Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

“I get too much work from one client”: problem?

“I get too much work from one client. Should I be worried?” This is a question I often hear from freelancers, especially those who work for agencies. Is a client that/who provides 50%, 60%, or even 80% of your income a problem?

On the one hand, someone with a full-time salaried job earns 100% of their income from one “client,” their employer. And, these days, many salaried jobs are not much more stable than a freelance client. That employee could be let go with minimal notice and minimal severance pay, and be left with no income at all. In an ideal world, we’d all have 20 clients, each providing 5% of our income so that we’re nice and diversified, but the real freelance world doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes you have a client who sends you tons of interesting work, and pays well, and is easy to work with; letting them become dominant in your client portfolio might make sense. Additionally, fewer clients generally means more billable time. You get to know the client’s processes, so you spend less time negotiating rates and turnaround times, figuring out the client’s preferred style, etc.

On the other hand, a dominant client puts you at risk. Here’s a situation that happened to me last year. I started out in about 2010, translating small projects for a direct client, and over the years the work increased into the five figures. They weren’t a dominant client, but they were a substantial client. And then one day (can you hear the ominous music playing the background?), they e-mailed me to say that in the course of hiring an employee for a half-time position, they had found a native English speaker who had also worked as a translator. They decided to hire that person full-time and include translation in the job. So, literally overnight, that client dropped from five figures to a couple of hundred dollars a year (when the in-house person is away or overloaded).

Other risks of having a dominant client include:

  • Being asked to lower your rates, and worrying that your income will decrease if you say yes, but you’ll lose the client if you say no.
  • A sudden decrease in work volume, if the dominant client is an agency and they lose the major end client you work for.
  • Becoming overly comfortable with that one client; not updating your marketing materials or plan, because the client feels so secure.
  • Losing the client entirely, if they go out of business, retire, your main contact leaves, etc.

So, what to do? Here are some suggestions, and please add your own in the comments.

  • If you have a dominant client, make sure it’s a deliberate decision, not a passive one. If you’re intentionally saying, “I choose to earn 80% of my income from this client for reasons X, Y, and Z,” that’s a lot different than “Holy… How much did I earn from them last year?? And now they’re going out of business?”
  • Build up a rainy day fund for your business. When I lost my substantial client, I actually didn’t panic. It was a bummer because I really like their work, but I knew that I could draw money out of my business savings account if I needed to (because I force myself to pay into that buffer fund for just such an occasion). The rainy day fund can save you from the dilemma I mentioned above, where you feel trapped in a bad situation with a client who won’t pay your rates.
  • Have a plan B. If your dominant client dropped you tomorrow, what would you do? Are your marketing materials in order? What kind of client would you want to replace them with? If you were rebuilding 80% of your work flow from scratch, what would you want to be doing?
  • If the dominant client is an agency, pay attention to where your work is coming from. Is it from one end client, or from multiple end clients? If it’s from one end client, you’re in a doubly risky situation, because you’re subject not only to the agency’s vicissitudes, but to their potential loss of that end client. If you work for multiple end clients, things are little safer.

In sum, I’m not totally opposed to the idea of a dominant client. But it needs to be a purposeful decision, not a passive one, and you need a) some buffer money to tide you over if you lose that client, and b) a plan for how to find new work when/if that happens.

Readers, over to you? Any dominant client stories to share?


Corinne McKay

Shifting perspective: from putting out fires to long-term business success

This is a guest post by Dorothee Racette, a past president of the American Translators Association. Based on over 20 years of experience as a successful freelance writer and translator, Dorothee now trains and coaches small business owners in time management and productivity. She shares her insights in her blog and invites you to follow her on Twitter or Facebook for more practical time management advice.

Shifting perspective: from putting out fires to long-term business success

One of my first jobs after graduating was a part-time teaching position in a foreign language department. As I quickly learned, one didn’t simply walk into the department office to request photocopies. The secretary, who had clearly dealt with generations of instructors, kept a large sign on her bulletin board. “Want it tomorrow?”– it read– “Order it yesterday!” I have yet to find a diplomatic way of sharing the same sentiment with certain clients.

As client expectations for fast turnaround blur the distinction between rush jobs and regular translation assignments and competition at the entry level pushes down prices for accelerated work, freelancing can seem like a never-ending sequence of high-stress projects. Of course, running a business involves responsiveness and commitment to prompt service, but what happens if the resulting work pressure becomes the “new normal” of freelance life?

