Published by Programme B
What were some of your goals when you started your business?
Nice to meet you BaronMag! Sabrina Antonelli and I, Roberto Saino, are both from Milan, Italy and since 2013 we call Montreal our ‘home’. We’re also clients at YES Employment + Entrepreneurship (www.yesmontreal.ca), a not-for-profit organization that enriches the community by providing English-language support services to help Quebecers find employment and start and grow businesses.
Before becoming entrepreneurs, our professional experience in Europe and North America revolved around international markets and dealing with clients from around the world. When we founded All Voices International in Atlanta in 2006, it was like connecting dots from our past into a new venture and into the future.
At the time, we knew through connections in the audio production business in US that there was a need for high-quality language services in North America. Many foreign voice actors based in the US were offering voiceover services in their native languages, however, their pronunciation and intonation had lost the authenticity of the home country. For example, many marketing companies were dubbing commercials in Italian using Brooklyn-based Italian voice talent. And when a campaign would air in Italy, it was not on par with the Italian language spoken there or with the local dubbing standards.
By offering a remote recording of foreign voice talent living in their own country as part of our services, we were able to provide North American clients with authentic foreign voice talent that was suitable for international campaigns.
What stage are you at now?
After 15 years in business, our main strength is a very agile structure which allows us to deliver top-notch language services tailor-made to our clients’ needs. We can scale our professional resources depending on the projects we are working on and our clients’ requirements. In our vast pool of select professional linguists, translators, editors, voice talent and voice directors, we have resources for every project. With this dynamic approach, we can help big marketing agencies and corporations as well as small and medium businesses.
What have been your greatest achievements?
Our greatest achievement has been to be recognized as experts in our industry throughout North America. To have regular clients who’ve trusted us with their projects for more than 10 years. And to have such a solid reputation among clients and vendors that most of our new clients come from a referral. Word-of-mouth is the most successful marketing campaign we could ever run. You can take a look at our clients on our website allvoicesintl.com.
What were/are your biggest struggles?
Language localization is a fascinating business and we get in contact with a lot of distinct realities. For years, we have been observing the market and how it developed. In the past, language localization was mainly a post-production task. A lot of clients were looking for foreign versions of their English production and they were very concerned about budgets. Today, clients have understood the importance of global communications and the strategic advantage of including language localization in the early stage of production and have an adequate budget allocated for that.
What was the problem you were experiencing before you came into YES Employment + Entrepreneurship (www.yesmontreal.ca)?
We were managing our business by doing what we do best: focusing on delivering high-quality service. We were less concentrated on company structure and marketing. Our accounting process also needed improving.
What did you find as a result of using YES’s services? What was the best thing about it?
Thanks to YES skilled coaches and mentors, as well as their comprehensive seminars, we were able to improve the way we run our business. We got both constructive feedback and challenging recommendations that helped us change what needed to be changed. We took courses, like the Business Bootcamp, for example, that helped us look at the structure of our business from a completely different point of view.
How did your presence in the Quebec market facilitate your international expansion?
That is a question we haven’t quite answered, yet. Most of our clients are in the US and Europe. In 2021, we opened a new operation in Montreal (All Voices International Canada Inc.). We have been living in Canada for a decade now and look forward to helping Canadian professionals in the media production, e-learning, marketing, and communication industries.