…well, maybe not “low.” Maybe “The importance of setting realistic expectations” is a better way to put it.
Over the years, I’ve noticed that many translators fail to reach their long-term goals because (paradoxically) they aim too high. Typical case scenario: a translator who has been in the business for a few years wants to move into the direct client market. Instead of marketing to small consulting companies, other solo entrepreneurs or small professional associations, the translator targets Fortune 500-size companies and is disappointed in the lack of response. Following are some tips on how aiming low/setting realistic expectations can help you achieve your long-term professional goals.
- Break daunting tasks into smaller chunks. Sandra Smith, the multi-award-winning translator of Suite Française and many other titles, told me that she finished her first book-length translation by translating two pages every morning. This is a great strategy: rather than waiting for that big block of time that is never coming (“I’m waiting to translate this book because I need a month with nothing else to do”), pick a daily chunk of work that you will actually do.
- Stop waiting to be completely ready. I’m currently reading C.J. Hayden’s Get Clients Now, and really loved her tip- “You will never be completely ready. Start from where you are.” This relates to a post I wrote last year on the tyranny of the sub-goal. Don’t let the elusive goal of complete readiness hold you back. If you’re avoiding doing e-mail marketing because your website is out of date, go to some in-person networking events instead. If you feel like you need 100 prospects in order to market in a new specialization, find one prospect a day and contact each prospect as soon as you find them.
- Focus on building critical mass. Especially if your goals relate to marketing, focus on how many contacts you will have made if you persevere over time. One contact a day doesn’t sound like much, but if you contact one potential client a day for three months, you will have made 60 contacts. And I’m guessing that if you wait until you have time to contact 60 potential clients at once, you will probably never get there.
- Aim at the appropriate level. Over time (and through a combination of success, failure, frustration and elation!) I’ve learned that in order to land a new client, you need to be able to get to the person who can actually hire you. Hence, in the Fortune 500 example at the start of the post, the translator likely failed because he/she did not have the level of contacts to get to the person who actually procures translation services for IBM or Sanofi-Aventis or the World Bank. But if you focus on organizations where you can make a direct contact with the person who can write a purchase order for your services, you’ll be a lot more successful. Some freelancers are at the level of the aforementioned organizations and some are at the level of contacting small consulting firms. Either way, if you aim at the appropriate level, you’ll get some interest!
- Aim in accordance with your personality. Case in point: I hate cold-calling. I’m actually not a big phone person in general, even with my own friends. So I don’t even think of cold-calling prospective clients. E-mail works if you do it correctly and really target your messages. In-person networking works, because you learn to ask people about themselves so that you don’t have to talk about yourself so much. People love getting handwritten notes because it shows an investment of time and attention on the part of the person who wrote the note. So regardless of what you think of the potential effectiveness of a marketing technique, focus on what you will actually do and what will actually work for you.
Readers, anything else to add?
I think that’s all sound advice. I do wish I could get a few of those big jobs (book size ones) you mentioned that take up so much time though. You’re right on the money with that two pages a day technique, however, regardless of how big the job is. It’s always a step at a time, every day, day in day out. But that’s the same with pretty much everything else too, isn’t it? As for that critical mass, it’s not always easy to know just where that critical mass is. But then we’re back to learning by doing again. One thing you might add is making yourself “findable” out there for clients (SEO techniques and otherwise–that’s a type of productivity, isn’t it?). That’s the best of all, when a client with a good job finds you.
Thanks for your comment. And yes, I think that a client with a decent budget who finds *you* is always the best case scenario. I do like mixing very large jobs in with smaller ones, and I find that publishers (at least in the US) are relatively open to being cold-contacted by e-mail. Just find some publishers that have recently published translations in your languages and inquire about how you would offer your services. You may need to send out a number of inquiries but I think that you’ll get some bites!
Hello again Corinne!
Good thoughts! – both in the main article, and in your added comment. After having had salaried translating-employment, in the past, now that I am mostly working, from home, on a freelance-basis, I find that I am reasonably disciplined to get on with work, as/when it comes in – often ‘out of the blue’ (all right, prompted by my being … listed in the ‘phone book, under ‘Translators’! – as the usual arms-length accessible info.-source for most, even non-e-connected clients!!) – that is, to meet sometimes slightly ‘unrealistic’ deadlines imposed by clients!!
