One of the complaints we sometimes hear — and sometimes envy — on freelancers' social media is too much work and having to decline.
The first thing people think about in response is work-and-life balance.
Yes, being overworked is not good for balance, but there is a different point to raise:
If you decline a lot simply because you don't have free slots, it means you've sold your capacity out and the demand still exists.
Without getting into theory, that means you could probably charge more.
It's not certain you could get away with charging more, it's only probable — and worth checking if you can do so without taking on too much risk.
And it's difficult to tell how much more — there are too many variable factors to play guesses here without knowing details of your situation.
But it's probable you could get away with quoting at least a little higher fees than you quote now.
Note: This applies if running out of capacity occurs regularly to you, not just once in a blue moon.
If you simply have peak periods that throw you off balance, develop a coping strategy for that specifically, e.g. a network of colleagues not all of whom will be experiencing peaks at the same time.
But if you regularly run out of capacity at your current rates, those rates should be going up.
Remember, as a freelancer you won't get a raise from your clients. Just like a law firm, private clinic or design studio, clients won't normally spontaneously offer to pay you more than they did one or two years ago or than you quoted them. You'll only be paid more if you charge more.
Some ethical doubts may arise here, and I want to deal with them separately in the section below the line. If you don't have any such doubts, don't waste your time reading further.
Ethically, you shouldn't worry about whether or not you deserve the raise based on the circumstances, the circumstances being e.g. that you like more time off and begin to wonder if something like that should affect how much you charge or entitles you to a raise.
I suggest focusing instead on the ultimate rates you'll end up charging. Will they be fair? Sticking a knife to someone's throat to help yourself get an objectively fair fee would be unethical. But using supply & demand to stop being underpaid by taking a tougher position? Hardly!
Using legitimately obtained knowledge for the legitimate purpose of resisting demands for rebates that your clients don't deserve is hardly unethical.
Next point, if you believe you're already making enough, however low that could be, so you believe you don't need more. Fine. Great. You don't have to keep the money. Donate it to a charity of your choice. Or work less (charge more, so you'll work fewer hours) and donate your time instead. But undercharging for work that generates real money for your clients is not the answer, especially if it puts financial pressure on your colleagues, some of whom may be in a tougher situation than you are.
If you want to spend your time doing the job you love and still don't feel comfortable charging more than you honestly believe you need, then perhaps work for charities and pro bono causes rather than business clients. Undercharging business clients does no good, and it destroys the market for everybody else.
If you're a single guy who lives on bread and water, owns no property to maintain, pays very little rent and bills, doesn't like to travel, doesn't like hobbies, doesn't like to travel, doesn't need anything really, or somoene who doesn't depend on the job for income, then like I said there's still the matter of what undercharging does to your colleagues and the matter of who's the best qualified recipient of your charity.
It's your time and your money, of course, so I don't want to give the impression of accusing you of doing something wrong, but perhaps think if that's really what you want to be doing. My goal is not to denigrate that approach but to show that any moral high ground would be up to debate, as there are better uses for whatever talents you may have than semi-donating them to for-profit enterprises.
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Sunday, 19 May 2019
Saturday, 18 May 2019
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:
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:
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:
The rest is a matter of degree:
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:
(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).
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:
- If the degree is low, you struggle. Your success is minimal and consists mostly in not having failed as of yet.
- If the degree is moderate, you get by. That is some success, if only in not failing.
- If the degree is comfortable, you make it. There is a modicum of success in that.
- If the degree gets closer to the wow point, congratulations, you're 'successful' in the typical sense of the word.
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).
Wednesday, 9 January 2019
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.
… 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.
Monday, 24 December 2018
As a Freelancer, I Want to Step It up a Bit and Improve My Agency Base. What do I do? (Pt 2 — 11 Pointers & 3-Step Action Plan)
Without much further ado — we did a lot of that in Pt 1 — these are two
quotes I'd like you to keep in mind before we cut to the meat. Both are
allegedly from Bill Gates and both lack a reliable source for that
attribution. ;)
In short, we want to look at our problem from the practical perspective of finding a no-nonsense way of making your life a little easier, with (almost) no mumbo-jumbo. Jokingly we could say laziness should be your guide. Not in the sense of actually being lazy but in the sense of going for simple solutions that actually work and make a difference instead of trying to prove theoretical concepts.
Laziness in this sense means you want to avoid having to do the same thing twice (kind of like I wanted this blog to help me avoid wording the same advice for different people time after time again), you want to create some capital that will keep working for you when you're doing something else. You want to invest and profit — the investment is the money and time you spend on getting some professional basics right, at least the bare minimum, and the profit is more jobs and better rates as a result.
And you want to keep it simple. For a freelancer this largely means focusing on your passive marketing and maxing it out — not instead of doing anything else, but before you do anything else, as a matter of having your priorities in good order.
So:
The goal is to:
(1) reduce, as far as possible, the work you still have to do when approaching them or being approached by them, because there's always going to be some such work to do; and
(2) make them approach you rather than you them, which reduces the amount of work you have to do in order to:
(1º) close the transaction at all; and
(2º) on as good terms for you as possible.
Either way, this means raising your passive attractiveness to a point where it compels them to action, and this is the opposite of you being compelled to action, which typically results in worse pay and worse other terms than the maxium you could get with your qualifications and your other circumstances.
Implementing these steps will make your life easier and better — this much I can definitely promise you. But you need to make the effort and actually get around to doing all this.
For example here's a simple implementation plan:
Don't be discouraged by the hundreds you need to spend so you can profit in thousands or tens of thousands. From my experience some people just won't make the initial up-front expense it takes to cover crucial parts of your professional image professsionally, and that is exactly what holds them back, by preventing them from being able to charge professional rates — which their semi-professional image can't support. Ironically, that's also similar to how clients end up having their sales materials machine-translated or translated by semi-professionals on the cheap side, with the obvious results that we often talk about in translator groups. By insisting on using selfies, beach photos and clumsy websites, and copy that sounds like a child asking a parent for a new toy, we make just the same mistakes. So let's not.
If you take this advice to heart — and, more importantly, act on it and do some work — I once again promise you're going to see some serious results. Also you can't get the results without the work. But if you don't do the work, you'll be in the same old place without being able to move forward. Once again, we aren't talking about any ground-breaking changes here, with overly ambitious goals. We're talking about professional essentials to not even help you get closer to fully realizing your potential but actually to help you stop bottlenecking yourself with inaction, passivity and defeatism.
… So for starters just go and have a nice picture taken of yourself. The results might give you the impulse and the energy to start working on your CV, brochures and other materials. Do at least this. If you see some improvement, spend some of the new income on a new website to amplify the effect and take a bigger step forward. Your bank account will thank you.
But if what you want to tell me is something along the lines of: 'Meh. Too much work. Too uncertain. Don't want to waste my money or time. Are you sure this will work?,' then I honestly don't quite care. Those are the thinking patterns of people who are in a rut and don't want out of it because being in a rut carries some sort of psychological reward for them, e.g. wallowing in self-pity and acting like a victim of fate. Shake that off. I'm not telling you to found a new Microsoft in a garage; I'm only telling you to get a professional photo, a professional CV and a professional website preferably. I'm not asking too much.
The final question — how this applies to your work with agencies?
The post honestly came out far less agency-specific than I expected, perhaps largely because my Facebook advice (from which this post eventually emerged) was more general than the question asked. But while this doesn't seem agency specific on the outside, inside it is. How?
For starters, agencies need translators. They are in a position to assess your qualifications on the basis of your credentials, the rest of your CV, and your samples, at least much more so than the typical end client. They are also repeat purchasers, and more concerned with whatever they're getting from you — which mostly means punctual deliveries and no quality issues to disrupt the flow, better still if you can impress their clients, hence keep those clients and win more by word of mouth and glowing testimonials — than with what sort of client service they're getting from you. Plus, you don't take such a big risk of losing them as a client if you aren't always available. In short, the marketing is so much easier than with direct end clients.
