These topics have been on my mind lately; it’s summer, I have more time to think, and I have some airplane rides during which to listen to podcasts that are good food for thought. So here we go: a few thoughts on multiple revenue streams, “productizing,” and passive income for translators.
Way back in 2009, I wrote a post on diversifying your income through multiple revenue streams. I’m still a fan of this strategy, and when I ran my numbers for 2014, I found that my income is divided into three fairly equal pie slices: about 1/3 from working for direct clients and individuals, about 1/3 from working for agencies, and about 1/3 from teaching, consulting and book royalties. To me, this means that I’m diversified, but not too diversified. As Walt Kania observed in his post on multiple revenue streams,, “A few prongs is good. With twelve prongs you have a manure fork.” I’m happy with my three prongs, for various reasons:
- Sometimes when one thing is down, another is up. Or you feel really jazzed by marketing one of your services, but not so much for the others. With multiple revenue streams, it’s harder to let yourself do nothing. Here’s a non-work parallel: a while back, I ran two marathons. Part of the reason the training was a grind was because it involved one thing: running. Then running some more. Later I did a couple of triathlons; it turns out that, for me at least, it’s a lot harder to talk yourself out of swimming, biking, and running, so I trained a lot more. The same is true of marketing multiple revenue streams.
- You can experiment a little, without too much risk exposure. For example I recently launched two new online courses. I had some questions: would people sign up? Would the new courses draw students away from my existing, more expensive courses? So far the answers to these questions seem to be yes (for #1) and no (for #2), but the point is that I’m not make-or-break dependent on the classes: they’re one component of the 30% of my income that comes from teaching and writing. I translated two books this year: same deal. I couldn’t afford to just translate books, but as one component of my direct client income, it works.
- You don’t have to deal with all of your frustrations all of the time. Every client base (direct clients, agencies, individuals, publishers, etc.) has its frustrations. Whether it’s price-sensitivity, or not knowing anything about translation, or wanting to know whether translators charge for “the little words” (an actual example!), it can be hard to stay helpful and patient all of the time, and I firmly believe you need to do that if you want to succeed as a freelancer. But with multiple revenue streams, you get to juggle your challenges around a little bit, and that helps.
Which brings us to two associated topics, “productizing” (a word I just learned!) and passive income. On a trip last week, I listened to the Smart Passive Income podcast on productizing your service-based business. Basically this involves taking one service that you offer, and creating a streamlined, repeatable way of delivering it. Productizing it (which is different than commoditizing it). For example let’s say you translate official documents: maybe you create a way that people can see a fixed price for the translation, then upload their document, then pay you, all before you ever have any contact with them. This eliminates the time you’d normally spend talking to the client about their needs, giving a quote, negotiating about the quote, settling on a price and then collecting the client’s payment. Definitely something to think about if you translate documents that lend themselves to that type of thing. Maybe this would work with patents, or real estate leases, or other kinds of documents that are relatively formulaic. The podcast episode is excellent if you’re interested in “productization.” Note that here, I’m referring to the non-translation aspects of the project (quoting, assessing the client’s needs, payment, etc), not to productizing the actual translation (don’t do that!).
Then, there’s passive income. When many people think “passive income,” they think, “making money by doing nothing.” And unless your pet is an Internet celebrity, that’s not going to happen (and actually, having an Internet celebrity pet might be a lot of work…all of that grooming!). To me, passive income means that you invest time and/or money up front, to create a product or service that then generates income with little to no additional effort. I’d put book royalties in this category: I make about $500 a month in royalties from my books for translators, with very little direct marketing. However (big however!) each book took hundreds of hours to write, edit, format and publish up front.
The takeaway: if you’d like to launch yourself into multiple revenue streams, a productized service, or a passive income stream, ask yourself…
- What are your goals, other than making money? For example, one of my goals is to do work that is not immediately deadline-driven. My least favorite kind of work is 3,000 words due tomorrow; so my additional revenue streams let me make money on my own schedule.
