, I think the main difference now thinking about it is that we in marketing, we, we do the communications with our audiences, we have to be engaged with our customers, but it’s what more in a one to many method or even one on one on the digital way. But the sales team are the ones that meet the customers, you know, face to face one on one, and has to close the deal. So I think marketing has to provide the sales team with the right tools, assets, collateral collaterals story, and obviously, the product has to do with it too. So we work together also with the product team. And the other thing that we as marketing do is generate the demand or bring the leads to our SDR and sales teams, so they can talk to them and sell sell the product. So generating the demand, the brand awareness, everything that has to do with getting to know BLEND before they even think about localization or after they think about localization, educating our customers. And then for the sales process, providing everything they need to close the deal, everything that helps them convey the message articulate what it is, is it exactly that we provide how we do it. And so we we are, you know, as the storytellers, we we try to put as many good tools in their hands. And also, to get feedback from the customers. That’s what helps us make our work, you know, so I want to hear what are the customers saying, how do they react to this feature or offering is there any objection or concern, and then I can create marketing, you know, a blog post or a campaign to attack this exact objection, and to make sure they’re more confident in this regard. I think it’s a it’s a mutual feedback, and very strong cooperation. If we bring leads and the leads are not good enough, for if the leads are not big enough, we need to know and we need to change something in our campaigns, we have weekly calls, we have ongoing collaboration. And eventually we’re very, very focused on the customer needs customer success. Our sales team is also you know, working with the customers on an ongoing basis, making sure they leverage the solution they succeed with us. And then obviously, we want to create case studies get testimonials from our customers, you know, to strengthen our our brand and to to attract more and more customers. So we need them in order to do that. We need the salespeople.
Andrej Zito
Yeah. How does it work with the BLEND Express, which you mentioned that that is the self serve product, right, where people can get right, especially, is there still a place for for sales? Or does this sale happen as a result of marketing?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
It’s a great question. So services. Business Line in the marketing is also the sales as you said, it’s a product lead growth products. So it means that we bring the traffic to the website, and we are in charge of the conversion also. So we want to make sure that they will convert they will buy or they will leave their information so we can keep nurturing the leads. And so in this area of the business marketing is also the sales. It’s a low data or even no touch. So we do not talk to the people that buy. But we want to provide them with all the information, the comfort, to use their credit card, the satisfaction, make sure they’re satisfied. And sometimes they have questions they need help. So we have a very strong support team to help them complete the purchase. Very strong operations team to make sure that the operations go smoothly, and they get their translation on time. So we all work together. It’s not just marketing, but as is, as you said it marketing is the same as well. It’s also a different type of customers the different persona different size of purchases, so smaller projects usually or even bigger, but they can operate on their own. They don’t need a project manager they need us to manage the service for them. They upload file or or connect to us and they do it on their own.
Andrej Zito
The use case where some of The enterprise customers might want to use the self serve solution for, let’s say, some small projects of their own.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Definitely, they can open projects on their own. And the both type of customers use what we call the BLEND Platform. Or you can folder projects, open your projects, track the status, communicate with the translators provide feedback. So always some enterprise customers also open projects on their
Andrej Zito
own definitely, yes. One of the reasons why I’m asking is because I was talking about, like building these platforms where people can just get localization on their own without having to have a dedicated project manager or account manager. And one of the thing that I was questioning is how do you manage relationship with the people that don’t have a personal touch with your company? Because you lead the people to use the platform, right? Because that’s what allows it to be a more, let’s say, cost efficient solution, right? Because they do everything on their own, and they just real utilize the technology, right, that you created the platform? Is there is there a way how you can still, let’s say, maintain or build the relationship with these customers who are just still served? Or is the relationship built by mostly building a good product so that the people just come back?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So first of all, we focus on providing good experience and making sure they’re happy. If they’re not happy there, they obviously can come to our support through the chat or through emails, and we will help them. So the chat is a great way to communicate with them, if they but then it’s there a you know, is there a call whether to talk to us or not, we try to keep in touch, you know, through emails mainly. But sometimes we also pick up the phone or try to reach out directly we really, as marketing people, we really want to get to know our users, we sometimes want to understand better their use case their needs, or so we try to talk to our users as much as we can there, I don’t know 1 million users or even more, so we can talk to all of them. And but we definitely, we definitely would like to get to know them in person. It’s just not possible. Another audience that we communicate with our translators, so we for them, we have a community, very strong community, where we communicate with them on a daily basis. We have, like our community leader has open office hours where they can set calls personal calls with her talk to her we do some kind of, you know, feedback or a conversations with them as a team. So and we bring them to our leadership meetings, to hear their feedback and their concerns, and you know, get to know them better. So it is very important for us to keep in touch with our our stakeholders and audiences.
