A while ago Marta wrote a post on her Business School blog asking readers' opinion on whether looking at your translation practice through a process perspective, as a solo practitioner, was a little over the top or still within the bonds.
The lazy conformist in me is inclined to say yes. However, intellectually, I know the answer is more along the lines of: 'why the heck not if that works for you?'
See, in matters that are not somehow moral in nature, it all comes down to whether something works for you or not. That's the pragmatic criterion and only one that really counts in such cases.
On the other hand, being pragmatic doesn't have to mean being a passive, defeatist, complaining lazy person.
Would you call Alexander the Great a dreamer? He had a dream, but… — You get my point.
I've also recently had a nice conversation with the young owner of a small construction company, whom I was mentoring a bit on some business and legal matters (he obviously knew how to do and manage his own work). We realized that being a freelancer was not that much different from running a small company.
With a bit of simplification, on some level it only came down to not having a couple of people to delegate some specific tasks to and then manage and supervise them and register them with the authorities for tax and insurance purposes.
… But picking up calls and dealing with stuff and soldiering on from one month to the next and hopefully landing nicer deals sometime as you grow was pretty much the same on a very basic level.
After eight paragraphs already this finally gets us to the main point: nobody says you can't have your own processes, even if you, yourself are the only person executing them, or your company culture or mission. Even if there is no company — for example because freelancers don't need to be sole-props in your country — there is a still a practice, like a doctor's or lawyer' practice, which is predicated on you being someone with some professional activity if not exactly a business. And that's practically the same for practical purposes.
So nobody says you can't write down a vision — and if someone does actually say that, you don't need to listen. Just go ahead and write it. Consider putting it on your own website. And, for the record, such ideas actually sell more easily than simple products or services. Products and services may be more practical, but it actually is easier to get people hooked on ideas or relate ideas than products or services. Watch this presentation from Marta — which is what made me start thinking about all these things several years ago — to see why.
Showing posts with label bios. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bios. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 August 2016
Thursday, 10 March 2016
Not a Reverse Auction: Follow-Up
Remember my very last post: The Market Is Not a Reverse Auction?
Whether you do or not, please allow me to give you a short recap:
Whatever one can say about the translation market in general, your part of it does not have to be the sum total of a bajillion outright auctions for the lowest bidder or recruitments based on 'best rates'.
You don't have to attune yourself to the market and passively obey the general trend, let alone go out of your way to adapt and fit in.
To adapt and fight is an option too.
Being active, making proposals, persuading, insisting, suggesting trade-offs, even declining unprofitable offers — is not something only clients and agencies can do.
You have as good a right to try and change the rules of the game as they do.
Whether you do or not, please allow me to give you a short recap:
Whatever one can say about the translation market in general, your part of it does not have to be the sum total of a bajillion outright auctions for the lowest bidder or recruitments based on 'best rates'.
You don't have to attune yourself to the market and passively obey the general trend, let alone go out of your way to adapt and fit in.
To adapt and fight is an option too.
Being active, making proposals, persuading, insisting, suggesting trade-offs, even declining unprofitable offers — is not something only clients and agencies can do.
You have as good a right to try and change the rules of the game as they do.
Sunday, 28 February 2016
The Market Is Not a Reverse Auction
You've probably heard a lot — including from me — about how prices are falling, status is falling, respect is declining, all of which is true, and allow which keeps intensifying as we speak.
But this isn't the whole truth. Things don't have to be this way.
You may've heard from so called business experts and frontline fighters about how this is what the clients want and how we must provide. Suck it up and deliver. Like the tough guys we are. Or they are. Bullshit. Stupid, ridiculous bullshit.
They make it sound like being a tough guy is about putting up a brave face as you cough up protection money for a guy who certainly is bigger than you but not nearly big enough, or relevant enough, to shove you around at will. How tough indeed!
No matter how distorted and unbalanced, there is still symmetry in the market. You don't have to do whatever you sense — or, more likely, are told by pundits and sometimes even your own client — 'the market' wants. Meaning what the buyers want.
… This is because 'the market' ≠ the buyers. The market is also the sellers. It's a two-way street.
There is no 'new reality of the market' that buyers supposedly now want more goods or better goods for the same or lower price, which they supposedly didn't already want before. Any guy who says that certainly is so no prize-winning material. There is nothing remotely inventine or innovative about that kind of statement. Buyers have always wanted to buy more for less and sellers have always wanted to sell less for more. Everybody has always wanted to make a good bargain. Nothing new there.
Now, even supposing that you're going to deliver that good bargain as opposed to sticking to your guns and negotiating harder, even that still doesn't mean you need to start selling more for less. Because you don't.
On the contrary: You can explain how what you already are selling, at the price you already are charging, is a great bargain and always has been. (Just perhaps there was no pressing need to go into the details of it until now.)
As a translator you are opening doors that would otherwise be closed and building bridges where people would otherwise need boats, or at least building and navigating those boats for them so they don't have to swim. Those doors and bridges and boats lead to potentially unlimited opportunities, which, while probably finite, are still worth times and times more than the price of your translation calculated as the number of words times the per-word rate.
It's only that as times get worse and competition gets tougher and scarier there may be more storytelling for you to do before the story falls in together and sells. But, unless you're translating contracts and marketing blurbs written anew at each time for every $100-$1000 transaction, you should still have more than enough wiggle room to carve out a decent fee, if you're willing to put some work in it.
And before you put in the work you must realize and accept that the work can be done and will make a difference. At least try.
Consider that a lot of the information you have comes from (i) battle-scared warriors who want to appear tough as they make the brave decision to give the opponent what he wants without putting up a fight and still hope to get the hero treatment; and (ii) people who have a vested interest in making you think that you already are buried neck-deep in reverse auctions, sucked in and unable to go anywhere else. Which you aren't. Not remotely. Not even if your situation actually is somewhat bad in objective terms. It just isn't as bad as that.
Consider how many times they have:
It's just that the opposing side of the negotiation table may want to prevent you from actually using that pull, for example by making you believe you don't have it or shouldn't use it because it would somehow be unethical. (Or, most frequently, because their procedures, same for every contractor, don't leave room for it.)
The market is more of a free-for-all. Everybody is auctioning. Everybody is competing for the other party's side of the bargain. There are elements of reverse auction and there are — or at least could be, if translators or any type of sellers were more proactive — elements of normal, straight auction as well, where the highest bidder among the buyers and not the lowest bidder among the sellers wins. There are no formalized bids or rules to cover the entire market as a whole, and you need to play it by ear and by trial and error and by guessing a lot. But the essential mechanics are there.
Try to break out of the psychological compulsion to please the client (or else!), at least for the sake of a little exercise we're going to have.
