A Different Voice on How to Become a Successful Freelancer or What It Means to Be One

There has recently been a discussion, yet another discussion in the endless succession of such discussions to be sure, about what it takes to succeed as a freelancer.

I am not qualified by reason of personal achievement to speak as an authority on that, but I want to look analytically and synthetically at where we are with those discussions.

I will inevitably be drawing on the collective experience of such discussions that fit in my attention span.

I will be applying a ruthless, no-nonsense method of intuitive analysis focused on getting right to the point without wasting time on too much mumbo jumbo.

So what does it take to succeed as a freelancer?

It is a platitude to say we need to define success first. It nonetheless needs to be said. It needs to be said because we can't keep comparing apples to oranges to strawberries and melons.

There are up to as many planes and criteria upon which success can be judged as there are the 'judges' of it. Some trimming is therefore necessary. Let's cut it down to two things:

1) Being good at what you do.

This one is easy to define and take further. There exist objective criteria to assess skill. Who wants to can use those, end of analysis for us here. Let's move on to the next one:

2) Money and other benefits to you.

For 'other benefits', generally see no. 1. Let's focus on money now.

Contrary to what some suggest, being successful on this front does not include frugal lifestyles. However you choose to spend your 'salary' does not affect how much you are paid, which is the primary question.

Frugality in *business* expenditure may count, however. Still, money is not created by spending less. It is created by earning more.

The more you earn, the bigger your business success, simple as that.

And that is a matter of:

• finding and landing clients and jobs, and secondarily keeping them
• justifying your fees

In other words, it's basically successful sales — generating enough leads and turning them into enough conversions at good enough fee rates to cut a nice profit. The rest is footnotes.

Therefore the kind of advice people need to hear is not a reminder after reminder of how they are not the people who succeeded and how they differ (at some level we aren't all brilliant scientists because we aren't all geniuses), but practical advice on how to actually:

• get clients/jobs
• get good rates

Just two things. The essentials.

The whole science of the 'get'. It can be a million words, a thousand books, but it basically comes down to the how to of getting things done.

We can expand this a little as we delve into more detail, viz. how to:

• get clients with jobs
• keep them coming/returning, get more coming
• avoid losing the ones you already have (which tends to be easier than winning new ones and has the same effect)
• avoid making other stupid mistakes that are easily avoidable (to avoid small mistakes that lose you big money is generally easier than to make the same amount of money back from scratch)
• keep keeping keeping up

The rest is a matter of degree:

1. If the degree is low, you struggle. Your success is minimal and consists mostly in not having failed as of yet.
2. If the degree is moderate, you get by. That is some success, if only in not failing.
3. If the degree is comfortable, you make it. There is a modicum of success in that.
4. If the degree gets closer to the wow point, congratulations, you're 'successful' in the typical sense of the word.

We want people to get to point four, but we can't always achieve that by skipping the previous steps. We need the 'A to B' — practical advice on making the small steps.

We don't really need to raise more awareness in people that they are not successful and that that is because they are doing something wrong — they already know that.

'Just do what I did,' is helpful advice provided you explain what you did, in a way that can be repeated, and in a way that demonstrates it was a methodical approach with justified expectations of a desirable outcome, not just a lucky turn of events.

Simply reminding people they aren't quite where you are, and that you are there and they are not, is not helpful. Again, they already know that anyway. Repeating the point time after time again is not helpful advice, it's more self-promotion (not that there's anything wrong with self-promotion per se, but let's just tell that one apart from helpful advice).

'You aren't doing it right,' is not helpful advice. They already know that. And if you keep focusing on how they aren't getting it right without being able to tell them how to do it right, then it gives an impression that you yourself don't quite know what it was that you did right — happens to all of us a lot of the time. The point is, it's not a recipe if it can't be followed with some assurance of achieving the intended result if nothing is done wrong along the way.

And again, people already know they are doing things wrong or at least not doing them right. Presumably they want to change that. So no point dwelling on these two. What everybody needs is some practical, followable, mumbo-jumbo-free advice on — and at least in the form of pointers toward — these two things:

• how to get clients/jobs
• how to justify nice rates

(This presupposes the recipient of the advice already knows how to do the actual job and doesn't need to be taught that first.)

To the vast majority of people, myself included, I would suggest leaving the personality/mindset/coaching/esoteric/whatever stuff aside and just simply reading up on:

client acquisition
client retention
communicating your value, being assertive about it, persuading the clients/prospects you deserve the fees you charge or persuading them that it pays to pay what you charge

A lot of this is sales, marketing, negotiation and communication in general, with some aspects of economy and management thrown in, of which a lot of people are unaware simply because of being self-taught (or rather not yet taught) entrepreneurs and not having gone to business school. Some are naturals at it, some aren't. The latter need to learn the basics and expand on that. It starts with reading a book or two about the subject. But people need to be told where to look for the knowledge they need.

My own view is that there is simply not enough knowledge of the basics actually reaching most freelancers, i.e. those who are not business naturals.

Once you've got the basics, you can go on to more advanced stuff, such as image management, successful PR, streamlining your processes, selecting the right prospects, the right deals, honing your deal-closing skills, etc. Discussing these before covering the basics may in fact be counterproductive — confusing and discouraging.

Consequently, I would give people pointers, as specific as possible, to the right resources where they can learn basics and then pointers in the basics of the more advanced stuff they need. From A to B without skipping the basics, unless there is a valid single-issue question that somehow needs to be addressed right then and there (provided it actually can).

Where self-learning from books doesn't seem to cut it, perhaps class would be more helpful. Everyone's learning style is different, as is everybody's learning curve (and in fact slow learners initially are not prevented from becoming big successes in the long run).

Probably some personal practical advice will be necessary on how to apply book knowledge to life in one's specific line of business, which is perhaps what we should focus on when giving people advice — once they're back from the library having covered the basics we asked them to.

If they don't want to, well, that's their problem, I guess. You can't force them. You can't save those who don't want to be saved.

One other thing to consider is that some of us are bottlenecked not so much by any lack of business aptitude as by general life issues such as depression, anxiety, lack of confidence or self-esteem, lack of motivation or agency. All of these need to addressed on the plane they exist, which is not business but life in general.  In those cases reasserting the need to get up, get down to work and get things going will generally not be successful advice (pun somewhat intended).

Annoyed They're Asking for a Free Sample? You Should Be Happy! And Let Me Tell You Why.

Before we move on, let's keep in mind a sample is not the same as a test. There is a difference between being sampled and being more or less formally graded, and most translators should be more wary of the latter than they already are.

… Not so with free samples, however.

I understand the annoyance and discomfort of being asked to provide some of your work free of charge, but let me be open with you — you can get over it. Suspend your displeasure and allow me to explain.

What I'm proposing is a pragmatic look. Imagine yourself sitting at the chessboard. You're playing to win the whole, not to find pleasure or comfort, or avoid displeasure or discomfort, in the individual moves. A move is good or bad depending on how it serves your goals. If you come out on top and win the game because of that move, then it was a good move, even if you allowed the opponent to take your queen with short-term impunity.

There's a military saying that no fire hits home better than friendly fire. Doubtless you're familiar with the concept of being caught in one's own snare, poetically speaking; falling into your own trap. This is precisely what can happening to your counterparty in the negotiation if you keep your calm and consider how providing them with that sample can serve your goals in the longer run and advance your position instead of the opposite.