Andrej Zito
You mentioned the word brand. Full of times, I think most of the people probably have some rough idea what it means. But what does a brand mean to you personally, to me, and
Hila Shitrit Nissim
brand is a very important part of the game. You know what Jeff Bezos used to say that your brand is what people are saying about you when you’re not in the room. So I really like this definition, I think a brand is what people think about your company, how even it makes them feel about you what the perception they have about the service that you’re providing. And you and I know lots of brands that done it successfully at Nike, you know, you mentioned Spotify, Netflix, so we all have attribution to these brands. And I think a brand is something that helps you as you said, keep in touch with your customers make sure that they are you know, they have some kind of feeling towards your brand can be awfully it’s also loyalty. The willingness to pay for the service say, I’m not saying to pay more, but the willingness to come back and buy from you. So I think a brand is the added value, I guess, because there are so many localization companies, so many. It’s a very crowded industry. And so I think that’s what helps you set apart or build relationships, maintain relationships. And it’s not an easy thing to do. It’s like very hard to build the brand. And it’s very hard to measure the results of these efforts. But I can tell you it’s an ongoing effort. And you have to invest in it even if you don’t see the ROI immediately, or you cannot measure it. So starting from from the way the brand looks, but it’s not the most important thing, a logo, a logo is not a brand. It’s I think it’s more about the way you do you do things, the way you communicate with your audiences, the way you talk to them, the way you listen to them. The story that you tell the values that you are present, and the people, I think it’s a lot, it has a lot to do with the people that represent the brands also.
Andrej Zito
So do you think that the brand takes a lot of effort and loves time to build, but it can be shattered or damaged very quickly? Or do you think if there was a strong brand, like for example, we were talking, I was mentioning to the example of Amazon, right, who went to Sweden, and they totally messed up their machine translation. But I guess we can assume that Amazon will still be here and nothing will be happen. I do think like, a strong brand, can easily be damaged, or because it’s so strong, collect these little things, and little faux pas here and there will not damage it.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
It really has to do with how you react to such a crisis, or a problem or how you manage it. So I think everyone you know, mistakes can happen. And then you can leverage it, you can be honest about it, you can apologize. So it really depends it definitely you can destroy a brand in very easily, much easier than building it. But I think if you are managing the crisis when it happens carefully, and then respect your audience, respect their customers, and always being as you know, as truthful as you can with them. So you can control the damage or even leverage it to good stuff. There is a story about an Israeli company weeks that when they enter Germany, they did a big launch. And then they realized that their name has a very as you said the sexual or not not so positive connotation. But they did a very big campaign. And they they laughed at themselves. And I think people first of all, it created a lot of buzz and PR, but I think it made people really understand that they did by mistake. And once they understood, they use the mistake to build the brand and to communicate it. So if you’re interested, I can share with you some links about the story. So So I think it’s about em, yeah. How how you manage such crisis and when it happens?