Suppose there is a job you don't to do or in any case can afford to 'lose', i.e. simply not get, which is not the end of the world. You won't actually 'lose' it if you don't get it and it was never years. You will simply not have got that one particular job, and that's it. For the record, you don't need to get everything single job you see, nor could you humanly process them all anyway. What you need to get is enough jobs to make a comfortable living at the rates you charge.
So, take that problem job and try to up the rate or move the deadline. Be fair, don't shortchange them, just don't be as acommodating as before. Mind your need for sleep and free time, or give yourself an 8-hour day, 40-hour week, occasional holidays, you get the point. Or, if they're a new client and you know they have the money, then don't charge them the same rate you've been charging everybody for years on years now for the same work — raise it in due proportion to your increasing experience. And inflation. And everything else.
In other words, stop giving so much **** about 'being competitive'. Allow yourself to be less competitive. In the meaning they attach to it anyway.
(Remember that, in the real world, you're competitive or not depending on whether you win the competition. Not depending on whether someone says you are.)
There is a good chance you will get those higher rates and longer deadlines, if you actually try. You should try, if only to know more or less where you stand. And remember that you can always grant a discount on the invoice or deliver early or even agree to grant them a one-off discount if you become convinced that their reasons are sound, that their cause is a legitimate one.
Most people who will turn tail and pass up on you are going to be those on the lookout for a cheaper provider, not really the few people who have a real need but too much pride to ask for a discount (hint: if their statements are public record and they've been awarding juicy bonuses to their management, they are not in dire need), so don't worry too much about that. You can still make it clear (somewhere, somehow), that discretionary reductions and otherwise unique terms are available on a case-by-case basis to clients who can show a legitimate need without being able to pay the normal fee. That will keep the needy in and the bargain seekers out.
What else can you do?
Yeah, it's not all wrestling about the fees. Supply and demand can be influenced — or brought out — in subtler ways that don't involve violence.
I say 'brought out' because the advantages of what you already provide — the good features and the useful benefits of it — are often hidden and underappreciated, and it's up to you to change that state of things as opposed to simply heaping even more at an even lower price.
Thus you may need to do more work to make sure that clients realize just how much they're getting from you — or how much more they're getting from you than from someone else.
Many of them will still try to get it cheaper, that's sort of how human nature is, at least for some humans. The trick is to not cave in the moment they say that (to try costs them nothing, so in a certain sense they would be stupid if they didn't), but instead reiterate the value that you provide and the fact that your prices are already quite reasonable and (if true) that many other clients are perfectly willing to pay them (which means they see the value).
A client who already sees he's getting a good bargain but would like to turn it into an even better one doesn't have too many strong arguments to show for it, and chances are that if things were to resort to open violence you would come out on the top. Especially if he already is getting better terms from you than anyone else is giving. There is an old Latin saying: quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. If someone asserts something without proof, you don't need proof to negate it. You just negate it.
Remember that in such situations the burden is on them to convince you. You discharge your own burden by simply quoting a fee that falls within the market standard or as much higher than it as your qualifications are or the difficulty of the job is. Anything more favourable to the client is for the client to justify, and you have no obligation to give him an A for effort.
To prove your qualifications, data in on objective, legible and concise format are always good. Just pile up the degrees and accreditations and certificates and years of experience and testimonials from happy clients (both the content and the sheer number matters). That is something your client cannot claim to disbelieve or challenge without a good foundation.
Also include samples so that you can refer your prospects to them instead of translating something new for them free of charge for their proofreader's reviewing pleasure.
Speaking of which, obviously, just about any random QA'er from a translation agency or business company is not going to test you more reliably than your professors at university and your state examiners and exam boards at professional associations already have done, unless the test is more difficult and the reviewer is more qualified than your previous examiners were, which is simply not very likely.
It's only that some of your prospects may prefer to have the privelege of acting unreasonably and disbelieving anything which they haven't personally put their hands on — and very literally so because they won't even accept credible documents from respectable institutions in lieu of a first-hand check. Guess what? You don't really have to put up with that sort of treatment. (Unless you actually have to.)
It's kinda like maths. You don't need to prove that 5000 words times 0.12 a word makes 600 to pay. That's just the kind of thing you just don't have to prove in the face of feigned or even actual disbelief.
But you will still need to use your own good sense to find out where the limits are because making conclusions about your skill level on the basis of your papers is a bit less forward than simple arithmetics. It just isn't some kind of murky waters of non-knowledge and uncertainty that somehow means you should be charging peanuts because your actual qualifications are intangible. And even if they were.
Finally, you don't need to talk business. At least not only it and not all the time. I suggest you do read a bunch of course materials about the basics of economy, management and marketing just to know the setting you work in (and if you do business translation, you need that knowledge anyway), but instead of focusing solely on the business terms that are native to your clients, you also use terms that are native to your art.
After all, they need a translator, so it makes no point pretending they don't need one but only have a business problem to solve. Which is not true.
So you don't want to only use some business references that they're going to downplay and counter easily simply because they're more fluent in the lingo and carry more authority in the area than you do. You need to establish yourself as an expert in what you do, which is what they need.
And no bullshit like you still need to prove you're needed. If you weren't needed, they wouldn't be there asking. Or that you need to prove your monetary value. If they didn't sense the value… yes, correct, they wouldn't be there asking (which is even fine to tell them, at least without using the 'BS' word, usually).
So if they know it and you know that they know it and they know that you know they know it, and so on and so forth, then it makes no sense to act like you don't know (and you don't know etc.) and grant them a victory in their own silly game. No unfair downplaying of the importance of your art, and no gratuitous refusals to recognize your qualifications should be your rule no. 1 for them. And yes, you can set rules. To some extent at least. (Precisely to the extent you can get away with, which is up to you to find out.) This remains true even if it's you contacting them rather than the other way round. You're still talking business and fees and not charity and donations.
I suggest you also use the talents that you already have to deliver a convincing value proposal that does a good job of showing — and claiming the credit for — the value and meaning (and cost-to-provide and scarcity and difficulty to find) of the services you provide.
Thus, if you are one of those people who came to translation from a different profession, one which is somehow involved in most of the stuff you translate, you could simply use that to establish a connection and to establish your relevance. And show yourself as a competent fellow (of either sex) who understands the stuff.
On the other hand, if you have more of a language background, you should use that. After all, you are an expert on language. So rise and shine. And if your bacgkround is more on the literary side, especially if you know how to write or edit a story, then certainly use that to your advantage. It's actually becoming quite hip in the business world these days.
And, once again, if they gratuitously negate or downplay your importance or relevance, call them on it. Don't be aggressive or rude, but force them to back out of it, if only by asking questions — for example: why they think that, why do they think they know better than a recognized authority — or repeating the obvious — for example just how authoritative the institution is which granted your credentials or was satisfied with your work as your client.
