When part of your business falls off a cliff

This month, I’m celebrating my 24th freelance-iversary. It goes without saying that things have changed a lot since 2002.

One massive shift: when I started out, the vast majority of freelance translators and interpreters made the vast majority of their income working for a small stable of loyal agency clients. It wasn’t unusual to make 70% of one’s income from two to five agencies, which made our work a lot like a regular job where we set the hours, and to some extent the rates. 

For most of us, those days are gone, for two reasons:

1. Agencies’ own work is less stable
2. For translation, agencies are probably offering rates that you can’t live off, especially if that’s for MTPE (machine translation post-editing) 

A big shift: When part of your business falls off a cliff

In the before-times (pre-COVID, pre-ChatGPT), I don’t recall talking to many freelancers who were suddenly dumped by a major client. It definitely happened, but these days it’s happening a lot. I wrote about this phenomenon (Help! I lost my biggest client with no warning!) in July, and I’ve since talked to a freelancer who lost 80% of their income with no warning, and several people who lost more than 25% with no warning. 

In my opinion, the risk that part of your business falls off a cliff is greater than ever. Here’s how this has played out in my own business in the past year and a half:

• In 2024, I made a good chunk of money interpreting in U.S. immigration court. I really love that work, and it was a pretty long and demanding process to pass the interpreting tests and do the paperwork to obtain the certification. At the time, they paid around $500 per day for in-person work and I was hopeful to start doing at least two assignments per month for them. I’ve gotten zero work from them since February 2025.
• About a year ago, a good interpreting agency client approached me about a large project, around $30,000 for multiple weeks of on-site interpreting. After some back and forth about the details, I never heard from them again. 
• Another good interpreting agency client mostly used me for one end client, and it was a big one (also around $30,000 per year). They recently lost that client to AI. 

These situations are specific to my business, but they prove a point: the business world in general is a lot less stable than it used to be. 

The real question: How to handle this new reality?

Your specifics are going to be different, but in a big-picture way, we’re all facing similar situations. I’m going to talk about this in more depth during our Training for Translators Plus “Behind the Business” session on October 22, but here’s my advice:

• Don’t ignore the writing on the wall. Sometimes, things really do fall off a cliff out of nowhere. This happened to me with one of my first good direct clients. After two or three years of steady work, they hired a half-time marketing employee who also had translation experience, and I was outta there with one e-mail. But it’s more common that the loss of the client is somewhat foretold, you just choose not to see it. For various reasons that I won’t go into because of client confidentiality, I honestly wasn’t that surprised when my interpreting agency client’s end client decided to discontinue live interpreting and switch to AI captions. The advantage: I felt it coming, so I was at least somewhat mentally prepared. 
• The business savings account: more important than ever. I’ve long championed the importance of a business savings account, so that you’re earning the money today to pay the bills in three months, or six months, not the bills that are due next week. These days, I think you need savings that are proportional to the risk of losing your biggest client. My guideline: one month of savings per 10% of your income that this client represents, and round up. If your biggest client represents 25% of your income, you need three months of savings in case they drop you. 
• Face the numbers. Data always tells a story, and sometimes it’s a different story than what exists in our heads. That goes both ways: sometimes we tell ourselves “it’s fine” when it’s actually a train wreck, and sometimes we tell ourselves “my business is circling the drain” when it’s really not. Enter: numbers, and two questions. 1) Are you in financial danger? 2) Are you still on track to meet your income goals? In my case, last year was my highest-earning year in 20+ years of freelancing ($145K) and I rapidly acknowledged that I worked too hard for that money. My numbers this year are definitely down, due to the interpreting client that switched to AI, and a large, one-time translation project last year that didn’t happen this year. By this time last year, I had earned $118K after paying my subcontractors (primarily T4T guest instructors) and as of today I’ve earned $95K; the drop is roughly proportional to what I earned from the interpreting client that switched to AI. And yet, I don’t feel financially strained and I’m on track to meet the minimum income goal ($125K) that I’ve set for myself. 
• Identify what is working. When you dig into your numbers, is it all bad news, or are some categories, or some types of clients, doing well? For me, legal interpreting is up. I’ve gotten remote work from a number of new states, and I just did an in-person trial in another state. Content writing for translation and interpreting companies is way, way up, and I’ve gotten a couple of really interesting new direct clients for both interpreting and translation. Things are far from bleak, but I need to follow my own advice and Always Be Marketing. 

A few takeaways 

If your business feels like a bit of a rollercoaster these days, here’s what I’d suggest:

• Back to Boring Basics: If your main challenge is that you need more work, you should be marketing every second that you don’t have paying work. This is totally un-glamorous advice, but in my experience it’s critical. 
• Follow up, follow up, follow up. Lately, when I talk to language folks who are finding good work, it’s almost always after more than two follow-ups. Sometimes it’s after eight follow-ups (no kidding, actual example). My own new policy: once a potential client has expressed an interest in working with me, I follow up with them until I get a yes or a no. I do it politely, and I never demand a response. I never say, “I’d appreciate you getting back to me either way.” I say something like, “In case my previous message got buried, I just wanted to check in and see where you’re at on the project we talked about.” 
• Avoid emotional waffling about whether freelancing is still for you. This is a mindset tip, but I think it’s important. About a year ago, I made a decision: unless something truly amazing falls into my lap, I’m sticking with freelancing for the long haul. I’ve also talked to people who are quitting translation and interpreting to either go back to school or take an in-house job in an unrelated field: radiology technician, government report writer, paralegal. You don’t need my approval for either of those things, but you do need to avoid expending emotional energy on whether you’re sticking with freelancing or not. Freelancing, especially at a high income level, is hard enough when you’re fully committed to it. It’s almost impossible if you’re constantly thinking, “If I had started applying for in-house jobs six months ago, I wouldn’t be in this position.” In, out, it’s your decision, but it needs to be an intentional decision. 

I hope these tips are helpful!

If you’d like more T4T in your life (accountability, support, training) without a huge financial commitment ($9/month, cancel any time), you should think about joining Training for Translators Plus. 

You’ll get a monthly goal-setting exercise, monthly training opportunities (this month there are actually three things: a recorded training on marketing to direct clients, a live Behind the Business session, and a co-working session), and early access/discounts on T4T offerings!