Generally speaking, there is no better marketing than good work and happy clients. There's a reason all those companies are peppering the market with free testers and tasters, satisfaction guarantees and generous cancellation terms. They want the product or service to touch the client!

And when you provide a free sample, your service, the product of your work, touches the client. And that is a very powerful message. If you're good, the client can take a look and see that with his own eyes, hear it, touch it, smell it; it's tangible, it feels more real, it connects better, it hits harder. In a way, this is similar to how having some face time with the client is usually better than mailing, chatting or even calling.

By exposing the client to your work in this way, you're getting so much closer to your goal, which is convincing your client that you're good and better than the alternatives.

This goes down to 'show, not tell'. Feel like explaining to your client, verbally, how your degrees, years of experience and whathaveyou make you (more) qualified and justify paying you (more) serious money?

Instead of have to plead your case like that, where the client turns into a powerful judge and jury and you're like that small-town lawyer dominated by an overbearing judge, you can simply throw your bait and wait to see the results.

If your your work is good, it will speak for itself and make its own case, at least if the client is serious, such as the typical semi-sophisticated buyer in B2B who may not be an expert but has been there, done that and has the scars to show.

In the last decade I've noted how certain companies delay the discussion of your rates to the last, making you jump through all their hoops first, almost asking you to sign the actual contract before filling in the rate.

Obviously, one of the effects of that strategy is escalation of commitment, making it more and more difficult for you psychologically to quit the negotiation after (i) all the declarations of readiness to co-operate that you've already made (which makes you look inconsistent or even unreliable, as in less of a man or woman of your word for turning around) and (ii) so much investment of your time, effort and hopes that you're now unwilling to accept as a total loss and move on, so you look for a compromise solution to cut your losses.

They will exploit that further by boiling the frog, gradually asking small concessions from you until the sum total of them becomes significant and you've moved, in small steps, a huge distance away from where you were and where you wanted to be (but each and every individual concession was too trivial on its own to put up much of a fight, not worth damaging the goodwill, etc., as they may have been amply, and aptly, reminding you along the way).

Depressing, ain't it?

But you can turn the table around on them.

They're asking for bait, so throw it to them. Grant their request, make them think — consistently with objective reality — that they got what they want and are moving on as planned, according to their own game plan.

… Except you've been forewarned about all the potential psychological effects, so you can shrug them off more easily as they come and even plan your time investment in that negotiation in a conscious way, keeping things under control and avoiding uncontrolled escalations (or escalations controlled by the other party).

Now, there's no obligation and no reason for you to in any way let them know that you know their game plan.

So you just give them the sample they requested, which will from now on act as your fishing bait, you put on your psychological kevlar suit, sit back and watch as the bait does its work. And they aren't expecting it!

Something to consider:

If you actually paid for a marketing/advertising campaign, it would probably largely come down to highlighting your good work to date and the promise of more. Also targeted direct marketing would most probably involve having a decision-maker take a look at your existing work, be impressed and give you some projects as a result. And this is exactly what you're going to achieve by giving someone with decisionmaking authority a sample when requested.

The difference comes down to who's asking whom to show or look. Don't allow such meaningless minutiae to distract you from your goal, which is to close the deal by establishing your value — one way or other. Getting your way in the short term and in small details shouldn't distract you from getting your way in the long term and big picture.

And you aren't even sacrificing your queen here. It's a knight or bishop, tops.

Don't Get Too Tied Up in Your Current Project. At Least Respond to Quotation Requests.

Some of us are great multitaskers, some aren't.

Have you ever been so tied up in your current project you forgot about everything else, including your next project? Or your last project, for that matter. And how many times did a lucrative project miss you because of that? Potentially way more lucrative than whatever you were doing that prevented you from picking up the phone?

So let's not get sucked completely in like that. Or hire an assistant — and virtual assistants can be hired for short durations on a B2B service basis — if the practice can afford it.

Either way, those calls must be picked up, mail must be checked, invoices won't write themselves, and clients have no way of reaching us when we're isolated inside our own little worlds.

So let's not make our focus on the current task more exclusive than is necessary.

A lot of this is in the head. There's no law that says we can't. Nor a law of physics that makes us unable to. The blocks are real, but soft. Just like any other soft block that exists in one's head.

So without delving into 'mindset' nonsense, a freelance professional needs to learn to take breaks and check mail and at least return calls. Better still, make sure the phone is charged, not muted, and lying nearby and your clients know to call you the old-fashioned way when something is really urgent or a quick decision is needed — and mail you and wait an our or two or three if it's not.

Some things to consider:

• separate number and address for returning clients (versus general inquiries)
• separate address for specific quotation requests such as those sent through the quotation form & file upload on your website (versus general inquiries, broad RFPs etc.)
• separate number and address for urgent cases, i.e. a hotline established for those clients who may need some ASAP post-delivery service
• separate address for subscriptions, memberships, etc. (versus signing up with your main business address)
• separate monitor to keep your mailbox open at all times
• forcing yourself to learn to fish out the most important stuff and let go of the rest until its time finally comes

It's worth noting that the last item on the list — the one about having a filter in your head — is a classic management exercise in prioritizing. It's a skill everybody needs to pick up at some point on the path of professional if not personal growth. The sooner, the more practical.

While perfecting the art by trial and error may take some time, you're probably better off developing some routines before you actually have to use them. Simply put, it's easier to stick with existing just-in-case procedures, however imperfect they are due to their untested status, than invent them as you need them.

Hence, just spend some time thinking about what filters to use when you have the luxury of sitting back with a cup of tea instead of having to think on the spot. Just don't overplan it and don't become too rigid.

Think about questions to ask and ways of getting to those questions fast. Think what sort of mail needs what sort of reaction time from you, assign the priority, compare it to the priority of whatever you happen to be doing right now, and so on.


Example 1:

You have an urgent project due in 3 hours.

You can afford 10 minutes, but not 30.

A prospective client sends you a request for quotation for a specific service on short notice, and a broader inquiry about possible collaboration.

What can you do?

Surely you can't or at least shouldn't jeopardize your current project. As a professional, your word is your bond, reputation is everything and so on. Hence you won't be replying to all those questions about hypothetical collaboration right away. And you don't want to, anyway. But this doesn't mean you can't try to get that specific project your client also mentioned. So send a quotation for the specific project and promise to get back to the client within a specified time-frame about the rest. Make sure you'll really be able to write before, and not after, that self-imposed deadline. Underpromise and overdeliver, not the other way round.


Example 2:

You have an urgent project due in 3 hours.

Your other client calls, starts asking, it's all vague. You don't want to be rude, but you can't sense much potential either, and the clock is ticking, while your client keeps talking, and talking.

What can you do?

Wait for a pause (few people can entirely avoid one for longer than a minute), then go in for the kill. Make it a swift kill, you may not get one more chance. Say you're happy to hear from them. Of course you're available. Of course you can do it (if you really can). Your fee would be such and such. Please call when you have more specific information, now I need to get back to some really pressing stuff, or it's gonna cost me my head, thank you for understanding. Bye.

… And go back to work, focus on it, finish it, send it back and make sure you did (e.g. attachments really attached, you really hit the send button, etc.), then call back that other client. Start from thanking them for their patience and understanding. You may even have some time to chat at leisure, ask about their kids, whatever, show you care, show they're imporant to you.

