Last weekend I had the pleasure of speaking at the annual meeting of the Colorado Association of Professional Interpreters. The morning portion of the meeting was a professional development session, and I presented some tips for working with premium clients and ways to use Web 2.0 tools to market your freelance services.

I made some tentative and best-forgotten forays into the world of interpreting when I first started freelancing and was actively looking for work. Oddly enough there are very few French interpreters in Colorado and it wasn’t that hard to find interpreting clients, but it didn’t take me very long to figure out that a) my personality is much better suited to translation than to interpreting and b) my spoken French is not strong enough to do simultaneous interpreting from English into French. Since then I’ve found less stressful ways to channel my verbal energy (such as podcasting about translation) but interpreting still intrigues me. Certainly, translation has its moments of glory; when I’ve translated a book or seen my work on a client’s website, it’s definitely been gratifying. However, it was a humbling moment to find myself seated next to an interpreter who talked about his recent work like “when I was at the Democratic Convention, interpreting Obama’s acceptance speech…” (this was Tony Rosado, a high-level Spanish conference interpreter). Wow!

Translators and interpreters really are different breeds of people. At the recent Colorado Translators Association marketing workshop, Judy Jenner asked us to get into small groups and discuss the selling points of our freelance businesses. There was a moment of terrified silence, and then a small voice in the front of the room said “Can’t I just post it to the CTA e-mail list?” Talking…selling…groups of people…all things that many translators are terrified of. By contrast, many of the interpreters I met at the CAPI meeting could charmingly chat up a potted palm tree and pass it a few business cards in the course of the conversation. It was a really interesting chance to “cross the aisle” of the language profession and get a sense of what many interpreters’ daily work consists of.

Fortunately or unfortunately, every time I’m around a group of interpreters, I start fantasizing all over again about how fun it would be to be one of them… like many translators, I’m a naturally cautious and risk-averse person. I drive below the speed limit, wear those nerdy velcro straps that keep my pant legs from getting caught in my bike chain, get my teeth cleaned four times a year, check my credit card statements for unusual transactions, you get the picture. When I’m around interpreters, I often get the impression that many of them live just a little more on the edge than we translators do, and sometimes when I’m tapping away at the keyboard it’s fun to imagine, just for a minute, what it would be like to interpret for Obama!

I don’t usually post personal anecdotes on this blog, but I thought that this one was worth a mention; it’s cold and drizzling here in Colorado right now and this story really gave me a lift to end the week!

Last Sunday I got a phone call and e-mail from an individual client for whom I had translated a batch of official documents a few months ago. He was calling with a rush request to translate an additional document and have the whole batch certified. At the time, I actually thought about declining the job and referring the client to someone in his local area (he lives in a different part of the country from me) because it was an ultra-rush and involved FedExing him the hard copies of the translation and the certification so that he could renew his visa. However I did accept the job. Because my daughter’s school was closed at the beginning of this week (in-service days, not the swine flu…), the rushing, certifying and FedExing were especially laborious and involved bringing my daughter with me to get the notary’s stamp on our way to the indoor water park with some friends, just the kind of rush job I normally try to avoid! In addition, because I knew that this translation was an important one, I did the extra step of sending the client the tracking number and then tracking the package myself to make sure that it was securely on its way.

Anyway, everything worked out and the FedExed translation arrived in the nick of time for the client’s visa renewal. Yesterday, I received an effusive thank you e-mail from him; the kind of note that makes your day in and of itself. Then at the bottom of the note, the client said that the fancy wine shop in my town would be dropping by with a package, which they did yesterday evening, and I’m now the proud owner of a great bottle of real champagne and a very, very nice Bordeaux.

When you’re in the professional service business as all of us are, I think it’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that no one notices what you do until you make a mistake, or that clients are so used to “above and beyond” service that nothing makes an impression. This story proved to me that when you do a good job and go the extra kilometer, people really do notice and appreciate it.

In these ultra-automated times, I think that we need to embrace a mix of old-school and new-school techniques for finding and retaining clients. As someone who really believes in the power of social networking sites, blogs, podcasts, etc. (although I’m still holding out on Twitter…), I’m not advocating a return to the days when translation assignments were delivered by fax. However, I do think that some old-fashioned touches can really help set you apart from the crowd as a service provider. For example:

• Send handwritten notes. Beatriz Bonnet, CEO of Syntes Language Group offered this tip during the CTA marketing seminar we held a couple of weeks ago. Beatriz gave the example that when someone writes a letter of recommendation for her company or when a client chooses her for an important project, she gets out a pen and paper instead of firing off an e-mail. This strategy popped up again in a New York Times Corner Office interview with Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson, who says that he sends a half dozen handwritten thank you notes per day. During my first year of freelancing, I sent a handwritten note and a business card to everyone who responded to my initial inquiry, and I think that this really helped build up my business.
• Go to work with your clients. I picked up this tip via Facebook from Bethany Siegler of UniqueThink Marketing, who worked at one of her clients’ sites for a day in order to get a better idea of their products. This really intrigued me, because some of my direct clients have very specific business processes or company-specific vocabulary that I would like to see in action.
• Mail some clippings. We all get so many forwarded links…”this is so interesting/funny/weird/scary” and most of us probably let them slide to the bottom of the inbox. But what about printing out that article that makes you think of your special client, then mailing it to them so that they can read it over coffee or while waiting at the dentist? Any information that makes you think of a way your client could increase their own business could be especially helpful; of course attach a handwritten note about what you found interesting in the article!
• Send your holiday gift for an interesting holiday. I always send end of year holiday gifts to my top clients and at least a card to every client I worked with that year, but I’m sure that some of these are lost in the shuffle of everything that everyone else sends for the holidays. Recently I thought that it might be interesting to send all of these items out for St. Jerome’s Day/International Translation Day (September 30) with a St. Jerome-themed card; any holiday having to do with your non-English language might be fun too.
• Send a congratulations gift for your client’s important occasion. If you read in the news that your special client has recently won an award, launched a new venture, etc., make a gesture that shows you notice.

Any other tips on low-tech ways to keep your name fresh in clients’ minds?