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Are you listening to the T4T podcast?

As noted in last week’s post, the T4T podcast (after lingering in the idea stage for around two years) is live. You can subscribe in Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or you can listen right here on the T4T blog. Just look for the podcast episodes in the post list in the right-hand sidebar.

Aiming for six figures: master class on October 23

Next up on our class calendar is a two-hour master class on Aiming for six figures as a freelancer, on October 23. A past participant in this class commented, “I enjoyed the fact that Corinne didn’t tiptoe around talking about money, and her transparency about her own experience and business. There’s nothing wrong with making money.” Registration ($75) includes the recording. 

This week’s topic: “I’m not making enough money!” Let’s dig a little deeper!

Many freelancers (of all stripes, not just translators and interpreters) feel that they’re not making enough money. Often, they’re correct, for a few reasons:

• Lots of freelancers radically underestimate how much more you need to earn as a freelancer, as compared to a job with salary and benefits. Various sources use various multipliers for this, but I typically see people recommending a salary to freelance multiplier of about 1.4. Like if you’re aiming for the freelance equivalent of a salaried job paying $100K, you need to earn $140K to factor in self-employment tax, retirement contributions, office space, health coverage, paid time off, computer hardware and software, accounting services, etc.
• As a side note, here, I need to point out two things. The average income for freelance translators and interpreters, as reported on the most recent ATA compensation survey and in the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data is in the mid 50K range. If we use the 1.4 multiplier, this is the equivalent of a salaried job paying around US $40K. I just think that’s worth noting; if you’re at that income level, it’s worth asking yourself whether you’d accept a salaried job that paid 40K. Additionally, the $130K that I earned in 2023 is, if we use the 1.4 multiplier, the equivalent of a salaried job paying 93K. Meaning that although I set that goal as a way to move closer to the freelance equivalent of a six-figure salaried job, I’m still not there! You really do have to make a lot as a freelancer to replace all that stuff that employers pay for!
• Life is expensive. That sounds so basic as to not be worth saying, but it’s just true. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the “living wage” for a two-adult/one child household in Boulder, Colorado (that’s my household!) is slightly over 113K. Particularly as the freelance population ages, I think that many freelancers may be in for a big shock when they find out either a) how long they’re going to have to work in order to afford retirement, or b) what retirement is going to look like if you’re living mostly off Social Security. Those are all very personal decisions, but worth considering.

Three ways to not make enough money

First, let me say this. When I talk about “not making enough money,” or when I say that I made 130K last year, take it with the grain of salt that I made 9K (not a typo, nine thousand US dollars!) in my first year of freelancing. And I was really happy with that number, because my biggest fear was that I would make zero thousand dollars. It took me thirteen years of freelancing to hit six figures. What I’m saying here is not intended, in any way, to shame anyone who’s at a lower income level, and definitely not anyone who is totally happy at a lower income level. To be honest, that’s a place I aspire to be in 15-20 years; translating books, other stuff I find interesting, and donating the money to charity.

There are really only three ways to not make enough money as a freelancer:

1. You just don’t have enough work. This was me from about 2002-2005. I wanted to work more, but I didn’t have enough clients to fill my schedule, and I didn’t want to work at really low rates just to bring some work in the door.
2. You have enough work, but it’s low-paying. This is, honestly, a lot of translators right now: those who cruised along for years or even decades, doing decently paid per-word translation for agencies. Many of those agencies have now gone to machine translation plus a human editor, and many are offering dramatically lower hourly rates than the per-word rates they used to pay.
3. You have well-paying work, but not enough of it. This was the conference interpreting side of my business, when I first finished my MCI. The conference interpreting work that I found, paid well. However, it took almost a year (Spring/Summer of 2021 until Spring/Summer of 2022) until I had the amount of conference interpreting work that I wanted.

What now?