Sometimes, lengthier or ‘chunkier’ work-assignments, such as books, are rather a luxury, in more ways than one, as they allow one, at least, to continue in the same thought-vein, for some days/nights/weeks/months on end … Well, you know what it can be like!
In fact, currently, I am also working from French on rather ‘ancient’ handwritten copy-documents, the earliest required of me, in this case, dating from 1563!! – and some earlier such assignments have dated back to … 1413!! – those having involved some rather ‘rat-eaten’ original paper-quality …! – in the research-library where they are archived … Actually, it’s thrilling … and I am of the opinion that: “if we forget history, we can be condemned to re-live it”!!
Are you familiar with an American-authored book entitled “The Guernsey Literary and Potato-peel Pie Society”?! – that’s where I am ‘normally’ based, in ‘our’ Channel Islands …!
Kindests for now, Corinne J.!
sometimes working for free on a small project can earn you that much needed foot hold when you are trying to introduce and establish yourself with a prospective agency. though we all recognise that we need to earn a living, almost everyone feel less threatened working with people who are not so hard nosed about every minute spent working on a translation.
Thanks for that comment- very true! I know that some translators are adamantly opposed to ever working for free, but I do think that other professional service providers (financial planners, attorneys, etc.) often give a brief, free consultation before you get started. I recently switched accountants and really appreciated the opportunity to see if I “clicked” with the new person, so I think it’s fair that translators offer that kind of opportunity to our clients as well.
I’ve received a few cold calls in my time from translators. Most of the time, they never follow through with submitting their CV. (what is that about?!) Or if I do get a CV, it contains numerous linguistic/formatting issues or they are not a suitable fit for my accounts. But I can still pass their details to another department if that is the case.
Having said that, I don’t mind taking a cold call provided that the person is prepared to answer some of my questions. Cold-callers should appreciate that a PM or a vendor manager hasn’t got all day to listen to someone going ‘Ummm, I like languages and ehhh do you have any work for me…” It doesn’t make a great impression. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail, right?
Thanks for that very important point: translators need to do more than just make the cold call, they need to be prepared for what a PM might ask: what are your specializations, how long have you been doing this, what kinds of clients do you work with now, what tools do you use, how many words a day do you usually translate. Excellent tip!
The bite-sized chunk approach is absolutely the best when facing a daunting job. I once had a novel to translate and a business to run at the same time. So I set myself a goal of 500 words a day and actually counted the words and color-coded the Word file so that I would know how far I had to go each day before switching to something else. And it worked!
Thanks Grant! Great tip about color-coding; it’s really nice to have a visual reminder of how much you have to accomplish. And congratulations on your new book too!
I agree as well, it is a very good way to organise your work and not only gets the job done, but also makes it less stressful.
I would call it “The Importance of Having a Good Aim”.
You can have good results from a marketing campaign aimed at a major corporation if you know the name of the persons to approach. Otherwise, you are wasting your time and money.
For example, since patent lawyers must be licensed, their lists are available to public, which means that you can send them mail (as opposed to e-mail, which would be considered junk and discarded immediately), which may or may not be read by them or their paralegals or secretaries. That is how I got started more than 20 years ago and some of these major corporations still send me work.
I was basically following sound advice that I found in a book called “Guerrilla Marketing” by Jay Levinson. We are talking early nineties, before the age of Internet.
Times have changed. Instead of mail campaigns, which are time consuming and expensive, I think that the best way to approach direct customers now is to have them approach you.
If you figure out the right kind of formula for a website that will be found by people who are looking exactly for the kind of service that you are providing, you may never have to “cold-call” or run another mail campaign again.
I understand that a blog may work for some people too, although I am not sure how that would work.
Thanks Steve. I agree with your point about “aiming,” and about having clients come to you. Raising your profile so that clients find you when they need a translator is definitely the way to go, because you don’t have to sell and you’re the hot commodity. But I do agree that well-done cold contacting (for example with a mailing list as you mentioned) does work.
