Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

Batch processing: a simple trick to make direct client marketing easier

What’s your current direct client research process?

Direct client marketing can feel like pushing a cement mixer up a hill, in the dark. Stop me if this sounds familiar:

  • “I need some new direct clients”
  • “What kind of clients might need me?”
  • “Where would I find those clients?”
  • “Who would I contact?”
  • “How would I contact them?”
  • “What would I say?”
  • “What if they never respond?”
  • “What if I sound dumb or unqualified?
  • …and then rinse and repeat, until you’ve completely talked yourself out of the whole idea, and gone back to translating whatever lands in the inbox…as I said, stop me if this sounds familiar

What’s a better way?

To avoid this cycle of discouragement, make a simple change: instead of re-inventing the direct client prospecting and acquisition process from scratch each time, group these tasks into batches to make them less painful. Like this:

Day 1: Let’s say Monday. Maybe even today. Write a very precise description of the type of direct clients you’d like to reach out to. Such as:

  • Content marketing companies in Germany that seem to work with clients who need content marketing materials in English.
  • US-based human resources consulting firms that seem to work with clients with large numbers of Spanish-speaking employees, by offering HR and training materials in Spanish.
  • E-learning companies that seem to be offering their courses in multiple languages

You get the picture: describe your target client as specifically as possible: industry/sector, geographic location, and why they might need a translator.

Day 2: By researching online or on LinkedIn, identify five to ten potential clients that fit your description. Enter their basic information (company name, website, geographic location, some notes on why they might need you) into a spreadsheet.

Day 3: Follow or connect with those potential clients on an online platform: follow them on Twitter, subscribe to their blog or newsletter, etc.

Day 4: Make a direct contact. Send a warm e-mail; send a paper letter; send a LinkedIn InMail. For most of us, this is the hardest part. A few suggestions:

  • If it’s your lucky day, the prospective client might have a company directory online, or might have bios of their key staff. I try to identify a job title (i.e. “West Africa Program Manager” for my international development clients) of a good potential contact. When in doubt, I tend to contact someone in marketing or communications, because I find they’re the most likely to at least respond. In my experience, HR is the least likely to respond: they don’t seem to know what to do with freelancers.
  • In the US, I think it’s acceptable to search for a company’s employees on LinkedIn, then search for their e-mail addresses on Hunter.io or a similar tool. I’ve done this hundreds of times and no one has ever even asked where I found their contact information, much less asked me not to contact them again. If your prospective clients are subject to the GDPR, use this approach with caution.
  • I also think it’s acceptable to call on the phone, especially if the entity you’re calling is likely to have an employee who answers the phone all day. Just keep it quick: “I’m a freelance German to English translator and I’m wondering who would be the appropriate person to contact to offer you my services?”

Log those contacts in your spreadsheet, along with any outcome or response that you receive.

What does this look like in practice?

If I were prospecting for direct clients–let’s say content marketing companies in Switzerland that seem to need services in English–here’s what I would do.
Monday: Write a description of what I’m looking for (see above)
Tuesday: Find at least five companies that fit that description
Wednesday: Go to those companies’ websites and find any opportunities to connect with them. If they’re active on Twitter, follow them there. If they have a blog or newsletter, subscribe to it
Thursday: Send a highly-targeted e-mail (I find that Swiss clients are relatively receptive to this, if it’s highly targeted) to a contact person at the company, or send a LinkedIn contact request with a personalized message

Simply by going through this process, you will be gathering good data. You’ll be seeing what these clients are up to (because you’re following them on social media or subscribing to their stuff). You’ll be getting a better sense of who the major players in your target industries are. You’ll be figuring out what these clients need and what they respond to. This is all good, whether or not it results in work right away.

What next?

Once you’ve done that four-step process once, add in some followup. Maybe try to follow up using a different method: first, connect on social media; then, a warm e-mail; then, a postcard or handwritten note. This can mix things up a bit (in a good way), and can help avoid the feeling that you’re pestering, while accepting that most clients will need more than one contact before they work with you.

For most of us, direct client marketing is a prescription for analysis paralysis: the whole thing seems so daunting that we end up talking ourselves out of doing anything at all. If that’s your situation, try this batch process method and see if that helps ease some of the pain.


Corinne McKay

Four important questions for any freelancer

When I talk to freelancers about how their businesses are going (what’s going well and what needs to change), I often ask the same four questions:

  1. Do you have enough work in general?
  2. Are you earning enough money?
  3. Do you enjoy your work?
  4. Are you working too hard for the amount that you’re earning?