If you’re in one of these three situations, what’s the best course of action if you’d like to make more money? It depends a lot on your available time (single and living alone is really different than being the primary caregiver for a young family), and on what you do (Croatian literary translation is just never going to pay as much as Japanese financial translation). That being said, here are a few suggestions:

• The hardest situation is example two above. You’re working a lot, but you’re not making enough money. That leaves you with minimal time or energy to market to better-paying clients. This, in and of itself, is an argument for avoiding this situation in the first place, meaning not telling yourself, “Working is better than not working, I’ll just accept this lousy rate rather than not working.” Sometimes, marketing is better than working!
• Succinct advice for example one: I’ve seen this in a couple of freelancer Facebook groups I’m in, and it’s basic, but helpful. Every second that you don’t have work, you’re marketing. You’re applying to agencies, following up with agencies, and looking for direct clients. And (here’s the advice from the Facebook groups!) you’re doing that consistently, until you have slightly more work than you want. Don’t quit marketing when you find one new client, and don’t continue marketing until you’re sleeping three hours a night. Stop when you’re like, one click above where you want to be.
• In situation three, just keep marketing to clients like the well-paying clients you already have. This is perhaps the easiest situation, because no client is an island; there are always more clients like your current clients. Once I identified a few sources of well-paying conference interpreting clients, I just kept looking for ways to connect with other clients like them, and that worked out well.

If you’re hoping to boost your income in the fourth quarter of the year, I hope these tips are helpful!

As I mentioned in my post about episode 1 of the T4T podcast, the podcast is live! The first two episodes are available in Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. If you prefer to listen right here on the T4T website, here’s episode two, which is based on this blog post: four sources of potential direct clients.

Links mentioned in this episode:
–Devex, a news and jobs site for the international development sector
–Ed Gandia’s website, High-income business writing
–Ed Gandia’s e-book on e-mail marketing

As I’ve mentioned in my newsletter, I’ve been meaning (for a while) to start a Training for Translators podcast, for people who like their information in audio form. And what do you know, it finally happened! Episodes one and two are available in Apple Podcasts and on Spotify, or you can listen right here.

The podcast is pretty simple; it’s just me, reading and commenting on past posts from the Training for Translators blog. Episode one is based on this post, on the pros and cons of pricing your translation work (here we’re talking only about translation, not interpreting) by the word, by the project, and by the hour.

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This post is the basis for episode three of the T4T podcast! Listen to it in Apple Podcasts or on Spotify (the podcast is just called Training for Translators), or directly on the T4T blog, here.

Greetings, Training for Translators readers! The T4T “school year” is off to a great start, with an enthusiastic group of people in the four-week Getting Started course, and an excellent direct client marketing master class last week! Next up is Translating official documents from French to English, on October 7 (kind of a bonus class since I don’t do many language-specific things!) and then Aiming for six figures as a freelancer, on October 23.

This week’s topic: If you’re applying to agencies, expect to contact them two to six times before they send you work

But first…is it still worth applying to agencies? I thought you might ask that, so I wrote a blog post on that topic a few months ago; you can read it here.

Anyone applying to agencies has this fantasy: We send off an application to an agency, and they respond right away! “We have a 10,000-word project, just waiting for you!” “Are you booked for next week? We have a five-day conference that needs interpreters!” But it doesn’t usually work that way! Once in a while, perhaps, but typically things go more like this: We apply via the agency’s website, followed by radio silence, and we decide they don’t need us, and we move on.

Where do those online applications go?

It’s easy to think that online applications go to a black hole, but the reality is that they’re probably going to an agency staffed by well-meaning people who have other jobs. It’s rare that small or medium-sized agencies have a vendor manager or recruiter; typically those tasks are given to someone who already has another full-time job. Even at large agencies, the vendor manager(s) or recruiter(s) are probably focused on hard-to-find languages or specializations. If that’s you, you may get a response to your online application, but most of us will not. That doesn’t mean that this step is worthless, but the online application is simply the first step.