Getting your professional basics covered and continually improving, setting the bar higher and upping your game, gives you access to better-paying agencies and gives whatever agencies want to work with you more incentive to pay more for your work than if you had a barebones semi-professional image. The difference could be, let's say, 20% or 30% of your income, perhaps more. So what's that compared to some time or a couple hundred dollars/pounds/euros?
What you may not see so easily is that you need to keep upping your game to make any falls softer when you trip further down the road. Essentially, it's easier to win more ground than defend what you already have from shrinking. The same goes for your client base and income level. So keep growing, expanding, developing, improving etc., and that will make sure you still have plenty enough even in your worse weeks or months or years, even if you lose an important client or a couple of clients in one go, or if you stop being able to work full time, or some other misfortune happens.
… And the more agencies you have on the top end of 'nice to work with', the more leeway you have to avoid working with agencies on the bottom of the scale. For each new nice agency you land, there's a bad agency you can drop. And if you suddenly end up with a surplus of well-paying work… boy, we all wish we had such problems to worry about. (You'll just raise your rates, especially for the lowest payers, to reduce demand to a more manageable level. So nothing to be scared about.)
Pretty much the same will in fact apply to direct end clients, except getting them will be more complicated, as you'll need to go after them more proactively or at least be where they are and sometimes convince them that they need your services, which is far more work and which is less the case with agencies. Agencies, once again, are always there, usually on the lookout for translators and well aware that they need dependable, punctual, conscientious translators that are hopefully also on the higher end of the skill spectrum (and helping you show that was the goal of this post all along).
If you're born poor, it's not your mistake. But if you die poor, it is your mistake.
I choose a lazy person to do a hard job, Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.
In short, we want to look at our problem from the practical perspective of finding a no-nonsense way of making your life a little easier, with (almost) no mumbo-jumbo. Jokingly we could say laziness should be your guide. Not in the sense of actually being lazy but in the sense of going for simple solutions that actually work and make a difference instead of trying to prove theoretical concepts.
Laziness in this sense means you want to avoid having to do the same thing twice (kind of like I wanted this blog to help me avoid wording the same advice for different people time after time again), you want to create some capital that will keep working for you when you're doing something else. You want to invest and profit — the investment is the money and time you spend on getting some professional basics right, at least the bare minimum, and the profit is more jobs and better rates as a result.
And you want to keep it simple. For a freelancer this largely means focusing on your passive marketing and maxing it out — not instead of doing anything else, but before you do anything else, as a matter of having your priorities in good order.
So:
- You're in a better negotiating position when the agency approaches you than when you approach them. Again, this is where your passive marketing shines, as it both attracts them, which will get you their initial tentative interest, and, if you play it right, does much of the job of actually persuading them, so there's little left to be done when they get in touch with you. And if you play it right, you can invert the roles, so it's them wanting to work specifically with you rather than you having to explain and prove to them how you're a good fit for whatever client job they have and you don't. To get in this sweet spot you need: visibility, presence, projecting competence, confidence, moderate approachability/availability/attainability (not too eager, but not elusive to the point of not promising a good return on their invested time, effort and hope — psychology matters here).
- You have to be professional — be, act and look the part. This means acting and looking more professional than the average translator and in fact 90% of our casual and self-conscious lot. Not too laid back, too personal. Calm, collected, competent, confident. Not speaking out of turn, not afraid of silence or pause in conversation. Not jovial or airheaded. You don't have to and in fact shouldn't be dull, stern, pedantic or anything of the sort. Learn to see the difference if you don't already. There's gotta be a bit of healthy distance that inspires healthy respect, and getting too personable, as is the current trade in the freelance world, will that distance and will kill that respect. You need a bit of that ivory tower while still remaining moderately approachable — i.e. within achievable but not too easy reach (your road plan en bref) — and keeping them looking forward to the opportunity. Confident and slightly aloof professional professionals inspire this. Personal and personable hey look at me, hire me! choose me! choose me! I want to serve you! I live to please you! it would be the height of my day to take an order from you freelancers don't inspire it at all. In fact, they are like one of 20 desperate folks approaching a moderately attractive stranger and tripping over their feet bending over backwards and getting swatted like flies.
- Again, just like in dating, no desperation, no clinginess, etc., and for the same reasons. Plaintive behaviours and overeagerness are a low-value signal (LVS), meaning that you are in effect telling them your value is comparatively lower than theirs, and their market value (MV) is higher. Instead, you want to project high value, but without overdoing it.
- And the reason why you don't want to overdue HVS is because you don't want to have an attainability problem — like we said before, you must be within reach, not too distant to realistically work with. You must be reasonably responsive, just not tripping on your own feet running to the phone. But neither can you inspire so much respect and so much distance that people will… keep their respectful distance from you — and be afraid to disturb you at all, negotiate with you, ask about a potential rather than confirmed job, or project your rates as probably not being within their range (when you in fact don't charge as much as they imagine).
- Part of passive lure is samples. Overload your website with various samples of your best and most interesting work; almost. Make it just a little less than too much. Note that this doesn't mean your most complicated or most difficult work; this content has to be able to engage and resound with the reader, including those PMs who are relatively lay or green folks in translation. Those PMs (and their bosses, secretaries, HR people and sometimes clients) still have to be able to understand the text and see what you did there and why and what that is good — good for them. So make sure the samples are simple enough, simple but brilliant, and interesting; exciting even. This is part of your broader story; you're essentially doing storytelling marketing here, just like you do with your bio…
- … which, of course, (i.e. the bio) must be interesting, engaging, sending the right message, and getting the right exposure. It will probably attract like 60% of all of your website traffic, so give it some love. Have it professionally written or get some professional assistance, to the extent it wouldn't be dishonest advertising by misrepresentation of your own writing skill.
- Professional image relies much on… images! Get a professional executive shot done; the kind that costs quite a bit and is on par with the photos used by top management in your clients' organizations, as well as top authors and experts in the relevant field. Or even better than most of them have, but without clearly being overdone, as you don't want to cast the impression of trying just a bit too hard. The mood had better be more serious than sported by most translators, but without getting too uptight (unless you're in legal, medical or financial translation). For concept and background pictures, you want to spend some money on professional, high-resolution photos that don't look like clipart and aren't used on thousands of other websites. Even if you have to pay like five dollars, most people won't, so you're going to be unique. And that's your goal.
- Follow through with non-plaintive, confident presentation of your credentials as highlights — with no begging for validation! Translators constantly beg their prospects to validate them. You don't want to do that. Instead, you have to validate your prospects. You have to validate them in having chosen you or being about to choose you or having shortlisted you or simply having decided to give you five minutes of their reading time. Don't overpromise — it's better to underpromise and overdeliver than the other way round — but be confident.
- So credentials, samples, good story. To give you more detail, this means a good landing page that conveys the most important essence of your message — the best of your value proposal — in less than 10 seconds. But also expand on the story for those who do actually want to read, in way that is friendly to the reader, which generally means that the text should be broken up into smaller portions unfolding gradually in order to avoid the 'wall of text' effect but instead suck visitors in gradually as they click to unfold more information.
- Don't be told — by defeatists with self-esteem issues, a lot of whom give marketing advice to others — that prospective clients aren't interested in reading about you because you're allegedly so far beneath their attention! That's clearly low-self-esteem thinking (which screams personal issues), and it's markedly different from what the clients actually think. Except perhaps for a certain margin of entitled, toxic clients that you want to avoid if you can help it. Normal people want to read up a bit on people they work with an trust their projects to
- We've already mentioned professional photos, but of course you want a professional website and professional CVs and brochures. Professional Wordpress themes cost far under $100 apiece and are often easily configurable by a layperson with plenty of help from attached instruction materials, or you can pay a webdesigner several hundred to about a thousand to configure and customize the template for you (or several thousand for the best designers or more complicated jobs).
