Monthly Archives: June 2014

Know What You’re Worth (and Work It)

confidenceIf you want to make more money you only have to do three things: deliver the goods, charge accordingly, and convince your clients that it’s a good investment.

It may seem like the first two should go without saying, but it’s amazing how many aspiring translators never get to step two. I almost got stuck at step one myself. I stumbled into the profession years ago when I discovered this intriguing site called Proz.com. I know now that the rates most agencies pay there are a tad on the stingy side, shall we say, but I am still thankful because this platform taught me a lot and enabled me to gain the experience I needed to build what is now a thriving business. (Note to agencies on Proz.com who offer subpar rates: if you’re lucky you’ll get a fledgling top translator at the start of his/her career or an experienced translator with poor business skills, but more often than not you’ll get what you pay for.)

But at some point you have to do more than just deliver the goods, or your clients will be happy to keep you working weekends at ridiculous rates. So here  is a simply two-step plan to get higher rates: Continue reading →

It’s Not About You — Pitching to Clients

“Your sales pitch should focus on the client’s needs, not on you.”

It’s not like I’d never heard this before, and in fact some of you have given similar advice on your own blogs. But you know how it is, sometimes you need to be told ten times before you do anything about it. So after attending a webinar by a consultant named Brennan Dunn in which he also hammered home the fact that clients are interested in your solution to their problem, not the boring details of your life, I finally decided to take a good, objective look at the text of my website.

BoringWhat an eye-opener that was.

What I thought was an interesting, solid spiel, was, in fact, a showroom display of every mistake in the book. Continue reading →