How to get more clients without spending more on advertising

Things have been going pretty well lately. Translation, interpretation and copy-writing assignments have kept me busy during January and February. Surely, I felt tired constantly but the truth is, I have had the time of my life with interesting tasks, exciting new topics and two book translations. Every time I was asked by my friends or colleagues about how I was doing, I responded with a simple but true statement: "I could not enjoy my work more..."

Oftentimes in this profession, we get stuck with daily / weekly assignments and have no time left for other duties to fulfil, such as administration, handling invoices and yes, dedicating our time and money to self-advertising. Sometimes I wish I had the resources to hire some professional help, like a personal assistant or something. Then there are other days when I simply enjoy marketing duties and find it pretty easy to acquire new clients.

However, based on my previous experiences and my out-of-the-box mindset, I collected a list of different methods to get more clients without having to either spend a fortune or dedicate much time to the task.

• Increasing online presence (Are you on LinkedIn yet? How about Proz.com?)
• Networking (Not necessarily in professional events...)
• Newsletters (I know..."been there, done that...")
• Getting personal with clients (e.g. birthday messages)
• Word-of-mouth (Never miss an opportunity to tell about your freelance profession - and never think of it as self-indulgence!)

Using these tactics have gotten me 4 new and many more potential clients for March. Right now, I am testing how much I can handle. Anyway, I am up for the challenge! You should be too!

Effective time management

As someone who is constantly racing against the clock, I figured it was important to look for some time management tips on the Internet. Effectively managing your time is indeed a skill - a very important one in today's ever-changing, rushing world.

The next picture perfectly represents all the classic mistakes that have been made by many of us in the past. We all want to stay inside the productive zone which is there for the highest value in quality, though not frustrated by a deadline yet. Although I must admit that there are times when a slight push of a deadline that is coming closer and closer might give me a little more incentive. You see, I might enjoy a bit of challenge when it comes to deadlines.

The busy zone is the one we turn into when the deadline has come inevitably close and it cannot be denied anymore. No more hesitation is allowed: we are ready to get busy, though, our productivity is not at its highest.

A fruitless zone usually takes place when we feel like we have much time (and energy) left and we occupy ourselves with completely meaningful tasks such as hanging on social media, chatting with friends over the phone, spending time on Ebay, you name it. The worst part is that a fruitless zone is a result-less zone.

The crisis zone is the worst of all possible situations - this is when we are about to lose control. Deadline pressure is becoming higher and higher and so does the demand for quality. In this case, effective crisis management is needed to solve the issue.

Treating your clients in a kind and generous way

It has been a long time since I posted on my blog, and that happened so because I have been fortunate to get as many clients in the last few weeks as I could possibly hope for. Obviously, I am thankful for all the opportunity I have been given and I know that there is a factor of luck lying in there - however, I am also convinced that my approach to clients and the way I treat them has something to do with my current success.

What exactly I mean by treating your clients right?

Well, it is certainly no rocket science and you do not have to be a psychologist to encounter all the tricks.
Below, I present a few small steps to take in order to make your clients feel welcome and treat them the way they should be treated.

1. Use a helpful, kind and respectful  tone when communicating with them

Whether you reach out to clients via e-mail or phone, always find your best manner and try to be as kind as you can. I am not talking about being too flattering - after all, you are equal business partners - but applying a polite behaviour has never hurt anybody.

2. Offer them solutions specifically designed to their issues

Every company has a different purpose when they turn to translation services / freelance professionals. Some are in favor of reasonable prices, others are looking for a fast and smooth workflow. There are those who seek for not only linguistic but professional advice. As a pro translator, it is your job to find out what exactly your client needs - it is of predominant importance  for everyone who wants to succeed in this industry.

3. See the person behind the client

Every company is made up by human beings just like you. They have their strenghts and weaknesses, sometimes they win, other times they fail. Never forget to hold on to your clients whenever they experience a recession / crisis. As brighter days arrive, they will remember to the loyalty you demonstrated.

4. Always put your clients first

When you work in the freelance business, one thing is sacred above all: your biggest priority should be your client. I have met several aspiring and talented young translators who were simply destined to fail because no matter how great and valuable work they produced, they forgot to put their clients first. They were unwilling to work in the weekend when a client needed so. They put a friends' night out ahead of an important, last minute assignment. They never came to understand the fact that this business is of the client, by the client and for the client.

5. Be a little personal

Have you ever thought about cheering on your top clients on their birthdays and anniversaries? I think you'd have to! It takes a few extra minutes and only one small act of kindness. Send out birthday cards via email and make it a regular assignment.
As the holiday season comes, I am planning to surprise my dearest and most loyal clients with some colourful and funny well-wishes cards for Christmas. You should too!