The goal is to:
(1) reduce, as far as possible, the work you still have to do when approaching them or being approached by them, because there's always going to be some such work to do; and
(2) make them approach you rather than you them, which reduces the amount of work you have to do in order to:
(1º) close the transaction at all; and
(2º) on as good terms for you as possible.
Either way, this means raising your passive attractiveness to a point where it compels them to action, and this is the opposite of you being compelled to action, which typically results in worse pay and worse other terms than the maxium you could get with your qualifications and your other circumstances.
Implementing these steps will make your life easier and better — this much I can definitely promise you. But you need to make the effort and actually get around to doing all this.
For example here's a simple implementation plan:
- Get a professional executive photo & bio. And by professional I mean someone who specializes in high-profile portrait pics, not just any photo service.
- Iron out your CV, portfolio and (less importantly) other materials such as brochures.
- Get your website professionally done. Don't waste your time trying to DIY it instead of doing paid work for your clients and then paying a real designer to do it better than you could. Same as with photos really.
Don't be discouraged by the hundreds you need to spend so you can profit in thousands or tens of thousands. From my experience some people just won't make the initial up-front expense it takes to cover crucial parts of your professional image professsionally, and that is exactly what holds them back, by preventing them from being able to charge professional rates — which their semi-professional image can't support. Ironically, that's also similar to how clients end up having their sales materials machine-translated or translated by semi-professionals on the cheap side, with the obvious results that we often talk about in translator groups. By insisting on using selfies, beach photos and clumsy websites, and copy that sounds like a child asking a parent for a new toy, we make just the same mistakes. So let's not.
If you take this advice to heart — and, more importantly, act on it and do some work — I once again promise you're going to see some serious results. Also you can't get the results without the work. But if you don't do the work, you'll be in the same old place without being able to move forward. Once again, we aren't talking about any ground-breaking changes here, with overly ambitious goals. We're talking about professional essentials to not even help you get closer to fully realizing your potential but actually to help you stop bottlenecking yourself with inaction, passivity and defeatism.
… So for starters just go and have a nice picture taken of yourself. The results might give you the impulse and the energy to start working on your CV, brochures and other materials. Do at least this. If you see some improvement, spend some of the new income on a new website to amplify the effect and take a bigger step forward. Your bank account will thank you.
But if what you want to tell me is something along the lines of: 'Meh. Too much work. Too uncertain. Don't want to waste my money or time. Are you sure this will work?,' then I honestly don't quite care. Those are the thinking patterns of people who are in a rut and don't want out of it because being in a rut carries some sort of psychological reward for them, e.g. wallowing in self-pity and acting like a victim of fate. Shake that off. I'm not telling you to found a new Microsoft in a garage; I'm only telling you to get a professional photo, a professional CV and a professional website preferably. I'm not asking too much.
The final question — how this applies to your work with agencies?
The post honestly came out far less agency-specific than I expected, perhaps largely because my Facebook advice (from which this post eventually emerged) was more general than the question asked. But while this doesn't seem agency specific on the outside, inside it is. How?
For starters, agencies need translators. They are in a position to assess your qualifications on the basis of your credentials, the rest of your CV, and your samples, at least much more so than the typical end client. They are also repeat purchasers, and more concerned with whatever they're getting from you — which mostly means punctual deliveries and no quality issues to disrupt the flow, better still if you can impress their clients, hence keep those clients and win more by word of mouth and glowing testimonials — than with what sort of client service they're getting from you. Plus, you don't take such a big risk of losing them as a client if you aren't always available. In short, the marketing is so much easier than with direct end clients.
Getting your professional basics covered and continually improving, setting the bar higher and upping your game, gives you access to better-paying agencies and gives whatever agencies want to work with you more incentive to pay more for your work than if you had a barebones semi-professional image. The difference could be, let's say, 20% or 30% of your income, perhaps more. So what's that compared to some time or a couple hundred dollars/pounds/euros?
What you may not see so easily is that you need to keep upping your game to make any falls softer when you trip further down the road. Essentially, it's easier to win more ground than defend what you already have from shrinking. The same goes for your client base and income level. So keep growing, expanding, developing, improving etc., and that will make sure you still have plenty enough even in your worse weeks or months or years, even if you lose an important client or a couple of clients in one go, or if you stop being able to work full time, or some other misfortune happens.
… And the more agencies you have on the top end of 'nice to work with', the more leeway you have to avoid working with agencies on the bottom of the scale. For each new nice agency you land, there's a bad agency you can drop. And if you suddenly end up with a surplus of well-paying work… boy, we all wish we had such problems to worry about. (You'll just raise your rates, especially for the lowest payers, to reduce demand to a more manageable level. So nothing to be scared about.)
Pretty much the same will in fact apply to direct end clients, except getting them will be more complicated, as you'll need to go after them more proactively or at least be where they are and sometimes convince them that they need your services, which is far more work and which is less the case with agencies. Agencies, once again, are always there, usually on the lookout for translators and well aware that they need dependable, punctual, conscientious translators that are hopefully also on the higher end of the skill spectrum (and helping you show that was the goal of this post all along).
As a Freelancer, I Want to Step It up a Bit and Improve My Agency Base. What do I do? (Pt 1)
Hi, guys. If you used to follow this blog, doubtless you must have noticed I've been writing less lately, lately meaning the last couple of months if not years. Today I thought about the original reason why I set up a blog — to prevent the long, meaningful posts that I sometimes make in translators' groups and forums from disappearing into the abyss of oblivion that is anything older than two weeks on Facebook and in forums. Later on, most of the posts here, almost all in fact, were written specifically for this blog and only a few actually served the original purpose — meaning a lot of potentially useful bits of advice or voices in discussion continued to be lost, partly because I don't even always remember I have a blog (apparently, adjusting to the thought and learning some new habits takes some time).
So today I want to do what this blog was supposed to do, and preserve a potentially useful post from a Facebook group about what to do if, as a freelance translator (as was the case), you want to expand or improve a bit without making the drastic step of dropping agencies altogether and plunging into the world of exclusively direct clients.
And why would you choose that?
Am I suggesting you should make a point of retaining some agencies in your mix when you might as well skip them entirely and still fill your calendar? Nope. Not unless some of the above applies to you. This is all conditional, situational, wholly governed by your circumstances and your unique personal preference. Not in all, but in a lot of cases at least some of the above considerations will apply, meaning you'll either have to or want to keep some agencies in the mix.
One thought about keeping some agencies in the mix is that you may still want to 'upgrade'.
And by upgrading, I don't mean dropping old, tried and true sources of reliable, somewhat comfortable and somewhat gainful work to embark on a goose chase or stake all you currently have on a slim hope that perhaps a new agency with a new approach will be a little more profitable to work with because it seems to pay marginally better rates. Nope.
But, a lot of freelancers work with agencies they don't quite like, where there are no warm feelings of friendship and loyalty, no long history of good old times to create a lasting bond, but just business the way it is with agencies, where the translator is getting the work because he or she is currently the best option in comparison to the alternatives and switching costs (i.e. it's better working with you than spending the time and effort, and incurring the risks, that replacing you would require).
… And some of those agencies can in fact be quite toxic, taxing your reserves more than is worth it. When talking about 'toxicity', I am focusing primarily on the result rather than the cause. This means I'm concentrating on the effect the behaviour has on you, rather than allocating the blame. Toxic behaviours include, for example:
Those are probably agencies you'd like to no longer have to work with, agencies you only work with because you have to. And why do you have to work with them? Because you don't have alternatives. So that's what we'll be talking about in Pt 2.
