Greek to Me: The Importance of Communicating Clearly to Your Customers

I worked for a guy years ago in New York who wanted to get the U.S. film rights to the Swedish character Pippi Longstocking. So he tracked down the author’s representatives in Sweden, got their telephone number, and picked up the phone. 

When someone answered on the other end, that person spoke, well... Swedish – something that my boss didn’t seem to anticipate. Yet, rather than conclude that he needed to get a translator and call back, he kept repeating himself... at an ever-increasing volume.

Needless to say, that didn’t help. 

Awhile later, I was told that the Finnish language version of a film he’d produced was out of synch. Somewhere around the middle of the film, the narration and the picture no longer matched. 

When I asked how the person who gave me that information knew it, he said that it was feedback from someone in Finland. 

So I, too, picked up the phone and called... the Finnish embassy in New York. I then persuaded the bi-lingual receptionist to swing by on her lunch hour and earn an easy $50 by telling me where the words and picture stopped making sense. In under an hour, the problem was solved.

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