Example 3:

You have an urgent project due in 3 hours.

You get a call or message, there's some large and somewhat complicated request. And they want a specific time-line and fee estimate on it.

And it's the same client.

What can you do?

Obviously, you can't just be late on your first project and probably don't want to ignore the other inquiry, either. So? Defer to your client. 'Do you prefer me to finish X first or should I put X on hold and get you a quote on Y first? What's more important to you?'



Example 4:

You have an urgent project due in 3 hours.

You get a call or message, there's some large and somewhat complicated request. And they want a specific time-line and fee estimate on it.

And it's not the same client.

What can you do?

Obviously, you can't just be late on your first client's project, and you probably don't want to ignore your second client, either. But it is equally evident you just have no space to prepare a comprehensive quotation right now.

So what can you do?

Excuse yourself, saying there's a project you must be finishing very soon, in fact there are only 3 hours left on it. Your client will feel appreciated you still took the call or checked the mail and actually replied. Inform the client about the general rules you'd be applying to the quotation, without calculating the application to the specific case — that's something the client more or less can do. If not, the client can get a general feel of whether your rates are fair and reasonable and within the client's budget, or just what they are, give or take some, so there's something to tell the boss (or the client's client).

Or give a ballpark figure. Or an upper limit. Discount it a little if you think that's what it takes to avoid overcharging.

***

As you can clearly see all these examples typically result in some degree of panic if you aren't prepared. On the other hand, they are far from hard to think about in advance based on your own experience to date and your imagination.

So sit down, think for a while and come up with some such approximate procedures on a less busy day, like this Saturday was for me.

Bonus: Clients tend to appreciate preparation, confidence and calm. All of these project experience, professionalism, security and control. And these, in turn, put your client's minds at ease by demonstrating they've come to the right place.

The above remains true even if they also appreciate someone whose main asset or advance is flexibility and improvisation, as tends to be the case with freelancers, solos and small business operators.

You can in fact combine the best of the two worlds, and the way to do so is by pencilling in some basic scenarios in advance and developing on them as you go, on a case-by-case basis.

Those practical ad-hoc case-by-case decision-making skills which you need will still improve from considering theoretical scenarios. The more situations you consider in advance, the less time it will take to assess new situations as they pop up.

Of course, you can always analyse what you could have done better in this or that case, from an ex-post perspective — but obviously for the sake of learning only and not beating yourself up over it.

***

And one thing I almost forgot: Don't come up with ridiculously short deadlines. Don't make them shorter and shorter. Probe your client. Find out how urgent the job really is — which is also important in terms of, say, unnecessary rush fees that you may have a professional duty to help your client avoid (as tends to be the case in regulated professions). Make sure you have the time to do the job properly and without dropping dead at the end, and without becoming absolutely unable to pick up the phone before you finish.

The Power of the Next Time

In what could be one of my last posts on this blog, I'd like to talk about something that's very simple and very underappreciated — the positive aspect of the

next time

We tend to associate the 'next time' with empty promises that are cheap currency to exchange for tangible financial concessions on our part. But, the 'next time' can be used as a positive tool just as well.

Few of us freelancers, solos and small entrepreneurs aren't wary about flat out denying our clients. We know the implications. Denying does not necessarily result in client loss, but it's hardly good for the relationship. And at some point we do flat out deny anyway.

So here's suggestion: When you receive an offer you feel you have to accept but you're also conflicted because you should reject it on principle, instead of flat out rejecting or flat out accepting or allowing the situation to degenerate into a haggling or whining session — use the 'next time' way out.

Specifying some conditions for the 'next time' allows you to avoid refusing your client but also allows you to avoid sacrificing your own position or principles. It also shows your client you're someone who is reasonable but at the same time to be taken seriously.

Incidentally, just throw some old-fashioned hard work with good results in the mix, and it probably won't be exaggerating to say the image of the quintessential professional pretty much paints itself. On a basic level, one doesn't need much more.

When the next time comes, however, do be consistent. There is no more next time, because the next time is now. You can still show yourself as a reasonable person capable of compromise, but some things need to change, and that change needs to take things closer to where they should be.

So don't worry, meeting your client halfway is not a defeat. It just shows you're civilized, considerate and patient and have a hard time completely prioritizing your own interests over someone else's. That's the stuff of which good relationships are made. But, continue to expect and demand things to continue to move forward in the right direction.

Don't worry if you meet with resistance. Some people will test you to avoid being the sucker who pays the first quoted price that nobody else's is paying. They'll need some assurance that's not what is happening. And that may take some arguing about your initial quotes, first proposals, etc.


If the client says there's no room to move — 'as much as we'd like to, we just can't' — try to look for a compromise solution, a give-and-take. Better conditions for the client, better conditions for you. Reciprocity. Equivalence. Balance. You may want to read my post about non-financial terms.

If the client gives you a flat no, take it or leave it, you may want to be more proactive in considering that perhaps you should in fact leave it. Which may in fact be another test.

It's Good to Cut Down on 'No' and 'If', up to a Point

First off, if you know me at all, you'll know I'm not one of the folks drinking the kool aid of client this client that. Where I stand is yes, we provide a service, but we don't need to make a circus of it, and there's no need for getting hysterical about it. We provide a specific service, according to our specific talents and skills and professional training, to the best of our ability and with the client's best interest in mind, but that's it. For example just because lawyers are service providers doesn't mean they should be ready to provide the service of cooking lasagna al forno or grooming a cat just because the client demands it. That's plain silly, and we should quit wasting our time listening to that nonsense. We should also consider the source where that nonsense comes from, especially whether it isn't a large buyer or intermediary.

That said, as practitioners we're there to solve or mitigate problems — specific problems within the scope of our profession, not general problems, but solve problems still — and not to create or exacerbate them. And most of our clients genuinely need some help and are genuinely somewhat clueless about getting it, rather than having totally unreasonable ideas (which I'd link more with interest-driven industry/market influencers trying to effect a wide change — such as bringing an entire formerly proud profession to heel — than the average individual client in a specific, concrete situation).

For certain professions this gets trickier because they are less at liberty to deny their clients, but most of us are entitled to at least a certain comfort zone. Still, this doesn't mean we should totally never expand it or go out of it for a client — especially when what the client asks is something reasonable for a client to ask and the pay is reasonable.


I bet the client's life isn't easy either, more likely than not being the provider of some other goods or services, or employee thereof, who also has to put up with people. And with problems. And with complicated requests. So let's make everybody's life just a little easier by not making it any harder than it has to be, and especially if we adhere to a system of beliefs or values that places importance on being there for people and helping them (most religions and philosophies do, it's just that their practitioners don't always remember).

Another thing is clients react — and we can't expect them to rewire their brains to stop reacting to the disappointments that happen to them in our business relationship, not any more than it would be possible to do so in, say, a romantic relationship. It's only up to a certain point that excuses can substitute for actually being there for someone.

The clients' or prospects' 'systems' register the displeasure or inconvenience or stress associated with being denied or left without help, or helped only grudgingly. They may understand, of course, but the damage may still be done. All the more so, even a perfectly valid excuse doesn't count the same as actually being there for them, not any more than we'd be entitled to a fee we didn't earn.