Or perhaps there isn't that much toxicity going on but neither is there anything to keep you other than that you need work from somewhere, anywhere. Those are agencies you don't have to dump but have no special reason to regret to move on from. And that will be the focus of Pt 2.
And, for the record, a lot of Part 2 will be applicable to direct end clients as well, just not framed with them in mind.
So today I want to do what this blog was supposed to do, and preserve a potentially useful post from a Facebook group about what to do if, as a freelance translator (as was the case), you want to expand or improve a bit without making the drastic step of dropping agencies altogether and plunging into the world of exclusively direct clients.
And why would you choose that?
- A 100% direct end client mix is not always viable to achieve.
- Nor is it necessarily optimal.
- Between costs and gains, keeping at least some agencies in the mix may be the best choice.
Am I suggesting you should make a point of retaining some agencies in your mix when you might as well skip them entirely and still fill your calendar? Nope. Not unless some of the above applies to you. This is all conditional, situational, wholly governed by your circumstances and your unique personal preference. Not in all, but in a lot of cases at least some of the above considerations will apply, meaning you'll either have to or want to keep some agencies in the mix.
One thought about keeping some agencies in the mix is that you may still want to 'upgrade'.
And by upgrading, I don't mean dropping old, tried and true sources of reliable, somewhat comfortable and somewhat gainful work to embark on a goose chase or stake all you currently have on a slim hope that perhaps a new agency with a new approach will be a little more profitable to work with because it seems to pay marginally better rates. Nope.
But, a lot of freelancers work with agencies they don't quite like, where there are no warm feelings of friendship and loyalty, no long history of good old times to create a lasting bond, but just business the way it is with agencies, where the translator is getting the work because he or she is currently the best option in comparison to the alternatives and switching costs (i.e. it's better working with you than spending the time and effort, and incurring the risks, that replacing you would require).
… And some of those agencies can in fact be quite toxic, taxing your reserves more than is worth it. When talking about 'toxicity', I am focusing primarily on the result rather than the cause. This means I'm concentrating on the effect the behaviour has on you, rather than allocating the blame. Toxic behaviours include, for example:
- always nibbling away at your rates
- always nibbling at service scope or added value, trying to squeeze something extra out of you
- dumping secretarial/technical/client-service tasks on you because they promise full service but don't have the staff to actually pull it off, or just want to save staff time
- trying to go back on confirmed arrangements
- requesting bookings for potential jobs that have a statistical 30% probability of materializing
- only coming to you with stuff nobody else can or will do
- being rude to you when talking or mailing
- hardball, manipulation and all sorts of dodgy tactics
Those are probably agencies you'd like to no longer have to work with, agencies you only work with because you have to. And why do you have to work with them? Because you don't have alternatives. So that's what we'll be talking about in Pt 2.
Or perhaps there isn't that much toxicity going on but neither is there anything to keep you other than that you need work from somewhere, anywhere. Those are agencies you don't have to dump but have no special reason to regret to move on from. And that will be the focus of Pt 2.
And, for the record, a lot of Part 2 will be applicable to direct end clients as well, just not framed with them in mind.
Saturday, 18 August 2018
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
Monday, 12 March 2018
100% Quote Acceptance Is Bad
Having your quote accepted or chosen all the time can be a source of pride, but that's misguided.
It does not necessarily mean literally everybody and his dog agrees you're the best.
If you think they believe're the best bang for the buck, that's closer to it, but not yet there.
Unless your quote is outside their spending limit, the decision comes down to two things:
If everybody always agrees you're the best choice regardless of the entire range of subjective differences, this means your pricing is 'objectively'[1] a bargain by a large margin. So large it always outweighs all other factors in the judgement, no matter who's judging.
Next, if nobody ever complains about not being able to afford you, it not only means everybody can afford you easily (which is not bad per se, if that's your mission), it also means nobody will even try pretending otherwise.
… Which means, most likely, you're charging way below your league.
If nobody can ever undercut you, most likely you're the one doing the undercutting. Ooops!
Perhaps you just forgot to give yourself a raise. For ten years or so.
[1] Intersubjectively, but let's not go there.
It does not necessarily mean literally everybody and his dog agrees you're the best.
If you think they believe're the best bang for the buck, that's closer to it, but not yet there.
Unless your quote is outside their spending limit, the decision comes down to two things:
- how much value they get for what they pay
- the alternatives (BATNA) and the cost (or bother) of pursuing them
If everybody always agrees you're the best choice regardless of the entire range of subjective differences, this means your pricing is 'objectively'[1] a bargain by a large margin. So large it always outweighs all other factors in the judgement, no matter who's judging.
Next, if nobody ever complains about not being able to afford you, it not only means everybody can afford you easily (which is not bad per se, if that's your mission), it also means nobody will even try pretending otherwise.
… Which means, most likely, you're charging way below your league.
If nobody can ever undercut you, most likely you're the one doing the undercutting. Ooops!
Perhaps you just forgot to give yourself a raise. For ten years or so.
[1] Intersubjectively, but let's not go there.
Thursday, 18 August 2016
Don't Have Company Culture/Mission/Processes/Whatever? Generate It.
A while ago Marta wrote a post on her Business School blog asking readers' opinion on whether looking at your translation practice through a process perspective, as a solo practitioner, was a little over the top or still within the bonds.
The lazy conformist in me is inclined to say yes. However, intellectually, I know the answer is more along the lines of: 'why the heck not if that works for you?'
See, in matters that are not somehow moral in nature, it all comes down to whether something works for you or not. That's the pragmatic criterion and only one that really counts in such cases.
On the other hand, being pragmatic doesn't have to mean being a passive, defeatist, complaining lazy person.
Would you call Alexander the Great a dreamer? He had a dream, but… — You get my point.
I've also recently had a nice conversation with the young owner of a small construction company, whom I was mentoring a bit on some business and legal matters (he obviously knew how to do and manage his own work). We realized that being a freelancer was not that much different from running a small company.
With a bit of simplification, on some level it only came down to not having a couple of people to delegate some specific tasks to and then manage and supervise them and register them with the authorities for tax and insurance purposes.
… But picking up calls and dealing with stuff and soldiering on from one month to the next and hopefully landing nicer deals sometime as you grow was pretty much the same on a very basic level.
After eight paragraphs already this finally gets us to the main point: nobody says you can't have your own processes, even if you, yourself are the only person executing them, or your company culture or mission. Even if there is no company — for example because freelancers don't need to be sole-props in your country — there is a still a practice, like a doctor's or lawyer' practice, which is predicated on you being someone with some professional activity if not exactly a business. And that's practically the same for practical purposes.
So nobody says you can't write down a vision — and if someone does actually say that, you don't need to listen. Just go ahead and write it. Consider putting it on your own website. And, for the record, such ideas actually sell more easily than simple products or services. Products and services may be more practical, but it actually is easier to get people hooked on ideas or relate ideas than products or services. Watch this presentation from Marta — which is what made me start thinking about all these things several years ago — to see why.
The lazy conformist in me is inclined to say yes. However, intellectually, I know the answer is more along the lines of: 'why the heck not if that works for you?'
See, in matters that are not somehow moral in nature, it all comes down to whether something works for you or not. That's the pragmatic criterion and only one that really counts in such cases.
On the other hand, being pragmatic doesn't have to mean being a passive, defeatist, complaining lazy person.
Would you call Alexander the Great a dreamer? He had a dream, but… — You get my point.
I've also recently had a nice conversation with the young owner of a small construction company, whom I was mentoring a bit on some business and legal matters (he obviously knew how to do and manage his own work). We realized that being a freelancer was not that much different from running a small company.
With a bit of simplification, on some level it only came down to not having a couple of people to delegate some specific tasks to and then manage and supervise them and register them with the authorities for tax and insurance purposes.