As a freelancer, it’s easy to get into “what’s not right” mode–because most of us are high-achieving perfectionists, to one degree or another. It’s also easy to get into “amorphous panic” mode, where we feel that “something” in our freelance business isn’t going well, but we have trouble identifying it specifically enough to make a significant difference. Let’s look at each of these four factors and what they can tell us:

Do you have enough work in general?
This is a good place to start: are you as busy as you want to be? A lot of beginning freelancers are not. If you’d like to be translating 10,000 words a week and you’re at 4,000, or if you’d like to be billing 25 hours a week and you’re billing 15, the issue is simply that you need more work. My advice here is to do a wide-reaching marketing campaign. If your work volume is currently low, you don’t need to fear that you won’t be able to handle the increased volume. Whether your target market is agencies or direct clients, just get marketing. Whenever you’re at your desk and and you don’t have work, you are marketing.

Are you earning enough money? Note that this is a separate issue from question one. At times, you may feel that you don’t have enough work, but in reality your income is fine. This happened to me when I made the leap from working primarily with agencies to working primarily with direct clients. I was able to work less while earning the same amount. There were times when I went a few days without any work in the inbox, which at first felt kind of terrifying. But when I ran the numbers, my income was fine. The point here is to separate work volume and income: if you’re panicking that “you haven’t been working enough,” make sure to look at the corresponding income level as well.

Do you enjoy your work? This factor–doing work that you are good at, and that you find enjoyable and meaningful–is one that a lot of freelancers overlook. In my observations, burnout is a significant factor in our profession: feeling that you are working too hard, for too little money, or for clients who don’t value your work and see you as a cog in the machine. If you don’t find your work interesting or meaningful, it’s time to consider different types of clients or different specializations.

Are you working too hard for the amount that you’re earning? In my first few years of freelancing, this was me. I had a good amount of work, and I was earning decent money, but when I ran the numbers at the end of the year, I had worked waaaaay too hard for what I was earning. A few factors were at work: I spent a lot of time doing in-person marketing (going to informational interviews with local agencies, etc.) that was very time-consuming and didn’t always pay off. I worked in a wide variety of specializations, so I worked pretty slowly. Over time, both of these things improved: I developed a roster of regular clients, I spent more time working and less time looking for work, and I developed narrower specializations that allowed me to work faster and more consistently.

These questions may seem basic, but I think they can be helpful to freelancers at any level. Especially if you’re a beginner, these may help you get out of “analysis paralysis” mode and identify where to put your business development efforts. Readers, any other critical questions to ask?


Corinne McKay

HSFT in Italian; June Time Crunch Challenge

Over the past several years, I’ve sold the translation rights to my book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, to freelancers working into Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian. It’s always fun to see the book come out in new languages. Congratulations to English>Italian translators Chiara Rizzo and Barbara Ronca for the latest translation: Come diventare traduttori di successo, now available in electronic format.

Next, I’m excited to announce a new challenge group: the June Time Crunch Challenge. From June 3-June 28, German<>English translator and leadership/productivity coach Dorothee Racette will lead this group, modeled on my March Marketing Madness challenge group (which inspired feedback such as “This greatly increased my confidence in marketing and has been a turning point for me. My business will never be the same again!”). There will be daily challenge activities, motivational videos, and a Slack group to keep everyone accountable and motivated. Registration is $75 and there are various discounts available on the registration page. We’ve already got a good group signed up, with room for more!


Corinne McKay

Travel: Applying for and using Global Entry/TSA PreCheck

Off-topic here, or perhaps not, since translators and interpreters do tend to travel a lot! This applies only to US residents, so feel free to ignore it if you’re outside the US.

Since I joined the ATA Board in 2012, I’ve been meaning to apply for TSA PreCheck. By the time I got around to applying (in 2018…sometimes it takes me a while!), I decided to just apply for Global Entry (which includes TSA PreCheck eligibility…more on that below) since I’ll have more international travel flexibility by the time I rotate off the ATA Board in October.

You can read about the specific benefits of these programs at the links above, but essentially they allow you to pay a fairly minimal fee ($85 for five years for PreCheck, $100 for five years for Global Entry including PreCheck), and if approved, you get to:

  • Go through a special expedited security lane at the airport (if available…more on that below)
  • Not have to remove your liquids or electronics from your suitcase for screening
  • For Global Entry, potentially use expedited lines when you arrive in other countries, and use electronic passport readers when you return to the US

Many people wonder whether these programs are worthwhile, so here’s my experience. If you want the TL:DR version: I think they’re definitely worth it if you travel more than a few times a year, or if you have specific needs (again…more on that below). To me, the only negative is that the application process is long, and you have to go to an in-person interview at an airport, which can be more or less inconvenient depending on where you live.

My application story: after I submitted my Global Entry application online, I was pretty quickly upgraded to the stage where you go for an in-person “interview.” However the soonest interview appointment at the Denver airport was eight months later. Yes, you read that correctly: eight months. There are other options if you’re in a hurry or want the status for a specific trip. For example I could have gotten an appointment as quickly as one week later, had I been willing to drive about six hours to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Or I could have tried to schedule an appointment in another city where I was flying anyway. However I just waited, and finally did my “interview” eight months later.