Again, you don't need to act like every shit argument is good currency, because it's not. But you need to build some confidence. I've already suggested expanding your knowledge and re-evaluating your status as an expert in your field with a useful role to play for experts in other fields, but there are also other ways, such as developing your soft skills, including the art of negotiating and saying no without breaking up the negotiation. Everything in due time, not too much at once, but I suggest you take a look at those. I did as an adolescent (a bit overeager to please and a bit shy to stand up, a bit inept at defending my right to stand up and reasons for it etc.), and it did me some good. It prepared me for some things later on.
The no. 1 realization to make is that there is bullshit in this world and that that bullshit isn't binding on you, you can call people on it and refuse to accept it (as a reason for them to get a discount or otherwise).
And the no. 2 thing to do (more like even no. 1, in fact) is to use your knowledge to demonstrate… your knowledge. And to show in all sorts of ways (not always by talking directly about it) that your services are valuable and that you're a competent provider, and (if you need to) that your fees are reasonable and offer a lot of value.
If you have lawyer clients (small firm or solo), or doctors, or architects, it could be a good idea to ask them for some tips, as they've probably already had to deal with the same problems. There should also be more literature available from lawyers' perspective than translators', nearly all of which is going to be applicable to translators without much adaptation left to do, given how similar the professions and the problems are.
With time, as your means allow it, you will want to use a real marketer and a real ad man to make your message heard, to give it more reach and make it more resounding. The goal is to make your perspective matter too and not only the perspective of people who want your services to be cheap and underappreciated (also because it makes them cheaper).
***
Additional reading:
major auction types at Wiki
I believe the market is closer to Walrasian auction than a reverse auction, but the point is not to analyse the theoretical model of that (which I haven't even done myself), the point is to realize that it all goes two ways.
storytelling
As a (wo)man of letters, you simply have an advantage there, and you should use it. Good marketing kinda always comes down to a good story, especially when it comes to creating a brand.
Walrasian auction and Walras's law
… If you're more mathematically inclined, this may do better than a narrative explanation.
As well as a bunch of how-to books, starting from 'for dummies' and moving up. It's only reasonable to know the setting you're forced to operate in and the setting that's native to your prospective clients. It will help you get better fees and otherwise better terms from them, but it will also help you better serve their own needs, which is a win-win situation. (Just like being a good legal translator helps you identify and refuse to sign, or renegotiate, an abusive clause in a contract.)
But this isn't the whole truth. Things don't have to be this way.
You may've heard from so called business experts and frontline fighters about how this is what the clients want and how we must provide. Suck it up and deliver. Like the tough guys we are. Or they are. Bullshit. Stupid, ridiculous bullshit.
They make it sound like being a tough guy is about putting up a brave face as you cough up protection money for a guy who certainly is bigger than you but not nearly big enough, or relevant enough, to shove you around at will. How tough indeed!
No matter how distorted and unbalanced, there is still symmetry in the market. You don't have to do whatever you sense — or, more likely, are told by pundits and sometimes even your own client — 'the market' wants. Meaning what the buyers want.
… This is because 'the market' ≠ the buyers. The market is also the sellers. It's a two-way street.
There is no 'new reality of the market' that buyers supposedly now want more goods or better goods for the same or lower price, which they supposedly didn't already want before. Any guy who says that certainly is so no prize-winning material. There is nothing remotely inventine or innovative about that kind of statement. Buyers have always wanted to buy more for less and sellers have always wanted to sell less for more. Everybody has always wanted to make a good bargain. Nothing new there.
Now, even supposing that you're going to deliver that good bargain as opposed to sticking to your guns and negotiating harder, even that still doesn't mean you need to start selling more for less. Because you don't.
On the contrary: You can explain how what you already are selling, at the price you already are charging, is a great bargain and always has been. (Just perhaps there was no pressing need to go into the details of it until now.)
As a translator you are opening doors that would otherwise be closed and building bridges where people would otherwise need boats, or at least building and navigating those boats for them so they don't have to swim. Those doors and bridges and boats lead to potentially unlimited opportunities, which, while probably finite, are still worth times and times more than the price of your translation calculated as the number of words times the per-word rate.
It's only that as times get worse and competition gets tougher and scarier there may be more storytelling for you to do before the story falls in together and sells. But, unless you're translating contracts and marketing blurbs written anew at each time for every $100-$1000 transaction, you should still have more than enough wiggle room to carve out a decent fee, if you're willing to put some work in it.
And before you put in the work you must realize and accept that the work can be done and will make a difference. At least try.
***
Consider that a lot of the information you have comes from (i) battle-scared warriors who want to appear tough as they make the brave decision to give the opponent what he wants without putting up a fight and still hope to get the hero treatment; and (ii) people who have a vested interest in making you think that you already are buried neck-deep in reverse auctions, sucked in and unable to go anywhere else. Which you aren't. Not remotely. Not even if your situation actually is somewhat bad in objective terms. It just isn't as bad as that.
Consider how many times they have:
- asked if you are available
- stressed that it's important it's you who take up that project
- tried to evoke your sympathy
- … or threatened you
- or resorted to flattery
- or even made small concessions such as waiting their turn or paying a slightly higher rate
Boy! (Of either sex.) All of that means you do have some pull.
It's just that the opposing side of the negotiation table may want to prevent you from actually using that pull, for example by making you believe you don't have it or shouldn't use it because it would somehow be unethical. (Or, most frequently, because their procedures, same for every contractor, don't leave room for it.)
See, contrary to what they would like you to believe, the market doesn't consist of millions of sellers, trying to win the favour of buyers who are free to pick and fuss all they want, pretty much because that's they way of things, which is how it should be and the only way it could be. Nope, it isn't.
All of those buyers also need to contend with the scarcity of the goods or services they want to buy, or even of the sellers who sell those, as well as the higher or lower attractiveness of their, the buyer's, budgets and other terms they are able or willing to offer. There is nothing which prevents sellers from selling to someone who offers a higher price or is willing to wait longer or sweeten the deal in some other way.
The market is more of a free-for-all. Everybody is auctioning. Everybody is competing for the other party's side of the bargain. There are elements of reverse auction and there are — or at least could be, if translators or any type of sellers were more proactive — elements of normal, straight auction as well, where the highest bidder among the buyers and not the lowest bidder among the sellers wins. There are no formalized bids or rules to cover the entire market as a whole, and you need to play it by ear and by trial and error and by guessing a lot. But the essential mechanics are there.
***
Try to break out of the psychological compulsion to please the client (or else!), at least for the sake of a little exercise we're going to have.
Suppose there is a job you don't to do or in any case can afford to 'lose', i.e. simply not get, which is not the end of the world. You won't actually 'lose' it if you don't get it and it was never years. You will simply not have got that one particular job, and that's it. For the record, you don't need to get everything single job you see, nor could you humanly process them all anyway. What you need to get is enough jobs to make a comfortable living at the rates you charge.