… But picking up calls and dealing with stuff and soldiering on from one month to the next and hopefully landing nicer deals sometime as you grow was pretty much the same on a very basic level.
After eight paragraphs already this finally gets us to the main point: nobody says you can't have your own processes, even if you, yourself are the only person executing them, or your company culture or mission. Even if there is no company — for example because freelancers don't need to be sole-props in your country — there is a still a practice, like a doctor's or lawyer' practice, which is predicated on you being someone with some professional activity if not exactly a business. And that's practically the same for practical purposes.
So nobody says you can't write down a vision — and if someone does actually say that, you don't need to listen. Just go ahead and write it. Consider putting it on your own website. And, for the record, such ideas actually sell more easily than simple products or services. Products and services may be more practical, but it actually is easier to get people hooked on ideas or relate ideas than products or services. Watch this presentation from Marta — which is what made me start thinking about all these things several years ago — to see why.
Thursday, 10 March 2016
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.
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.
Whether you do or not, please allow me to give you a short recap:
Whatever one can say about the translation market in general, your part of it does not have to be the sum total of a bajillion outright auctions for the lowest bidder or recruitments based on 'best rates'.
You don't have to attune yourself to the market and passively obey the general trend, let alone go out of your way to adapt and fit in.
To adapt and fight is an option too.
Being active, making proposals, persuading, insisting, suggesting trade-offs, even declining unprofitable offers — is not something only clients and agencies can do.
You have as good a right to try and change the rules of the game as they do.
Sunday, 28 February 2016
The Market Is Not a Reverse Auction
You've probably heard a lot — including from me — about how prices are falling, status is falling, respect is declining, all of which is true, and allow which keeps intensifying as we speak.
But this isn't the whole truth. Things don't have to be this way.
You may've heard from so called business experts and frontline fighters about how this is what the clients want and how we must provide. Suck it up and deliver. Like the tough guys we are. Or they are. Bullshit. Stupid, ridiculous bullshit.
They make it sound like being a tough guy is about putting up a brave face as you cough up protection money for a guy who certainly is bigger than you but not nearly big enough, or relevant enough, to shove you around at will. How tough indeed!
No matter how distorted and unbalanced, there is still symmetry in the market. You don't have to do whatever you sense — or, more likely, are told by pundits and sometimes even your own client — 'the market' wants. Meaning what the buyers want.
… This is because 'the market' ≠ the buyers. The market is also the sellers. It's a two-way street.
There is no 'new reality of the market' that buyers supposedly now want more goods or better goods for the same or lower price, which they supposedly didn't already want before. Any guy who says that certainly is so no prize-winning material. There is nothing remotely inventine or innovative about that kind of statement. Buyers have always wanted to buy more for less and sellers have always wanted to sell less for more. Everybody has always wanted to make a good bargain. Nothing new there.
Now, even supposing that you're going to deliver that good bargain as opposed to sticking to your guns and negotiating harder, even that still doesn't mean you need to start selling more for less. Because you don't.
On the contrary: You can explain how what you already are selling, at the price you already are charging, is a great bargain and always has been. (Just perhaps there was no pressing need to go into the details of it until now.)
As a translator you are opening doors that would otherwise be closed and building bridges where people would otherwise need boats, or at least building and navigating those boats for them so they don't have to swim. Those doors and bridges and boats lead to potentially unlimited opportunities, which, while probably finite, are still worth times and times more than the price of your translation calculated as the number of words times the per-word rate.
It's only that as times get worse and competition gets tougher and scarier there may be more storytelling for you to do before the story falls in together and sells. But, unless you're translating contracts and marketing blurbs written anew at each time for every $100-$1000 transaction, you should still have more than enough wiggle room to carve out a decent fee, if you're willing to put some work in it.
And before you put in the work you must realize and accept that the work can be done and will make a difference. At least try.
Consider that a lot of the information you have comes from (i) battle-scared warriors who want to appear tough as they make the brave decision to give the opponent what he wants without putting up a fight and still hope to get the hero treatment; and (ii) people who have a vested interest in making you think that you already are buried neck-deep in reverse auctions, sucked in and unable to go anywhere else. Which you aren't. Not remotely. Not even if your situation actually is somewhat bad in objective terms. It just isn't as bad as that.
Consider how many times they have:
It's just that the opposing side of the negotiation table may want to prevent you from actually using that pull, for example by making you believe you don't have it or shouldn't use it because it would somehow be unethical. (Or, most frequently, because their procedures, same for every contractor, don't leave room for it.)
The market is more of a free-for-all. Everybody is auctioning. Everybody is competing for the other party's side of the bargain. There are elements of reverse auction and there are — or at least could be, if translators or any type of sellers were more proactive — elements of normal, straight auction as well, where the highest bidder among the buyers and not the lowest bidder among the sellers wins. There are no formalized bids or rules to cover the entire market as a whole, and you need to play it by ear and by trial and error and by guessing a lot. But the essential mechanics are there.
Try to break out of the psychological compulsion to please the client (or else!), at least for the sake of a little exercise we're going to have.
Suppose there is a job you don't to do or in any case can afford to 'lose', i.e. simply not get, which is not the end of the world. You won't actually 'lose' it if you don't get it and it was never years. You will simply not have got that one particular job, and that's it. For the record, you don't need to get everything single job you see, nor could you humanly process them all anyway. What you need to get is enough jobs to make a comfortable living at the rates you charge.
So, take that problem job and try to up the rate or move the deadline. Be fair, don't shortchange them, just don't be as acommodating as before. Mind your need for sleep and free time, or give yourself an 8-hour day, 40-hour week, occasional holidays, you get the point. Or, if they're a new client and you know they have the money, then don't charge them the same rate you've been charging everybody for years on years now for the same work — raise it in due proportion to your increasing experience. And inflation. And everything else.
In other words, stop giving so much **** about 'being competitive'. Allow yourself to be less competitive. In the meaning they attach to it anyway.
(Remember that, in the real world, you're competitive or not depending on whether you win the competition. Not depending on whether someone says you are.)
There is a good chance you will get those higher rates and longer deadlines, if you actually try. You should try, if only to know more or less where you stand. And remember that you can always grant a discount on the invoice or deliver early or even agree to grant them a one-off discount if you become convinced that their reasons are sound, that their cause is a legitimate one.
Most people who will turn tail and pass up on you are going to be those on the lookout for a cheaper provider, not really the few people who have a real need but too much pride to ask for a discount (hint: if their statements are public record and they've been awarding juicy bonuses to their management, they are not in dire need), so don't worry too much about that. You can still make it clear (somewhere, somehow), that discretionary reductions and otherwise unique terms are available on a case-by-case basis to clients who can show a legitimate need without being able to pay the normal fee. That will keep the needy in and the bargain seekers out.
What else can you do?
Yeah, it's not all wrestling about the fees. Supply and demand can be influenced — or brought out — in subtler ways that don't involve violence.
I say 'brought out' because the advantages of what you already provide — the good features and the useful benefits of it — are often hidden and underappreciated, and it's up to you to change that state of things as opposed to simply heaping even more at an even lower price.
Thus you may need to do more work to make sure that clients realize just how much they're getting from you — or how much more they're getting from you than from someone else.
Many of them will still try to get it cheaper, that's sort of how human nature is, at least for some humans. The trick is to not cave in the moment they say that (to try costs them nothing, so in a certain sense they would be stupid if they didn't), but instead reiterate the value that you provide and the fact that your prices are already quite reasonable and (if true) that many other clients are perfectly willing to pay them (which means they see the value).
A client who already sees he's getting a good bargain but would like to turn it into an even better one doesn't have too many strong arguments to show for it, and chances are that if things were to resort to open violence you would come out on the top. Especially if he already is getting better terms from you than anyone else is giving. There is an old Latin saying: quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. If someone asserts something without proof, you don't need proof to negate it. You just negate it.