The “interview” is basically just an appointment where you are electronically fingerprinted. Having gone through the application process to become an FBI Contract Linguist back in the day, I expected…I don’t know…a polygraph or lots of invasive questions or something like that. I arrived about 20 minutes early for my interview, and was already back in my car by the time of my original appointment. It was that fast. And I had my approval before I got home. Super simple. The golden ticket here is your PassID/KTN (Known Traveler Number), a nine-digit number that you enter when you purchase a plane ticket, so that you will get a PreCheck boarding pass.

Since getting approved for Global Entry, I’ve used it five times, on four domestic trips and one international. Here’s how it’s gone so far.

  • Overall, the PreCheck security lane is much faster and much less annoying; you’re exempted from the first-world inconvenience of having to take your shoes off, extract your computer and toiletries, reassemble everything on the other side of security, etc. In the Denver airport, I’m normally through security in under 10 minutes. Sometimes under five minutes. Another special use-case–I notice this only because my husband has a pacemaker, which always creates drama in the security lane–for whatever reason, most of the PreCheck lanes seem to have old-fashioned metal detectors, rather than millimeter wave machines. So if you have a reason for avoiding the millimeter wave machine, PreCheck could solve that.
  • One caveat: PreCheck isn’t always an option at smaller airports. In just four trips, I’ve encountered this twice. Monterey, CA doesn’t have a PreCheck lane at all, and in Austin, TX, it was closed due to lack of staff. With a PreCheck boarding pass, you (for reasons I don’t really understand) are allowed to keep your shoes on in the regular lane, but you have to take your electronics and liquids out of your bag.
  • The jury is still out on the benefits of Global Entry when you return to the US. I’ve only done this once, so take this with a grain of salt. When I returned from a trip to Switzerland, by far the shortest line was for those using the Mobile Passport app, which has nothing to do with Global Entry. It’s just a secure app where you enter your passport information and travel details before you get off the plane; in Denver, people were even encouraged to download the app while we taxied to the gate. I had both Mobile Passport and Global Entry, so I chose Mobile Passport.

Additional notes:

  • I’ve read two negatives about PreCheck, both of which seem to be true: 1) You can be randomly excluded for a specific flight, and there is no way to appeal that. You just have to go through the regular lanes. And 2) Any airport can randomly select people to go through PreCheck if the regular lanes are crowded. The hitch is that those randomly-selected people often don’t know how the PreCheck lanes work, which holds things up. Not significant negatives, but worth mentioning.
  • Global Entry and TSA PreCheck benefits do not extend to family members traveling with you, even kids. However, on one of the trips I’ve taken since I got Global Entry, my 16 year old daughter was traveling with me, and she did get a PreCheck boarding pass even though she doesn’t have PreCheck status. Don’t take that as being likely, but it did happen to us.
  • There seems to be confusion about whether Global Entry includes PreCheck, and the Global Entry website seems to use deliberately vague language about this, saying you are “eligible for PreCheck benefits” if you have Global Entry. My understanding is that you will get PreCheck status if you have Global Entry, but you must enter your Known Traveler Number when you buy the ticket. The TSA officer told me that sometimes, people think that you can just show up at the PreCheck line and show your Global Entry ID card, which is false. The ID card doesn’t give you that status: PreCheck has to be indicated on your boarding pass. But if you enter your KTN, you should get a PreCheck boarding pass.
  • At the Denver airport, the shortest line of all is usually the CLEAR lane. CLEAR is a private company whose service ($179 a year) allows you to skip the identity verification step of security screening and go directly to the baggage screening lane. To me, CLEAR seems like it could be fantastic (if you fly frequently between any of the 28 airports that offer it) or totally worthless (if your home airport doesn’t have it). CLEAR also works at some large sports arenas, so could be worth checking out if you patronize those, but otherwise it’s a pretty expensive alternative to PreCheck.

So far, I’m really happy with PreCheck and wish I had applied for it several years ago. Readers, any positive or negative experiences here?


Corinne McKay

New podcast: How to learn from colleagues

In this episode of Speaking of Translation, Eve and Corinne discuss how to learn from and share information with colleagues, in a way that is both helpful and appropriate. How can newbies learn from colleagues without being invasive? What is (and is not) appropriate to ask from colleagues? How can colleagues learn from each other through peer-to-peer professional development sessions? When should you offer to pay someone who gives you advice? And how can experienced colleagues give back to the profession through mentoring?

Links mentioned in this episode:
-Eve’s book Maintaining Your Second Language
-Corinne’s online courses for translators
-The ATA mentoring program
-The Colorado Translators Association mentoring program
–Athena Sky Interpreting

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How to learn from colleagues