Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Liz Menches. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Liz, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
Well, I had always wanted to work for myself. As my partner at the time told me “You have too strong a character to keep working for someone else. Why don’t you start your own company?” I replied that I couldn’t possibly do that – lack of security etc.
I had had a few ideas which had been going round in my head, but had never had the courage to implement them.
Then my inspirational moment came. I was skiing and standing at the top of a red slope. If you, like me, have vertigo, you can imagine what this means. I was a green and blue slope girl and my friends had pushed me way out of my comfort zone. (They were all excellent skiers and were, by this time, waiting for me at the bottom of the slope!). I stood there, rooted to the spot, panicking. How was I going to get to the bottom? Take off my skis? Slide down on my backside? I stood there trembling and there were tears rolling down my face from pure fear and feeling totally incapacitated. That was the moment I told myself “If you can get down this slope on your own, you can certainly run your own business.” As you can imagine, I had no option but to get to the bottom of the slope where my friends greeted me with rupturous applause! That was the day I made the decision that I WOULD work for myself and leave corporate life as soon as I could.
However, an idea and a decision are not enough without action. So, how would I get my first client and what exactly would I do? I had a few ideas in the back of my head. It was just a question of which one to implement. The answer came sooner than expected.
I had been working in business travel in London running the Marketing function for Northern Europe. Some would have loved to have the life I was living with the perks I received regularly to get (bribe) me to choose one partner over another, travellling to the US first class, short city breaks, London theatre seats etc etc. I appeared to be living the life. That was far from the truth though. To be honest I didn’t enjoy the company vibe, the politics, the dog eat dog ambiance which reigned from the top down.
Luckily for me, after a very inappropriate comment from the MD one evening when I was working late alone in the office, and to which I did not respond as he may have liked, my days there could very soon be counted on one hand. It was such a relief not to have to travel every morning to a job I had started to hate. I think most of us have been there!
I decided to do something completely different and, having always loved gardening, I decided I would set up my own landscaping company. So I registered for a horticulture and garden design course and donned my jeans and steel cap boots. In the mornings, I hopped on my bike (weather permitting – this was the UK after all!) and cycled to the local horticultural college. I was building brick walls, uprooting and replanting trees and learning so many latin names of plants. The design part was quite basic, so I signed up for a distance learning garden design course in parallel. It was heaven. I was convinced I had found my calling in life (my family wasn’t so sure!). However, I started advertising for clients and was going to join forces with some of the lads on the course, who, much younger than I would be able to do some of the heavier work I couldn’t. I started advertising, got my first client and was in a good place.
Then, one day, my mum called me to say that her neighbour, who had a manufacturing business, was looking for some support negotiating at a meeting with a large German automotive manufacturer. Their relationship had fallen apart and it was make or break. Could I help? So, instead of jeans and boots, I donned a suit again and drove to spend a day negotiating between a group of very overtly dissatisfied Germans and my client and his colleagues. At the end of the day, the relationship was intact and everyone was smiling and shaking hands.
As the ongoing relationship with the German company and indeed future contracts were now in the box, there was a lot of follow-up work to be done to fulfil one of the German client’s key criteria – provide all documentation and correspondence in German. The typical ‘we only do business in English’ attitude that reigned in the UK at the time was inacceptable to this automotive giant.
So having gone from standing at the top of a ski slope with a mere idea, I now had two mini companies that were unfolding. Unfortunately, much as I adored the landscaping side of life, working outside, my back made the decision that the landscaping would involve regular physical lifting that was not for me.
So, the hammer fell – I would pursue a business advising anglophone companies on doing business with Europe. I put the word out in my professional circle. Very soon, one of my ex-suppliers had come on board and my remote team and I were regularly advising on all their overseas advertising campaigns and localising them. I accompanied them to international business pitches, one of which they won due to being able to demonstrate clear international business competence (that was little me!). Having also worked on international clients at a UK PR agency I had worked for (I had been christened ‘Language Spice’ at the time as it was during the Spice Girls era) and having found that my language skills, which noone had been interested in at interview always seemed to come in very handy, I could see a niche business forming – someone who was a qualified marketeer with an understanding of foreign culture and business customs. Not just someone who could translate or interpret. A couple more big London agencies Wolff Olins and Leo Burnett followed suite as did another German automotive giant and eam Language Consultants was born!