Besides, sometimes you just lose a lot of time pointlessly arguing about something that isn't going to change or fighting battles you can't win. Sometimes, of course, you have to go on the record expressing your firm and repeated opposition to a bad strategy or self-destructive move, but most situations don't really belong in this category. So it's probably better to avoid doing or taking unnecessary damage and instead save the relationship or help it grow. Relationships are important. Even to lawyers. ;) And time is money. That goes for stress too, if you're going to need time to destress later.

Next, it's probably not worth it pointing out all the small things and demanding recognition or payment for them. Chances are they're already being noticed and appreciated and working toward a greater, immaterial deposit of goodwill that it would be a waste to cash in for relatively small monetary rewards, or — less consciously — enjoyed as a smooth, hassle-free client/user experience that it would be a shame to waste.

Thus, a lot of the time it's just better to grin and bear it — if there's no harm, just bother, and if ethics are not at stake, which is the titular 'point'.

And for the sake of clarity, being expected to turn into a generalist all-purpose personal assistant where in fact you have a specific job such as lawyer, translator, designer etc. reaches that point. Likewise, if your freelance job description actually is personal assistant, then being expected to fill in for specialists such as doctors, lawyers, translators, designers, copywriters etc. and deliver the same results without the benefit of full training.

Can Printed Letters Get You More Clients?

The immediate inspiration came from the title of an e-mail from Jon Jantsch's Duct Tape Marketing: Can Handwritten Letters Get You More Clients, referring to a post by Nick Gibson at Six Revisions.

However, a few days ago I'd read a couple of articles about typography for lawyers. There is even a website titled just that, by Matthew Butterick, a font designer turned lawyer, I kid thee not.

Between those two, a realization struck me immediately (well, almost; I was a bit low on caffeine, which I'm remedying right now):

Ekhm, ignore handwriting for now, through I'm positively sure — and without needing to see any tangible proof to boot — that it would get you more clients or 'better' ones.

Rather, before we even look that far, there are still printed letters.

See, on your website and in PDF brochures you're limited by whatever fonts the reader has, not you.

Depending on who you work for, that may be less of a problem — I've once seen a web designer use Caslon of all things, because his readers could mostly be presumed to already have it on their systems anyway (it's an Adobe font that comes with Photoshop). Similarly, most institutional clients probably have MS Office, so most of them would see them if you defined them in the CSS sheet, perhaps with Georgia, Palatino or even Times as a fallback from among the sixteen or so mostly stable set of (relatively) 'web-safe fonts'. (For server-side hosting, embedding fonts in PDFs and other forms of what effectively is font distrubution you'd need a suitable licence from the copyright owner.)

But, on paper, your options are not limited in that way. You have more control. Paper is paper, it doesn't matter what type of hardware or software platform the reader runs. What's best, once printed, it always stays the way it is, for everyone.

Naturally, the visual impression is not the same for everyone, but that's something for you to figure out. The point is, you can do a lot in terms of advanced typography on paper these days, even with the same old MS Office (well, not too old, say: 2013) that everybody else has and to some extent possibly even in Open/Libre Office.

Tracking, leading, kerning, ligatures, widows and orphans and off-black shades, different fonts for headers than for the main body of the document, you name it, it's there. You can also hand-pick just the right paper and envelope and not skimp on the ink or toner since you're probably going to be printing just one or two pages.

You can make it look very, very good, without at the same time making it look over the top — although striking the right balance may, naturally, require some practice and will always be at least a little on the subjective side, just like font pairing (google it).

Of course, use a fountain pen for signatures and any handwritten additions (depending on your demographic, it may be more courteous to write greetings and salutations in hand, and the courtesy might not be lost on the recipient).

Naturally, this is even more important for anyone who does certified translation or anything else that requires hard copy.

What else? Years ago e-mail was exceptional because it was hi-tech. These days, however, paper mail is already exceptional — and thus both special and upscale — in many corporate environments. It's something to put your hands on, to touch, to tear your eyes off of the monitor screen and read like in old times.

Some clients may find it superfluous or pretentious, or both, but others will perceive it as a welcome sign of reliability, seriousness, permanence, stable foundation, a sign that you aren't going to disappear overnight like an e-scammer. Sort of like what still having landline came to mean, at least before the fake kind became popular.

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.

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:

• 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.)

Your Cheap Marketing Plan for Dummies (and Lazies)

Woohoo! Have I just called you…? LOL, negative. In fact, I'm quite lazy myself (in the head too), when it comes to marketing and other such penny-pinching pencil-pushing boringness, but the point is: this is something anybody could do. And his dog, probably. In fact, dogs are quite good at it.

Even if you actually were a bit on the slow side, such as me before my fourth coffee of the morning (which usually happens around two o'clock in the afternoon), you still could. Right? So stop worrying that you can't. Because you can. Because, again, it's so simple anyone could do it — even though experience teaches that, ultimately, not everyone can, or will. More advantage for you if you will and they won't.

Enough of my babbling on what in fact has only been one or two coffees this morning (actually, I've just made a third, so by all estimates I should be coming round soon). What you need is:

1. People getting that translation from you and paying you for it.[1]
2. People coming back for more, or more people coming.

Point two is actually simpler than point one, so let's start from there:

1. They need good translation (even if they don't know the difference), which they came to you for in the first place.
2. Like everyone, they'd also prefer minimum fuss and maximum comfort, safety, reliability and so on. They're probably appreciate you being an all-round agreeable fellow (of either sex).[3]
3.While there are no guarantees, as long as you satisfy #1 and #2 there's still a strong chance they'll be coming back, referring their friends or leaving you nice testimonials. Any of which will help you keeping moving forward.

This means the best marketing you can get — and the cheapest — is just simply doing what you're paid for and not being a jerk about it. Don't let this truth be diluted in all the talk about formalized QA/QC and client-service standards and routines. This is precisely the common-sense alternative to those complicated and not necessarily helpful things.

Now on to point one:

The best source of new clients is happy old clients. Either directly, by referrals, or indirectly, by testimonials. Try to get both.

You also need to look credible and project confidence and inspire trust. You're toiling hard for a living and not loitering about like someone who has developed an aversion to honest work, so suit up and get a real photo. Proofread the CV. Run in through someone who has actual experience hiring or preparing candidates, to make sure it's relevant and well organized. Find more places to plant you CV in, both online and offline. The more you sow, the more you will reap. It doesn't have to be 20 different places, at least not right off the bat, but don't skip important channels or put them off for later. Mind your website: It's about the only place on the Internet where you can present yourself totally on your own terms, so use it. Nobody's going to be telling you what can be included and what can't, or what has to be there, or what the character limit is. None of that, zero, nil. So use the freedom.

Perhaps you feel you aren't the greatest writer humanity has to offer. Statistically speaking, that's probably right. Still, it doesn't take an award-winning storyteller to just answer a couple of questions your clients might be interested in. If you have an arts degree, your writing can't be too awful, so at worse you'll deliver something that looks like an actual piece of communication between human beings and not a contest entry for critics to dote on (or slaughter mercilessly as they see fit, as if your clients give a rat's breath).

Do you know how much work it takes to sound natural once you've lost the ability? Thousands of writers try to sound less experienced at their craft than they really are. So you don't really have to worry so much. Just put in some effort and make it matter, because it matters to you. If it doesn't, then don't complain about not getting the results without putting in the work.