Andrej Zito
Yeah, I like the way that that how you said this, because you were saying that pretty much everything that you do how you do things is your brand. So technically, how you react to this crisis is also your brand. Right? One thing that I’m also curious about, you mentioned that the ROI for building a brand is very difficult to measure. If you have this conversations with let’s say your founders are with the with the leadership team, how would you convince someone to let’s say, dedicate some budget into purely building a brand? If there’s no clear ROI? What would be your arguments?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
First of all, is not that there is no clear I think it’s a long term play. So it’s not easy to measure in the first month, second month or third month. I think if you leverage it if you if you do the you know the work consistently, meaning you know way PR efforts and thought leadership and even you know being in the right places, even when you go to a trade show where you can you can generate leads for meeting people, but you can generate brand awareness and people get to know you and at least you’re there next year competitors and people are exposed to your brand. And that’s like the hardest thing to measure right then ROI on a conference or exhibition, you can bring the leads and they can generate business, but sometimes the cost is even, you know, higher. So I think if the CEO or the leadership team does not understand the value of brand building or marketing, it’s a very tough task, I don’t think but I think once they see they see the demand is growing. They see that the quality of the leads is increasing the see that people are talking about your customer is coming and he’s saying I heard about you or someone told me to talk to you were that that’s how you feel it it’s hard to measure as I said, But you start to feel the impact you start to feel the results. We measure everything we can we are a very data driven company, we measure the pace, we know we gain followers on LinkedIn, the traffic to our website, the leads, the lead generation, the reaction, even the you know, feedback, obviously. So we try to measure everything we can. And yeah, you see that. If you if you give it enough time, you see the results,
Andrej Zito
What kind of surveys where you ask people about the brand?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So you can do it with the help of their Google or Facebook of the world. Sometimes you can measure if brand uplift, we haven’t done it yet, recently. And but you can definitely do that. We do surveys, you know, in order to learn or to gain some data or statistics about behavior or preferences, not necessarily about the brand. We do ask people, How did they How did they hear about us? So we want to see, sometimes, you know, the attribution is very hard. It’s hard to do. Are you familiar with attribution? So if you spend in a specific amount of budget on Google campaigns, on search campaigns, and also on in Facebook and LinkedIn, you invest in SEO, and you also sponsor a podcast, let’s say I sponsor your podcast, I want to know the real impact of this spend. So and all these platforms, the, you know, the tracking is hard to make, because someone maybe heard about BLEND now in your podcast, and he goes to Google and is searching for BLEND. And he clicks an ad and I attribute all this success to Google. In real life, I should attribute it to podcast or to word of mouth or to organic posts that someone heard about me without this, you know, media spend. So it’s, it’s challenged with marketers face all the time.
Andrej Zito
So we are talking about the ROI and the data. But I think also marketing is a lot about the creativity. So how do you think about the balance between creativity and the pure data and the numbers?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Yeah, I think you can do marketing, if you’re only minded to one of these. So I think creativity is for sure. A one of the biggest, you know, most important things in marketing. And in general, I think our CEO is one of the most creative people around me. So it’s good to have people around you. And we do. As I said, we are measured data driven company, but we will not have anything to measure if we will not have creative ideas, campaigns, content items, or, you know, anything. So I think you have to have both. And it’s very hard, some some people are more analytic, some people are more creative, you have to have both. And I really like both I like designing I like design I like to, you know, visualize concepts or even even data, but to make it creative to make it easy to understand. And I do like numbers.
Andrej Zito
Do you think one of the sides is a stronger one for you? Or do you think you have it in balance?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Wow, it’s a tough question. I would say the strongest parts that I bring is is more about, you know, way, the messaging storytelling, world words, and also numbers. And the creative thinking parties is, I would say less strong. I have some brilliant ideas from time to time, but direct or free,
Andrej Zito
right? When you hire people into your team, do try to find the unique people who have both skills, or do you just
Hila Shitrit Nissim
depends on the role. You know, right now I’m looking for a social media and content manager. And I think for this role, specifically, you have to be super creative. We will teach him how to analyze the numbers if he doesn’t know or to track the performance of the blog posts or the social channels. It’s, I think it’s easy to we have a team to do it too. But it’s easy to learn. The creative thing is part of your it has to be part of your nature if you are going to take over social channels and content strategy. And that’s what I’m looking for. But if I’m looking for, you know, a user acquisition manager, PPC Manager, email marketing manager, I want them to be very, very data oriented to be able to analyze the trends to gain some insights. So it really depends on the on the role within marketing. Some people has to be both like product marketing people that has to strategize and also to understand what’s going on.