Liz, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Having completed a French and German degree back in the 90s in the days when many british companies only wanted to do business with overseas companies who spoke English, I decided that I needed to add a string to my bow and obtained a Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma and then did a Post Graduate degree in European Business Management with German. As part of this, I did a placement in a software company near Duesseldorf and they ended up taking me on full-time to manage their marketing and communciations for non-German markets. After a couple of years, I moved back to the UK this time to the european HQ of a US software company where I was Head of Marketing. Then followed a few stints in different PR agencies most of whom have now been absorbed into the PR giants. In one of these, I worked on the team doing PR for Continental Tyres .When I came on board, I was introduced to our contact at Conti as ‘The Dragon’. You can imagine my joy taking on this new client! So, mustering up my courage, I called ‘The Dragon’, who, on hearing me speak and introduce where I was calling from just replied ‘Oh thank goodness…. you speak German. Our client had been struggling, feeling totally out of her depth (just like me on the ski slope) trying to do business in English with her supplier.
e.a.m. Language Consultants then evolved into x-bordercommunications.com to better depict what we do – it does what it says on the tin (note to Kristen – this ia a UK reference to an advert for Ronseal paint!)
So what do we do?
We take the pain out of doing business with Europe for US and UK companies.
Our offering often comes as a package – anything from industry market research – (ie marketing listening for one of the big cosmetic giants), to digital marketing and PR (ie a digital PR campaign for a US educational app. launching into France and Germany, or for a French entrepreneur who has designed a eco houseboat he is launching in the UK and Germany). Lots of our work is events-based – exhibitions, trade shows and we support tour groups from the US and UK in Europe, often in the music sector.
Whilst we initially focused almost exclusively on techology, due to my contacts coming from this area, organic growth has led us to work with the likes of Volkswagen, Mercedes, Merck, Leo Burnett, TDK, L’Oréal, Siemens, Victaulic, Novakid and many digital marketing and design agencies like drive https://www.drivedesign.co.uk/.
What sets us apart? We work as part of a company, enabling them to have their in-house overseas department without taking on board new staff, nor having the usual associated high costs this involves. My colleages and I wear so many hats, presenting ourselves on behalf of different clients in front of their clients.
What you should know about our brand? We are a network of digital marketeers who happen to be fluent in pretty much any language you want to do business in. Most of us have travelled the world and at least one of us knows how to do business in the country you are looking to expand into.
We bridge the gap between US and european business culture.
We are a compact organisation without a complex hierarchy – for you that means that things can happen more quickly.
We have a multitude of overseas contacts which we are happy to use to your advantage where possible.
Whilst we have done many localisations and translations, this is not the core of our business – we create strategies for accessing new geographical markets and help you implement campaigns to be successful when launching in them.
Jointly we have several hundreds of years experience in international business. Yes, some of us are a bit long in the tooth now!
Our brand colour is turquoise, which in branding terms this signifies clarity of thought, creativity, communication, fresh ideas. Indeed some of our corporate clients use a similar colour for their logo.
The term ‘turquoise company’ also designates one with a flat hierarchical structure without power and positions. We just do the job in hand rather than wasting time worrying about fees according to whether you have an assistant, an executive, a manager, a director or the CEO working on your project.
Our proudest moment was probably when a US orchestra contacted us in December to help us put together an integrated marketing campaign for their UK tour starting at the beginning of February and to accompany them on tour.
They presented us with a rather nice budget and basically said ‘Go do’. In addition to achieving over 100 press cuttings in 6 weeks, we put together a campaign which ranged from traditional advertising to outdoor ads, ads on public transportation, flyering. The orchestra had 5 interviews on BBC radio and were invited to play in the BBC studios to whet listeners’ appetites before their concerts. As an aficionada of classical music, I must say that this campaign stood out for so many reasons. The client also gave us the same feedback – when you’re passionnate about what you are marketing, it shows!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In 2015 when my company was doing well, one of our key clients whom I worked for through one of my bosses from PR agency days, decided to appoint a global agency. This left rather a big hole in our turnover, as, having two small children at the time, and wanting to be there for them, I had not taken on too many new clients in order to be able to service the existing ones correctly.