So, work hard on your jobs and work hard on your clients, or rather your communication with them, and you'll see results.

Hard work alone will probably not make you a rockstar, but given the current state of the market and of the profession even getting the basics right will net you a sizeable advantage — and will get things done for you.

---

1. The reason I didn't want to say 'buying' is a long story for a different day.

A Reminder That Tenders and RFPs Are Not Good For You

Earlier today, when checking my mail, I clicked on a job notification from one of the largest translation portals, before I realized it had 'tender' in the job title.

Guess what I did?

I hit 'back'.

I just don't do tenders.

This is not to say that tenders can absolutely never be good for you, because that just wouldn't be true, at least not in that kind of extreme degree.

However, tenders are simply not designed to be profitable to you, or profitable to both parties, i.e. balanced.

Tenders were designed the way the are with the goal of maximizing the buyer's interest.

Look at what the buyer does if buying via RFPs. The buyer sits back in a fluffy armchair and sips his tea just as the sellers enter the arena and bleed their blood, sweat and tears into the sun-scorched sand. Himself, he doesn't have to lift a finger in order to get the entire benefit of negotiation, i.e. the full, maximum benefit of the bargain.

And, no part of the system usually provides for any return of costs even if you 'win'. Yes, you hear me right. Your 'prize' is the opportunity to sell your normal or slightly upgraded services for your normal or somewhat (heavily) discounted prices. There is nothing like paying you for the costs of processing the paperwork. No man-hours, no postage fees, no nothing. I'm talking about the 'winner' here, mind you, not the poor souls who 'lost'.

However, the poor souls who 'lost' may well be real winners in the end — they don't tie themselves up for months or years to come in what's a questionable deal from the beginning.

Chances are they will meet — and use — better opportunities in all that time.

Pretty much the only exception is when you are new to freelancing but not to translating, which means you don't have many clients yet and finding work is a problem but you do have the qualifications to win a tender without being the cheapest provider. Or when you have no alternatives, then it's basically a fact of life that you must reply to those RFPs and better not in vain, or you're going to starve. Or when you can benefit from price difference between the buyer's country and yours (possible if you live in a third-world country or even a second-world country like my own).

Like I said, the scope, the object of the tender is the provision of your services in the future, not the recovery of any costs you may have incurred in the past. The system is simply designed in such a way (which I might well say as a lawyer) that it doesn't give any specific thought to your cost or anything like that. It only gives thought to you not making any more profit than is absolutely inevitable.

Yes, you hear me right: The point of tenders and RFPs and all that is for you to not make any more profit than is absolutely unavoidable. The balance of the bargain is supposed to go over to the buyer, in whole.

That's the point of tenders.

Becoming More Persuasive?

The essence of persuation is brevity.

 (Some guy somewhere. I forgot.)

Persuasion is a tricky sort of thing. So much hinges on your specific targets but also on your own personality, the way you talk, the way you move, the way you think, the way you are. It's not that something can't be persuasive in general, far from it, but whether it works or not in a specific case is always largely an individual matter.

If you want to appeal to a specific audience, you need to dissect it a bit, get the parameters, then proceed accordingly. Marta Stelmaszak loves to talk about this, but she also brings up the part that's about you, not about them.

Anyway, this lengthy introduction aside (the point of it being that you can't make it more persuasive without doing some persuading), I put my hands today on a short infomercial-style piece of advice intended for lawyers, titled Make Your Marketing More Persuasive (over at Attorney at Work), which made me think about something.

Before me move on, another boring introduction. I believe that translation marketing is mostly ugly, unbecoming and — often — unpersuasive, but persuasion is the least of its problems, actually. A great problem in that area is whom it persuades and what to, what of. (And it certainly doesn't lack pitch.)

In short, translation copywriting brings tears to my eyes. It's all gaudy and empty, the same old stale line about 'our 2000 linguists around the globe' from every single mum-and-pup sole-proprietary translation broker, where 'our network' in client correspondence = 'our database' in translator correspondence. The same plaintive eyes and manifestations of submissiveness from translators ('pick me! pick me!' and pyjama photo). The same 'cutting edge technology' that requires Visual Basic runtimes to work from everybody. And carpet-selling pitch and often errors. We clearly need external sources of inspiration. We need discipline and we need purpose. But I'm rambling.

The main theme of their advice is teams. Translators aren't pack animals (they are packing animals, beasts of burden), but every now and then something like that happens. It is sometimes proffered as an alternative to agencies, or rather to working with them or through them. In this context — yeah, it makes perfect sense to present a team bio, so to say, to offer some sort of team presentation.

Translation agencies should also do that — in lieu of the more common pretence that translators don't exist, which is backfiring, and which was a shot in the foot to begin with. If you don't have translators, you have MT — 'nuff said (anyway, this means that if you don't have highly qualified professionals doing the work for you, or if they are totally replaceable and individually meaningless gears in your machine, then perhaps you should charge cents, not dollars, for your factory output).

Translation agencies already pretend that there are teams. This is because clients like teams. As far as I know, sometimes translators co-ordinate terminology, double-check one another and divide work on the fly in a joint assignment, but 'joining our team' generally means the same as having your e-mail added to their database. I guess teams sell.

Next, show not tell is a marketing/advertising tradition that goes back to the old adage that a picture says more than a thousand words. Translators generally shy away from this because they are led to believe — who by, I wonder, or cui bono? — that their work is uninteresting. That the clients had better not be exposed to it lest their be offended by the smell. Yeah, right. Hogwash.

(It's uninteresting to zombie factory line operators and their clients, and even in their case possibly because nobody has shown them yet. The problem is obviously that the more unremarkable translators are, the less you can get away with paying them. Figure out the rest.)

It shouldn't be taken too literally: you can show something by telling about something else. And in the act of telling you sometimes show your expertise, such as when you tell your client about aspects of your work. You leave the mental connections for the client to figure out.

(This goes against the silly modern notion of spoonfeeding conclusions to your clients and telling them what to think, turning them into brainless but content little consumers. The ideal spenders for... never mind. I gotta watch my rambling today.)

Describe your work. But do it with a picture. Paint that picture with words.

(Probably the fewer the better, but let's not be too literal about this. Verbosity and precision have their uses, and it all has to do with your style. I remember reading about an old famous copywriter who'd describe everything in painful detail... wait, I was gonna watch it. On second thought: it ties in with explaining the process, another idea mentioned later on in the article. People who know what the process will look like and feel like are less scared when the process is taking place.)

Or, well, just use pictures. Many websites do that, and with modern design styles and modern server bandwidth this is not as much of a problem as it used to be.

Marta does a bit of that on her pricing page. She is quite sparing about it and for good reason — if you keep itemizing defining beyond reason and using factory-line sort of jargon, you'll just come out funny or arrogant or both. In any case, it will likely drive your rates into the ground. (Again, the exact outcome depends also on your audience.)

For a larger project you could prepare a more detail and verbose write-up, detailing any hours you're going to spend on something else than actually translating, any analytical steps you're going to take before you actually start, any checks during, anything else like that, any things you do before signoff.

(While at it, knowing translators and LSPs, you're probably going to mention 'client feedback' like a good ISO fanboy or fangirl should. Keep that in check. Clients are important, and what they have to say also is, but for once remember that they aren't experts on your work. They are not your proofreaders or editors. Unless they are. But do you really want a dentist to edit your legalese? Be somewhat mindful of what words you use or you'll end up achieving the standard impression that translators are office gophers who need to have their work supervised and reviewed by more senior professionals from more senior job lines.)

