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!
Written by corinnemckay
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
What about translation studios (my preferred nomenclature)? I’m obviously far more mini than mega and yet I state clearly on my site that I have a small team of hand-picked translators, but that the QA process is all handled by me. No-one has objected yet… Other (direct client) small businesses seem to accept naturally enough that one person doesn’t do all the work. They also get all the benefits you list above of dealing with a freelancer, including the vital to-and-froing on questions of vocabulary preferences. In my sector, arts and culture, I’m rarely asked about confidentiality. I am the only point of contact so it’s a very personal affair… I don’t really think much about the competition, even though it’s out there of course.
Thanks Andrew! I think the main takeaway here is to sell the advantage of what you are. Here’s what bugs me about mega-agencies: Wal-Mart and Target don’t say “Come here to buy heirloom-quality stuff that you’ll pass down to your grandchildren.” They say “We have a ton of stuff, and it’s really cheap.” You can see the parallels with our industry! For a great example of a boutique translation company that’s totally transparent about who they are and what they do, check out Grant Hamilton’s Anglocom. For example it’s the only translation company website I’ve seen where they prominently feature their translators, not just “trust us-our translators are incredible!”
PS I also do a fair bit of tourism stuff, where clients ask for translations into DE, ES and NL. They know it’s not me with 4 hats on doing everything :-). I mean small companies, boutique hotels, etc….
Great post Corinne! Being clear about we can and can’t do, do and don’t do is really important. We need to be honest with our clients to make sure they get the best possible service and don’t get a false impression which inevitably leads to expectations we may not be able to meet.
Thanks Karen!
Excellent post, as always! You actually said it all about the differences between professional translators and big translation agencies. That is exactly the way I see things and how I go about direct customers.
Thanks Eric!
I completely agree, though I am new to the trade I strive to be honest about my limitations, but also making sure the client knows exactly what they get. I can offer a closer working relationship with the client and tend to their needs, which an agency might have more difficulty doing.
Not to mention, that clients get to know you too, so it’s not just a one way street. I compare it a bit to local shopping vs. supermarkets. A local shop will know your name, your likes and dislikes, they may not have everything you want/need, but they are nice and you have a bit of a chat about how things are etc. At a local supermarket, you can get almost everything you want, but you don’t get that personal service the local shop can give you.
Thanks Rikke! That’s a great analogy!
About a month ago, I wrote a blog post about the advantages for clients to use a freelancer rather than an agency and pretty much covered the same points. One thing I also mentioned is that, as you get to know the client’s requirements, style, terminology, etc., you also translate their text faster. As I charge per hour as much as possible, this means that the client may save money a little over time. It makes the client want to stick to me even more as they feel they get something like a small loyalty discount and, since I am paid for my time, it seems perfectly fair.
One more aspect worth mentioning is that agencies don’t always use the best person for the job, but often one of the cheapest. By working directly with a translator, the client can have a chat with us and be confident that we have sufficient knowledge of their field; they know who’s doing the actual work.
Thanks Karine! I’ll check out your post! Really interesting example about charging per hour and how that compensates you for the time you actually spend, but could potentially save the client money.
I think charging per hour is better and fairer for both the translator and the client. If you’re interested, this post explains my view on it: http://linguisticalchemy.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/words-for-sale/
Thanks Karine! Overall, I agree: I think the issue we face is that for whatever reason, a lot of agency clients are resistant to paying an hourly rate that’s equivalent to what they’re already paying by the word. For example I think that lots of translators who work for even mid-market agencies make the equivalent of $75-$90 an hour, especially if they use TM on projects where the agency doesn’t require it. But for some reason, agencies generally resist paying rates that high when they’re paying by the hour. I’m still trying to figure that one out 🙂
The difference is that when the agecny or client is mentally processing a per-word rate, it’s about the product (the translation). And perhaps ultimately about the client himself (the translation which sells my products/services). On the other hand, an hourly rate is more about the vendor. The person. It becomes less about the value of the product (the translation the client receives and then uses) or the benefits it enables (which can be quite valuable), it becomes more about the translator’s perceived value (which can be pretty low).
The causes may be two: 1) the general failure of translators to inspire respect, or 2) the lack of a recognized connection between the value enabled by the translation and the value of the translator’s work.