What I thought would be the solution appeared very soon out of the blue.
An aquaintance emailed me asking me if I wanted to attend a meeting with a ‘businessman’ from Monaco close to where I live in the South of France, who was presenting a property investment ‘opportunity’.
I had lost my mother days prior, so went along to focus on something other than my mother’s death. I fought back the tears as I walked up the stairs in the hotel in Cap d’Ail on the border between Monaco and France, clearing my throat to try and make a good impression as I walked into the little sideroom. The presenter was a grey-haired british man in his 70s sat at a small table with 4 other people. He talked to us about how we could invest a rather exorbitant sum of money in one of his projects and showed us his business plan for the project, which in hinesight he explained rather badly.
I politely told him I wouldn’t (and certainly couldn’t) invest that much with a stranger and left it at that. To cut a long story short, he came up with a story about another project which would require a much lesser investment that his nephew had expressed interest in (note that he later told me his siblings had died very young :-)), but not yet committed to. After a year’s discussion and having visited the construction site in Blaina, Wales, I again turned him down, due to certain missing information.
Very experienced in this type of ‘investor acquisition’ he then called me up and guaranteed me that my investment was safe for reasons x,y and z. I decided to go ahead, visited the construction site in Wales with my family in tow and got a long contract drawn up with so many clauses, I felt safe investing.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, Mr Monaco certainly gave new meaning to the phrase often used in property development ‘Other peoples’ money’. He had mine and wasn’t giving it back any time soon. We had months of ‘ can’t return your money now, but will do in 3 months, 6 months….it was like a cat playing with a mouse.
Indeed an ex-policeman who got involved in the case told me that a UK high court judge once described this as ‘being raped without anyone actually touching you’. It certainly felt like it – all my fault, how could I have let this happen to me?, he’s taken the skin off my back type of feeling…. that was until I found out that I was not the only one by any means and that an investment bank had also fallen foul to his smooth talking leaving them to foot the loan he had taken out for over 1million gbp.
I spent the next 3 years fighting to keep my business afloat, (which is when it became cristal clear that having team around me was my life support), feed my children, keep a roof over our head. I was working crazy hours for lots of clients, none of whom was aware of what was going on.
I recall asking myself how much longer my body would take this pace. My answer came sooner than expected :-
One day in 2018 I woke up with a jolt. I could hardly breathe – it was as if someone was standing on my chest. and tried to get out of bed. My feet didn’t want to walk – they were all floppy and didn’t go in the direction I was intending. I found myself in hospital having a brain scan for a brain tumour and tests for MS. All of a sudden my perspective changed and I having looked up the deterioration which can come with MS, I saw a vision of my children pushing me around in a wheelchair. This was when my whole perspective changed and all that mattered was my health and getting back on form. Finally the results came back negative and it was the stress of months of ‘negotiation’ with this oh so proper british ‘property investor’, that had taken their toll.
My attitude turned to be one of a fighter – I would survive this and keep a roof over our heads whatever it took. I picked myself up and started to look at myself as a winner – I was fit and healthy – my body had had a ponzi overdose, but I was fine. The next months were all about reconstruction and looking to the future. My business was somehow flourishing again and from then things went from strength to strength. I think it was down to a few key people in my life who were there at my side boosting me onwards. To this day I thank them. ‘We’ made it!
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
We have been lucky over the years that most of our business has come from word of mouth. Those clients who did not come through business or personal contacts or recommendations, were carefully selected as clients for whom we had the right skillset, the passion for their business and for whom we would generate the best results :
The ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach that businesses often take at the start, and which can involve a very dear opportunity cost, is not one we adhere to. Yes, we have worked in many industries, but always make and made sure, even in our language consultancy days, that we only used subcontractors who had the right skills for our client’s business sector.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://x-bordercommunications.com/about-us/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/globalmarketinglizmenches/
