Translators have a variety of reasons for choosing certain types of clients: some prefer agencies for their steady workflow and layer of “insulation” between the translator and the end client, some prefer direct clients for their higher rates and higher degree of autonomy, and still other translators mix up their workflow or work with clients who don’t fit exactly into either one of these categories.
In talking to beginning and experienced translators alike, I’ve noticed that many translators are very intimidated by the idea of working with direct clients. While I think that there are valid reasons to continue working with agencies, I also think that adding some direct client work to your freelance pie is a great way to increase your income and your job satisfaction. If you’re interested in dipping at least one toe in the direct client pool, here are a few tips.
- Start small and don’t fail out of overambition. In my admittedly unscientific research, I think that many translators aim too high when they enter the direct client market. Don’t think Fortune 500, think of other one-person businesses or businesses with very small projects. As you succeed at these projects, trade up!
- Start with projects you can translate in your sleep. If you have a targeted specialization, you know what I’m talking about (for me, it’s real estate leases and articles of incorporation). Eventually, you can aim for direct client work that demands creativity and thoughtful turns of phrase. At the outset, look for clients who will have the types of documents you’ve translated hundreds of times. This will raise your confidence level and increase the odds that the clients will be thrilled with your work.
- Look locally. Especially with direct clients, it’s great to have a contact or introduction. If this isn’t an option, I think that a friendly “I’m a translator in the area and I’d like to offer you my freelance services…” is a good substitute. In addition, I think that despite the globalization of the professional services market, many small businesses still feel more comfortable working with someone local.
- Track your clients’ preferences. In my experience, direct clients don’t often have style guides and sometimes haven’t really thought about style at all. Do yourself and your clients a big favor by creating a style preferences file for each client. Whenever the client sends you a comment, i.e. “We always refer to our CEO as Chief Executive Officer,” “We use European format for dates even when they’re in English,” etc., record it in the client’s style file.
- Don’t undersell yourself. One of the obvious draws of working with direct clients is money. My average direct client pays almost double what my average agency client pays, and my direct clients are usually very low-maintenance; it’s a great situation. When you send a quote to a direct client, remember that if the client is a good fit for you, you’re offering them more personal service than they would get from an agency, one point of contact instead of many layers between the client and the translator (if the client can even communicate directly with an agency’s translator) and more consistency than they’re likely to get from an agency. For this, you need to charge real money or you will appear unprofessional.
- Ask for feedback on every translation. “Let me know if you have any specific questions or comments or if there is anything I can do to better meet your needs…” is one of my standard lines. You could even create a simple online survey that your clients could fill out anonymously. Also, you should ask every satisfied client whether you can use their name in your marketing materials and whether they would be willing to provide a testimonial about your work for them.
Hi Corinne,
I’ve been freelancing for three years, and aside from a very small number of direct jobs, I only have agency clients. I’m relatively picky about what jobs I choose to do – out of a determination not to take on anything where I can’t deliver quality – and have so far managed to be pretty much booked up for the last three years.
However, I’d love to have some regular direct clients, mainly as it’s the only real opportunity I can see to increase my income in the long term (once you’re filling 100% of your time with agency work and are charging as much as you reasonably can, there’s nowhere to go).
My particular challenge is that I specialise in banking, finance, investment, accounting etc. (as well as generally anything else business-related). My bread and butter is annual reports and accounts, fund prospectuses and internal reports, documentation and presentations for banks and other financial services companies. It strikes me that this is not the sort of work that is very easy to get directly, as companies wanting this sort of translation tend to always go to an agency.
The other factor is that we are hoping to relocate from France back to the UK in the near future, so local prospecting activity doesn’t seem like the way to go right now.
As someone who’s managed to garner some direct clients, I’d be very interested to hear any thoughts or suggestions you might have in relation to my particular circumstances, as well as any suggested resources you could point me towards that might help me think through possibilities further.
Thanks,
Rob
Rob, where exactly are you based?
My experience of annual reports is that good clients far prefer to work directly with a known entity (as in: a freelance translator) — somebody they can trust not to get into the subcontracting (and sub-sub-contracting) racket.
ARs are one of the topics addressed at ASTTI’s univ d’été de la trad financière in Spiez (Switzerland) in mid-July, should you be anywhere around there then.
Curious coincidence in that at an SFT training day last Saturday in Paris (on setting up in business and building a portfolio of direct clients), several relative newcomers to translation stated (as if it were a given) that “big companies don’t want to work with individual translators”. They were referring to end clients.
Apparently they’d picked up this bit of wisdom on some online forum; I was delighted to point out to them that it is totally, utterly, wrong (at least in France where I work — and since I’m very wary of “grass is greener” arguments, I bet anything that the same applies in other countries).
But to get the work you have to adopt a different strategy. Key points: stick to your knitting (specialize), get out to client watering holes, avoid bidding on projects that you can’t handle (huge volumes and multiple languages, for ex.); leave them for agencies.
