Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Marketing


Corinne McKay

Breaking Into the Direct Client Market- FULL

This class session is now full. To view upcoming dates for all of my online courses, visit my website.

My new quick-start course Breaking Into the Direct Client Market starts on July 1, and I have about three spots left. This is a three-week course with minimal homework, three sets of slide shows with audio tracks (finding direct clients, marketing to direct clients, working successfully with direct clients), three question and answer conference calls for the whole group, and an hour of individual consulting time for every student. Registration is $190, or $175 if you’re an ATA member. The class is aimed at people who have experience as translators but are new to the direct client market. If you’re an established translator and you’d like to take my longer, full-featured course Beyond the Basics of Freelancing, it starts on August 19. We just wrapped up the inaugural session of my other new course, Breaking into the Agency Market; the session was full and I got some excellent feedback from the students, so I think that this new format is a good fit for people who want a shorter, less homework-dependent class. One student commented that: “This course rocks! Many of us have had training & experience in the “how to translate/interpret” end of things, but T&I programs, as far as I know, don’t cover the business end. This course fills this gap that’s not covered much by otherwise very good T&I schools.” If you’re interested in joining the July 1 session, hop on over to my website to read the full description or to register!


Corinne McKay

When a client asks for a discount

When a client asks, “can you lower your rate?,” you can respond in various ways. You could get defensive and belligerent (“For your information, I’m a serious professional whose work is worth real money”). You could offer some snarky feedback on the rate the client is proposing (“No serious professional translator would work for what you’re offering”). I don’t recommend those strategies, but lots of translators go that route. You could justify why you charge what you do (“I have 20 years’ experience and a Master’s in Translation”). You could just say no, and suggest that they find another translator; fair enough.

But the best response is, “I’m unable to offer a discount, because I’m busy all the time at my regular rates.”

First, if you’ve already told the client your rates and they want to pay less, let’s be honest: they’re asking for a discount. Asking is fine; some clients will ask just on principle, to see if they can save some money. Don’t freak out just because they asked. But from the freelancer’s point of view, the best defense is to simply be busy all the time at your regular rates. That way, you don’t need to get angry, or defensive, or engage with the “how low can you go” clients. If it’s within the client’s budget to pay your regular rates, great. If not, no problem (for you at least!) because you’ll just continue working with the clients who will pay your regular rates. When I use this strategy with clients, I feel that this has the advantage of being true (never an absolute must in a business negotiation, but always a plus!). I’m not getting nasty, or superior, or defensive; I’m just saying that, truthfully, it makes no sense for me to work for less than what all my other clients pay.

Getting to “I’m busy all the time at my regular rates” is a long-term project; lots of posts on this blog and others (check out Marketing tips for translators in particular) can help you get there. But keep that goal in mind: yes, the client’s proposed rate may be laughably low; yes, you may have 20 years’ experience and certification and a Master’s in Translation; yes, you’re a serious professional. But there’s one real reason not to offer discounts: you don’t need to.


Corinne McKay

Two new online courses

I’m excited to announce two new online courses that I’ll be offering this spring/summer. I’m still running my flagship courses for beginning and experienced translators (Getting Started as a Freelance Translator and Beyond the Basics of Freelancing), but I’ve developed two new quick-start classes for people who want a shorter course with minimal homework, but with lots of one-on-one coaching. Here they are!

Breaking Into the Agency Market starts May 13 and runs for three weeks. I’ll send you three slide show lessons (finding agencies; marketing to agencies; working successfully with agencies), we’ll do three group conference calls and you’ll get an hour of one-on-one coaching with me, which you can do by phone or e-mail. Registration is $190, or $175 if you’re an ATA member.

Breaking Into the Direct Client Market starts July 1 and runs for three weeks. Same format as above (three slide shows, three group calls, an hour of one-on-one time) but for translators who want to work with direct clients. Same price too! $190, or $175 if you’re an ATA member.

I’m excited to launch these new formats and hope to see some of you there!


Corinne McKay

You don't need 100 clients

A quick but important piece of advice, especially if you’re in the trenches of your first few years of freelancing. Raise your hand if you’ve ever lamented a lack of progress in your freelance business by saying something like, “The problem is that most clients won’t pay my rates,” or “The problem is that most clients don’t need someone who does my language/specialization,” or “The problem is that most clients want someone who can do large projects on short notice.” If you’re honest, you’ve probably said or thought those things at some time: I certainly did during my first few years in business.

But here’s the thing: to build a viable freelance business, you don’t need 100 clients. You need, I’m going to say, four to seven regular clients and then some occasional clients to fill in the gaps. When I looked over my accounting for 2014, I earned about 60% of my income from my top four clients. While you want to be careful about being too reliant on any one client, A-list clients are a good thing: they fill your inbox instead of the other way around; they know and trust you; they take less administrative time because you’ve worked together before.

So this is one situation where you want to think small, rather than thinking big and being needlessly discouraged. Think three clients; five clients; maybe 10. As an example, the American Bar Foundation reports that there are over 47,000 law firms in the US. If you do legal translation, even if 99% of those law firms don’t need your language pair, already have a translator they like, or don’t have any translation needs at all, that still leaves you with 470 clients. So in that case, let’s hope that at least 99.9% of them don’t need you, because then you’re only down to 47 clients which is still too many. That’s an extreme example, but you get the point: now go hunt down the small number of clients that you do actually need!


Corinne McKay

Video: using the carrot, the stick or the temptation bundle to reach your freelance goals

If you have the drive and discipline to launch your freelance business, you have the drive and discipline to improve your freelance business, but we all struggle to force ourselves to work on those improvements incrementally (or at least I do!). In this video I talk about three approaches you might try: the carrot, the stick or the temptation bundle. If you really want to geek out on temptation bundling, you can listen to this episode of Freakonomics Radio.