Do be careful with 'affordable', 'responsive' and stuff like that. It all has its legitimate applications, but if you don't do it in somewhat right (where somewhat leads to average results), you'll end up sounding plaintive and half-professional, about the sort of thing that a half-professional translation done by a multilingual may look like to you. This is the danger inherent in DIY marketing. If you don't know what exactly to do, you probably want to keep it simple. Either by making it short and concise or by just making it natural.

But when you're making it natural — which is very difficult to be when you're writing, especially in this type of context — you still need to watch it, to keep it professional. This mostly means no threadbare buzzwords like 'responsive' or 'affordable' unless you really mean them, or unless you just need them for a header under which you're telling things how they are (in a reasonably formal register, not too much and not too little).

Finally, don't think that asking very pretty — pretty please — to be hired is going to work. There are clients who like to be asked to allow you to work for them, but I'm not sure you want that type of clients unless they have some good reason to act like that. Personally, I believe that translators need to stop or reduce the 'pick me, pick me!' behaviour because it harms the prestige of the profession.

Not begging for the jobs is not inconsistent with taking proper care of your clients and appreciating them and their business. And clients — reasonable clients, at least — look for different qualities than obedience, pliability, submissiveness and a general willingness to run errands. Translators who enter into that mode and fail to get out of it will forever be treated like everybody's junior assistants. Translators are probably a cross between professional advisors and designers/writers, but in any case this is not a concierge job*.

(* A professional concierge is different from a submissive guy who's eager to run errands for fear of not getting whatever is his proper work, acting like a cheap and expendable non-professional personal assistant. I'm pretty sure professional concierges actually make more than professional translators, on average, and they have a knack for combining self-denial with personal dignity. Something I don't really see in a qualified and credential translator hiring himself out for oddoffice jobs on a very entry level. This is also the message some translators' online presentation sends right away without need to read into actual business correspondence and negotiation.)

On Free Tests

I'm hardly being original in bringing up this subject, but it's popped up a lot in recent Facebook discussions I've been part of. In short, everybody's being asked for free samples, and feelings are polarized with a marked tendency towards the negative.

My own position in this matter is complicated, and you could hardly call it consistent. I definitely won't be speaking in favour of free tests here, but I'm going to give you some thoughts to consider in making your decision whether to accept free tests or not.

First, let's perhaps state the obvious by noting that the problem is essentially twofold:

1. The notion of your work or time going uncompensated (given out or expected to be free of charge).
2. The notion of getting tested per se.

It seems to me that #1 invokes more emotions, while it feels more natural to me to focus on #2 and maybe from there move on to the added concern of unpaid nature of such tests and the burdens of the testing being imposed on the translator. However, this is clearly a cultural and individual, subjective difference.

Perhaps in both cases the common denominator in feelings evoked by free tests is the underlying humiliation or disrespect.

Because if it were about money alone or just simply the economic balance without any serious feelings involved, then we could redefine free tests as a form of investment rather than cost and get it out of the way. Even where an agency you've worked with for a longer while asks you to complete a test for a new client, it can be that the client requests the agency to provide that test free of charge and the agency looks to you for that as a partner in a joint venture of sorts. I would actually support the notion of establishing and cherishing ties like that, regardless of the outcome of cooler, more balanced analysis. After all, the outcome will always be subjective, no matter what, and you just can't say whose point of view is more correct in some sort of objective sense, if that even matters.

Emotionally, the problem here is that:

1. Almost everybody and his dog expects to tests professional translators before placing an order.
2. For some reason almost everybody thinks the testing should be free of charge to the tester.

Let's delve into the why of it and dissect the surrounding circumstances for a while for a better view of the problem.

Generally, nobody tests doctors, lawyers or accountants free of charge before retaining them. I'm pretty sure you'll find a firm or clinic that offers a money-back guarantee with its subscriptions, probably mostly as a risk-elimination-based inducement to drive conversions with, perhaps only available for a short period of time, so there you have it. And I'm pretty sure you'll find exceptions anyway, but the point is that's not normally done.

And there's no such thing as, let's say, going to a car workshop or calling out a plumber and running a free test. See what happens if you try. (It's okay if you stop reading for a couple of minutes here while your belly shakes with laughter. You can resume when it stops. This post will be here.)

Free testing implies some extreme level of buyer focus, a completely client-centric perspective. No matter what marketers keep saying about the importance of adopting and showing such an attitude, it doesn't sit too well with some of us — and rightly so. We all have our limits, and there must be moderation in everything.

An important issue that comes into play here is how unreasonable some of those requests appear. For example:

1. If they've worked with us for a longer while, how come they can't assess the quality? And how come they can't just take any random piece of work already done, they need a new piece?
2. Whatever makes them think they can test us better than university professors, state boards (DipTrans, Polish sworn translator exam, German staatsexamen etc.), even existing clients and other referrals?

Re: 1, it's probably not 'they', rather a new client who comes with a lot of red tape, and they're somewhat intimidated to begin with. If it's literally the same company, then maybe some higher-ups have changed or management has decreed some new insightful policy into place. Either way, it probably comes down to red tape — and perhaps ease of use. We'll get back to ease of use later.

Re: 2, it's probably either red tape or ease of use, too. Red tape means someone somewhere has given orders, and the people who work with you are powerless to argue, resist etc. Or they could do it, maybe, but it would cost too much time or energy or risk.

Chances are rather than getting confrontational inside their organization or supply chain, they hope the matter could be resolved by you being reasonable or helpful or understanding or whatever they see it as being. I'd normally have compassion for them because I know what life is like in corporations with management's brilliant ideas and policies versus the real life that goes on in the trenches. Whether you agree with me on this or not, consider that these are the people you work with (not the management), and your relationship with them is important. A helpful question here is whether this counterbalances any points of principle involved in the request.

Points of principle include generally relate to how unreasonable and preposterous the demand is. For example a half-botched test piece being graded by a semi-competent reviewer to assess a well-reputed translator with a proven track record just because a small private buyer has an attitude like that (meaning the very idea is ludicrous). Or because, 'it is not our policy to make exceptions,' (meaning they're playing high and mighty and telling you to love it or leave it).

Ease of use, on the other hand, means the convenience of moving forward with a standard, familiar procedure instead of having to think about something different. For example processing the standard sample they're used to as opposed to evaluating some samples provided by you or making a risk assessment on the basis of your testimonials. This factor may be more prominent in cross-border relationships, where, for example, your sworn translator/traductor jurado/público/vereidigten Übersetzer just doesn't ring a bell, or rings only faintly.

They are usually unreasonable in thinking that their little inhouse procedure can test you better than a respected government exam, but perhaps they're just being overprotective of themselves rather than disrespectful of you and your credentials.

In some cases you'll have to stand up for your credentials and demand that they be respected, pretty much because of being a member of some respected association or narrower professional circle you have an obligation to uphold the dignity of that smaller profession-within-profession.

A fuller range of emotions concepts or needs involved will look like this:

• Safety
• Convenience
• Compliance (regulatory requirements)
• Inaertia
• Distrust
• Fear of the boss/client
• Corporate ego, or a small company's attempt at looking serious
• Device intended to soften translators
• Simple cheapskating with no ego involved
• Entitlement
• Knowing no other way

Your tolerance levels may differ for each of these.