Andrej Zito
So there’s a very common saying that content is the king. So what do you think about this? This? Let’s say, I don’t know strategy? Do you think content is one of the most important things or
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Definitely the king, I’m my previous company, I was in the video industry. So we used to say that content is king videos, the queen or whatever. And also dealing with localization, you know, we obviously content is king. And that’s why we have to treat them so carefully and localize it as perfect as we can. Content is everything you and I today, think about what you do all day, you consume content with podcast, videocast, radio, social channels. That’s, that’s like, I know, there are statistics about the millions of pieces of context that go get published every day, the number of blog posts, the number of videos. So I think, obviously, audio is is taking over. As time goes by, because people don’t have time to read. They prefer to listen to content when they commute or when they work. So BLEND has acquired a voice recording company from Atlanta. And we are also localizing audio and videos. And we see that it’s like a very growth trend from gaming to e commerce to elearning. To podcasts. I’m a big believer in content, I think content has to provide value to someone so you shouldn’t create any piece of content. It doesn’t bring value to the reader to someone that has to consume it. And trying to think about our users, what is it that they need to do or to know? Tips and Tools and best practices and as many case studies and examples as possible.
Andrej Zito
Do you think we’re providing enough value so far?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Wow, we are talking for an hour now. So high hopes?
Andrej Zito
Yeah, so Okay, so let’s be practical to do you really try to create some specific value for the listeners. So content, there’s a lot of things that you can do. Like what what do you think what kind of content is good for people to start with?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Again, it’s it’s really depends on your goals as a brand as a localization company, or I think a you should focus on your audience. Who is it that you’re trying to sell to? Who is it that you’re trying to attract? And think about their pains, their needs their day to day job? Can you make it easier? Can you provide them with the I don’t know? 10 things you need to do before you localize your website, then things you need to check when shopping for localization vendor? What is it that you need to do before entering China? Like think about your audience, if I’m going after US companies that entering China or gaming company? So I think about this localization manager, what does gaming it’s about video and dubbing and, you know, ads and campaigns. So when we think about the content that we create, we are trying to think about who is the target audience? What is the channel? Am I going to post it on the blog am I going to pitch it to the media, obviously, every piece of content that you create, you should repurpose it as much as you can slice and cut and edit and then create galleries and visuals and videos and whatever. And to leverage you know, the most out of this piece of content. And but I think that the the answer to your question is thinking about the audience. What is it the T is looking for what we make him read or listen or open the email? Sometimes people do not open him is like tough life. So what is it that I can send to them that will make them open the email? What is it what is it that they can write inside that will make them feel good? I open this email for brand it’s not a garbage. It’s like real gold. So that’s what we are trying to do. And I think every marketeer.
Andrej Zito
do you think that creating content is mostly about building the brand brand awareness or where in the funnel does Content Creation fit?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I think when creating a content, it’s not about your brand. As I said, it’s about the user. But as you bring value to the user as you become a resource for your users, that’s how you build. That’s how it reflects on your, on your brand. Because if I’ll send an email saying how good BLEND is and how successful BLEND is and why you should work with BLEND, no one likes to be sold to or salesy materials, it will not work. So we I think we try to provide value and through the value to build this brand awareness or this demand. So, I think the result is brand building, but you shouldn’t do it with brand messaging or salesy, or when you’re doing it, obviously, keep your logo in your videos, because you can leverage it to build a brand. So keep it you know, related to your brand, but not not about you make it about them, and then they will come.
Andrej Zito
So, we talked about, I mean, briefly touched on the funnel thing. So, I did the interview many, many months ago with Gaya, from HubSpot, and I think HubSpot mate made the saying that the the sales funnel is that, and they’re using something like I think it’s called flywheel, something like that. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that. So do you still, are you still using let’s say, the typical funnel where it’s about, I don’t know, like attention, attraction, demand conversion, and so on? Or do you lean more towards the flywheel?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I’m not necessarily familiar with this flywheel. I think if I need tried to guess what you meant is that it’s like an ongoing process, the feedback is important. And also, when you have a funnel, you have many users that come through the funnel, and very few are becoming actual customers. All the others that you lost in the way you tried to remarket to you try to bring them back again, you try to, to win them. And so I think that’s where the with the flywheel comes into play. We are is we are using a funnel, but there is also a, what we call ABM, Account Based Marketing, where you start with it. Like the funnel is the opposite. It’s not like this, it’s like this, where you have a very targeted list of accounts that you’re going after, and the specific people that you want to attract. And then you try to engage with them, talk to them, and make them customers hopefully win win them. So when and if you want to talk about the funnel, I think there are lots of, we are targeting lots of types of customers buyers persona. So obviously, localization manager is the most obvious persona that you as a localization company go after. But not many companies have this title or this job within their companies. Many times it’s the marketing team that is in charge for localization. Sometimes it’s the product team that is localizing the product. Sometimes it’s the developers that are doing the localization. And sometimes it’s a procurement role that is doing the search, you know, when when you talk about voice and audio, we localize you know, where the IVR the telephony, customer support systems. So it’s the IT people, the contact centers, people, so we have lots of types of buyers or people that we are going after. And that’s requires different types of campaigns, different types of messaging, and different types of content that we create for each for each vertical or for each.