Remember that in such situations the burden is on them to convince you. You discharge your own burden by simply quoting a fee that falls within the market standard or as much higher than it as your qualifications are or the difficulty of the job is. Anything more favourable to the client is for the client to justify, and you have no obligation to give him an A for effort.
To prove your qualifications, data in on objective, legible and concise format are always good. Just pile up the degrees and accreditations and certificates and years of experience and testimonials from happy clients (both the content and the sheer number matters). That is something your client cannot claim to disbelieve or challenge without a good foundation.
Also include samples so that you can refer your prospects to them instead of translating something new for them free of charge for their proofreader's reviewing pleasure.
Speaking of which, obviously, just about any random QA'er from a translation agency or business company is not going to test you more reliably than your professors at university and your state examiners and exam boards at professional associations already have done, unless the test is more difficult and the reviewer is more qualified than your previous examiners were, which is simply not very likely.
It's only that some of your prospects may prefer to have the privelege of acting unreasonably and disbelieving anything which they haven't personally put their hands on — and very literally so because they won't even accept credible documents from respectable institutions in lieu of a first-hand check. Guess what? You don't really have to put up with that sort of treatment. (Unless you actually have to.)
It's kinda like maths. You don't need to prove that 5000 words times 0.12 a word makes 600 to pay. That's just the kind of thing you just don't have to prove in the face of feigned or even actual disbelief.
But you will still need to use your own good sense to find out where the limits are because making conclusions about your skill level on the basis of your papers is a bit less forward than simple arithmetics. It just isn't some kind of murky waters of non-knowledge and uncertainty that somehow means you should be charging peanuts because your actual qualifications are intangible. And even if they were.
Finally, you don't need to talk business. At least not only it and not all the time. I suggest you do read a bunch of course materials about the basics of economy, management and marketing just to know the setting you work in (and if you do business translation, you need that knowledge anyway), but instead of focusing solely on the business terms that are native to your clients, you also use terms that are native to your art.
After all, they need a translator, so it makes no point pretending they don't need one but only have a business problem to solve. Which is not true.
So you don't want to only use some business references that they're going to downplay and counter easily simply because they're more fluent in the lingo and carry more authority in the area than you do. You need to establish yourself as an expert in what you do, which is what they need.
And no bullshit like you still need to prove you're needed. If you weren't needed, they wouldn't be there asking. Or that you need to prove your monetary value. If they didn't sense the value… yes, correct, they wouldn't be there asking (which is even fine to tell them, at least without using the 'BS' word, usually).
So if they know it and you know that they know it and they know that you know they know it, and so on and so forth, then it makes no sense to act like you don't know (and you don't know etc.) and grant them a victory in their own silly game. No unfair downplaying of the importance of your art, and no gratuitous refusals to recognize your qualifications should be your rule no. 1 for them. And yes, you can set rules. To some extent at least. (Precisely to the extent you can get away with, which is up to you to find out.) This remains true even if it's you contacting them rather than the other way round. You're still talking business and fees and not charity and donations.
I suggest you also use the talents that you already have to deliver a convincing value proposal that does a good job of showing — and claiming the credit for — the value and meaning (and cost-to-provide and scarcity and difficulty to find) of the services you provide.
Thus, if you are one of those people who came to translation from a different profession, one which is somehow involved in most of the stuff you translate, you could simply use that to establish a connection and to establish your relevance. And show yourself as a competent fellow (of either sex) who understands the stuff.
On the other hand, if you have more of a language background, you should use that. After all, you are an expert on language. So rise and shine. And if your bacgkround is more on the literary side, especially if you know how to write or edit a story, then certainly use that to your advantage. It's actually becoming quite hip in the business world these days.
And, once again, if they gratuitously negate or downplay your importance or relevance, call them on it. Don't be aggressive or rude, but force them to back out of it, if only by asking questions — for example: why they think that, why do they think they know better than a recognized authority — or repeating the obvious — for example just how authoritative the institution is which granted your credentials or was satisfied with your work as your client.
Again, you don't need to act like every shit argument is good currency, because it's not. But you need to build some confidence. I've already suggested expanding your knowledge and re-evaluating your status as an expert in your field with a useful role to play for experts in other fields, but there are also other ways, such as developing your soft skills, including the art of negotiating and saying no without breaking up the negotiation. Everything in due time, not too much at once, but I suggest you take a look at those. I did as an adolescent (a bit overeager to please and a bit shy to stand up, a bit inept at defending my right to stand up and reasons for it etc.), and it did me some good. It prepared me for some things later on.
The no. 1 realization to make is that there is bullshit in this world and that that bullshit isn't binding on you, you can call people on it and refuse to accept it (as a reason for them to get a discount or otherwise).
And the no. 2 thing to do (more like even no. 1, in fact) is to use your knowledge to demonstrate… your knowledge. And to show in all sorts of ways (not always by talking directly about it) that your services are valuable and that you're a competent provider, and (if you need to) that your fees are reasonable and offer a lot of value.
If you have lawyer clients (small firm or solo), or doctors, or architects, it could be a good idea to ask them for some tips, as they've probably already had to deal with the same problems. There should also be more literature available from lawyers' perspective than translators', nearly all of which is going to be applicable to translators without much adaptation left to do, given how similar the professions and the problems are.
With time, as your means allow it, you will want to use a real marketer and a real ad man to make your message heard, to give it more reach and make it more resounding. The goal is to make your perspective matter too and not only the perspective of people who want your services to be cheap and underappreciated (also because it makes them cheaper).
***
Additional reading:
major auction types at Wiki
I believe the market is closer to Walrasian auction than a reverse auction, but the point is not to analyse the theoretical model of that (which I haven't even done myself), the point is to realize that it all goes two ways.
storytelling
As a (wo)man of letters, you simply have an advantage there, and you should use it. Good marketing kinda always comes down to a good story, especially when it comes to creating a brand.
Walrasian auction and Walras's law
… If you're more mathematically inclined, this may do better than a narrative explanation.
As well as a bunch of how-to books, starting from 'for dummies' and moving up. It's only reasonable to know the setting you're forced to operate in and the setting that's native to your prospective clients. It will help you get better fees and otherwise better terms from them, but it will also help you better serve their own needs, which is a win-win situation. (Just like being a good legal translator helps you identify and refuse to sign, or renegotiate, an abusive clause in a contract.)
But this isn't the whole truth. Things don't have to be this way.
You may've heard from so called business experts and frontline fighters about how this is what the clients want and how we must provide. Suck it up and deliver. Like the tough guys we are. Or they are. Bullshit. Stupid, ridiculous bullshit.
They make it sound like being a tough guy is about putting up a brave face as you cough up protection money for a guy who certainly is bigger than you but not nearly big enough, or relevant enough, to shove you around at will. How tough indeed!
No matter how distorted and unbalanced, there is still symmetry in the market. You don't have to do whatever you sense — or, more likely, are told by pundits and sometimes even your own client — 'the market' wants. Meaning what the buyers want.
… This is because 'the market' ≠ the buyers. The market is also the sellers. It's a two-way street.
There is no 'new reality of the market' that buyers supposedly now want more goods or better goods for the same or lower price, which they supposedly didn't already want before. Any guy who says that certainly is so no prize-winning material. There is nothing remotely inventine or innovative about that kind of statement. Buyers have always wanted to buy more for less and sellers have always wanted to sell less for more. Everybody has always wanted to make a good bargain. Nothing new there.
Now, even supposing that you're going to deliver that good bargain as opposed to sticking to your guns and negotiating harder, even that still doesn't mean you need to start selling more for less. Because you don't.
On the contrary: You can explain how what you already are selling, at the price you already are charging, is a great bargain and always has been. (Just perhaps there was no pressing need to go into the details of it until now.)
