Shockingly enough, June 30, and with it the end of the second quarter of 2012, is on Saturday. It’s a great time of year to evaluate your progress on your 2012 goals, while you still have six months left before December 31. Before you panic and refuse to think about any goals at all, give yourself some slack. You still have six months, maybe your goals have changed since January 1, and now is a good time to refocus. So ask yourself:
- What exactly were you planning to do this year? Did you write down some goals in January or just formulate some ideas in your head? Were some of your goals more critical than others? Have you achieved something that you hadn’t set as a goal but that felt good nonetheless?
- How are you doing on your critical goals? If you haven’t made any progress on them, why? If you’ve branched out in other directions, why?
- What’s your plan for the next six months? Keep chipping away at your general 2012 goals? Set some new ones? Take a break?
I know it’s always hard to go first, so I’ll go first! Overall, I feel good about the first half of 2012. In terms of work volume and income, the first quarter was slow-ish; not scary slow, but slow enough that I wanted things to pick up for the rest of the year. After finally getting my act together to do a direct client marketing campaign that had been on the back burner for approximately forever (one goal achieved!), the second quarter roared along at almost double my target income. So from the financial standpoint, things are looking good. My family is spending the summer in Switzerland for my husband’s job and I don’t have to stress out about how much I work while we’re here, which is a good feeling.
I also did a bit more marketing for my online course and my book, and three consecutive sessions of the class were full. Another goal achieved! My next book, a compilation of entries from this blog, is ABC (all but cover) and just today I updated my professional website for the first time in about two years. My super colleague Eve Bodeux motivated me to buy and learn Trados Studio 2011 and whaddaya know, I love it.
Not that 2012 has been all roses and kittens. During the past few months I’ve been largely in survival mode, working nearly every evening and barely keeping up with my non-translation tasks. On the day before we left for Switzerland, I answered 97 backlogged e-mails and my Inbox still wasn’t empty. In addition, I put a fair amount of time into some direct client bids that didn’t come to fruition; of course we all know that this is just part of the ebb and flow and freelancing, but it’s still a downer when it happens. So, my primary goal for the second half of 2012 is to try to achieve a better balance between sanity and income by continuing to work on marketing, finding new sales channels for my book and having specific tasks that I want to work on when I’m not translating.
Readers, how about you?
Business has been slow on my end. Usually around this time of year I’m sending out my 100th invoice. I just sent out 41 and 42 respectively. My earnings are half what I usually earn. It’s abysmal. My clients are still contacting me, but only for really small jobs and not nearly as frequently as before. I’m about to start another marketing campaign to find some new clients.
Thanks Jill! I do think that as much as we don’t want to admit it, marketing really helps. I had vegetated forever, hoping that some new direct clients would find me, and I finally decided to just go and look for them, and then they appeared. Slow years are really tough, but at the least you have time to work on other stuff (a book? just a thought!). You are really inspiring to many people in the industry, so keep us updated!
I’m in a similar spot: client work is slow, but at least I’m making progress on the behind-the-scenes aspects of freelancing! Did a lot of the necessary paperwork, been a regular at one professional networking group and joined another that will help maintain one of my working languages. And I finally got the guts to force some my-work time into the day-job hours by negotiating a reduced schedule for the summer. I’m feeling a bit like, Oh, the places you’ll go! right now. Let’s hope the second half of the year goes accordingly.
Thanks Carolyn, that’s exciting! Making the leap to full-time freelancing is a big moment and it sounds like you’re setting yourself up well!
I have been freelancing for a few years now, but I’m making it the focus of my activities after a period of fitting work around part-time study.
This year’s goals have mainly been to establish myself within the translation community (progress made), to join the relevant professional organisations in the UK (check!), to incorporate my company (check!) and to work on my online identity with a website etc. (check!).
I also started blogging this year, which has been a great experience and put me in contact with a lot of fellow linguists (yourself included!) thanks to my series of interviews called 1 Linguist, 3 Questions.
Thanks for this post, Corinne. It’s so important to reflect on one’s achievements and the steps needed to make further progress.