In other words, the translator’s work may be seen as something which may well be necessary in order to get the millions to come in but is still worth pennies in itself.
This is similar to how in some people’s minds the author deserves gold and glory, as does the publisher, and the distributor and everybody else really except for the translator, who should take his six cents and go away.
Somebody’s notion of justice is apparently such that due to his own effort he *deserves* whatever profit he can make, while the translator’s work is something like a visa in a reporter’s passport: you can’t get there without it, but it doesn’t write your stories. Or publish them. So it’s not worth more than a couple bucks, a couple dozen bucks if you really need it or if the place’s really worth going to.
While the whole ‘your translation partner’ thing is not to my taste, translators who bill themselves as ‘your partner’ probably intuitively know what they’re doing. Partners or shareholders get a share in the profit. Subcontractors get just the wage. Profit sharing is not for them. Something an agency owner once spelt out for me.
(I returned the favour and the gift of a free lesson to him by spelling it out for him that it was in the nature of an intermediary to live off of a commission surcharge on the fees of those who provided the service.)
Lukegos, sadly, I think you are right. Our work is seen as a commodity, a “product”. But we do not sell a measurable product; we sell a service, a skill, and while many people can speak more than one language, not many make good translators.
Too many translators fall in the trap of simply accepting what the industry and agencies do rather than think for themselves: “I am self-employed. I am my own boss. I set the rules”. This is not to say that we cannot be flexible and accommodating, but we should know our limits before things turn to exploitation or unsustainable conditions.
I sell (my skills, not my translations) on quality, not on price. Of course some clients will not pay the higher rate, but those who do are more appreciative and rarely ask for crazy deadlines. They respect you as a human being, not a language machine, and I think that’s where too many agencies go wrong.
I agree with most of what you said, Corinne.
But I don’t agree that individual translators should never use “pluralis majestatis” in their communications with direct clients.
Many translators are in fact one-man or one-woman agencies (and these are usually the best agencies around). And who is better suited to manage a complicated project requiring several translators – a PM who does not understand the languages and/or the fields in question, or a translator who has been translating the same languages in the same fields for years or decades?
Although most of my income is generated from my own translations, every year I also keep busy at least half a dozen translators with projects that I organize and then proofread and unlike most large agencies, I stick with the same translators for the same type of jobs for as long as they are willing to work for me.
In fact, at this moment I am putting together a major rush translation project that I will be sharing with 2 or 3 other translators due to the short deadline, although I will try to translate myself as much of it as I can within the limited time period available to us, and I will then proofreade another project that will be done by 2 other translators for me next week.
The plural that many individual translators who specialize use is often justified because the division between the term “translator” and “translation agency” is mostly in our heads as a result of clever propaganda of some agencies.
I think that the main difference between translators and agencies is this:
We can usually do what agencies are doing, and do it much better because we are translators and thus have a level of understanding of translation projects that generally cannot be expected from project managers of translation agencies.
But the one thing that, unlike translators, a typical agency cannot do is …. translate.
Thanks Steve! You’re correct: when I say “one-person shops,” I mean people (like me) who rarely or never subcontract work to other people. I do think that single-language vendors and boutique translation companies have a lot to offer, in the sense that the person running them can hand-pick their translators, and can either QA all the documents or at least knows much more about the process than the average mega-agency PM does.
Great post Corinne. I may be wrong, but I think in the past freelancers tended to use “we” to conceal the fact they worked alone because there were fewer of them about. Nowadays, freelance is a well-known, and growing, concept so it’s actually advantageous to promote the “I” for the very reasons you mention.
Thanks Alison! You’re probably right about that: now that our industry is not “moving toward” an independent contractor paradigm (we’re there!), I think it’s counterproductive to use “we.”
Great post! I do ask many questions, but I explain to the client that while I understand the text, I want to make sure I get the terminology right. I also try to keep it to one e-mail a day instead of flooding their inboxes.
Thank you! Good tip about one e-mail per day!
Nice post, thank you! I agree, small agencies are the best to work with as a freelancer. And it’s encouraging to note that most small agencies start out as freelancers. So much we can do by working together.
Thanks for your comment!