Andrej Zito
How do you approach the two different, let’s say segments, one for the enterprise clients and one for BLEND Express? Like do you utilize different channels? For the enterprise, I would assume that LinkedIn will probably be a very, very good place. I’m also wondering about BLEND Express, is it targeted towards individuals? Or do you still use LinkedIn because it’s small, small to medium
Hila Shitrit Nissim
we less use LinkedIn. LinkedIn is quite an expensive channel if you think about it. So you need to have larger deals in order for it to be efficient, I think for the self service and in general for the brand. Google is a major channel, Google Search Google Display and also slightly Facebook before because everyone is on Facebook eventually. So Facebook is very good for remarketing, do leverage email marketing for for this type of face of service? And yes, I think it’s a very different approach. So they even the messaging, the keywords, people that are looking for fast translation will not probably not be the enterprise customers that are after localization. And the messaging in our role fast or easy, or the messaging with localization is more about the end to end the one stop shop the managed service expertise. So it’s like we have two different marketing teams within one team.
Andrej Zito
Do you actually have like different teams, or
Hila Shitrit Nissim
we have a yes, we have like different marketing leads that are in charge of each business. And also, when it comes to user acquisition, the campaign managers with we tried to split it between two people. But all the other stuff, you know, the social media, the content, even the even marketing is quite comprehend comprehensive and looking at the bigger picture of all the audiences.
Andrej Zito
When you first started dealing with BLEND, and you probably did some research on the landscape, like what the other players are doing? What was your impression? So to me, you’re like, you look a marketing expert, like you have so many years of marketing? How did you feel about let’s say, the marketing within our industry? How the other players do it? Were you satisfied? Or do you think there’s a lot of things that maybe the localization industry is lacking, compared to maybe I don’t know, tech startups?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Oh, it’s a it’s a tough question. You know, I don’t want to offend anyone.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
When I look at the bigger
Hila Shitrit Nissim
players, and as I studied such a large industry, it’s like there are the LSPs. Right? There are the big big agencies, there are the technology players that are more techie startups or not startups, like bigger companies before it. Like the SmartLink. And the unbabel of the world. I think they do brilliant marketing, brilliant brand building events, conferences, content. I think the bigger ones, this industry has this huge players like the legacy players that are the Googles of the localization industry. I think there are more a bit behind in the way it looks like from the outside. I know they do great in sales, they have large customers, they have great business. When you look at it from the marketing perspective, I think it’s a bit a bit outdated, I would say it’s I find it a bit hard to understand the exactly what is it like from the outside? I guess I’m not because the the target audience, but if I find it hard to understand exactly how it works. And that’s where I my my challenge is to, you know, to articulate this the story of localization, because sometimes you talk to a customer that is a very experienced localization person like yourself, that I don’t need to educate you about how do we allocate the right engine to the right language, purse to the right vertical, or to explain to you what TM is and how do you save money, but some people that are starting or that are doing localization, even with huge budgets, they’re not very educated. So I think one of the targets that we have is to really explain to them how to how to do it right. What is the right process? How to choose the right supplier? You know, it’s like so yeah, it’s it’s there are lots of like, in any industry, there are good, they’re marketing Less. Less good. I would say, yeah, yeah. It’s good, because there is a lot to do and a lot a lot to improve. And then
Andrej Zito
since we’re talking about the competition, would you ever do a marketing campaign which would be really targeted against them?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
No, I don’t think we would. I don’t I don’t I’m not a big believer in in trashing others or comparing to others. You do some competitor campaigns in Google where people are bidding on your brand like if you will, I guess if you grew goes one our translation or get BLEND from the US you’ll see that other brands are beating or serving ads on our brand and we try or we are starting to do the same But without saying anything negative, I don’t think it’s acceptable, but some brands do it. So now, I think you can talk about what’s good. What do you do better? Not what the others do.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so another practical question, which I think would be, let’s say, okay, so when is when is bigger, we talked about the big super agencies, let’s say I’m a small LSP, I don’t know, five to 10 people. So these LSPs usually have a very limited budget. So where do you think this company should start with their marketing efforts?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