As a translator you are opening doors that would otherwise be closed and building bridges where people would otherwise need boats, or at least building and navigating those boats for them so they don't have to swim. Those doors and bridges and boats lead to potentially unlimited opportunities, which, while probably finite, are still worth times and times more than the price of your translation calculated as the number of words times the per-word rate.
It's only that as times get worse and competition gets tougher and scarier there may be more storytelling for you to do before the story falls in together and sells. But, unless you're translating contracts and marketing blurbs written anew at each time for every $100-$1000 transaction, you should still have more than enough wiggle room to carve out a decent fee, if you're willing to put some work in it.
And before you put in the work you must realize and accept that the work can be done and will make a difference. At least try.
***
Consider that a lot of the information you have comes from (i) battle-scared warriors who want to appear tough as they make the brave decision to give the opponent what he wants without putting up a fight and still hope to get the hero treatment; and (ii) people who have a vested interest in making you think that you already are buried neck-deep in reverse auctions, sucked in and unable to go anywhere else. Which you aren't. Not remotely. Not even if your situation actually is somewhat bad in objective terms. It just isn't as bad as that.
Consider how many times they have:
- asked if you are available
- stressed that it's important it's you who take up that project
- tried to evoke your sympathy
- … or threatened you
- or resorted to flattery
- or even made small concessions such as waiting their turn or paying a slightly higher rate
Boy! (Of either sex.) All of that means you do have some pull.
It's just that the opposing side of the negotiation table may want to prevent you from actually using that pull, for example by making you believe you don't have it or shouldn't use it because it would somehow be unethical. (Or, most frequently, because their procedures, same for every contractor, don't leave room for it.)
See, contrary to what they would like you to believe, the market doesn't consist of millions of sellers, trying to win the favour of buyers who are free to pick and fuss all they want, pretty much because that's they way of things, which is how it should be and the only way it could be. Nope, it isn't.
All of those buyers also need to contend with the scarcity of the goods or services they want to buy, or even of the sellers who sell those, as well as the higher or lower attractiveness of their, the buyer's, budgets and other terms they are able or willing to offer. There is nothing which prevents sellers from selling to someone who offers a higher price or is willing to wait longer or sweeten the deal in some other way.
The market is more of a free-for-all. Everybody is auctioning. Everybody is competing for the other party's side of the bargain. There are elements of reverse auction and there are — or at least could be, if translators or any type of sellers were more proactive — elements of normal, straight auction as well, where the highest bidder among the buyers and not the lowest bidder among the sellers wins. There are no formalized bids or rules to cover the entire market as a whole, and you need to play it by ear and by trial and error and by guessing a lot. But the essential mechanics are there.
***
Try to break out of the psychological compulsion to please the client (or else!), at least for the sake of a little exercise we're going to have.
Suppose there is a job you don't to do or in any case can afford to 'lose', i.e. simply not get, which is not the end of the world. You won't actually 'lose' it if you don't get it and it was never years. You will simply not have got that one particular job, and that's it. For the record, you don't need to get everything single job you see, nor could you humanly process them all anyway. What you need to get is enough jobs to make a comfortable living at the rates you charge.
So, take that problem job and try to up the rate or move the deadline. Be fair, don't shortchange them, just don't be as acommodating as before. Mind your need for sleep and free time, or give yourself an 8-hour day, 40-hour week, occasional holidays, you get the point. Or, if they're a new client and you know they have the money, then don't charge them the same rate you've been charging everybody for years on years now for the same work — raise it in due proportion to your increasing experience. And inflation. And everything else.
In other words, stop giving so much **** about 'being competitive'. Allow yourself to be less competitive. In the meaning they attach to it anyway.
(Remember that, in the real world, you're competitive or not depending on whether you win the competition. Not depending on whether someone says you are.)
There is a good chance you will get those higher rates and longer deadlines, if you actually try. You should try, if only to know more or less where you stand. And remember that you can always grant a discount on the invoice or deliver early or even agree to grant them a one-off discount if you become convinced that their reasons are sound, that their cause is a legitimate one.
Most people who will turn tail and pass up on you are going to be those on the lookout for a cheaper provider, not really the few people who have a real need but too much pride to ask for a discount (hint: if their statements are public record and they've been awarding juicy bonuses to their management, they are not in dire need), so don't worry too much about that. You can still make it clear (somewhere, somehow), that discretionary reductions and otherwise unique terms are available on a case-by-case basis to clients who can show a legitimate need without being able to pay the normal fee. That will keep the needy in and the bargain seekers out.
***
What else can you do?
Yeah, it's not all wrestling about the fees. Supply and demand can be influenced — or brought out — in subtler ways that don't involve violence.
I say 'brought out' because the advantages of what you already provide — the good features and the useful benefits of it — are often hidden and underappreciated, and it's up to you to change that state of things as opposed to simply heaping even more at an even lower price.
Thus you may need to do more work to make sure that clients realize just how much they're getting from you — or how much more they're getting from you than from someone else.
Many of them will still try to get it cheaper, that's sort of how human nature is, at least for some humans. The trick is to not cave in the moment they say that (to try costs them nothing, so in a certain sense they would be stupid if they didn't), but instead reiterate the value that you provide and the fact that your prices are already quite reasonable and (if true) that many other clients are perfectly willing to pay them (which means they see the value).
A client who already sees he's getting a good bargain but would like to turn it into an even better one doesn't have too many strong arguments to show for it, and chances are that if things were to resort to open violence you would come out on the top. Especially if he already is getting better terms from you than anyone else is giving. There is an old Latin saying: quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. If someone asserts something without proof, you don't need proof to negate it. You just negate it.
Remember that in such situations the burden is on them to convince you. You discharge your own burden by simply quoting a fee that falls within the market standard or as much higher than it as your qualifications are or the difficulty of the job is. Anything more favourable to the client is for the client to justify, and you have no obligation to give him an A for effort.
***
To prove your qualifications, data in on objective, legible and concise format are always good. Just pile up the degrees and accreditations and certificates and years of experience and testimonials from happy clients (both the content and the sheer number matters). That is something your client cannot claim to disbelieve or challenge without a good foundation.
Also include samples so that you can refer your prospects to them instead of translating something new for them free of charge for their proofreader's reviewing pleasure.
Speaking of which, obviously, just about any random QA'er from a translation agency or business company is not going to test you more reliably than your professors at university and your state examiners and exam boards at professional associations already have done, unless the test is more difficult and the reviewer is more qualified than your previous examiners were, which is simply not very likely.
It's only that some of your prospects may prefer to have the privelege of acting unreasonably and disbelieving anything which they haven't personally put their hands on — and very literally so because they won't even accept credible documents from respectable institutions in lieu of a first-hand check. Guess what? You don't really have to put up with that sort of treatment. (Unless you actually have to.)
It's kinda like maths. You don't need to prove that 5000 words times 0.12 a word makes 600 to pay. That's just the kind of thing you just don't have to prove in the face of feigned or even actual disbelief.
But you will still need to use your own good sense to find out where the limits are because making conclusions about your skill level on the basis of your papers is a bit less forward than simple arithmetics. It just isn't some kind of murky waters of non-knowledge and uncertainty that somehow means you should be charging peanuts because your actual qualifications are intangible. And even if they were.
***
Finally, you don't need to talk business. At least not only it and not all the time. I suggest you do read a bunch of course materials about the basics of economy, management and marketing just to know the setting you work in (and if you do business translation, you need that knowledge anyway), but instead of focusing solely on the business terms that are native to your clients, you also use terms that are native to your art.
After all, they need a translator, so it makes no point pretending they don't need one but only have a business problem to solve. Which is not true.
So you don't want to only use some business references that they're going to downplay and counter easily simply because they're more fluent in the lingo and carry more authority in the area than you do. You need to establish yourself as an expert in what you do, which is what they need.