Let me chip in to thank you, also, Corinne. I can agree with both you and Martin about the use of the royal “we”. In my case, I developed the habit when in fact I was running a three-person C Corporation, and Hillary and I were handling more than one language. Your post has made me more aware of saying “I”, which is probably healthy in the context that you are describing. On the other hand, my company is a separate legal entity from myself, even though there’s just one of me now. Sometimes it will still need to be “we”.
The most important point, however, comes through loud and clear: be honest about what I/we can do and cannot do.
(Correction) Let me chip in to thank you, also, Corinne. I can agree with both you and Steve about the use of the royal “we”. In my case, I developed the habit when in fact I was running a three-person C Corporation, and Hillary and I were handling more than one language. Your post has made me more aware of saying “I”, which is probably healthy in the context that you are describing. On the other hand, my company is a separate legal entity from myself, even though there’s just one of me now. Sometimes it will still need to be “we”.
The most important point, however, comes through loud and clear: be honest about what I/we can do and cannot do.
Thanks Jonathan! I agree; if you’re a “we” (like Andrew and Steve’s examples), say “we,” because you have a lot to offer as a multi-person shop. But I agree: the main point here is to sell the advantage of what you are, and let others sell the advantage of what they are.
I agree with Patenttranslator above… if you are in fact working as a team, apart from being untrue, it also seems rather arrogant to present everything as your own work.
Incidentally, the words ‘Project Manager’ never cross my mind, even though that forms part of what I do. I am a translator who delegates.
Project managers, like tourists, are by definition *other* people. I, of course, am a ‘traveller’ 🙂
Excellent post Corinne. One more detail to add. I spent many years in Vendor Mgmt and as a PM in (small – med) agencies, and now work solo as a linguist and PM for end clients and some agencies. I’ve seen most all sides over 21 yrs, including interacting with the giants. When end clients deal with med-lg agencies, they cannot be sure they are dealing with experienced people, professionals who are devoted to the industry. Not that I have _anything_ against a young PM, but some agencies I’ve been exposed to have PMs who know/care zero about the material they are “trafficking” other than price, and they don’t really see their job as much more than a temp job, a checklist. They don’t know the linguists they’re assigning to (because they do cattle calls). Of course there are many great dedicated PMs out there too!! But an end client has to roll the dice with big agencies on that front.
Thanks Michelle! Great insights (worth of a podcast!). And I agree: lots of mega-agency PMs are simply in an administration and sales job; it’s not really important what they’re administering or selling. So I think that one-person agencies and freelance PMs who know a lot about the industry can add a huge amount of value!
Fantastic post! I was really pleased to read these guidelines: like Rikke, I’m a newbie as well, one year this month, and in my marketing and networking I always focus on knowing your limits as I believe it’s one of the most important attributes a translator (or any freelancer can have). It sometimes feels a little counterproductive to talk about limits when marketing yourself, so it’s very good to hear that I’m not the only one who considers this a valuable selling point. It’s true, though: there’s nothing worse than a resource who can’t say no or makes promises they can’t keep.
You actually just inspired me to tell a story about this on my site, in case anyone’s interested:
http://omegalanguage.com/2014/05/get-up-stand-up-1-having-the-confidence-to-say-no (going live on Thurs 8th May)
Thanks Megan! Personally, I turn down work all the time. I think that specializing more and more narrowly over time is good for me and for my clients. It’s always hard to do, because in my heart I know that the client will often (or maybe even “almost always”) pass the work on to someone who is even less qualified in their subject area than I am. But I think that in the end, saying “I only accept work where I can do an outstanding job, and this isn’t it,” is the best answer.
More translators should refuse the absurd demands we’re increasingly faced with these days.
Great post Corinne, I might just piggy back on it if that is alright with you. Regarding what you said about the mega companies, it’s all about the money. The sales people don’t really care, or know, if a project is doable. All they know is that they probably have a monthly target and that they receive commissions from each sale. Communication between sales and PMs is especially hard in mega-agencies, and even smaller ones.
To know if you can carry out a project or not, means that you are, indeed, very good at what you do.
Thanks Dorin!