So I guess they should start with their own local markets, that’s their, like, if they have five to 10 people, I would start with even bizdev efforts and generating business from their industry. We do work with other LSPs. By the way, as vendors, we give them more to sometimes we have lots of work, and we partner with others. But I would start with if you asking me where to start with their marketing efforts, I guess, social media and in SEO, like starting because there is a lot of, you know, when demand or intense search. So when they, if they work hard, they can leverage this this traffic or intent. And social media, which is you know, even without budget, you can do stuff to stand out, or you can try to creatively thinking about content that will generate some awareness. Things that cost more, you know, the PR and campaigns media paid campaigns. So I guess, try to do it lean at first.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, the laneway. So if we are on a budget, you would suggest first start creating some content, which then can be used on social media. And it also helps with SEO? Right? Yeah. First
Hila Shitrit Nissim
of all, I would invest in the presence, the digital presence, presence, the website messaging, social assets. Yes. That’s what I would start with.
Andrej Zito
So so far, we’re talking only about the company brands. But I started, you know, this podcast. And one of the reasons why I did it was to, let’s say, build my own personal brand. So how do you look at building a personal brand? Do you think it’s different than building a brand for a company?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I think there are similarities for sure. In any brand that you build, you should start with your value proposition or what is it that you want people to know about you or thinking about you, whether it’s a company or a person? So as a person in before you start building your personal brand, you should start thinking, what am I good at? What can I you know, how can I differentiate myself or stand out what content can I share that we bring value to people. I’m a big believer in personal brand building, it’s not that I’m so good at it, I don’t have time. But I think when you build a personal brand, it serves both you and the company you work for. And we all know the power of LinkedIn and the way it can help you in building relationships, maintaining relationships, attracting business to your company, as well. So I think the thing to pay attention to is that when you are building your personal brand, again, it’s not about sales. If you start pushing content fast, start posting content about BLEND or wise BLEND good. It’s not about building my brand, you build your brand when you provide value. And when you share insights, and when you share your experience. And I can do it in the marketing world, you know. And as a result, people might see that I work is BLEND and it will make good service to the company. But I think focus on what is it that you can bring to the table what is it that you can talk about I think another important thing is to do it consistently like you can if you want to start you can put a challenge like once a month and posting something for me or the and then move to once in two weeks and then once a week. And it’s not only about posting it’s also about commenting to others and being engaged and a great way to build your brand is to start engaging with people that are more famous or more influencers, then you are and then people get to notice you even if it’s through the comments, it has a big impact on on your brand. I like I like networking, I like helping other people’s. So whenever I can, I’m happy to share it, you know, tips or experience not necessarily doing this methodology of sharing things on on LinkedIn, but I think you should do it in a in an organized way if you want to do it, right. And then everyone has something to say, you know, some people say, I can share, I don’t want to post I have nothing to say, obviously, where if you worked one day or two days, something has happened to you, you you you did something that you can talk about. So I am it’s just about, you know, gaining the confidence and being able to put it in writing.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, that’s, that’s a very good point. Because, at least in my network, I usually see the people who, let’s say, are at the top of the companies, you know, like the leaders, the executive people, they already use this as a tactic to build their personal brand. But from what I understand from you, you think that building a personal brand is there for everyone, right? Even started the localization?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I see young people junior people, start to do it. And I see good content. And I think that’s the right thing to do. There is no way too early or I’m not experienced enough, everyone can do it. Definitely. And I think there’s a lot to gain from doing it. It’s just something you should decide on.