So, take that problem job and try to up the rate or move the deadline. Be fair, don't shortchange them, just don't be as acommodating as before. Mind your need for sleep and free time, or give yourself an 8-hour day, 40-hour week, occasional holidays, you get the point. Or, if they're a new client and you know they have the money, then don't charge them the same rate you've been charging everybody for years on years now for the same work — raise it in due proportion to your increasing experience. And inflation. And everything else.
In other words, stop giving so much **** about 'being competitive'. Allow yourself to be less competitive. In the meaning they attach to it anyway.
(Remember that, in the real world, you're competitive or not depending on whether you win the competition. Not depending on whether someone says you are.)
There is a good chance you will get those higher rates and longer deadlines, if you actually try. You should try, if only to know more or less where you stand. And remember that you can always grant a discount on the invoice or deliver early or even agree to grant them a one-off discount if you become convinced that their reasons are sound, that their cause is a legitimate one.
Most people who will turn tail and pass up on you are going to be those on the lookout for a cheaper provider, not really the few people who have a real need but too much pride to ask for a discount (hint: if their statements are public record and they've been awarding juicy bonuses to their management, they are not in dire need), so don't worry too much about that. You can still make it clear (somewhere, somehow), that discretionary reductions and otherwise unique terms are available on a case-by-case basis to clients who can show a legitimate need without being able to pay the normal fee. That will keep the needy in and the bargain seekers out.
***
What else can you do?
Yeah, it's not all wrestling about the fees. Supply and demand can be influenced — or brought out — in subtler ways that don't involve violence.
I say 'brought out' because the advantages of what you already provide — the good features and the useful benefits of it — are often hidden and underappreciated, and it's up to you to change that state of things as opposed to simply heaping even more at an even lower price.
Thus you may need to do more work to make sure that clients realize just how much they're getting from you — or how much more they're getting from you than from someone else.
Many of them will still try to get it cheaper, that's sort of how human nature is, at least for some humans. The trick is to not cave in the moment they say that (to try costs them nothing, so in a certain sense they would be stupid if they didn't), but instead reiterate the value that you provide and the fact that your prices are already quite reasonable and (if true) that many other clients are perfectly willing to pay them (which means they see the value).
A client who already sees he's getting a good bargain but would like to turn it into an even better one doesn't have too many strong arguments to show for it, and chances are that if things were to resort to open violence you would come out on the top. Especially if he already is getting better terms from you than anyone else is giving. There is an old Latin saying: quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. If someone asserts something without proof, you don't need proof to negate it. You just negate it.
Remember that in such situations the burden is on them to convince you. You discharge your own burden by simply quoting a fee that falls within the market standard or as much higher than it as your qualifications are or the difficulty of the job is. Anything more favourable to the client is for the client to justify, and you have no obligation to give him an A for effort.
***
To prove your qualifications, data in on objective, legible and concise format are always good. Just pile up the degrees and accreditations and certificates and years of experience and testimonials from happy clients (both the content and the sheer number matters). That is something your client cannot claim to disbelieve or challenge without a good foundation.
Also include samples so that you can refer your prospects to them instead of translating something new for them free of charge for their proofreader's reviewing pleasure.
Speaking of which, obviously, just about any random QA'er from a translation agency or business company is not going to test you more reliably than your professors at university and your state examiners and exam boards at professional associations already have done, unless the test is more difficult and the reviewer is more qualified than your previous examiners were, which is simply not very likely.
It's only that some of your prospects may prefer to have the privelege of acting unreasonably and disbelieving anything which they haven't personally put their hands on — and very literally so because they won't even accept credible documents from respectable institutions in lieu of a first-hand check. Guess what? You don't really have to put up with that sort of treatment. (Unless you actually have to.)
It's kinda like maths. You don't need to prove that 5000 words times 0.12 a word makes 600 to pay. That's just the kind of thing you just don't have to prove in the face of feigned or even actual disbelief.
But you will still need to use your own good sense to find out where the limits are because making conclusions about your skill level on the basis of your papers is a bit less forward than simple arithmetics. It just isn't some kind of murky waters of non-knowledge and uncertainty that somehow means you should be charging peanuts because your actual qualifications are intangible. And even if they were.
***
Finally, you don't need to talk business. At least not only it and not all the time. I suggest you do read a bunch of course materials about the basics of economy, management and marketing just to know the setting you work in (and if you do business translation, you need that knowledge anyway), but instead of focusing solely on the business terms that are native to your clients, you also use terms that are native to your art.
After all, they need a translator, so it makes no point pretending they don't need one but only have a business problem to solve. Which is not true.
So you don't want to only use some business references that they're going to downplay and counter easily simply because they're more fluent in the lingo and carry more authority in the area than you do. You need to establish yourself as an expert in what you do, which is what they need.
And no bullshit like you still need to prove you're needed. If you weren't needed, they wouldn't be there asking. Or that you need to prove your monetary value. If they didn't sense the value… yes, correct, they wouldn't be there asking (which is even fine to tell them, at least without using the 'BS' word, usually).
So if they know it and you know that they know it and they know that you know they know it, and so on and so forth, then it makes no sense to act like you don't know (and you don't know etc.) and grant them a victory in their own silly game. No unfair downplaying of the importance of your art, and no gratuitous refusals to recognize your qualifications should be your rule no. 1 for them. And yes, you can set rules. To some extent at least. (Precisely to the extent you can get away with, which is up to you to find out.) This remains true even if it's you contacting them rather than the other way round. You're still talking business and fees and not charity and donations.
***
I suggest you also use the talents that you already have to deliver a convincing value proposal that does a good job of showing — and claiming the credit for — the value and meaning (and cost-to-provide and scarcity and difficulty to find) of the services you provide.
Thus, if you are one of those people who came to translation from a different profession, one which is somehow involved in most of the stuff you translate, you could simply use that to establish a connection and to establish your relevance. And show yourself as a competent fellow (of either sex) who understands the stuff.
On the other hand, if you have more of a language background, you should use that. After all, you are an expert on language. So rise and shine. And if your bacgkround is more on the literary side, especially if you know how to write or edit a story, then certainly use that to your advantage. It's actually becoming quite hip in the business world these days.
And, once again, if they gratuitously negate or downplay your importance or relevance, call them on it. Don't be aggressive or rude, but force them to back out of it, if only by asking questions — for example: why they think that, why do they think they know better than a recognized authority — or repeating the obvious — for example just how authoritative the institution is which granted your credentials or was satisfied with your work as your client.