Drawing a distinction between urgent and important, Dwight Eisenhower once noted that “[…] important is seldom urgent, […] urgent is seldom important.” The difference between the two concepts holds the key to shifting the perspective of your freelance business.

Working in ‘urgent’ mode

In urgent mode, you tackle the first task that comes to your attention, typically an email or another type of message. After arranging the submission details of a project offer, you jump right into the translation work. In between, you’ll probably check other messages, respond to social media posts, and absentmindedly attend to personal matters. Working in this mode is not only highly stressful, but also associated with unhealthy habits, such as skipping exercise, eating at your desk, and spending too many hours hunched over a keyboard.

While there may be few alternatives in the early stages of a freelance business, it is a good idea to periodically assess whether your work mode is still serving you in your current business situation. If your business has survived the critical first few years and you essentially have a steady flow of assignments, now is the time to make the transition to a long-term perspective.

Working in ‘important’ mode

In contrast to focusing on the task of the hour, working in important mode addresses the long-term strategic objectives of your business. Building a sustainable business requires daily attention to marketing, making business connections, managing finances, keeping up with knowledge in your chosen specialty area, and staying proficient in technology. Neglecting such background work because you are “too busy,” blocks your own advancement options to specialty areas with better working conditions and pay. In addition, a deliberate long-term perspective allows for better work-life balance decisions and frees up much needed personal time.

Here are some thoughts about making the shift from urgent to important:

1. Start the day with a little planning

Don’t allow others to start the day for you. Take control of your time with a few minutes of thinking and planning before you open your inbox and answer the first message (“Urgent! 23K words needed by tomorrow…”). Consider the details of the day’s milestones, including fixed appointments as well as exercise and social activities. When can you do your best and most difficult work, and when are you likely to feel tired or get interrupted more often? It doesn’t matter whether you record your planning on sticky notes or in apps, as long as the format is effective for you.

2. Prioritize challenging tasks

We all postpone to-do items that seem difficult or problematic in favor of easier, more rewarding ones. For example, it may be much more fun to concentrate on translation work than to deal with invoicing and account figures. Marketing can seem confusing and hard, so why not accept another assignment instead, even though it’s not very interesting or pays poorly?

Tasks of the “I really should” or “I can’t believe I haven’t” variety are easier to address in the first 30-60 minutes of your workday. Updating a profile or writing about your business fall into the ‘important’ category that ensures long-term business growth. Not only is your brain more creative in the morning, but the sense of completion also boosts confidence and has been proven to enhance productivity for the remainder of the day.

3. Establish ground rules

Time planning and completing difficult tasks are constructive ways to avoid stress. To further shift away from ‘urgent’ mode, consider establishing a few specific rules that draw the line between freelance work and private time. Instead of working whenever you can, clearly state (to yourself and others) when your work hours are. Ask yourself when you will say no and which conditions have to be met to make an exception. Stating an existing rule (“I don’t work on weekends”) is much more effective than coming up with an explanation.

4. Set up a quarterly or annual review

Periodically set aside a little time to review how your business is doing. That may involve looking at clients who ordered the largest volume and those who were less enjoyable to work with. If you added new clients in the review period, how did they hear about you, and what are the implications for your marketing efforts? Perhaps you worked with new topics that may interest you as a specialty or you noticed a shortcoming in your tools or technical setup. Above all, did you have enough free time to live your life outside of the business?

Of course, not all rush orders are the result of someone’s failure to “order yesterday.” Unexpected situations, such as policy changes, lawsuits, or illnesses can create a sudden need for language translation-and that’s where translators come in. Making a difference for a client by jumping in and providing a fast translation is a special experience – provided the associated extra effort is recognized and not simply taken for granted.

If you enjoyed this post, you can find more of Dorothee’s practical time management advice on her blog, Twitter or Facebook.


Corinne McKay

Speaking of Translation: tips for getting things done, productivity, and time management

In this episode, Eve and Corinne offer tips for getting things done: how to get into the productivity mindset, how to form a productivity support group, and how to tailor your time management techniques to your personality. We also recommend the following podcasts on productivity:

Tess Whitty’s interview with Get It Done Guy Stever Robbins

Ed Gandia’s interview with Marc McGuinness, author of Productivity for Creative People

Freakonomics’ podcast on commitment devices

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Getting things done


Corinne McKay

Recommended podcasts for freelancers

I’m a bit of a podcast junkie (we don’t have TV, so…). Partially, I just like audio as a change from reading. But I also find that podcasts offer an option to multi-task without losing your mind. Listening to a podcast actually makes going to the gym *more* appealing, and makes long car rides less boring. So, here are a few of my favorites: mostly for freelancers, with a few others thrown in.