Andrej Zito
Right. So let’s start slowly. Wrapping up this interview. One of the things that I wanted to ask you, and this is based on our first call that we had is that I asked you about what is your superpower? mentioned to me that you can get things done? What do you think is behind your ability or your superpower to get things done?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Behind it? Yes. I’m a very pragmatic person practical, and then I’m very good at solving problems or finding solutions faster. Probably, you know, when other people I don’t know what’s behind it. I think I was born this way. I don’t know. So yes, I think when also in marketing when there is so much to do. So much is going on and so many areas to handle, you know and people to manage, I think you have to be a more multitasker, like mindfulness is not for me, although I really appreciate it. And I think it’s amazing. I’m always doing things in parallel. This is my only zone call when which I didn’t answer any email or WhatsApp or teams message like I’m focused. Thank you. I appreciate but usually I’m like, all over the place. So I think that’s part of the the ability to multitask. And also, like, I don’t have the patience, I have to do things fast and make them happen. Maybe maybe it’s not so good, you know, but it is what it is.
Andrej Zito
Well, you are where you are. So I guess it’s working. So when you mentioned getting things done, let’s say fast that you like to get things done fast. That reminded me of Gary Vee. So we talked about Gary Vee before, like, to me it’s one of the one of the reasons why I started actually doing podcasts in the first place, he was advising it a lot to all of the entrepreneurs. And to me, it’s it’s one of the main sources where I, let’s say, I know at least about something about Mark. And I know that Gary says a lot about like, the speed of execution versus quality. So since you mentioned that you like to get things done fast. Do you think it’s somehow let’s say affects the quality? Or do you think that you can still deliver quality but still do it fast?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I think I said solving problem fast. But you’re right. It’s a good question. I think quality is very important. We talked about the quality of localization translation in content is specifically you know, I can stand seeing and low quality content or typos or whatever. So I really, really tried to provide high quality I hope I succeed in it. I it means a lot to me. Like, I think quality matters. And, you know, they said that if you if you try to make things perfect, you will never, you know, share them. You’re you also need to know when to stop the search for perfection but qualities. I agree that it’s more important than anything I tried to balance.
Andrej Zito
Do you have any methods, how you approach the things like that you need to do.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
First of all, I tried to maintain my you know, tasks, we work with Asana, it blends, so it’s a very, very powerful tool that helps you manage tasks collaboratively, but, but I tend to keep most of the things I have to do in in my mind. So with obviously, you know, blocking time in your calendar for your important tasks. And then checklists is a great way to when things get overwhelming, and prioritizing, you know, finish the faster things and then when things require, you know, more thinking more focus, so I better do it when I work from home and on from the office, maybe spend some time during the week. And when it’s quiet, or quiet, you know, and but definitely, yeah.
Andrej Zito
I think one of the methods is called eating the frog, like the frog, I’m not sure if you heard the expression, which means that you first start with the most challenging thing, and then you go to the less challenging thing. So in your case, do you prefer to do the smaller tasks first, and then do the bigger thing?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
Three depends, like I like to do as much as they can in one day. So the bigger things that I think you have to be to dedicate the time for them, like my days is for meetings and meetings and meetings. So I tried to block off time for these bigger tasks for concentrating and writing and brainstorming.
Andrej Zito
Used to create some some marketing, I don’t know, copy or graphics or something. Where are you? Do you still do?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I like it a lot. So I have a very large and amazing team. But I still like to create and, and come up with concepts or stories or messaging. I like to edit I like Yeah.
Andrej Zito
so what is the I don’t know, let’s say one copy that you created for BLEND and that you’re most proud of?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I’m not sure who created the BLEND in order to stand out I guess it was part of our rebranding process with the agency we worked with. And one piece of copy there are lots of pieces, you know, smaller pieces. So not there are lots of examples, not one in particular that I that I can think of, but in general, you know, coming up with ideas. It’s not I’m not a copywriter, okay, I’m not a tagline creator. But being able to, to improve the messaging to shorten the sentences to convey it in a better way. So that’s something I really like. And you know, lots of things you know, within social media copy, email marketing copy, so it’s nothing in particular.