Your contact's willingness or ability to drop the idea of a free test will also differ. For example, if it's a regulatory requirement, they probably can't do a thing. In many companies, the frontline PM in the trenches probably just doesn't have the authority to waive it or the contacts to go higher up the ladder. This is diametrical different when you talk to the owner of a small agency who writes the rules. With a young intern or someone in a temp position or the average secretary this will be a coin flip.

It will be pretty much the same whether the proposition is that they waive the test altogether or keep it but pay for it — there is always red tape and the need for approval unless you're talking to a proper decisionmaker, which is probably true only in a minority of cases.

From a humanitarian point of view, it might be less than advisable to force a scared but pliable person to abandon a safety device and make a leap of faith. The person may cave in this time but remember the painful experience and go elsewhere when you're no longer desperately needed. On the other hand, if you give in too easily more and more unreasonable requests may follow that such a person makes in order to feel safer.

As far as convenience goes, I sometimes make friends with PMs and secretaries while not having or desiring much contact with their boss, and it works out fine. Besides, simple favours between translators and PMs, translators and agencies, translators and the small people in big organizations, do work.

What else? Sometimes people are just counting their pennies without seriously meaning to make you work without getting paid — they just don't stop to think about it. Likewise, those suffering from egos too large for their suits don't always mean to snub you, Lazy or passive ones are not always hopeless cases when more serious things are concerned that a free test that takes half an hour to do but multiple hours to waive or get a budget approved for.

Finally, this may be a cultural thing, but it doesn't immediately occur to everybody that any sample or test during the negotiation phase before a transaction should be remunerable. Or that any test whatsoever should be remunerable — because it's a test. I'm not really convinced myself, for example. It can be seen as a sort of investment in negotiation leading to a potential deal, basically, or an extension of your application. Just like with all negotiation time and expense, the gain is uncertain here, and it's rather the chance of receiving gainful employment that serves as consideration (remuneration, compensation, payment etc.) for your efforts rather than any direct form of payment. From a different perspective, perhaps, in human terms, you could say it's just a client that needs more convincing, largely in accordance with the Show, don't tell principle. (Telling is speculative. People in business are more likely to have a practical, hands-on mind instead.)

Okay, one more thing (okay, more than one; this post will drag on for a while yet): A sample of good work is probably the best advertising ever made. It even beats word of mouth — again, Show, don't tell at play. And it's a better show when the sample is something the prospect can relate to more easily. And what could the prospect relate to more easily than whatever text he himself chose, took from you, saw, analysed and compared? Plus, it's cheaper than any sort of advertising ever, because it takes no more than you doing your own job for a short amount of time. No copywriter or agency is going to charge you as little as the bill for ~300 words of your translation. Getting a leaflet or a piece of website copy for some 30 dollars/euros/pounds (if)? Keep dreaming. It may be even cheaper than word of mouth, in the sense that it requires less effort. And you can always do a sample while you don't always have available or applicable word of mouth.

I'm a little pickier about free samples these days, largely due to having passed a rigorous and reputable examination that agencies' little tests can't light a candle to — and I don't feel like reinforcing them in that misimpression or allowing them to engage themselves and me in a pointless exercise or run a show for the benefit of their corporate ego at the expense of the sworn translator's traditional prestige — but some years ago I'd have planted them wherever I could.

Those free samples I did happily whenever asked were what got me jobs and the best rates agencies in Poland would pay despite the fact I'd had zero experience in translation. But those samples sufficed to put me on a level above people who had more experience, more relevant degrees, more or better referrals, but did not translate as well as I did. In so doing, the samples were an egalitarian device that levelled the playing field. If they took a sample from me before even negotiating the rates, then all the better because having had a bite and a sniff they knew what they'd be missing. They'd also know who to come to when a looming screw-up made the budget more flexible. I'm not sure I'm not making things up right now, but it's possible I'd even avoid talking about rates before getting the chance to land a sample.

If you're a young or new translator, I wholeheartedly recommend that you make use of this. Beat the competition (your colleagues to wit) where you can as opposed to playing their game on their own terms, where you can't beat them. But I mean genuine free tests here, not proper freebies with economic value.

Here's another idea:

• If you know they're going to request it anyway, volunteer it. This will allow you to do it on your own terms, and you can choose a presentation method that will do the least damage to your profile or the entire profession's profile, or even raise it a bit. To avoid looking desperate or producing some other undesirable impression, you can offer a non-obvious alternative, e.g. indicate your readiness to accept the first one or two pages out of twenty as a separate small order without a minimum fee or for a minimum fee creditable against the price of the entire job if they confirm it after analysing the first small portion.
• Knowing what emotions and needs are at play here, you can use your copy to wrap that free sample as something to show to your boss, a proof of your thrift for your CFO (when the first 1-2 pages are ordered and analysed separately before the whole job is confirmed), a limited guarantee of safety or satisfaction, a convenient 'solution' and more.

Just to be clear: I'm not making a sleazy suggestion that you should do free tests for opportunistic reasons and effectively lie about your true motivation in your copy; that would be wrong.

On the other hand, as you progress in age, years of experience, degrees and diplomas, accreditations and memberships, the need to test you in advance of giving you an assignment should diminish, especially the need to do so without paying you for your time. Still, you may want to consider the pros and cons of enabling or not enabling a short free sample using a text of the client's own choosing. It becomes important to ask who should be able to test you, for what reasons and purposes, and on what terms. And to look for alternative solutions, such as preemptively displaying your credentials, testimonials and existing samples for prospective clients to see and stop asking silly questions and making silly proposals.

You can also include test translation as an explicit position in your rate sheet, which will make it more difficult for at least some people to ask for it, or even 'require' it, free of charge.

Or you can refuse any tests altogether and have a canned response prepared for the occasion, for example to the effect that there is enough evidence available to prove your track record, that there already are samples available to get a hands-on feel of it (just not on a text of one's own choosing), and that you don't need to resort to providing free samples in order to find work, so they are of no benefit to you. No discussions, no follow-ups, just ending the conversation politely there and then.

Okay, one last point: A free sample of your translation for them is a free sample of their QA/QC process, communication style and efficiency and overall competence for you. And that is some really valuable business intelligence that you'd never get for the nominal price of 200-500 words of your translation. Another factor for you to consider in your decision.

Put Tech In Perspective

Reading, against my good anti-procrastination sense, some comments far down under Lord Lossner's blog post from 2013, and among them Kevin Hendzel's in particular, has reminded me about something I used speak more about: the prominence of technology in translator and translation agency profiles.

Before we move on I want to say one thing: CAT tools have legitimate uses. I'm probably addicted to tabular layout myself and use a CAT tool for almost every job that doesn't involve a PDF file the source original text arriving in a PDF file, I even charge direct clients less when they recycle the same old contractual clauses. I'm not a CAT opponent, nor a tech opponent. I grew up coding. I was the fat nerd kid in glasses. Not sure the past tense is justified. Anyway.

I do realize, and do not deny, that achieving mastery and certification in a CAT tool can open the door to gainful employment for many individual translators, more so in some paths than the others inside the profession, and especially those who aren't too heavy into marketing. In such cases even a CAT developer's logo displayed as a badge on a translator's website makes sense, adding some authority and credibility, and forging a cognitive link to a well-known name in the 'industry'. The translator may not be an artist, nor an artisan, but at least the CAT maker or trainer lends its credit to the translator's claim of being a qualified worker.