And no bullshit like you still need to prove you're needed. If you weren't needed, they wouldn't be there asking. Or that you need to prove your monetary value. If they didn't sense the value… yes, correct, they wouldn't be there asking (which is even fine to tell them, at least without using the 'BS' word, usually).
So if they know it and you know that they know it and they know that you know they know it, and so on and so forth, then it makes no sense to act like you don't know (and you don't know etc.) and grant them a victory in their own silly game. No unfair downplaying of the importance of your art, and no gratuitous refusals to recognize your qualifications should be your rule no. 1 for them. And yes, you can set rules. To some extent at least. (Precisely to the extent you can get away with, which is up to you to find out.) This remains true even if it's you contacting them rather than the other way round. You're still talking business and fees and not charity and donations.
***
I suggest you also use the talents that you already have to deliver a convincing value proposal that does a good job of showing — and claiming the credit for — the value and meaning (and cost-to-provide and scarcity and difficulty to find) of the services you provide.
Thus, if you are one of those people who came to translation from a different profession, one which is somehow involved in most of the stuff you translate, you could simply use that to establish a connection and to establish your relevance. And show yourself as a competent fellow (of either sex) who understands the stuff.
On the other hand, if you have more of a language background, you should use that. After all, you are an expert on language. So rise and shine. And if your bacgkround is more on the literary side, especially if you know how to write or edit a story, then certainly use that to your advantage. It's actually becoming quite hip in the business world these days.
And, once again, if they gratuitously negate or downplay your importance or relevance, call them on it. Don't be aggressive or rude, but force them to back out of it, if only by asking questions — for example: why they think that, why do they think they know better than a recognized authority — or repeating the obvious — for example just how authoritative the institution is which granted your credentials or was satisfied with your work as your client.
Again, you don't need to act like every shit argument is good currency, because it's not. But you need to build some confidence. I've already suggested expanding your knowledge and re-evaluating your status as an expert in your field with a useful role to play for experts in other fields, but there are also other ways, such as developing your soft skills, including the art of negotiating and saying no without breaking up the negotiation. Everything in due time, not too much at once, but I suggest you take a look at those. I did as an adolescent (a bit overeager to please and a bit shy to stand up, a bit inept at defending my right to stand up and reasons for it etc.), and it did me some good. It prepared me for some things later on.
The no. 1 realization to make is that there is bullshit in this world and that that bullshit isn't binding on you, you can call people on it and refuse to accept it (as a reason for them to get a discount or otherwise).
And the no. 2 thing to do (more like even no. 1, in fact) is to use your knowledge to demonstrate… your knowledge. And to show in all sorts of ways (not always by talking directly about it) that your services are valuable and that you're a competent provider, and (if you need to) that your fees are reasonable and offer a lot of value.
If you have lawyer clients (small firm or solo), or doctors, or architects, it could be a good idea to ask them for some tips, as they've probably already had to deal with the same problems. There should also be more literature available from lawyers' perspective than translators', nearly all of which is going to be applicable to translators without much adaptation left to do, given how similar the professions and the problems are.
With time, as your means allow it, you will want to use a real marketer and a real ad man to make your message heard, to give it more reach and make it more resounding. The goal is to make your perspective matter too and not only the perspective of people who want your services to be cheap and underappreciated (also because it makes them cheaper).
***
Additional reading:
major auction types at Wiki
I believe the market is closer to Walrasian auction than a reverse auction, but the point is not to analyse the theoretical model of that (which I haven't even done myself), the point is to realize that it all goes two ways.
storytelling
As a (wo)man of letters, you simply have an advantage there, and you should use it. Good marketing kinda always comes down to a good story, especially when it comes to creating a brand.
Walrasian auction and Walras's law
… If you're more mathematically inclined, this may do better than a narrative explanation.
As well as a bunch of how-to books, starting from 'for dummies' and moving up. It's only reasonable to know the setting you're forced to operate in and the setting that's native to your prospective clients. It will help you get better fees and otherwise better terms from them, but it will also help you better serve their own needs, which is a win-win situation. (Just like being a good legal translator helps you identify and refuse to sign, or renegotiate, an abusive clause in a contract.)
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.
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.
Monday, 1 February 2016
Take Inventory, Check Out the Other Folks
From time to time it's time to take inventory and see where you are at and consider where you want to go and how much distance you've already made.
Of course, you can say it's difficult to be objective, nemo iudex in causa sua and so on, but you don't need to be the epitome of impartiality to just note down your most relevant qualifications, such as degrees, accreditations, years of experience and other such data. Two plus two still makes four, no matter how modest or not you are.
Try to aggregate the data and preferably end up with something like elevator pitch as a result, minus the pitch. Peel off the marketing. We're taking a somewhat sober assessment in order to see what marketing you could use, so it's better to start from raw data than the marketing soup you've been serving for a while.
Now go find some CVs, bios and profiles from:
Of course, you can say it's difficult to be objective, nemo iudex in causa sua and so on, but you don't need to be the epitome of impartiality to just note down your most relevant qualifications, such as degrees, accreditations, years of experience and other such data. Two plus two still makes four, no matter how modest or not you are.
Try to aggregate the data and preferably end up with something like elevator pitch as a result, minus the pitch. Peel off the marketing. We're taking a somewhat sober assessment in order to see what marketing you could use, so it's better to start from raw data than the marketing soup you've been serving for a while.
Now go find some CVs, bios and profiles from:
- leaders in your language or field, or otherwise already where you hope to one day be
- people more or less at your own stage
- the rookies
See what the leaders or experts are doing and how. Depending on your long-term vs short-term focus for this little exercise, you can choose either the rock stars or people who are one or two steps ahead. There is a chance they are doing it right, if it works them, especially the rock stars. Those who are economically successful are more likely to do it right than people who you just know are good because you are qualified to see the difference and judge the work on your own. Especially those people who are economically successful but not really spectacular translators are probably good at the art of finding and convincing their clients.
Look for similarities. Look for something which makes them successful and which you also already have, or are slowly getting there.
Find inspiration for immediate changes or scout the road ahead for information to keep in mind as you proceed. It's up to you.
Next check out the folks who are more or less in the same place. Is there anything they are doing better than you? Any smarter (e.g. shorter or more convincing) ways of saying practically the same thing? How about communicating the same information in a more inviting and reassuring way? How are they bringing out assets that are more or less on the same level as your own? (For example, you can learn from a medical translator if you're a legal one and vice versa). Anything they haven't thought about? Anything they missed but the more successful people did not? If they otherwise look very similar to you or to one another, how could you distinguish your message?
Now the the rookies. There's a chance some of them are replicating by-the-book solutions without really understanding them, but some may be quite creative simply because they don't know what exactly they're supposed to do or don't yet know what to copy. You can still learn from someone who does not yet know as much as you do overall. Competition is rough there, so there's a chance that those of the newbies who manage to eke out a nice living already know quite a lot.
Not to encourage elitist attitudes, but if you've been around for a while, you'll need to look for ways to bring out that experience in your copy and turn it into an advantage. I think that looking only within your bracket or ahead would not give you a complete picture. To keep track of progress you sometimes need to go back to how things are on the earlier stages of the road. You don't need to be negative in order to use the rookies' CVs and copy to measure your own progress. It's mostly the matter of demonstrating the benefit of your experience.
Don't get too carried away. It's better to underpromise and overdeliver than the other way round. Your presentation needs to reflect where you are and not where you hope to be in 5 years from now. Finally, pardon me for bringing this up, but if you feel like borrowing from one specific person rather than a pattern you saw in a wider group, remember to respect that someone's intellectual work and creative effort, which is protected by intellectual property. Where in doubt, ask permission or come up with something that's simply not as similar. Play nice.
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