Greetings, Training for Translators subscribers, and happy 11/11! Today’s free webinar, Getting Started as a Freelance Interpreter, is full (thanks to all 200 people who signed up!) and there are three spots left in the November session of Direct client research lab ($160; personalized direct client marketing advice). We also have a good group signed up for guest instructor Molly Yurick’s upcoming self-paced class, Breaking into the subtitling market ($110) and there’s still room for you! 

This week’s topic: 1,2,3, or 4: Where are you at in your freelance career?

When I teach marketing classes for freelancers, I often ask people to put a number (1-4) in the chat:

Put a 1: If you need more work, in general

Put a 2: If you have enough work, but it’s low-paying

Put a 3: If you have well-paying work, but not enough of it

Put a 4: If things are good (you have well-paying work, and enough of it) 

For the record, I’ve been in all of these situations throughout my freelance career:

• During my first 12-18 months as a freelancer, I just needed more work, end of story.
• Then, I had a decent amount of work, but it didn’t add up to that much money.
• When I finished my conference interpreting degree, I quickly found some well-paying interpreting work, but not enough to meet my financial goals.
• These days, things are good. I’m working a bit more than I’d like to be, but it’s all work that I enjoy, and in this economic climate I’d rather work more and bank the extra money. 

I really like this system, because it’s simple and it forces you to look at the reality of your business. I had a very gratifying conversation with a young freelancer at the recent ATA conference, when they told me, “In the past six months, I’ve gone from a two to a three!” 

Next step: Getting to Four 

Again, this is going to be a simple analysis of a complex situation, but here goes:

• If you’re currently a One, you should be marketing during every second that you don’t have paying work. Keep at it until you have a little more work than you want. That sounds brutal, but it’s key. When I was a beginning freelancer, I made a lot of mistakes, but I did one thing right: every second that I didn’t have paying work, I marketed, including applying to more than 400 agencies during my first year in business. 
• If you’re currently a Two, this is, in my opinion, the hardest situation (and I say that as an optimist!). Why? Because you’re working all the time at low rates. So you’re going to have to carve out the time to market to better-paying clients, either by doing that on top of your regular work day, or turning down some of the low-paying work so that you have time to market. 
• If you’re currently a Three, then you need more clients like the good clients you have now. On the positive side, no client is really that unique. Google or ChatGPT can help you identify your current well-paying clients’ competitors, other clients in that sector, other clients with similar characteristics, and then you can apply to them. 
• If you’re currently a Four, life is good, but don’t get complacent. In this economic climate, things can change quickly. At least one of my big interpreting contracts is going to end in March (because the project that requires the interpreting is ending), so I’m already thinking about how to replace that part of my income. 

Here’s to Getting to Four! Just hit reply if there’s anything you want to ask me or tell me. 
Thanks for reading!

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I’ve now had about 60 people go through my direct client research lab course (e-mail classes@trainingfortranslators.com if you want to be on the wait list for the next session), and I’ve identified a bunch of common online profile mistakes that most of us (including me!) are making! If you’d prefer to read about this topic in a blog post, here it is.

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Greetings, Training for Translators subscribers! Here’s what’s up from T4T this week! 

This month’s classes are open for registration

• Free webinar next Tuesday (November 11), Getting Started as a Freelance Interpreter, focusing on business skills for interpreters, and how to get started with interpreting if you’re interested 
• There are a few spots left in the upcoming session of Direct client research lab
• Breaking Into the Subtitling Market, with guest instructor Molly Yurick, a four-week version of Molly’s popular webinar on the same topic, kicks off on November 24! 

This week’s topic: Why you need a business savings account

I have a few hot-button topics when it comes to freelance money management (here’s a blog post on that topic in general), and two of the biggies are:

• Completely separating your business and personal finances 
• Establishing a business savings account 

The business savings account serves so many purposes:

• You should never be caught short on money to pay your self-employment tax
• You can use the savings fund to jump on a good opportunity (I did this for my Master of Conference Interpreting tuition in 2020-2021)
• It can serve as a paid vacation fund, allowing you to take time off so that you don’t burn out 

And, the business savings account can really bail you out when you have a catastrophic computer failure. Danielle, a T4T newsletter reader, sent me a message that exemplifies how the business savings account can, well, save you. Here’s Danielle’s message, included here with her permission:

“You know how you advise everyone to have a business savings account? I started one last year. Well, on Tuesday, I opened my laptop and heard a crunching sound. A hinge had broken, which made the monitor frame start to detach from the screen. I can’t close the lid anymore or parts will start falling off. Since I had the business savings, I had a new computer ordered 20 minutes later, and it’s arriving today. If you need to convince anyone to start a savings plan, feel free to use this story! ” 

I often say, in life in general and certainly in our freelance businesses, money doesn’t buy you happiness, but money sure buys you options. This catastrophic computer failure, which is far from a rare event in a freelancer’s life (I had a computer go Blue Screen of Death a number of years ago), could have been a true disaster in Danielle’s business. If your computer dies and you can’t afford a new one, you have to either put your business on hold, or put the new computer on a credit card without having the money to pay for it (which brings up another finance truth: for many people, their credit card is the emergency fund). But because Danielle started a business savings account a year ago, she simply ordered a new computer, had it shipped as fast as possible, and moved on with her work. 