Here’s the truth: if you are applying “cold” to an agency (you aren’t being referred by another freelancer who works with them; this is always the best option), you’re probably going to have to contact them two to six times before they send you work.

What are the two to six contacts?

Here’s what I would suggest:

1. Apply via the agency’s website, unless you are looking only for specialized work that they may or may not need, in which case, contact them first. Here’s what I mean: if you’re a Spanish to English legal translator, just go ahead and apply, because there’s a strong chance that the agency provides this service. If you want to translate only for the museum sector, if you do Japanese conference interpreting, if you translate Tagalog to English, it’s worth starting with step three, because you want to make sure that the agency handles this type of work before you apply to them. Also, a pro tip: Use any available opportunity to show that you’re a human, when you fill out the application. If there’s a field called  “Additional information,” “Anything you want to tell us,” etc. never leave it blank. Add something like, “Thank you so much for the opportunity to apply as an English to German patent translator with [name of agency]. I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully working together in the near future.”
2. If you get any acknowledgement of receipt, other than an auto-responder, reply to it. If a human responds, even to say, “We’ve received your application and we’ll let you know if we need you,” respond back with something like the “Thank you so much…” message above. Also: nudge. Keep the ball rolling. “Please let me know if you need anything else from me.” “Please let me know what the next steps are.” “Please let me know when I can expect to hear from you about the testing process.” The person responding to you is incredibly busy and you’re one applicant among many, so you need to keep the process moving forward.
3. If you get no response to your online application, start looking for the agency’s staff on LinkedIn. Keep in mind the constraint that LinkedIn has recently imposed on personalized connection requests; in most cases, if you don’t have Premium, you’re limited to five personalized requests per month. You definitely want these connection requests to be personalized. Put the agency’s name into the LinkedIn search box, then click “People,” and you’ll find anyone with the agency’s name in their profile. Ideally, you want a vendor manager, recruiter, or project manager, unless the agency is really small, in which case it matters less who you contact. Send a connection request, with a simple message: “Hello Melissa, I hope you’re doing well! I recently applied for English to Japanese translation work via [name of agency]’s website; I’m just following up and inquiring about next steps.” You can write 300 characters and that’s 186 characters, so even with a short signoff and your name, it will fit.
4. At the same time, use any contact information that you can find on the agency’s website. E-mail their general info@ e-mail address if you can’t find anything else. Just keep plugging away until a human responds to you. Call them on the phone if you’re feeling brave.
5. Agencies all have mailing addresses! I’m a big fan of sending handwritten things in the mail, but that’s harder with so many people working from home. Still, the agency itself should have a mailing address that shouldn’t be too difficult to find, either on their website or in an association directory. For the cost of a card and a stamp, write something simple: “I recently applied for Italian to English scientific translation work via your website; I look forward to hearing from you and hopefully working together soon.” Enclose a business card. I know this seems kind of retro/shot in the dark, but go ahead and try it; it can’t hurt, and no one sends anything interesting in the mail these days.
6. Wash, rinse, repeat. Years ago, I gave a series of webinars for a translation agency, and the owner said something simple but really helpful: When you’re applying to agencies, keep following up until you get a yes or a no. With direct clients, you don’t want to be a pest, because you don’t know if they need you. Agencies need translators and interpreters, whether or not they need you specifically. Keep at it until the agency responds in some way: we need you, we don’t need you, here’s our testing process, here’s what else we need from you.

I personally could not meet my income goals translating (not interpreting) exclusively for agencies. I also have zero interest in editing machine translation, which is the direction that a lot of agencies have gone. And yet, there are still good agencies out there, or agencies that have larger budgets for specific projects. I hope that these techniques are helpful if you’re in the agency application cycle!

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Greetings, Training for Translators readers! I hope you’re all doing well! The first T4T class of the “school year” (Getting started as a freelance translator or interpreter, in the age of AI) has kicked off, and I’m excited for what the rest of 2024 has in store.