P.s. I look forward to reading the next book!
Thanks Megan! Other than feeling jealous that you’ve accomplished so many of your goals in so little time, I’m thrilled for you! Your series of interviews sounds great, I can’t wait to read them!
Hello Corrine,
I am currently working as a freelance translator (English to German). Even though I work with a lot of agencies I have been struggling to find any direct clients so far. Whilst browsing the web for new marketing ideas I discovered your blog and thought it was fantastic.Yesterday I also bought your book and am reading it right now. It has a lot of useful tips and I would like to recommend to other translators.
Have you ever tried telemarketing or cold calling in order to attract direct clients?
I have read two amazingly inspiring books on this topic:
“Smart Calling” by Art Sobczak
and
“Cold Calling for Chickens” by Bob Etherington
Even though I have not had much time implement the advice given in these books I am planning to start a cold calling marketing campaign and would like to ask you and your readers if you have got any experience in this field or whether you would like to give this strategy a go.
I am looking forward to hearing from as many of you as possible.
Please feel free to follow me on twitter:
Silvia@AETranslation
or visit my website:
http://www.angloeuropeantranslations.com
Silvia
Thanks Silvia! I am not much of a phone person, but I do agree that cold calling can work; check out a great post on The Freelancery (http://thefreelancery.com/2012/06/qa-approaching-clients-you-dont-know-painlessly/). I have really never cold-called a potential client, but reading that post made me think that it could be done, as the post title suggest, painlessly! Thanks very much for your comment.
Corinne, thank you so much for sharing that link – the article gave me some great ideas on how to approach potential direct clients (something that’s been on my to-do list for a while). I’ll also have a look at the books Silvia mentioned. Thank you 🙂
No problem Moira, you’re welcome! What I love about that article is that it encourages us to *lighten up* when contacting potential clients. I think there’s something to be said for a formal marketing campaign: make a spreadsheet of potential contacts, send a tailored letter to each one, track the results, etc. My translation partner and I did that this year and we got some good new work out of it. But I also thing there’s something to be said for, as Walt says, “human to human” outreach, just firing off an e-mail to say “I love your company, and if you need a translator, I’d love to talk.” Let us know how it goes!!
That’s an excellent link. I really like the way it is written!! Thank you for sharing it!
Hi Corinne,
Many thanks for a great post, and an excellent push for me to get myself moving.
Am I halfway there? I wish!
Enjoy your time in Switzerland.
Caroline
Thanks Caroline! Well, at least you still have 6 months to work on your goals, I think you’ll get there!
I put my goals in a bullet list on my bulletin board, in front of me in my office, and I can see them every day. This is a great reminder for me to pursue them and to keep up with the marketing efforts I planned. I am pleased to say that the majority of them, but not all, have been fulfilled or are on their way to be fulfilled. I have also done some soul searching for my business and constantly evaluate and reevaluate what my goals are and what I want to do with my business.
Thanks Tess! That is a great idea about the bulletin board, visual reminders are always helpful. And keep us updated on how your business evolves during your year in Sweden!
Great post, Corinne! I am happy to notice that many of my goals have been achieved, and others are on their way. Unfortunately, a few have been completely left behind. But I am feeling optimistic about the next months, so there may be hope for those, after they go through some minor adjustments. 🙂 2012 has been a defining year for my business.
Thanks Maria Clara! I think that defining years are always positive, best of luck to you!
Hi Corinne,
I think it’s a good post. For me my freelancing job is going moderate this year. So far I haven’t get anything very remarkable, but still nothing very bad is also seen. It’s really important to follow up your progress and it’s the best time to check what you did and what you get. Based on that we can add something to our present strategy or can even deduct something as well. Though I’m not very sure about direct marketing and how that can help to get any significant return in coming 6 months.
Thanks for your comment! I do think direct marketing can work if you do it correctly; let us know if you decide to try something!
Ok, maybe you’re right! Let me think about the issue and I’ll try to get back to you. Probably your suggestions could help us to improve a lot! Thanks.
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