I love this story because it exemplifies good freelance financial planning, and the end result: good financial planning keeps you from going into panic mode when something goes wrong, because you have the money to pay for it. Thanks to Danielle for sharing this story, and if you don’t have a business savings account, start one today; even if you start with $25 out of every project, it will add up!

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Greetings, Training for Translators readers! It was fantastic seeing so many of you at last week’s ATA conference (I’m writing this from the plane on the way home; yay for Southwest now offering free Wi-Fi for Rapid Rewards members!). If you missed it, mark your calendar now for ATA67: October 28-October 31, 2026 in San Francisco, California! 

November classes open for registration

T4T has three offerings for you this month, all in different flavors!

• November 11: Free webinar! Getting started as a freelance interpreter. I’ll talk for one hour about the basics of running a freelance interpreting business. Everyone who registers will receive the recording. Limited to 250 registrations. 
• Direct client research lab. Registration closes November 16, or when all 20 spots are filled. Registration is $160; after filling out a profile form, you’ll receive a personalized video with specific recommendations of potential direct clients, then we’ll meet for a group session where I’ll demonstrate my research techniques and contact methods (recordings provided). 
• Breaking into the subtitling market. Registration closes November 23. An expanded version of guest instructor Molly Yurick’s popular webinar by the same name! Registration is $110, you’ll get six months of access to the recorded course materials on Thinkific (see the course page for a full outline), plus two live bonus material/question and answer sessions with Molly in January. 

Are you listening to the T4T podcast?

If you’re an audio person, have you subscribed to Training for Translators in Apple Podcasts or Spotify? You can also listen directly on the T4T website; here’s the most recent episode. As of today, it has 7,994 downloads (total across 18 episodes); maybe you could be the 8,000th download! 

This week’s topic: Your personal interests as translation specializations? 

“How do I know when I know enough about a specialization?” It’s a hard question, because (stop me if this sounds like our profession in a nutshell), it really depends on the context. 

• Many specializations demand expert-level subject matter knowledge that not many people have; for example there are levels of medical and scientific translation that are handled almost exclusively by people with MDs and PhDs
• Some specializations have a lot of self-taught/learned on the job translators (in my experience, this is the case with international development)
• Some specializations are so specialized or so new or niche that most people rely primarily on their research skills (I once translated a thing about Mecca’s pneumatic trash collection system; I guess you could call it waste management, but it’s sort of a cross between waste management and the old-fashioned vacuum tubes in the bank drive-through??) 

This leads to a lot of fear and imposter syndrome, and sometimes that’s a valid and good thing. You don’t want to get in over your head with the operator manual to an MRI machine, or the maintenance specifications for an aircraft engine. But here’s one pathway I think we overlook: our personal interests, about which we often have expert-level knowledge.

Translators and interpreters are generally very energetic and passionate people. Many of us are really devoted to our non-work interests. Get me going on cat fostering, learning the cello, hiking 14’ers, backcountry skiing, mountain biking, vegetarianism, and you’ll be sorry you asked! 

Among translators and interpreters, I’m not an outlier; most of my colleagues have interests about which they are very passionate, whether that’s French baking, dog agility, playing the piano, singing opera, making homemade soap, or a million other things. You’re already an expert!! 

When you’re thinking about translation specializations, do not discount these types of interests, and think of how you could “follow the money” to clients with the budget to hire you. 

Let’s use my example, and “follow the money”:

• Animal rights: I’m guessing there are international animal rights/animal rescue NGOs that publish in French and English, and could use a translator for their web copy, reports, surveys, blog posts, and/or interpreters for their live events. 
• Classical music: I could target music festivals and orchestras in French-speaking countries; instrument-makers, music schools, maybe even French-speaking instructors who want to produce instructional materials in English.
• Mountain sports: Lots of opportunities here, because there are a lot of “destination races” and tours in French-speaking countries, and if they’re going to publish in one other language, it’s going to be English. 
• Vegetarianism: This overlaps somewhat with animal rights issues, but I could look at organizations that promote vegetarianism, vegetarian cookbooks, maybe vegetarian cooking instructors who speak French and want to reach a wider audience. 

Of course, some of these areas still require a lot more specialization than I have; I’m not a veterinarian or an instrument-maker. But I love reading and researching about these areas, and I know a lot more of the specialized vocabulary than a generalist translator does. Also, there’s no better pitch to a client than, “I use your product and I love it!” or “I’m also a…” (Buddhist, tango enthusiast, avid crocheter or whatever else). 

I hope this gives you some inspiration for your own marketing efforts!
Have a great week!