Direct client master class on September 18

This month’s master class, Marketing to direct clients and increasing your income, is on September 18. Registration ($75) includes the recording, and we’ll discuss doable ways to market to direct clients, and how to make sure you’re charging enough to reach your target income. Given the significant changes in the agency market in the past few years, for many freelancers, the time to market to direct clients is now. But if you’re new to the direct client market, it can be hard to know who to contact and what to charge. We’ll get you started in this two-hour class!

In other news…

• For the second year in a row, Ruth Gámez and Fernando Cuñado are running a September Spanish Marketing Challenge, using some of the materials from the T4T March Marketing Madness group, plus their own additions. This year’s challenge runs from September 16-30 and you can sign up for $49 or join their online community, in which case it’s free! 
• Mireya Perez interviewed me for her podcast, Brand the Interpreter. We had a lot of fun talking about business development for translators and interpreters, and you can listen to the episode here, or in your favorite podcast app!
• If you’re looking for in-depth business development help, Joe Lépine has three spots left in his two-month coaching program, Squeak to Roar. This is not an affiliate deal; Joe’s classes for T4T have gotten excellent reviews, and he reports that this program is “for introverted translators who hate marketing,” and it combines both group and individual coaching.

This week’s topic: Two mindset shifts that really help me

I often feel like success as a freelancer is half practicality and half mentality. Meaning, you can’t succeed as a freelancer without actually doing things to keep your business thriving, whether that’s marketing to better clients, attending professional development events, or keeping your technology setup updated. And you can’t succeed as a freelancer without the right mindset: if you believe that you’ll never work for better clients or earn more money, you’re probably right!

Today, let’s focus on mindset, with two mindset tips that really help me!

1: “Who should I be serving?”

This mindset shift really helps me figure out who I should be working for and who I should market to. It’s really easy to get discouraged about marketing in particular, if you view it as, “Here goes another round of spam to people who don’t want to hear from me anyway!” Instead, flip the script:

• Where can my skills be most useful?
• Who really needs my services, but can’t yet work with me, because they don’t know me?

I also don’t want to work with clients who don’t value what I have to offer; asking myself, “Am I truly serving this client’s needs?” is really helpful, because I can focus on clients who truly are the right fit. I also think that this treasure hunt mindset can make marketing a lot less onerous. Think about the service providers in your life who you truly love; even if they’re expensive, they save you so much time and hassle that you’re thrilled to work with them (my accountant, my website manager, and my landscaper are all in this category). Ask yourself, how can you be that kind of service provider to your clients? What would that mean? Who would you be working for if you focused primarily on where you can be useful?

2: Some clients can’t afford you, and that’s OK

This is a piece of wisdom I gleaned from my friend and colleague Steve Lank, who trained at MIIS and now works as the CEO of Cesco Linguistic Services. Many or even most of us react very negatively when a potential client tells us that our rates are too high for them. It doesn’t matter if you’re a freelancer or an agency; we tend to think that the problem is with us; we’re overpriced, we’re not competitive, our rates of out of line with market norms.

Years ago, I interviewed Steve about marketing to agencies, and he made the point that it’s much more correct, and more helpful, to reframe this as, some clients cannot afford us, and that’s OK. We all would love to have or do things in life that we can’t afford, right? As much money as I could ever have available to spend on travel, I could spend all of it and more. It’s not that the travel experiences I’d love to have are overpriced, it’s that it’s not in my budget to participate in all of them.

This mindset shift has really helped me; instead of anguishing over every client who thinks I’m too expensive, it’s a lot easier to think, “I’m not in their budget,” or “They need someone less expensive,” rather than that the problem is me, which it’s not.

This goes back to feeling confident about what you need or want to earn, which you can calculate using my Deciding what to charge spreadsheet. When you have confidence in your rates, it’s a lot easier to have confidence in the work that you turn down, because the client can’t afford you.

The freelance mindset is always a work in progress; I hope that these tips are helpful to you!