Two mindset shifts that really help me

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Greetings, Training for Translators readers! I hope you’re all doing well! The first T4T class of the “school year” (Getting started as a freelance translator or interpreter, in the age of AI) has kicked off, and I’m excited for what the rest of 2024 has in store.

Direct client master class on September 18

This month’s master class, Marketing to direct clients and increasing your income, is on September 18. Registration ($75) includes the recording, and we’ll discuss doable ways to market to direct clients, and how to make sure you’re charging enough to reach your target income. Given the significant changes in the agency market in the past few years, for many freelancers, the time to market to direct clients is now. But if you’re new to the direct client market, it can be hard to know who to contact and what to charge. We’ll get you started in this two-hour class!

In other news…

• For the second year in a row, Ruth Gámez and Fernando Cuñado are running a September Spanish Marketing Challenge, using some of the materials from the T4T March Marketing Madness group, plus their own additions. This year’s challenge runs from September 16-30 and you can sign up for $49 or join their online community, in which case it’s free! 
• Mireya Perez interviewed me for her podcast, Brand the Interpreter. We had a lot of fun talking about business development for translators and interpreters, and you can listen to the episode here, or in your favorite podcast app!
• If you’re looking for in-depth business development help, Joe Lépine has three spots left in his two-month coaching program, Squeak to Roar. This is not an affiliate deal; Joe’s classes for T4T have gotten excellent reviews, and he reports that this program is “for introverted translators who hate marketing,” and it combines both group and individual coaching.

This week’s topic: Two mindset shifts that really help me

I often feel like success as a freelancer is half practicality and half mentality. Meaning, you can’t succeed as a freelancer without actually doing things to keep your business thriving, whether that’s marketing to better clients, attending professional development events, or keeping your technology setup updated. And you can’t succeed as a freelancer without the right mindset: if you believe that you’ll never work for better clients or earn more money, you’re probably right!

Today, let’s focus on mindset, with two mindset tips that really help me!

1: “Who should I be serving?”

This mindset shift really helps me figure out who I should be working for and who I should market to. It’s really easy to get discouraged about marketing in particular, if you view it as, “Here goes another round of spam to people who don’t want to hear from me anyway!” Instead, flip the script:

• Where can my skills be most useful?
• Who really needs my services, but can’t yet work with me, because they don’t know me?

I also don’t want to work with clients who don’t value what I have to offer; asking myself, “Am I truly serving this client’s needs?” is really helpful, because I can focus on clients who truly are the right fit. I also think that this treasure hunt mindset can make marketing a lot less onerous. Think about the service providers in your life who you truly love; even if they’re expensive, they save you so much time and hassle that you’re thrilled to work with them (my accountant, my website manager, and my landscaper are all in this category). Ask yourself, how can you be that kind of service provider to your clients? What would that mean? Who would you be working for if you focused primarily on where you can be useful?

2: Some clients can’t afford you, and that’s OK

This is a piece of wisdom I gleaned from my friend and colleague Steve Lank, who trained at MIIS and now works as the CEO of Cesco Linguistic Services. Many or even most of us react very negatively when a potential client tells us that our rates are too high for them. It doesn’t matter if you’re a freelancer or an agency; we tend to think that the problem is with us; we’re overpriced, we’re not competitive, our rates of out of line with market norms.

Years ago, I interviewed Steve about marketing to agencies, and he made the point that it’s much more correct, and more helpful, to reframe this as, some clients cannot afford us, and that’s OK. We all would love to have or do things in life that we can’t afford, right? As much money as I could ever have available to spend on travel, I could spend all of it and more. It’s not that the travel experiences I’d love to have are overpriced, it’s that it’s not in my budget to participate in all of them.

This mindset shift has really helped me; instead of anguishing over every client who thinks I’m too expensive, it’s a lot easier to think, “I’m not in their budget,” or “They need someone less expensive,” rather than that the problem is me, which it’s not.

This goes back to feeling confident about what you need or want to earn, which you can calculate using my Deciding what to charge spreadsheet. When you have confidence in your rates, it’s a lot easier to have confidence in the work that you turn down, because the client can’t afford you.

The freelance mindset is always a work in progress; I hope that these tips are helpful to you!

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!