Again, you don't need to act like every shit argument is good currency, because it's not. But you need to build some confidence. I've already suggested expanding your knowledge and re-evaluating your status as an expert in your field with a useful role to play for experts in other fields, but there are also other ways, such as developing your soft skills, including the art of negotiating and saying no without breaking up the negotiation. Everything in due time, not too much at once, but I suggest you take a look at those. I did as an adolescent (a bit overeager to please and a bit shy to stand up, a bit inept at defending my right to stand up and reasons for it etc.), and it did me some good. It prepared me for some things later on.
The no. 1 realization to make is that there is bullshit in this world and that that bullshit isn't binding on you, you can call people on it and refuse to accept it (as a reason for them to get a discount or otherwise).
And the no. 2 thing to do (more like even no. 1, in fact) is to use your knowledge to demonstrate… your knowledge. And to show in all sorts of ways (not always by talking directly about it) that your services are valuable and that you're a competent provider, and (if you need to) that your fees are reasonable and offer a lot of value.
If you have lawyer clients (small firm or solo), or doctors, or architects, it could be a good idea to ask them for some tips, as they've probably already had to deal with the same problems. There should also be more literature available from lawyers' perspective than translators', nearly all of which is going to be applicable to translators without much adaptation left to do, given how similar the professions and the problems are.
With time, as your means allow it, you will want to use a real marketer and a real ad man to make your message heard, to give it more reach and make it more resounding. The goal is to make your perspective matter too and not only the perspective of people who want your services to be cheap and underappreciated (also because it makes them cheaper).
***
Additional reading:
major auction types at Wiki
I believe the market is closer to Walrasian auction than a reverse auction, but the point is not to analyse the theoretical model of that (which I haven't even done myself), the point is to realize that it all goes two ways.
storytelling
As a (wo)man of letters, you simply have an advantage there, and you should use it. Good marketing kinda always comes down to a good story, especially when it comes to creating a brand.
Walrasian auction and Walras's law
… If you're more mathematically inclined, this may do better than a narrative explanation.
As well as a bunch of how-to books, starting from 'for dummies' and moving up. It's only reasonable to know the setting you're forced to operate in and the setting that's native to your prospective clients. It will help you get better fees and otherwise better terms from them, but it will also help you better serve their own needs, which is a win-win situation. (Just like being a good legal translator helps you identify and refuse to sign, or renegotiate, an abusive clause in a contract.)
Monday, 1 February 2016
Take Inventory, Check Out the Other Folks
From time to time it's time to take inventory and see where you are at and consider where you want to go and how much distance you've already made.
Of course, you can say it's difficult to be objective, nemo iudex in causa sua and so on, but you don't need to be the epitome of impartiality to just note down your most relevant qualifications, such as degrees, accreditations, years of experience and other such data. Two plus two still makes four, no matter how modest or not you are.
Try to aggregate the data and preferably end up with something like elevator pitch as a result, minus the pitch. Peel off the marketing. We're taking a somewhat sober assessment in order to see what marketing you could use, so it's better to start from raw data than the marketing soup you've been serving for a while.
Now go find some CVs, bios and profiles from:
Of course, you can say it's difficult to be objective, nemo iudex in causa sua and so on, but you don't need to be the epitome of impartiality to just note down your most relevant qualifications, such as degrees, accreditations, years of experience and other such data. Two plus two still makes four, no matter how modest or not you are.
Try to aggregate the data and preferably end up with something like elevator pitch as a result, minus the pitch. Peel off the marketing. We're taking a somewhat sober assessment in order to see what marketing you could use, so it's better to start from raw data than the marketing soup you've been serving for a while.
Now go find some CVs, bios and profiles from:
- leaders in your language or field, or otherwise already where you hope to one day be
- people more or less at your own stage
- the rookies
See what the leaders or experts are doing and how. Depending on your long-term vs short-term focus for this little exercise, you can choose either the rock stars or people who are one or two steps ahead. There is a chance they are doing it right, if it works them, especially the rock stars. Those who are economically successful are more likely to do it right than people who you just know are good because you are qualified to see the difference and judge the work on your own. Especially those people who are economically successful but not really spectacular translators are probably good at the art of finding and convincing their clients.
Look for similarities. Look for something which makes them successful and which you also already have, or are slowly getting there.
Find inspiration for immediate changes or scout the road ahead for information to keep in mind as you proceed. It's up to you.
Next check out the folks who are more or less in the same place. Is there anything they are doing better than you? Any smarter (e.g. shorter or more convincing) ways of saying practically the same thing? How about communicating the same information in a more inviting and reassuring way? How are they bringing out assets that are more or less on the same level as your own? (For example, you can learn from a medical translator if you're a legal one and vice versa). Anything they haven't thought about? Anything they missed but the more successful people did not? If they otherwise look very similar to you or to one another, how could you distinguish your message?
Now the the rookies. There's a chance some of them are replicating by-the-book solutions without really understanding them, but some may be quite creative simply because they don't know what exactly they're supposed to do or don't yet know what to copy. You can still learn from someone who does not yet know as much as you do overall. Competition is rough there, so there's a chance that those of the newbies who manage to eke out a nice living already know quite a lot.
Not to encourage elitist attitudes, but if you've been around for a while, you'll need to look for ways to bring out that experience in your copy and turn it into an advantage. I think that looking only within your bracket or ahead would not give you a complete picture. To keep track of progress you sometimes need to go back to how things are on the earlier stages of the road. You don't need to be negative in order to use the rookies' CVs and copy to measure your own progress. It's mostly the matter of demonstrating the benefit of your experience.
Don't get too carried away. It's better to underpromise and overdeliver than the other way round. Your presentation needs to reflect where you are and not where you hope to be in 5 years from now. Finally, pardon me for bringing this up, but if you feel like borrowing from one specific person rather than a pattern you saw in a wider group, remember to respect that someone's intellectual work and creative effort, which is protected by intellectual property. Where in doubt, ask permission or come up with something that's simply not as similar. Play nice.
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
Nominalization Leads To Commoditization
One of the causes of the huge problem with rates in translation is the commoditization of our work.
We are no longer authors, we are more akin to factory-line workers in word mills. Credit is rescinded, rates are reduced, contracts get uglier by the minute, as does the manner of address in ads and inquiries.
... And yet translators embrace commodity-market routine willingly, as if following construction industry's habit and custom validated them and infused with new vigor.
Even freelancers pose as 'Doe Translations', as though they were each a small agency, ever ready to outsource, to let a million-page deal across twenty languages in and parcel it out.
LSP, Vendor, TEP, what the heck?
But even the word 'translation' is commoditizing when used as a noun unnecessarily. I'm no fan of 'Peggy Translates' kind of wacky verb use, but nominalization breeds commoditization. Because you stop talking about translating and you start talking about translations. Or marketing translation, legal translation, business translation and more of the same noun with a qualifying adjective. Nouns make products, and nouns make commodities.
A product stylization might actually be better to your PR/marketing/branding than pure service-sector placement, but it's relatively hard to build a satisfactory brand on them when they're sold by the kilogram, or by the container ex factory.