In some small agencies, Dorin, sales and PM are the same person. And the secretary, coffee maker and CEO and communications director. 🙂
You’re definitely right, Andrew! I do think that the one-person agency can work well for a lot of clients. For example a colleague who runs a one-person agency told me that she explains to her clients that using her is not necessarily cheaper than a mega-agency, but a much greater percentage of the client’s budget goes to the actual translation, not to overhead and administrative expenses (since she, like you, makes the coffee!).
I suppose one could put it like this: While the bill is the same or close, there’s a much higher budget for the translator’s pay, which means that more can be squeezed in, and the translator is more dedicated to the job (also on account of the improved satisfaction), can afford to work slowly and so on, and first of all it can be a higher-grade translator. So it’s basically like same price tag but premium goods and possibly premium service.
Yup. By definition, the simplest USP/UAP between an agency and a freelance translator is that an agency is an agency, and a freelance translator is a freelance translator. Agencies may gain by pretending to be translators, but nromal translators generally don’t stand to gain by acting like an agency. Thus, it’s a good idea to cut the agency-like rhetoric and just act like a sole practitioner. But I really mean this: a sole practitioner. Not a guy or gal in a jumpsuit who proudly puts ‘professional’ on his or her website like that’s the highest accolade the trade can bestow. (Effectively far less professional than the plumber or car mechanic, forget nurse or PA or cop or soldier.)
The above is precisely the reason why I have some reservations about the first person. Solo lawyers rarely use it. Not sure about doctors, but I’d be surprised by a high incidence. I’ve seen translators use the third person, though rarely, and I tend to experiment with it myself, signing my name somewhere visible to make it look like a letter addressed to the client when I actually speak in the first. Otherwise it tends to look like a student applying for a scholarship or a desperate grad applying for a first job.
We need respect, and the traditional freelance translator act isn’t giving us much. It takes a celebrity translator to get the hourly rate commanded by the average accountant ($200) or paralegal, forget lawyer or doctor ($300 in the bottom range). The protocol generally follows the pay grade ($30-40, 60 for recognisable translators). Or it can get worse, as we’re getting awfully close to becoming a concierge profession due to all the focus on obeying and pleasing and being flexible. Interpreters know more about this, being familiar with situations like receiving no chair or plate or being asked to drive or whatever else a personal vallet would do.
Suiting up for photos and ditching the typical naïve first-person presentation could help, along with the traditional assurances of itching to work on the client’s projects and being amenable to direction from the client’s style guides etc. just like our chief value lies in carrying out instructions to the letter.
Regarding full responsibility for your work — that’s actually more complicated than it may seem. Legal liability is already a complicated issue, but one needs to look at it also from a more economic perspective, given that civil law is all about the distribution of economic burdens and risks.
In specific situations, it may look like you made the error or otherwise did some offending thing, but on the other hand it was the client’s business model and pursuit of risky, corner-cutting savings, which made sure that the error could not be correct and was instead allowed to do damage. Or it may have been someone’s incompetence which caused that the damage was allowed to go on instead of being mitigated or even totally averted.
In some other situations, you’re assisting a client who’s in a tough spot, and you didn’t get your client there. You’re merely trying to help him out. The law may look unfavourably on the rescuer in such cases, still expecting some sort of insurance-like full take-over of responsibility, risks included, like a good professional supposedly should.
The bottom line is, there’s gotta be some contract putting reasonable limits and restrictions on your liability. Which is not actually unfair — that’s what your rates buy. If the client wants more, the client can get insurance. Or pay you more. You can treat risk assumption as a service which you either provide or not, or provide it only to a certain extent, finding reflection in the price. Which, again, is fair.
As regards confidentiality, well, circulation is more restricted with a freelancer, but freelancers are generally cash-limited and just can’t afford the kind of nuke-proof security measures even some agencies seem to require of their translators. So yeah, there is confidentiality in this, but on the other hand it’s impossible to comply with quite a couple of security standards that matter to specific clients. So if it’s just about keeping one’s mouth shut and not letting too many people know, then the freelancer wins, but if it’s about compliance, then the agency wins.