I really enjoy Ed Gandia’s High-Income Business Writing podcast. There’s a lot of crossover for translators there, and he generally has very interesting guests. I particularly enjoyed his recent interview with Mark McGuinness, author of the book Productivity for Creative People. I’m not even that creative, but I wrote down a bunch of great tips: view organization and productivity as *freeing you up* to focus on the more stimulating sides of your job; use a finite space like a Post-It note to write your to-do lists, rather than preparing them as if time were infinite, etc. Definitely recommended!

If you have any sort of social media presence (blog or not), I would also recommend Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger podcast. I enjoy this podcast because it provides practical advice about how to make money online without feeling sleazy about it. For example, a recent episode talked about how to re-energize your blog after a slump (and who among us hasn’t been there…?).

If you don’t mind roundtable-style shows (I actually enjoy them, but the unscripted thing drives some people crazy), I recommend Devchat.TV’s The Freelancers’ Show. Here, “freelancer” means something closer to “independent IT consultant,” but the show features an interesting group of hosts (PS: any chance we could get some women in there??) and topics. I also find it interesting to glean tips from other industries and from non-word people. They’ve recently covered topics like how to handle meddling clients, how to decide when to move on from a component of your business, and how to use content marketing methods other than blogging.

You’re probably already listening to Tess Whitty’s Marketing Tips for Translators, but if not, get on over there and subscribe, since it’s all about our industry! And I’ll also take the liberty of mentioning Eve Bodeux’s and my (mostly) monthly show, Speaking of Translation.

And no list of must-listen podcasts would be complete without Grammar Girl. Capital versus capitol, how badminton got its name, a while versus awhile. It’s purely and simply word nerd heaven, and I listen to every single episode! Also in the Quick and Dirty Tips family are the Get It Done Guy (recent fave: how to politely tell off people who ask you to work for free), and the Savvy Psychologist (how to overcome fear of failure, how to stop being a people-pleaser).

Of course, podcasts don’t have to be all about your professional development. When you need a little brain candy, I also recommend:

Futility Closet. Speaking of nerd heaven…my family is addicted to this podcast, which focuses primarily on weird and wonderful historical events. Prison camp escapes powered by coded messages in Armenian, the great Boston molasses disaster, that kind of thing.

If you’re into behavioral science, try You Are Not So Smart, with episodes on learned helplessness, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and why it’s so hard to change your mind.

I’m a member of Gimlet Media, and I enjoy many of their podcasts (although some don’t really do it for me…kind of hit or miss here). I’m normally not that into narrative or fiction podcasts, but I *love* (love!) Crimetown (currently following tales of political corruption in Providence, Rhode Island), and Homecoming (a psychological thriller starring lots of actors you’ll recognize). Reply All is kind of a mixed bag; sometimes amazing (see: recent episode on ALS reversal cases), sometimes like a high school lunch table conversation. StartUp, their original podcast, depends on whether you like the topic for that season. The most recent one, focusing on the founder of American Apparel, didn’t grab me to the extent that some others have, but their interviews are pretty stellar.

And with that, happy listening! I’d love to hear about your favorite podcasts in the comments.


Corinne McKay

Beyond the Basics of Freelancing: starts Monday

“In my opinion, the greatest occupational hazard of being a freelance translator is the “triple threat” of unfamiliarity with business practices, ways to get clients, and discouragement. This course provided me with actionable strategies to grow my translation business and was a huge motivator. It’s been worth every penny of the registration fee and then some. Thank you so much!”

“Beyond the Basics of Freelancing has helped me shore up and solidify my current working practices while giving me the confidence to take my business to the next level. I benefited greatly from the personal exchanges with Corinne and other seasoned freelancers. Highly recommended!”

These are some comments I received from participants in my online course, Beyond the Basics of Freelancing. The next session starts Monday, and it’s a great opportunity to get going on your goals for 2017. Registration is $380 ($365 for ATA members), and includes:
  • 12 online videos with the core course materials
  • Individual feedback on weekly homework assignments (your resume or professional profile, marketing plan, rates/billable hours sheet and online presence)
  • 8 live question and answer sessions (recordings provided if you can’t attend live)
  • Daily tasks to help you break your goals down into manageable steps
  • E-mail support from me throughout the course; you can ask whatever you want!