(There is a chance you don't get commoditized when your product is a commodity — unlike with commoditized services.)
You still need to tell clients what you do, but load up a couple of law websites and you'll see practice areas, client industries and more, but not Services => Title Checking, Document Review, Will Writing and other things lawyers with higher aspirations hate to do.
For a translation agency such a method of presentation makes perfect sense. They do offer defined services and products like that, generally removed and cut off from the identity of their authors. But you won't win against agencies if you compete in their field.
For a translator it may be a better idea to quit designing packages that compete sometimes on features and usually on price and instead use the translator's personality to win clients and find work.
In any case, it's easier to use a translator's existing personality than to give personality to generic products or services.
We are no longer authors, we are more akin to factory-line workers in word mills. Credit is rescinded, rates are reduced, contracts get uglier by the minute, as does the manner of address in ads and inquiries.
... And yet translators embrace commodity-market routine willingly, as if following construction industry's habit and custom validated them and infused with new vigor.
Even freelancers pose as 'Doe Translations', as though they were each a small agency, ever ready to outsource, to let a million-page deal across twenty languages in and parcel it out.
LSP, Vendor, TEP, what the heck?
But even the word 'translation' is commoditizing when used as a noun unnecessarily. I'm no fan of 'Peggy Translates' kind of wacky verb use, but nominalization breeds commoditization. Because you stop talking about translating and you start talking about translations. Or marketing translation, legal translation, business translation and more of the same noun with a qualifying adjective. Nouns make products, and nouns make commodities.
A product stylization might actually be better to your PR/marketing/branding than pure service-sector placement, but it's relatively hard to build a satisfactory brand on them when they're sold by the kilogram, or by the container ex factory.
(There is a chance you don't get commoditized when your product is a commodity — unlike with commoditized services.)
You still need to tell clients what you do, but load up a couple of law websites and you'll see practice areas, client industries and more, but not Services => Title Checking, Document Review, Will Writing and other things lawyers with higher aspirations hate to do.
For a translation agency such a method of presentation makes perfect sense. They do offer defined services and products like that, generally removed and cut off from the identity of their authors. But you won't win against agencies if you compete in their field.
For a translator it may be a better idea to quit designing packages that compete sometimes on features and usually on price and instead use the translator's personality to win clients and find work.
In any case, it's easier to use a translator's existing personality than to give personality to generic products or services.
Thursday, 23 October 2014
The Third Way: Increase Awareness
Some minutes ago I read an article from Jim's Marketing Blog from two months ago, linked by Frau Newell somewhere on Facebook. It's worth reading in whole, but without further ado, according to the author's powerful opening statement (sort of):
In the context of translation, I immediately thought of the third way, probably as a result of thoughts crossing my mind of late, perhaps since April or May:
Increase awareness.
Strictly speaking there is no contradiction here, as the value needs to be in before you can raise awareness about it. But it's worth noting that:
My proposition is that translation does not need any more value pumped into it, it needs better communication of its existing value. Any communication of its value would be a good start.
Actually, it would be false to say that no value communication exists, but it rests on the wrong premises:
The one thing is, if you don't have faith in yourself, it's hard to expect that others will. I'm not encouraging you to embrace the vice of pride but rather to take honest inventory of your skills and qualifications, their worth, their value, the path that led you to achieving them, the effort, the emotional reward. See the good things, the valuable, the unique. If translation represents no real value to you, then something is going wrong.
The other thing is that unlike what many (but not all!) marketing writers and speakers currently preach, it's not exclusively about defined benefits, or wants, or exclusively things that pertain to your client's business and not you. And it certainly is not about worshipping the ground the client walks on and wagging your tail hoping he'll throw a bone, which is as poor a strategy for winning clients as it is for winning girlfriends. To get a client hooked — and turning clients into hardcore fans is an idea I first heard from a law blogger — you need to tell story. It always is about a story. There are places in this world where stories are currency and the sum of $1, $10 and $100 is 3 colourful paper trinkets, not 111 dolars.
Tell a personal story. There is a reason lawyers use bios on their websites. About 60% of their traffic goes to the bios. Personal does not mean TMI, so skip the laundry of your multilingual home (unless you really are a good writer), but do tell a story about your academic studies and your professional path and the work you do these days. Don't be daft and presume that it would be of no interest to your client, like many people say. How do they know? Besides, I believe I've already covered the nonsense of treating your client like an alcoholic father (who must not be upset in the slightest, not made to listen to even a hint of something that's of no immediate relevance to him and his current situation).
Everybody loves to hear stories, you just need to find a way to tell them without driving people off or putting them to sleep. If you perceive yourself as a 'cultural mediator' (two individuals are also two cultures, on some level), a 'builder of bridges' or whatever else translation propaganda currently bills us as being, it would be a good test of the skills you supposedly rely on for a living.
By way of illustration, I never studied languages or translation myself at a university level because back at the time I'd thought it would teach me nothing new. (Edit: Oh wait, I did for a year in 2010-2011.) However, a couple of months ago, I was mining the faculty website for terminology and buzz words when translating a colleague's transcripts, and I got hooked on the narrative. It sucked me in and wouldn't let me go. Why oh why can't translators put similar narrative on their own websites? If it worked on a cormudgeonly skeptic like yours truly...
In short, believe in the value of what you do. Communicate that belief. Make it contagious. Show, not tell, even using words for the purpose. Give your prospective clients a chance to appreciate the value. They can't if you won't let them.
To get that price / value balance right, we have 2 options:
- We can pump more value into the product or service.
- We can lower the price.
In the context of translation, I immediately thought of the third way, probably as a result of thoughts crossing my mind of late, perhaps since April or May:
Increase awareness.
Strictly speaking there is no contradiction here, as the value needs to be in before you can raise awareness about it. But it's worth noting that:
- Once you put the premium value in, you'll need to communicate it or chances are it won't catch, which the author notes in saying: we are fooling ourselves if we expect prospective clients or customers to pay a premium, for something that’s average or close to average.
- Chances are the premium value is already in, so you need not to add it but to communicate it, right now. Which is also in the text but requires some reading into it, preferably with an open mind.
My proposition is that translation does not need any more value pumped into it, it needs better communication of its existing value. Any communication of its value would be a good start.
Actually, it would be false to say that no value communication exists, but it rests on the wrong premises:
- Added services of a kind which is really copy-shop services, or office assistance or entry-level technical assistance, which puts the profile of the profession below what translators' education and credentials would suggest.
A lawyer will naturally end up gophering quite a lot in his initial years at the firm, even brew a couple of cuppas while at it, but no firm ever advertises lawyer-made coffee and lawyer-made copies as the added value that sweatens the deal, let alone its unique sales position. And this even though some lawyers are really conscious about courtesy, hospitality and warm and cosy client care. Plus, if a lawyer drove a truck, it would still be pilled at the same hourly rate as legal advice.
