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!
Welcome back!!
Hello everyone! I hope that you all got some well-deserved time off over the holidays, and that you’re refreshed and looking forward to the possibilities of the new year.
Here’s a simple thought to kick things off. This year, let’s all try to do more of any kind of marketing at all. Instead of wondering:
- Should I e-mail the Director of International Communications or the International Communications Manager?
- It’s Friday afternoon and I have some time to market…but is it worth it? Will anyone read my e-mails or are they wrapping up for the weekend?
- What’s the perfect subject line?
- Does it look weird to contact three people from the same company on LinkedIn?
…let’s just do something.
I have a reminder in my Todoist app, and it’s set to run every weekday. This reminder literally says, Marketing: Do something! This reminds me that the important thing isn’t the details of what I do, it’s the fact of doing anything at all.
In 2023, I wrote a blog post, called What does “always be marketing” mean? In it, I make the point that marketing means a lot more than applying to new clients. If your issue is that you just need more work, end of story, then you should be applying to a lot of new clients. But even if you don’t need more work, there’s always better work, and not doing any marketing is a recipe for stagnation. My examples in the post include:
- Following up with conference speakers whose presentations I particularly liked
- Sending a thank you card to a client who paid me for the first project
- Putting some interpreting students in touch with one of my managing court interpreters so that they could observe a trial
- Nudging some agencies that onboarded me but never sent any work
A lot of marketing is more like nurturing and appreciating: for example, if a colleague refers me for more than $1,000 of work during the year, I either take them out for a nice dinner if I see them in person, or I order them a nice holiday gift (like a Christmas wreath) if I don’t see them in person.
This year let’s all set that as goal: Marketing: Do something!
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