Strategies for when you need work right away

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As a freelancer, the feeling (or, the knowledge!) that you urgently need work, is not fun! And yet, it’s a reality of freelancing: nothing is guaranteed! In the 20+ years that I’ve been a freelancer, I’ve experienced:

• An anchor client suddenly hiring a part-time in-house translator; my work for them went from $1,000+ per month to zero, literally overnight
• Clients promising large projects that didn’t end up happening, for various reasons
• Translation projects being cancelled after I had already started work, and I got paid only for what I had translated
• General slowdowns, maybe due to the economy, maybe just the vagaries of the business environment

Lately, business has been very good, but who (no one!) knows what’s out there!/

How to prepare yourself and your business

Before we get to the topic of how to find new work, let’s look at three things I’d recommend setting up in advance:

1. You need a business savings account. The situations I described above are always going to be stressful, and they are often no one’s fault. But if they result in a financial catastrophe, that’s on you, because you should not be working today to earn the money that pays the bills next week. Here’s how that looks in my business: the total cost of running my business is about US $5,000 per month. That includes my salary and my business expenses. I keep $15,000 in a business savings account that I do not touch. It’s purely a rainy-day fund. If I get sick and can’t work, if someone in my family needs me, that’s my insurance policy. Then, I keep around $10,000 in my business checking account, so that I always have more than enough money for one “paycheck” in there. If this sounds extreme, I think it’s not. I would actually like to increase my emergency fund to 30K so that I could take six months off completely, or cut back to half-time for a year, without worrying about money. And if you’re thinking, “Whoa…I could NEVER build up that kind of emergency fund!” then I’d argue that you need to revisit how much you’re charging and who you’re working for, so that you can establish that kind of financial security.
2. Never, and I mean never, project an aura of desperation, even to colleagues, unless they are also your personal friends and you’re talking to them in that capacity. I say this as someone who, not infrequently, gets e-mails and LinkedIn messages from freelancers, saying things like, “I’m about to lose my house, and I really need work, can you send me something?” Don’t get me wrong: this is awful, and I really feel for the people who write these messages. But that’s not the kind of positive, professional message you want to be sending out. More below on how to address this with clients. With colleagues, I think it’s fine to say something like, “Remember that huge project I was telling you about? Well, it just got cancelled, so I have an opening in my schedule, if you’re looking for any overflow help between now and July 1.”
3. Think hard about cancellation fees. Lots of freelance distress is the result of cancelled projects. Again, it’s on you to know what you’re agreeing to, or what you’re enforcing. Particularly if you work with direct clients, you can propose any type of cancellation fee that you want, even, “Payment is due in full once the contract is signed.”

First: It’s nudge o’clock!

If you find yourself in urgent need of work, the first thing I’d recommend is nudging all of your dormant clients. “Hello, I hope you’re doing well! I’m reaching out because I have some availability between now and July 1, and I really enjoyed the [describe the last time you worked with them] project we worked on together in March. Let me know if there’s anything in the pipeline that might be a good fit!”

Nudging is the world’s most boring and the world’s most effective marketing method. Do that first!

Next: Reach out to colleagues

As I said above, I personally think it’s OK to give colleagues at least a big-picture description of what happened. “My main client just let me know that they’re moving to MTPE,” “That two-week interpreting job I told you about was just cancelled,” “The big project I was waiting to hear about hasn’t come through, and I’ve decided to move on.”

Letting colleagues know, in a positive, professional way that you’re available, is a good idea.

Hit the job boards

Lots of freelancers completely ignore job boards, thinking “I’m not looking for an in-house job, and what are the chances they’re hiring a translator or interpreter anyway?” Three comments on this:

1. It’s worth offering your freelance services to clients looking for an in-house translator or interpreter. Tell them that you’re interested in working with them on a contract basis.
2. I know several freelancers who have actually found interesting contract work on job boards.
3. Who knows? You may find a full-time job that’s interesting enough for you to consider! This happened to at least two people in my recent March Marketing Madness challenge group.

By “job boards,” I mean general job search sites like LinkedIn, and specialized ones like Devex (for the international development sector).

Is it time to add a new skill or a new type of client?

Lately, I keep saying that the future of freelance translation and interpreting belongs to people with diverse businesses, working for clients who care. In the current (weird) economic and technology environments, I think that doing one thing, for one type of client, is risky.

One major advantage of a well-fed business savings account: when you unexpectedly don’t have a ton of work, you have a lot of time, and you can use it to nurture the future health of your business:

• Take some classes to add a new specialization
• Take some classes to add a new skill (subtitling, interpreting, editing, etc.)
• Do that big marketing push you’ve been thinking about forever

Would you be happier with at least a part-time job?

There’s no shame in looking for a non-freelance job. I worked as an FBI Contract Linguist during years two to five of my freelance business. The job definitely has its downsides: the application process is really long and invasive, you have to work on-site at an FBI field office, and the pay, at least that time, was not stellar. However, and it’s a big however, I worked with excellent translators, did interesting work, and the steady-ish pay allowed me to continue freelancing until I had a more regular base of private-sector clients. I’ve always thought that if I wanted/needed a full-time salaried job (Contract Linguist, as the title would suggest, is a contract position, not an employee position), I would apply to be an FBI Language Analyst (the full-time equivalent of a Contract Linguist). I honestly really liked the people I worked with, the average salary is around 90K per year, and you get excellent government benefits for your whole family. It’s far from the worst thing in the world to take a non-freelance job!

If you’re actively looking for work, I hope that these tips are helpful!

Corinne McKay (classes@trainingfortranslators.com) is the founder of Training for Translators, and has been a full-time freelancer since 2002. An ATA-certified French to English translator and Colorado court-certified interpreter, she also holds a Master of Conference Interpreting from Glendon College. For more tips and insights, join the Training for Translators mailing list!