(Or real consulting but without real qualifications. I recall a European translation agency contract where one of the attachments, an ethical code actually, required translators to check the correctness of source code while localizing software. I also recall a smart client who ordered legal advice 'localized', with a translation price tag and not legal advice price tag. Many translators probably have tales of expectations of typesetting, DTP, graphical editing and all sorts of checks in addition to just translating well.) - Making translators look like that cleaning person with hidden talents, who is probably inreality a good fairy and who will quietly fix and polish a corporate manager's reports, filings and sales mail while sweeping and mopping his office at night. That, and Captain-Obvious-style consulting, telling clients things any twelve year old should know.
- Silly, unnecessary, outright dumb kinds of forcibly peddled added value such as preserving the intact layout of... incoming mail, down to copying the sender's signatures and logos over to the translation. I would question the soundness of mind of any client who really wanted to have his incoming mail translated like that as opposed to having it inadvertently peddled to himself by a translation agency or even translator anxious to furnish something, anything remunerable.
- Distasteful manifestations of ready obedience, submission and flattery, comparable to falling prostrate before the client and begging for scraps that fall from his table. 'Your wish is my command' is a real translation tag line I've seen, but by far not the only one in the same vein. You don't win respect that way. And you get scraps, bones, not serious compensation for your services.
The one thing is, if you don't have faith in yourself, it's hard to expect that others will. I'm not encouraging you to embrace the vice of pride but rather to take honest inventory of your skills and qualifications, their worth, their value, the path that led you to achieving them, the effort, the emotional reward. See the good things, the valuable, the unique. If translation represents no real value to you, then something is going wrong.
The other thing is that unlike what many (but not all!) marketing writers and speakers currently preach, it's not exclusively about defined benefits, or wants, or exclusively things that pertain to your client's business and not you. And it certainly is not about worshipping the ground the client walks on and wagging your tail hoping he'll throw a bone, which is as poor a strategy for winning clients as it is for winning girlfriends. To get a client hooked — and turning clients into hardcore fans is an idea I first heard from a law blogger — you need to tell story. It always is about a story. There are places in this world where stories are currency and the sum of $1, $10 and $100 is 3 colourful paper trinkets, not 111 dolars.
Tell a personal story. There is a reason lawyers use bios on their websites. About 60% of their traffic goes to the bios. Personal does not mean TMI, so skip the laundry of your multilingual home (unless you really are a good writer), but do tell a story about your academic studies and your professional path and the work you do these days. Don't be daft and presume that it would be of no interest to your client, like many people say. How do they know? Besides, I believe I've already covered the nonsense of treating your client like an alcoholic father (who must not be upset in the slightest, not made to listen to even a hint of something that's of no immediate relevance to him and his current situation).
Everybody loves to hear stories, you just need to find a way to tell them without driving people off or putting them to sleep. If you perceive yourself as a 'cultural mediator' (two individuals are also two cultures, on some level), a 'builder of bridges' or whatever else translation propaganda currently bills us as being, it would be a good test of the skills you supposedly rely on for a living.
By way of illustration, I never studied languages or translation myself at a university level because back at the time I'd thought it would teach me nothing new. (Edit: Oh wait, I did for a year in 2010-2011.) However, a couple of months ago, I was mining the faculty website for terminology and buzz words when translating a colleague's transcripts, and I got hooked on the narrative. It sucked me in and wouldn't let me go. Why oh why can't translators put similar narrative on their own websites? If it worked on a cormudgeonly skeptic like yours truly...
In short, believe in the value of what you do. Communicate that belief. Make it contagious. Show, not tell, even using words for the purpose. Give your prospective clients a chance to appreciate the value. They can't if you won't let them.
Wednesday, 30 April 2014
Be a Writer Worth Paying for!
Rose Newell, with whom we chatted about zombie contracts in January, has it spot on when she says:
One of our core problems as translators is a lack of ability or opportunity (or drive, or skill) to differentiate (which is crucial to leaving auctions behind). The global village not only makes it easier to communicate, it also makes it painfully obvious there are millions of people to communicate with.
In the world of glorified translation memories, termbases, style guides and quality assurance dominated by tag verification, a: 'belief that translators are “interchangeable”, provided they have “a good TM and glossary”,' is easy to form, if not guaranteed.
Not that the claim is altogether false — there are many practising translators without strong writing skills, or don't use them. You don't need to be one of them. And if you aren't, then you don't need to wear the livery.
Time for a war story. Imagine you're a wounded legal nestling looking for a ledge to perch on and nurse the bleeding wings. You need to finance an unpaying but hopeful scholarly career at the same as a grassroots mass litigation campaign, which you also need to manage. Normal solo practice is out of the question, as are 100-hour weeks, and BigLaw's turtling up and shutting off anyway because it's 2009 and the peak of the crisis. It's time to do something drastic.
That's where I was five years back. The subjects of my first one or two translations were surely legal, but it didn't take long before clients started coming with a brochure about beauty products for women, a milk ad, underground and underwater photographic equipment directory, memories from a tour around the world, a website about lifestyle services, and all sorts of things. At some point I ended up translating high-grade anniversary prose for a sports car manufacturer, but by that time there were many other things I had done, including materials to sell computer games. I didn't have a shred of a formal qualification in marketing or copywriting. Heck, I don't even now.
Bragging much? Nope. Encouraging? Yes. And hopefully getting some audience for Rose.
The bottom line is: writing skills matter.
They allow to write your own legend. They allow you to be a protagonist and not an NPC. Unfold the storyline!
Back to Rose, though. Don't miss her Writers worth paying for scheduled for 2 May at Budapest if you can help it. If you're there in person, tell her I said hi (actually, please do — but don't tell her I said she actually gets better rates for her translations than many copywriters can hope for). Otherwise you'll have to keeping hoping with me that they'll share a recording.
Also take a look at Ed Gandia's podcast about a similar subject for… writers, actually. It will prepare you for what Rose is going to be talking about, as will Marta's leads.
If you have an inquisitive mind looking for an excuse, pay a Tweet for Alastaire Allday's free Think Like a Copywriter, which has seen classroom use.
A couple of days ago, I joked that translators already are copywriters — the similarities are striking if you get into it. The inspiration came from and post at Alastaire's blog, where he quipped the opposite — that copywriters were translators. Now, if a copywriter says that, why don't you capitalise on it? As a translator you have an edge! Now make it keen.
'Translators are interchangeable.' But good writers aren’t.
One of our core problems as translators is a lack of ability or opportunity (or drive, or skill) to differentiate (which is crucial to leaving auctions behind). The global village not only makes it easier to communicate, it also makes it painfully obvious there are millions of people to communicate with.