Instead identify premium documents and prestigious clients in your language combination and stalk them.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comments. To answer your first question, I’m currently based in Normandy, though we’re planning to move back to the UK for family reasons in the next few months. I’m hoping that won’t impact my translation business too much, but that’s another story…
Unfortunately I can’t make it to the ASTTI’s univ d’été, though I had a look at the programme and it looks interesting. Are these things ever recorded (video or audio) or can copies of presentations ever be obtained? I suppose not…
I guess I probably just need to think outside the box a bit more on this one. Documents for banks, investment funds etc. are my staple diet, and clearly there are quite a few of the big ones I can’t approach directly now, having already done agency work for them. Which probably means the most obvious market is private banks and asset managers. Based on your tips, the most tricky aspect for me is that once we’re back in the UK, going to client watering holes won’t be easy.
I’d be grateful if there are any more ideas, resources or starting points you can point me towards. Feel free to e-mail me at grayson [dot] rob [at] gmail [dot] com.
Hi Corinne,
Another interesting and well-thought-out post. Thanks for sharing.
As a freelancer with several direct clients and also as a current and former employee of a couple of well-known agencies, I heartily second your last two bullet items.
Most agencies are charging their client at least double, maybe triple what you charge the agency for your services. If you charge a direct client only a 50% premium on your “agency” rate (which is 30-50% less than what the agency is charging), the client may assume you are not a professional translator. I usually start with a 150% premium on my agency rates, but let the direct client know that this is negotiable if the client agrees to give me something in return, such as regular jobs, quick answers to my questions, access to useful reference materials, referrals to other prospective clients. The personal service you are giving the direct client is the most important part of the deal, in many clients’ perspective. You can respond to requests more quickly than any agency, provide better consistency (as you already mentioned) and in general be more flexible and readily available. I try to play this up as much as I can, with good results.
Tom
Hi Corinne!
Great post!
I will go into freelancing in a couple of months and your blog is being very useful for tips and tricks!
Keep them coming!
I have been working mainly for agencies for the past 16 years, out of preference, for the reasons stated above, and it has worked very well up to now. However, like a lot of people I am thinking about striking out and more deliberately seeking direct clients, mainly because I have become absolutely disgusted with most agencies. I still love my good agency clients, but I can see the trends. More and more of them are being bought up or put out of business by… no need to mention names: companies that then want to impose conditions and/or rates that I cannot and will not accept. I don’t want to get to the point where my choice is agreeing to work for them or not at all. Therefore, it seems the perfect time to broaden my horizons.
I’m planning to look over the materials recently posted on the ATA site regarding working with direct clients. I’m also working on a website, and joined a business communication group a colleague recommended as a networking channel.
I would like to hear more on what Tom said. I know agencies charge a big mark-up, I didn’t know how much. I am curious whether you provided additional services or QC procedures, other than being extra extra careful proofreading your own work, in order to charge those rates. What I don’t want to do is become an agency or have to hire employees or subcontract. I always figured a freelancer’s direct rate would be somewhere between what I would charge an agency and what an agency would charge the direct client. Right now I’m just absorbing all the input I can find and letting it stew until I figure out my approach.
Really liked this post… And with the very few direct clients I have that’s really the good thing, that they pay more without hesitation, they often give me more flexibility with deadlines, and I can often change them if I during my work discover I need more time to do a good quality job…And they give me a direct contact with the person who wrote the text to be able to ask questions and get explanations on certain terms etc. That happens very rarely with agencies with whom I sometimes find trapped in a situation where I said yes because for my language combination they do not find that many good translators…and then if somethings takes more time, or as ultimately I did a translation which was not really my field, veterinary science, quite academic text, and I told the PM so, they want me to do it anyway…then when things go wrong it is still my fault…etc…:-o However, I am unsure about how to start attracting more direct clients. How does one approach them without being too pushy etc…? Thanks!
About the “too pushy” part….
As a direct buyer of translation services, I like it when translators who have background & experience in my company’s field (electrical engineering / semiconductors) contact me and state exactly why they think they would be good candidates to receive my projects. I always respond politely, even if I don’t need their particular language pair(s).
But I don’t like it when people who have no expertise in my field send me form letters asking me to send them work. I usually delete these messages without responding.
A question about what might be a niche area: translating military written material from Spanish-to-English. Is there a small niche market for that sort of thing? For me, this would fall into your category of “projects you could translate in your sleep”–my BA in Modern Languages is from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina and I served as a Ranger-qualified Infantry officer in all 3 Army components. I had to develop a good military vocabulary for assignments in Central America, training Spanish-speaking troops, etc.
I think my military credentials plus my civilian training and experience in court interpreting could make me a good fit in such a tiny niche market (if it exists).
Maybe this same question applies to other readers who have a very specific field of expertise + translation/interpretation expertise. Thank you for writing this very valuable blog!
Dan Villarreal
ATA member in Taipei, Taiwan
In LinkedIn as Daniel Steve Villarreal, Ph.D. in case anybody would like to connect!
Can someone talk about the “client’s style guide” mentioned in the article? I’m not familiar with it. Is there generally a way to do that with translation tools that I have heard about (but haven’t used yet)?
Thanks!
Dan Villarreal
Taipei, Taiwan