A highly relevant post, Corinne (when do you find the time?), not least in light of the current debate on the ATA bp list about CPD/CE and the need for translators to deepen their subject area expertise, fast. And it’s that personal expertise that is surely one of the key “points of difference” between individual translators and agencies. Many agencies claim to have specializations, but in almost all cases, they’re actually “borrowed” specializations that depend crucially on the goodwill of the translators who work for them. The large mass-market agencies, on the other hand, can only ever hope to meet two criteria in the project management triangle (deadline and cost – forget quality), though I’m often astonished at how much they charge for delivering so little.
I would ask you to remember though that there are other players in the game than individual translators and agencies: partnerships like our own, with the partners supported by staff translators, project managers, language technology specialists, and other back-office staff. We’re a highly specialized financial translation boutique, for example, combining a very high level of personal expertise with excellent project management and language technology tailored to specific projects. What we do *is* very hard work, I have to stress, but it allows us to take on the big agencies on our own terms when we want to. Of course we’re not chasing the high volume, low margin work, but why should we?
There are quite a lot of other specialized boutiques like us out there – not as many as I think there should be, but the number does appear to be growing all the time. Trust is a vital component of any partnership, so I also think this sort of business model has to evolve organically and incrementally if it’s to be successful. But it can be made to work, and I really do think this model offers an attractive long-term pathway for individual translators willing to cooperate – including virtually: the business itself doesn’t necessarily have to be sited at a single location.
Thanks Robin! I agree that the boutique/studio model is a really good one (applies to most of my agency clients). You give some great examples here: the agency side of the business *is* a lot of work, and agencies can add a ton of value by freeing their translators up to translate. For example, one of my boutique agency clients even *tells me how much they charge the end client*, and I think that their margin is fair for the amount of work that they do. In addition, you guys find the clients in the first place, which is also huge, especially for translators who hate marketing. And I also agree that although what mega-agencies pay translators is often depressingly low, the mega-agency’s rates to the end client are proportionally quite high. Thanks for these great points!
Re: The *tells me how much they charge the end client*, that’s something I try to put in place, though for obvious reasons I can’t pursue it too forcefully. My philosophy is that I can take the same work for less if an agency I like isn’t making much on the deal. But I’m rather indignant when an agency tries to make markup by squeezing premium fees out of clients while chipping away at my rates. Or when the markup stays the same, but their ‘best rates’ for end clients effectively come out of my own pocket (i.e. both end price and labour costs go down while profit margin stays the same). See, I can accept the fact that some good, kind folks that are nice to work with aren’t really that good at selling or even putting their foot down, we all have our limitations. But I don’t want to be the sponsor. Plus, I sometimes just get into that enterpreneurial mood when the PM and I are trying to land a client together (the PM does the talking, but I do a large part of the fishing with my free sample). It does totally change things when you know how much the agency charges the client.
For the record, from what I’ve heard a specialized translation to or from an exotic languages can cost in the forties while the translator may well be paid seven cents a word. It’s really hard at this point not to just undercut the MLV’s on the price by just simply saying: ‘Hey, client! I can do that for you for twenty.’ (And either do it faster or throw in additional polish because there’s less admin lag.)
Corrine, A great post. And also a good example of social media at work, because I came across it as a result of a tweet. I am now following you.
I run a technology company that enables Remote Interpreting Assignments to be fulfilled. We have recognised that the single most important ingredient in the market is the freelance interpreter, and are doing everything we can to encourage your interpreting cousins to take as much control as they can over who, where, when and for how much they work; and to break away from the stranglehold that a few mega agencies in the Telephone Interpreting industry excert.
Thanks Marcus! Great point that the single most important ingredient is the person who actually provides the language service!
Hi Corrine,
So good to see you affirm my thoughts on knowing what you do best, and doing that very thing. I have received requests recently from agencies that make me think they have not even read my resume. I am a French/English medical translator, but I receive requests for translations concerning power plants, legal documents,electric production plants etc. I stay with my specialty because that is what I am best at. I was a Registered Nurse for many years and have spent a lot of time making sure I am familiar with all kinds of medical material. But I am not so hot at power plants, solar energy, pipe fittings etc.
Keep writing and sharing your thoughts on the translation field.
Jessie Nelson
I will just add that every business, whether a one person translation shop, or a multi-national corporation can benefit by cultivating a defined identity. The old saying is “if you stand for everything you stand for nothing.”