Speaking of the go-getter spirit, I’m hard-pressed to think of a better example than Omar Postigo-Martell, who owns and operates Well Translated, a Spanish<>English agency here in Colorado. I first met Omar at a talk I gave over the summer at the University of Denver’s translation certificate program, and not long after that he left his full time job as a financial manager in favor of full time language work.

Omar is a great example of what it takes to succeed as a freelancer, as well as the quality of life advantages that make the freelance lifestyle so appealing. Omar sent me five of his top reasons for taking the freelance plunge:

• No paid paternity leave after my authorized four-week absence
• Costly seventy-six mile daily commute, resulting in gas refills every four days
• No yearly performance reviews
• Lousy benefits and no salary increase in four years
• Plenty of sick days to justify snowboarding in the winter time

Omar’s reasons speak to why freelancing is a solution to what the Rat Race Rebellion calls the “sprawl and crawl” lifestyle: more time to spend with our families, a lighter burden on the environment due to decreased commuting, more control over our work environment and income, and, let’s be honest, the chance to hit some fresh powder and let cubicle-dwellers battle the weekend traffic and crowds.

A few other aspects of Omar’s success story are worthy of a mention as well. First, he’s done a great job of “getting his name out there,” which is so important in a business like translation that is extremely word-of-mouth driven. While I was browsing the website of the Boulder County Business Report (now BizWest) during a coffee break, up popped Omar’s recent article “Bilingual Ability Doesn’t Equal Good Translation,” and he also landed a great freelance assignment with the Boulder History Museum, making the text of their new exhibit “Growing Seasons: An American Farm Family at the Beginning of the 20th Century” available in Spanish.

There are certainly lots of other paths to success as a freelancer, but I think that Omar’s story illustrates some of the most important ones: motivation, assertive marketing and thinking outside the pool of traditional translation clients.

I’ve noticed that for many beginning translators, getting those first few clients is a chicken and egg issue; most agencies, which form the bulk of most beginners’ client bases, aren’t eager to work with translators who are very inexperienced. But if clients won’t work with you, how do you ever get enough experience to make your business viable? Here are a few suggestions, and feel free to add your own in the Comments section.

• Volunteer On an international level, organizations such as Translators Without Borders use volunteer translators in a variety of language combinations. On a more local level, places such as legal aid agencies, refugee assistance centers, public health clinics and schools are often in need of volunteer linguists. Or, think strategically: that cute little B&B you stayed in on your trip to France last summer might love to have an English website done for free in exchange for a glowing testimonial about your work. Just make sure to treat volunteer assignments with the same care you would paying ones.
• Start small Many individuals need a translator for a project that is too small to be worth an agency’s time, for example a birth certificate, driver’s license, school transcript, etc. These projects tend to be very straightforward and can be very profitable because the actual amount of text is small. I get a lot of inquiries from my website for work like this, and you could also promote your services through your local consulates, cultural associations, bilingual schools, immigration attorneys, etc.
• Team up Working with an experienced translator in your own language combination can work in a few ways. First, you could offer to pay an experienced translator’s hourly rate to give you small practice translations and then edit them until your work is client-worthy. Not everyone is going to be interested in doing this, but I think some experienced translators might be willing. Second, if your translation skills are strong but you don’t have much experience, you might find an experienced translator who needs a backup translator to work on small projects, overflow work, etc. Obviously this kind of arrangement has to be carefully crafted between two people with similar work styles and personalities, but it’s a good reason to network in your local translators association.
• Start big This requires careful planning, but I think that in some cases, people with high-level skills in specialized subject areas can do better by bypassing the standard paths completely and going straight for high-paying work with direct clients. For example, I’ve had two bilingual attorneys as students in my online translation class. Both of them had excellent language skills and a lot of experience in very specialized legal work. For them, I felt it might be a better option to market themselves as “bilingual legal consultants” or look for work directly with law firms rather than working their way up the agency ladder.

I’m sure there are many more suggestions on how to find your first translation clients, feel free to add your thoughts in the Comments section!