On the other hand, just like Kevin says, the translation world seems to suffer from a 'hysterical obsession over technology'. I'm just not sure whether it's really an obsession or despair and not knowing what else to do, as the tech does seem to me to be a desperate attempt at value proposal.

The tech may be the single last thread on which the marketing hangs for some companies and freelancers. The impression of a concrete and almost tangible something, which can justify the price.

The exaggerated claim to 'state-of-the-art technology' (running on Visual Basic runtimes) helps drive at least some enthusiasm and perhaps, for a while, create the illusion that the given translator or agency is the only place you can find that, a unique entity, a thought leader. Until you've cycled through most of them and know better.

Next, irresponsible and short-sighted use of CATs by people who don't know or care much about translation — perhaps due to a lack of emotional investment resulting from a lack of connection, resulting from not actually being a translator — leads to situations in which 'consistency', client-approved settings and QA routines override common sense. For a different but ultimately related reason the same may be taking place in connection with the could-care-less attitude of those disillusioned to the point of embracing the GIGO principle, as is the case with quite some small agencies and freelancers who know how to make good stuff but no longer even try to argue with their clients. Some of whose ideas challenge all laws of reason.

Not only the foregoing, but in some cases the monolingual underlying nature of CATs and related QA tools shows through, and their inability to take account of conventions applicable to languages other than a version of English, e.g. in match calculating algorithms, QA checks etc. So then you end up receiving a massive complaint about 'inconsistencies', which are essentially inflectional suffixes, punctuation rules and such like. 'There is an issue with your translation,' and they expect a 50% discount, and you should, 'respond to the client's feedback,' overnight.

I want to stress that this is not necessarily something CAT designers had in mind. In fact, at least one CAT manufacturer has noted publicly that agencies are putting too much of the technological burden on translators' shoulders. It is also possible that in introducing certain now-institutions such as matches, QA routines etc., the IT companies did not actually intend to redefine translation. (In fact, I find it hard to imagine anyone would have conceived of a quest like that, without the benefit of foreknowledge.)

Rather, it's about the attitudes with which people reach for technology and use it. An attitude which needs fixing.

A notable example I'd like to bring up is how some companies insist on OCR-ing and CAT processing even hard-copy documents complete with signatures, logos etc. So not only is the translation effectively being delivered on the company stationery of someone who doesn't even know about its being used, people's signatures are actually scanned, copied and pasted over.

Why? What for? Possibly to give the client the brain-killing comfort of imagining that he received his correspondence in that exact form in the first place (radically eliminating any hint of foreignness other than such inevitables as postal addresses in foreign countries), or perhaps to satisfy a 'client requirement', as in a client requirement to OCR the heck out of everything and lose nothing in translation — but in the sense of formatting rather than the meaning.

Speaking of which, there is no concrete reason not only why the details of formatting should need to be handled personally by highly trained specialists with degrees and accreditations in translation, which is a different field from printing, typography and copy-shop services, in which an entry level qualification would often have sufficed. Putting translators on entry-level technical tasks is the translation equivalent of overlawyering, use of overqualified personnel and multiplication of trivial tasks taken to absurd levels of importance. Let's revisit the Bitter Lawyer clip from three posts ago:



Simply put, OCR with manual connections, and manual reconstruction of formatting from PDF files in general by white-collar workforce can't replace a professional typesetting/publishing process that should be used for real publications. Not much more than Paint-edited graphs and charts could hope to replace the real thing in a glossy brochure, as much as we do that sometimes for the client's convenience and to spare the graphics guy the need to go through a wall of text to figure out what goes where.

Essentially, this seems to be pointless work, generated to just have some work to do, to give or receive some semblance of value. Or to cater to some sort of non-rational (or outright irrational) requirement somewhere, in a hope that such unconditional and full obedience would please the client (Stockholm syndrome?). Or perhaps there really is so much corner-cutting these days even in publishing that this is actually done for a real purpose, especially if translators can be tricked into free gophering.

And, for the record, the general fasctination with PDF files and OCR-ing them is ridiculous. There is almost no real need these days (barring some niche applications) to use non-editable formats in normal textual translation, and the use of PDF files no longer should impress anybody because these days literally anybody can save his own PDF files using free software.

Note how all those .doc files that have been lost (really?) are found miraculously when you quote a PDF surcharge.

It almost seems like there's a morbid appeal in sculpting the exact same format in a .doc as there was in a (sometimes even non-editable) PDF file.

Or, in other words, there is played a pointless game of creating obstacles and overcoming them. To achieve what? To prove one's dedication to the client? To mark territory and show the supplier who's the boss? To project status? Meh to all three.

Well, unless it's an effort to put everything in a large TM and never pay for the full word count any more on similar segments, but there just seems to be too much accompanying focus on formatting preservation and sculpting for this alone to be the case.

In short, excessive reliance on technology, especially connected with a lack of due reflection, dumbs our work down, piles up red tape and shuts down rational thinking, creativity and everything else that marks human translation as human. It also dehumanizes our work and makes its conditions sometimes dreadful and depressogenic.

Obviously, reducing translators to gears in a world wide word mill whose job is not to think or create, who are vendors with numbers and 'dear translators/dear linguists' rather than people with names, can't be good for the profile and respect enjoyed by the profession. If there is any enjoyment of anything left in it.

I should probably mention, at least in passing, custom CATs and custom online translation management systems. In short, they're unwieldy, worse than the alternative, and compound the unhuman nature of translation these days. Will you stay logged into 20 different agencies' dedicated systems, keep a tab on things all the time, jump at jobs and click your way through auctions and confirmations all day long... ugh.

If you, Dear Reader, by chance, are a translation agency owner or employee, know that it does not make you unique and remarkable from a translator's perspective, at least in a sense other than unique and remarkable pain to work with. Which — I still hope — is something you actually give a dime (or shilling) about.

Next, technology is not what defines you as a translator or 'professional translator'. In connection with what I said earlier on, I understand that it may be a sound idea to focus on it much on your presentation, but still perhaps exercise some care and do not let it get out of hand. Technology is a huge aid and in many cases the be or not be of a professional translator, but not in the sense that owning a CAT-tool licence makes you 1) a translator, 2) a professional translator, or 3) a great translator. Your intelligence, knowledge, creativity, imagination, intuition, research aptitude and work ethic do that.

So perhaps don't emphasize it more than necessary in your profile — unless you can confirm that it works for you.

I can imagine and accept that in some specific situations it does work and it turns out well for the translator. Probably more so in the localization subsector than elsewhere, though I wouldn't like to judge by appearances here. Or in those long-term assignments where large volumes of text are translated for a utilitarian purpose.

But for that you need a working environment in which the translator is respected as a fully valuable professional and not regarded as a low-ranking menial member of the workforce several grades below a technician or engineer with real, useful skills. Or at least where the knowledge of all those substantive tools and all the attendant gadgetry at least finds appreciation and validates you. And where the processes are not degrading and soul-destroying, at least in the subjective experience of the translator involved.

If you can help it, please do not be indifferent to the tech madness, and try to guide your clients and agencies back onto the track of common sense when they steer off it.