Tess Whitty’s Marketing Tips for Translators podcast is a great resource for freelancers, and Tess recently interviewed me for an episode called Beyond the Basics of Freelance Marketing. We talked about how to market your translation services to higher-quality agencies and direct clients, how to make a financial plan for your freelance business, and about the new Beyond the Basics of Freelancing class that I’m teaching. Thanks to Tess for the great questions, and I hope you find the information useful!
Marketing
New podcast: insider tips for working with translation agencies
This morning I had lots of fun interviewing translation industry veteran Steve Lank (Monterey graduate, former ASTM translation QA standard subcommittee chair, longtime senior-level manager in agencies in the US, Ireland and Spain). Steve is currently Vice President for Translation Services at Cesco Linguistic Services, working from the Washington, DC office.
I put Steve in the hot seat and asked him:
- Chicken/egg: how can beginning translators find their first clients?
- What’s up with downward price negotiations? Why do agencies apply them, and how can translators best handle them?
- What are the top dos and don’ts of translator resumes? What errors pop up again and again? How can a translator stand out among the many unsolicited applications that an agency receives?
- How about following up on agency applications? How often should freelancers follow up, and using what method?
- How does a translator turn a first-time client into a regular client, and become one of an agency’s preferred providers?
- How about the increasing emphasis on specialization in our industry? Is the “learn by doing” mindset OK, or do translators need more formal training in their specializations?
To listen to the episode, cruise on over to the Speaking of Translation website.
Take a scalpel to your marketing materials…
…and remove:
- Vague blah blah that applies to 10,000 other translators (possibly even 11,000). “I help clients communicate across cultures” (let’s hope so…), “Accurate and efficient,” “Detail-oriented,” “Committed to meeting deadlines.” Instead, get specific: “In 12+ years of freelancing, I have never missed a deadline.” “More than just a word-replacer, I’m a key member of my clients’ communications teams.” “I regularly decline assignments that aren’t within my scope of expertise; instead I concentrate on what I do extremely well.” “In addition to working with words, I’m committed to working well with people, and my goal is for the translation process to be as painless as possible for my clients.” I just made those up, and they may not apply to you, and you may not like the style (but if you do, you can steal them). But they’re examples of statements that get your specific story out there.
- “References available upon request.” Either include testimonials from clients directly on your marketing materials, or get this sentence out of there. It goes without saying that the client will ask for references if they want them.
- “Objective: freelance translation projects using demonstrated expertise in Japanese to English translation.” Again: a message from the department of redundancy department. Clearly, the objective of marketing materials is to find work, and hopefully you have some demonstrated expertise, or you’d be doing something else.
- Any reference to “the best.” Translation is very subjective: Usain Bolt can safely say that he’s “the best” at the 100 meter dash, but you can’t measure translation skill with a clock or a meter stick. Plus, every client’s preference varies. If you want to look at every word in the French document and see a direct equivalent in the English document, I’m not your woman, because I like to rewrite more than I like to replace words. Some clients disagree, and that’s OK.
- Photos of you with animals (unless you’re a vet), or anything that looks like a selfie. It’s surprising how many people’s “professional photos” are anything but. Translator next to a horse? Snuggling a puppy? Cruise LinkedIn and you’ll find these and more, plus lots of photos that are clearly selfies. To me, a crummy headshot photo is sort of like business cards with the “Get your free business cards at…” logo on the back. It shows that the person isn’t willing to put forth even the small amount of effort required to do better. For example, my current headshot was taken by a friend with a nice camera; our local translators association offers discount group headshot sessions every few years. A professional session is absolutely worth it, but there are also alternatives that still look good. Again, people’s preferences will vary: for my own photos, I lean toward a more natural, less posed look. I wouldn’t cuddle my cat in the photo, but a little wind in the hair doesn’t bother me, whereas other people prefer a more posed, studio look.
Readers, anything else that needs to get the ax?
Selling the freelance advantage
If I may, I’m going to start this post with a rant. I think there’s room in the translation industry for all kinds of service providers: from freelancers who want to work 10 hours a week to mega-agencies that operate around the world and around the clock. I just wish that all of these providers would be more honest about the advantages that they offer, and likewise about what they cannot do. For example, I don’t work for mega-agencies, but I think that they fill a niche: they can turn huge projects around in a short amount of time, they can manage really complicated projects with tons of languages or components, and they (hopefully) take a lot of responsibilities off the client’s plate because they can find people who provide nearly any linguistic service imaginable.
But by definition, mega-agencies have some limitations: there are many layers between the end client and the person who actually does the linguistic work, the client will almost never communicate with the person who does the linguistic work, and it’s difficult for the client to have a lot of input into a project that is parceled out to many different freelancers. When something goes wrong in a mega-agency project, it can be difficult to even identify where the mistake happened (the salesperson? the PM? the translator? the person who the translator subcontracted to, in violation of the NDA? the editor? the proofreader? the DTP person? the QA reviewer? the PM who filled in when the original PM went on vacation?). So, here is my wish for our industry: that everyone, from the part-time freelancer to the mega-agency, is honest about their capabilities and limitations.
In that vein, I think that a lot of freelancers who want to work with direct clients make a big mistake: they don’t sell the advantage of using an individual freelancer. Tip: if you’re an individual freelancer and your website refers to “we” or “our company,” you’re not selling the freelance advantage. You’re trying to compete with agencies, and agencies surely handle high-volume, fast-turnaround projects better than you do. So instead, how about selling this instead:
- You assure your direct clients that you know your limits. A mega-agency may take on virtually every project that comes through the door. You never (never!) take on a project if you’re not confident you can do an outstanding job.