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Greetings, Training for Translators readers! If you’re coming to the American Translators Association conference this week, I’ll see you there! Ahead of that, here’s a topic that’s been on my mind!

Online profile mistakes that we’re all making 

This year, I’ve been teaching a new and fun course: Direct client research lab, where I do personalized direct client research for the participants (the next session will be in November, reply to this e-mail if you want to be on the wait list!). As part of that class, I take a look at the participants’ online presence: it’s not specifically an online presence course, and I’m not an online presence expert, but I want to see what a potential client would find if they Googled you today.

I’ve now had 60 people go through the course, and I’ve found a few patterns that may give you some insights for tuning up your own online presence. Here they are!

Orphaned profiles

Step 1: Google yourself and see what you find. Even in this basic step (just Googling “Jane Doe translator”), I find that at least 50% of people have an online profile that they’ve clearly forgotten about. Typical culprits are: 

• A ProZ.com profile that they haven’t updated in 5+ years (ProZ.com displays the last update date on your profile, so watch out for this!). 
• A profile on a service that barely exists anymore. TM-Town, a service that ProZ.com purchased some 10 years ago, is a common one; it looks to me like lots of people got a free membership to TM-Town, kind of forgot about it, and now it’s hard to update or take down. 
• A half-finished website on a platform like About.me; you started it and then abandoned it, or you haven’t updated it in a really long time. 
• Not so much orphaned, but social media accounts that you don’t realize are public. It’s fine to have a public Instagram or Facebook account, but just don’t forget that clients can see everything you post there. 
• A professional association that you joined and never set up the directory profile, or put one sentence and left it like that.

Publicly displayed rates

Again, a common thing I see on people’s ProZ.com profiles. Publishing your rates isn’t in and of itself a problem; the problem arises when you publish “agency” rates, and now you’re looking for direct clients. The risk: a potential direct client sees these rates, and that’s probably not what you’re going to charge them. 

I understand why people do this: especially on online translation marketplaces, even your standard “agency” rates may be more than most clients on those platforms are willing to pay. So if the average platform client for your language pair is looking to pay four cents per word and you publish a rate of 12 cents per word, it avoids dealing with the lower-end client. But you’re probably going to charge direct clients a lot more, not least of all because you’re doing a lot more non-translation work and probably paying your own editor. So in my opinion, it’s best to not publish your rates, unless you never charge more than what you publish. Clients will be excited if you charge less than what you’ve published, but not the other way around. 

LinkedIn

I’m not a LinkedIn expert, but I’ve now identified some common LinkedIn profile errors, or things that are a personal preference but I’ve realized I have an opinion about. 

1. Profile URL. Make sure to customize your LinkedIn profile URL if you haven’t already, so that it’s not a bunch of gibberish letters and numbers. The custom part can be your name (mine is /corinnemckay) or anything else that no one else is using; like I could have /coloradofrench if I wanted to. Here’s how to do it. 
2. Banner. It’s easy to make a decent-looking custom banner with the free Canva templates, and it looks a lot nicer than the default blue-grey one. 
3. Profile photo. Your profile photo should be a clear headshot that is appropriate to the sectors you’re targeting. Most common pitfalls here: a photo that is obviously a selfie, or that is obviously cropped out of a larger photo (the classic example being a disembodied hand on your shoulder because you’re in a group of people at a wedding or similar). The photo should mirror the formality level of the sectors you target: if you want to work with financial services firms, don’t be in a baseball jersey. If you’re targeting grassroots activist organizations, don’t be hosed down in designer-wear. Also: no animals unless you do veterinary translation, you translate for horse breeders, etc. I say this as someone who shamelessly posts my foster cats on LinkedIn: they don’t go in my profile photo. 
4. Headline. Personal preference: I like a straightforward LinkedIn headline, and I also think it probably does better in search results. Personally I’d go with “French to English translator specializing in the museums sector,” rather than “Helping French-speaking museums find their English voice.” I think that a more creative tagline is totally fine on your business cards, website, etc., but for a LinkedIn headline I would just go with straightforward. Another personal preference: spell out your language pairs. “DE>FR” is obvious to most of us, but not people who don’t work in our sector. Just say “German to French.”
5. Contact information.  By default, LinkedIn now enables the link to your direct contact information (it’s at the end of your headline), but if you’ve never edited it, only your LinkedIn profile link (to the profile that the person is already looking at) is displayed. Add your website and e-mail address here. 
6. About section. The About section isn’t a place for your life story. It’s about what you do for clients. Wayyyyyy too many people are doing an “I learned Russian on my grandmother’s knee” type of thing here. Once you become friends with a client, tell them that story. But for now, focus on the About section on things like “Clients come to me because they need…” “Clients say that I help them…” “Clients rely on me for…” 
7. Recommendations. Try to have at least a couple of recent recommendations. I think two to five recommendations is a good goal, and they can be from colleagues!

I hope these tips are helpful if you’re working on your own online presence! Have a great week!

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