In the world of glorified translation memories, termbases, style guides and quality assurance dominated by tag verification, a: 'belief that translators are “interchangeable”, provided they have “a good TM and glossary”,' is easy to form, if not guaranteed.
Not that the claim is altogether false — there are many practising translators without strong writing skills, or don't use them. You don't need to be one of them. And if you aren't, then you don't need to wear the livery.
Time for a war story. Imagine you're a wounded legal nestling looking for a ledge to perch on and nurse the bleeding wings. You need to finance an unpaying but hopeful scholarly career at the same as a grassroots mass litigation campaign, which you also need to manage. Normal solo practice is out of the question, as are 100-hour weeks, and BigLaw's turtling up and shutting off anyway because it's 2009 and the peak of the crisis. It's time to do something drastic.
That's where I was five years back. The subjects of my first one or two translations were surely legal, but it didn't take long before clients started coming with a brochure about beauty products for women, a milk ad, underground and underwater photographic equipment directory, memories from a tour around the world, a website about lifestyle services, and all sorts of things. At some point I ended up translating high-grade anniversary prose for a sports car manufacturer, but by that time there were many other things I had done, including materials to sell computer games. I didn't have a shred of a formal qualification in marketing or copywriting. Heck, I don't even now.
Bragging much? Nope. Encouraging? Yes. And hopefully getting some audience for Rose.
The bottom line is: writing skills matter.
They allow to write your own legend. They allow you to be a protagonist and not an NPC. Unfold the storyline!
Back to Rose, though. Don't miss her Writers worth paying for scheduled for 2 May at Budapest if you can help it. If you're there in person, tell her I said hi (actually, please do — but don't tell her I said she actually gets better rates for her translations than many copywriters can hope for). Otherwise you'll have to keeping hoping with me that they'll share a recording.
Also take a look at Ed Gandia's podcast about a similar subject for… writers, actually. It will prepare you for what Rose is going to be talking about, as will Marta's leads.
If you have an inquisitive mind looking for an excuse, pay a Tweet for Alastaire Allday's free Think Like a Copywriter, which has seen classroom use.
A couple of days ago, I joked that translators already are copywriters — the similarities are striking if you get into it. The inspiration came from and post at Alastaire's blog, where he quipped the opposite — that copywriters were translators. Now, if a copywriter says that, why don't you capitalise on it? As a translator you have an edge! Now make it keen.
Thursday, 27 March 2014
How about De-Emphasising the CV, Using a Bio Instead?
CV's are somewhat controversial among freelance translators. I stand by my old opinion that it's not demeaning to have one and call it one. Lawyers, politicians, professors, CEO's and all sorts of people have CV's, so a freelance translator also can. If you're interested in the subject, Marta Stelmaszak's Lesson 57 has a compendium in the form of a massive free e-book with very helpful tips from people who have actually sifted through many of them.
On the other hand, in a job line in many ways similar to ours, lawyers are generally using bios, which is short for biograms (tiny biographies). At least 60% law firm website traffic goes to bios, possibly because few other things are either interesting or understandable to clients. Besides, getting 'conversions', selling etc. is largely about selling a story. And a bio is by definition a story.
If you go to the popular lawyerly blog at Lawyerist.com — which contains a massive resource of very accessible and very transferable marketing advice (again, because of the similarities between our job lines) — and if you enter 'bio' in the search query, you will get about 90 results. Curiously, visual CV's mentioned in Randall Ryder's advice/opinion post there are not unheard of among translators, but I don't see many bios out there. And they are really good replacements for a classical CV on a translator's website — and possibly only there for lawyers, though not really for us translators. We could probably use them more extensively than lawyers, notably in all of those directories we're listed in where a free-form profile is allowed (e.g. Proz.com's About me section), perhaps in brochures.
Using a bio allows you to be narrative and engaging, even though you lose the the benefit of a more structured presentation with key facts arranged chronologically or functionally or enumerated in a bullet list. However, you also get a chance to leave the CV contest behind. CVs fit rather closely in the paradigm of competitive variables (price, deadline, and credentials), bios break out of that scheme. Also, where there is no CV — and some of us have already pulled theirs due to the threat of scammers stealing them and replacing contact data with their own — there is less vulnerability to identity theft risks.
What else? If you'd like to give it a go or at least 'a think', I'd suggest you take a look at field experts from your areas of expertises. Lawyers, doctors, actors, writers, other people, how are their bios written? What do they have on their biographical or at least profile pages? What can you adapt from there? Can you use the knowledge to enable them to relate more easily to you? Bios are certainly not the only thing you can adapt once you get there and take a good look.
You will probably benefit the most from having a freeform bio, as opposed to the restrictions of a classic CV, if you're a native speaker writing in your own language (non-natives will find it much harded to keep up with you in creative pursuits than in CV writing) or somewhat of a copywriter/transcreationist, or both.
On the other hand, in a job line in many ways similar to ours, lawyers are generally using bios, which is short for biograms (tiny biographies). At least 60% law firm website traffic goes to bios, possibly because few other things are either interesting or understandable to clients. Besides, getting 'conversions', selling etc. is largely about selling a story. And a bio is by definition a story.
If you go to the popular lawyerly blog at Lawyerist.com — which contains a massive resource of very accessible and very transferable marketing advice (again, because of the similarities between our job lines) — and if you enter 'bio' in the search query, you will get about 90 results. Curiously, visual CV's mentioned in Randall Ryder's advice/opinion post there are not unheard of among translators, but I don't see many bios out there. And they are really good replacements for a classical CV on a translator's website — and possibly only there for lawyers, though not really for us translators. We could probably use them more extensively than lawyers, notably in all of those directories we're listed in where a free-form profile is allowed (e.g. Proz.com's About me section), perhaps in brochures.
Using a bio allows you to be narrative and engaging, even though you lose the the benefit of a more structured presentation with key facts arranged chronologically or functionally or enumerated in a bullet list. However, you also get a chance to leave the CV contest behind. CVs fit rather closely in the paradigm of competitive variables (price, deadline, and credentials), bios break out of that scheme. Also, where there is no CV — and some of us have already pulled theirs due to the threat of scammers stealing them and replacing contact data with their own — there is less vulnerability to identity theft risks.
What else? If you'd like to give it a go or at least 'a think', I'd suggest you take a look at field experts from your areas of expertises. Lawyers, doctors, actors, writers, other people, how are their bios written? What do they have on their biographical or at least profile pages? What can you adapt from there? Can you use the knowledge to enable them to relate more easily to you? Bios are certainly not the only thing you can adapt once you get there and take a good look.
You will probably benefit the most from having a freeform bio, as opposed to the restrictions of a classic CV, if you're a native speaker writing in your own language (non-natives will find it much harded to keep up with you in creative pursuits than in CV writing) or somewhat of a copywriter/transcreationist, or both.
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