- You are an “I,” not an amorphous “we.” Even if (as I do) you have a corporation for administrative purposes, you have a one-on-one relationship with your clients. They hire you, they get you. You never subcontract work without permission from the client. When a client really needs you, you answer the phone whenever, wherever. The buck stops with you: if you make a mistake, you take responsibility for it. Drawback of the mega-agency model: so many people touch each project that responsibility gets diffused. You can always convince yourself that someone else will find the mistakes that you don’t find. So when you sell the freelance advantage to direct clients, assure them that you do not work this way: you assume full responsibility for every aspect of your work.
- You maintain complete confidentiality. It always mystifies me when mega-agencies send a mass e-mail to a huge group of translators, including documents marked HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL (uh, not any more!). When you sell the freelance advantage to a direct client, you emphasize that you can keep the documents as confidential as the client needs: I even have a few clients whose documents I will not work on at my co-working office, to ensure that no one but me ever sees them.
- You get to know your clients’ projects inside out. A mega-agency can try to have the same translator work on a client’s projects every time, but they can’t guarantee it: said translator may be unavailable, or they may raise their rates. When you sell the freelance advantage to direct clients, you emphasize that over time, your translations will be more consistent than an agency’s, because you will be the only one working on them. For example, I maintain a customer preferences file for all of my direct clients, including their in-house style preferences, their standard instructions for formatting, the names and titles of key people in the company, and any company-specific terms that they use.
- You bring up questions as soon as they arise. With a mega-agency, the chain of communication between the translator and the client includes many other people. Some agency clients I’ve worked with even discourage translators from “pestering” the client with questions. I agree: don’t pester. But don’t “just translate” either. Example: one of my clients is a European business school. When I translated their admissions materials into English, the entrance requirements were clearly not applicable to American students, who don’t take the French Baccalauréat. I brought this up with the client as soon as I saw it, because the entrance requirements section needed to be completely rewritten for an international audience. This saved the client time and money, since they would have received a useless document, had I “just translated.”
Following these types of tips can help you focus on the clients you serve best, while you let mega-agencies do the same!
Bad translations as a marketing tool
A reader asks: I come across lots of bad translations in my language pairs. How can I use these to pitch my freelance services to new clients without sounding like a hyper-critical tattletale?
This is a regular topic of conversation among translators who work with direct clients, and bad translations can be a great marketing tool if you handle them correctly. Let’s say you come across a slick website, one that indicates that the company or government department has put a lot of time and money into its marketing efforts, but where the translation falls short. There are no shortage of these; in French to English, I recently came across the official site of the Paris Vélib program (“Bikes conceived and improved for your safety and your comfort!”) and the Montreux Jazz Festival (“an ideal platform and an intimate setting for the duration of its two weeks…”) as examples of great programs with great websites and not-great translations. Chris Durban regularly sends me examples of consumer enterprises in France that need better translations. So, there’s no shortage of material out there.
The key here is a three-step process. Before beginning, you have to expunge the “hyper-critical tattletale” part of your personality. If you’re like most translators, you regularly engage in behaviors like refusing to order misspelled items on restaurant menus, because won’t condone that type of behavior. I personally avoid the express lanes at my neighborhood supermarket, as a silent act of protest against their signs that read “15 items or less” instead of “15 items or fewer.” So, first have your judgmental moment, then move on to constructive marketing.
Step 1: Compliment the effort, maybe like this: “Very few U.S. museums attempt to reach out to the non-English speaking public, and I really admire your willingness to do that.” “During a recent trip to Paris, I was impressed by your efforts to create a multilingual rental system for your bike fleet.” “Your recent press release caught my eye; congratulations on your efforts to invite international exhibitors to your trade fair.”
Step 2: Provide a carefully-worded reality check. When I’m writing these kinds of pitches, I try to keep in mind that a) the person I’m writing to may be the author of the bad translation, and b) the person I’m writing to may have no clue that the translation is bad. So, maybe something like this: “As a professional translator, I know how challenging it can be to get a multilingual website right. I noticed that your site’s current English version has some translation glitches, and therefore doesn’t convey the same impression of your film festival that the Italian version does,” or “You’ve clearly put a great deal of effort into the graphic design and French text for your wine labels; as a professional translator, I’d love to help you bring that same quality to the English version,” or “Your slogan is the first thing that people notice about your company, and I’d love to help you create a German slogan that better reflects your mission and values.”
Step 3: Give them a little something for free. I’ve heard this referred to as “the free sample approach,” “the taste my truffles approach,” the get them hooked on you approach,”…you get the picture! Like this: “As an example of what professional translation services could do for you, I’ve taken the liberty of re-translating your home page, and I’m including it here for your perusal.” Or, “I’ve included three Portuguese slogans that better convey the spirit of your music festival. Feel free to run them by your Portuguese-speaking colleagues to get their take,” or “As a professional translator specializing in your industry, I’ve re-translated your press release using more consistent technical terminology. Feel free to take a look and let me know if this approach might help you in the future.”
Then of course, you wait, and then you follow up. You accept that the person on the receiving end of your pitch might know that the translations are sub-par and might not care, that the person might not “get” why good translations are important, or might have absolutely no budget with which to do better. For what it’s worth, I’ve received all three of those responses to pitches that I’ve sent to potential clients. However, you also have a chance to improve your pitch every time, and you have a good chance of landing a good direct client who really appreciates your work.
Readers, any tips or illustrative examples on this topic?