Andrej Zito
Got it. Okay, final set of questions. Mostly person, what what are you curious about right now, and this doesn’t have to be related to work only. So marketing or localization, it can also be personal thing, but you can pick whatever you want to say,
Hila Shitrit Nissim
my city. My curiosity is limited to my world of work right now, which keeps me very, very busy. I tried to do some sports and then seeing what other than the or
Andrej Zito
dancing Oh, nice, what kind of dance?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
What kind of dance? It’s like, folklore and then yeah, it’s not the left, but it’s modern.
Andrej Zito
Right? Yeah. I’m always happy when I meet people in localization who are intensive because I also dance. Okay, next question is what is something that people seem to misunderstand about you?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I am not sure people misunderstand something about me. It did happen to me in the past that I was, you know, extremely, you know, stressed about something or busy or You know, a lot was going on and people would come and tell me, tell me you are you look so calm and relaxed, and I was like going to explode inside. So I guess that’s something that sometimes people don’t see. Right. that I think people quite understand me.
Andrej Zito
I hope, I hope you understand. Where do you think that comes from? I’m talking about the the explosiveness. But on the outside, you appear very cold. Is it like about being professional? Like keeping the emotions inside? Or is it mostly like controlling your emotions? I don’t know.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I don’t feel that way when it happens. That’s why I’m surprised. So but I guess it is like maintaining some formal and
Andrej Zito
so you are a newcomer to the localization in in a way? What do you think is wrong with our industry? And this is something that I ask everyone? Well,
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I think I’m too and newcomer to say what’s wrong, I think? I think the industry is still evolving and growing and booming, I guess right now. So and there is a lot of demand, you start, I think, when we started this conversation, you were talking about productizing it making it more self service easier to use, I think that’s something that we need to solve as an industry. On the other hand, I think maybe better story better a, you know, marketing. But other than that, I think that the industry is great, you know,
Andrej Zito
right? Yeah, I think for you, everything is new. So, like you said, it’s like a lot of learning and things are new for you. So I guess it’s exciting. Maybe you don’t see the other issues? Yeah. Are there any absurd or stupid things that you do? Wow. And what I mean by this is that, let’s say if majority of the people would look at you doing this or behaving in a certain way, they would look at you and be like, like, what is she doing? But for you? It’s like very normal.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I think it’s mostly the other way around. I think other people do things, and I you know, help them become more effective? And
Andrej Zito
maybe, maybe, maybe give me an example of that, like, what was the most recent thing where you said that, like, Oh, this is stupid.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I also had maybe something that comes to my mind, I always try to take the stairs in an elevator. And some people say, Oh, my God, what is she doing? But there’s something I tried to do for my health. Other than that, I don’t think I do it much stupid things.
Andrej Zito
Right. Okay. But about the other people? Do you remember? Like, what was the most recent thing where you kind of like shook your head.
Hila Shitrit Nissim
And sometimes it has to do about the way they use PowerPoint, or Excel or the computer, you know, so I have all these shortcuts and ways to do things faster.
Andrej Zito
Alright, so we’ve come to the end of the interview, and I’m going to give you the the final space. If you had this opportunity, let’s say to say something to everyone in the industry, what would you what would you tell them?
Hila Shitrit Nissim
I would tell them that to keep the good to keep up the good work and to focus on our audiences and users and providing good value to them. And I would tell them to focus on on great messaging, great stories, great content. And then let’s win this together. I think there is so much a, you know, demand out there so much business, I think, yeah, there is a lot of room for growth. And we are happy to partner with everyone so open to you know, cooperation and partnerships with BLEND and that we are happy also to get feedback and they get to know other people. I’m happy to get to connect with other marketeers in the industry. Also. I I’m not sure I know anyone. That is a marketing role, even localization their company.
Andrej Zito
All right. Well, thank you very much for the interview. Thank you for your time. Thank you, I’m sure a lot of marketing expertise here in the podcast. So thank you very much, Hila. Thank you. Thank you, Andre. Thanks. Bye bye.