- What services do you provide that might lend themselves to productization? What steps in your current business model take a lot of time but don’t generate a lot of money, and need to be streamlined?
- What do you like to do, but you don’t get to do that often in your regular work? For example I love translation, but I miss doing my own writing. So, write a book!
- What service could you offer, that other translators would pay a decent amount of money for? Personalized software training? Writing their professional bio? Translating their marketing materials into their source language? Designing translator logos? When you work in an industry, you know that that industry needs…then go offer it!
Excellent post, Corinne. In addition to translating and revision, I also earn money from books and webinars, copywriting and occasional one-to-one language lessons for entrepreneurs and executives via Skype.
My 20-year previous career was in teaching English and teacher training and I charge premium rates, so in no way is it a step down. In fact I make sure that an hour of my time costs pretty much the same whatever the service being offered. I’ll even come and weed your garden if you’ll pay me $100 an hour. Plus a business class return flight, of course….
I also like the variety, which keeps the old grey cells tingling and takes me into new worlds beyond me, the computer and the text to be translated. Plus the fact that all these activities revolve around language means they are all interlinked and all bounce off each other.
Excellent post, Corinne; thank you for sharing these thoughts.
Bonjour. En jetant un regard en arrière sur mes différentes activités, je trouve que je peux les regrouper en ces trois catégories, comme vous-même. Je traduis des textes d’allemand vers le français pour une petite société. Cela me donne un revenu mensuel régulier. Je traduis également, de temps en temps, des textes pour des particuliers. Ces revenus m’aident à subvenir à différents besoins. Et lorsque je vois ces commandes de traduction dans mes e-mails, cela me réjouit beaucoup. Je dois travailler les week-end et les jours de congé, mais cela vaut la peine. Enfin, je donne des cours d’allemand soit intensifs, soit extensifs. Les cours intensifs pour débutants me procurent des revenus non négligeables. Mais cela arrive rarement. Grâce à cette activité d’enseignement, je suis parvenu à entrer dans le système de l’institut Goethe, où je bénéficie régulièrement de cours de renforcement de mes capacités. C’est le grand cadeau que j’y trouve. Je me mets ainsi à la page, je perfectionne mes compétences et surtout, je peux mieux enseigner, mieux traduire, mieux transmettre. J’y gagne aussi des voyages qui me font rencontrer beaucoup d’amis et m’ouvrent d’autres perspectives. Merci pour votre article. Hermes, du Burundi, en Afrique.
Hello,
It’s nice that people are trying to come up with new words for the English language; so many are missing! But we must sometimes ask ourselves whether this or that word is really necessary.
In my opinion, this whole “productizing” thing is just a fine example of how people abuse language. I really can’t understand how any sort of technology, magic or whatever can transform a service into a product.
And I seriously doubt that a skill is something that can be allowed to “run”, as if it were a furry little money-making beast, “systematically growing with or without your direct involvement”. But I guess turning a concept into a cute little being is just part of the magic of language?
As no doubt is providing a service in which one is “no longer directly involved”, nor perhaps any human being for that matter.
Charles Martin
Thanks Charles! Just to clarify, I’m not advising that anyone make the translation a one size fits all product; definitely not. I’m suggesting that for certain types of translations, the process of negotiating, issuing a quote and billing the client could be streamlined. Thanks for your thoughts!
Thank you Corinne, for those spot on tips about streamlining academic documents! Very relevant to me, as I spend about 45 minutes overall with each new client explaining price and logistics for dropping off the translation.
I couldn’t agree more about the prongs, I hope I am not near manure fork yet! For me, multiple prongs also keep me fresh and loving what I do.
Some good ideas here. I’d love to do more writing (maybe not a book just yet!) but I’d be too worried about getting a writer’s block in a few months and not finding a topic to write about! Maybe I’ll build up my ideas first – I’m still very new to freelancing as it is 🙂