Another one is this: live in a big, dynamic city. As much as we hear about the advantages of rural life (and there are many advantages), being in a big city hub has big advantages. Teach at a school 4 hours a week in London, New York Chicago, Paris, or Tokyo, and I almost guarantee you will get clients. This is one reason I am moving to Munich to teach translation: it puts me in a “hub”. Munich has over 550 U.S. high tech firms alone. There is a new book out called something like “The Triumph of the City”, on how almost all our innovations as humans come from city life. If you live as a translator in a hug like that, you will get clients. And despite our modern Google/Facebook/IT world, meeting people face-to-face is still so critical.
Can you be successful from rural Wyoming ? Heck yes, but your strategy will be different, and you will have to try a bit harder.
Thanks John! You have a great observation here; I find that the vast majority of high-paying direct clients still prefer to work with a local translator even when they could work with someone anywhere in the world. I also agree that when you live in your source language country, you can find new clients just about anywhere. It seems like everyone you meet knows someone who needs an into-English translator. Just feel free to send some of those high-paying clients back to your friends in the US and best of luck with your move to Munich!
@John Bunch
I lived in Prague, I lived in San Francisco, I lived in Tokyo, but Munich is one city where I would love to live. I spent less than a month there.
Alas, I am too old to move now.
Maybe you can send me some Japanese patents through your new connections at the EPO which no doubt you will have developed in due time.
Thanks Steve! Yes, all of the work that John can forward from Europe to those of us in the US is most welcome 🙂
Brilliant post.
Yes, I quite agree… Particularly that your tactics have to match your personality. Unfortunately, whilst I have attended a seminar or two on email marketing, this is not my personality. Nor is telephone marketing. I just do not like approaching people unless I know they want to speak to me. In person marketing though – that is my thing – engaging with people and their business wherever I meet them, by showing my knowledge and enthusiasm for my business. As such, I have made contacts in trains or at educational seminars.
John Bunch is very right, though, that your tactics will depend a little on where you are. I used to get so much work when living in Germany, with barely any effort on my part. Gosh, if I had known then what I know now…!
Thank you Rose. Those are great examples; maybe you could write a post just about in-person networking, because that’s probably an area that most translators struggle with. I and I agree, some places have better “built-in markets” than others; but it’s really nice when you can be in a situation where your passion for languages really shines.
Telling other people about your goals, especially when you have a deadline in mind, can help. Unconsciously, they exert pressure on you to follow through. For example, friends or family who are aware of a goal you’ve set for yourself may ask from time to time about your progress. This will encourage you to make the effort because you don’t want to disappoint them.
As a side project, I am working on a un-commissioned book translation that I would like to pitch to editors in the US. I told the author that I intended to show him a rough draft of the first few chapters the following month. I missed my own informal deadline by two weeks, but, boy, was I motivated in those last two weeks to deliver what I had promised. I didn’t want the author to think badly of me.
The social element of goals is important. Its like people who decide to do some fitness activity together. You stick to the commitment because you don’t want to let the other person down.
Thanks May! This is a really great tip and a great parallel to other areas of life. The main reason I get up at 5:40 for power yoga class is because I know my friend is waiting for me to pick her up at 5:45! I love your example of the book translation and I hope it works out for you.
Lovely article and very good tips! The blog in general is very good too.
Whilst reading the comments though, I found myself reading about that reoccurring problem that all translators seem to have; how to find work and build your reputation. Well, this may be slightly of topic (in terms of the actual article), but I couldn’t resist sharing what I believe to be a revolution in the translation industry. I came across a website a while ago called mytranslation.com that is a website that allows translators to bid for work in the marketplace, consequently allowing clients to choose the best offer for their translations. The best thing about it is that it is bringing clients and translators together via a simple process and all online, making the process of finding a translator easier, but also making the process of finding work as a translator easier too! I must warn you, I did find that the website was not very active, but the concept of it seems genius to me and I’m really hoping it will pick up.
I really hope it will help some of you to find work, as a translator, I know what it’s like.
Chloé