What are your take on this issue? How are you engaging your clients? How do you make sure you keep them close and how do you appretiate their loyalty? Do not be afraid of sharing your words! :)

Entrepreneurally-minded freelancers

When it comes to defining who you are, do you consider yourself solely a freelancer, or, like many of us, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur as well?

Depending on how you answer that question, you pretty much position your value in the market. To me, freelancers are those who perform their duties by translating documents / writing articles / making graphic design etc. Entrepreneurs - solopreneurs, to be more specific - are those who not only are capable of attaining their professional responsibilities but are the ones who can turn their goods / services / talents into a profit. Entreprenuers are the ones to sell the great ideas of different languages - something we call a translation.

In my early days of arrival to the translation industry, I often met phrases like "In the freelance world, you have to be a great marketer of yourself"; "You won't succeed unless you have a great sense of business"; or "Running a freelance business requires just as much effort and expertise as any other business." For a moment, I refused to believe in all that. I thought that I was not going to need any business tactics or plans in order to be a successful translator. I had a firm belief that if I am a great professional of my area of expertise than I would not need any marketing skills and clients would come to me anyway. Shorty after that, I figured that a lack of business spirit was not the way to go.

Since I never graduated from business school and the only business-related courses I had at the university gave me nothing but headaches, I decided to turn to the beautiful world of the Internet to learn about marketing, PR, advertisement, online solutions and social media. I was lucky enough to discover a marvellous website of the International Freelancers Academy which I strongly recommend for any freelancer worker to take a look at. Ed Gandia shares wonderful tips and useful information for all of us.
I also highly recommend to review last year's official report about the freelance industry. (https://s3.amazonaws.com/ifdconference/2012report/Freelance+Industry+Report+2012+updated.pdf )

* Interesting data from the report: did you know that the majority of freelancers in the world are women? (71,1%) Recently, I was told that freelancer women are also called shelancers. Funny, right? :)

Given my hunger for information and my determination to become a pro freelancer - not to mention all the available literature of business, strategic planning and marketing - today, I am wiser, smarter, better educated and more prepared to succeed in the freelance market. I know that I must have strategies, plans, backup plans, solutions and new, innovative ideas in my arsenal. I am not afraid to learn something new every day and I always appretiate help from other freelancers / busines thinkers with greater experience.

How do you address this problem? Are you happy to be considered a solopreneur? Do you enjoy all the marketing aspects of your freelance work? If you feel different, what do you hate the most about this type of entrepreneurship?

Why I translate?

There has been a growing buzz around the hashtag #whyxl8 on Twitter recently. On the verge of International Translation Day, Marta Stelmaszak started a conversation among linguist professionals which I think is worth an entire blogpost to reflect on.

Why do we translate?

Surely, everyone had different answers and opinions to the question. There are some who said that they translate because of their love of languages and cultures. Others mentioned the importance of translation as a factor that keeps the world moving. Sharing information or being a role player in intercultural communication were also popular answers.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: we translate out of love. Whether it is love for languages, words or communities, the passion for cultural exchange or opening new markets for companies, it all happens out of love. You won't be able to make it in this industry unless you truly love what you do.

To me, translation is all about helping and serving. It is no coincidence that translation & localization belongs to the service industry - we serve, we help, we contribute to something great, for a better cause.

As a born helper and giver, this is exactly what I mostly enjoy in my profession - being able to help. Whenever I translate a legal document from English to Hungarian, I help my fellow countrymen by giving them a chance to understand it correctly. Whenever I translate a tourist guide from Hungarian to German, I help German people to get to know my country better.

I sincerely believe that my attitude toward translation - the fact that I consider myself a helper - is what makes me humble and passionate about my work.

Why do you translate?  Share your thoughts on Twitter #whyxl8

How saving money on translation can take its toll

That's right, dear CEOs, managers, marketing and PR professionals, I am talking to you right now. This post is going to be all about your greediness, your miserliness and you not wanting to spend much money on language-related services. This is something that me and my colleagues experience on a daily basis, especially since the great financial meltdown started. Companies were forced to cut spending by large amounts. That was about right - when things get rough, the most important thing to do is to avoid any unnecessary waste of money. However, saving too much money on liguistic services - whether it is translation, proof-reading or interpretation - always takes its toll. In one way or another, the company will pay the price for being cheap.

In order to understand this paradigm, one thing must be cleared out first: high quality is expensive. Period. Once you go to the store to buy something for dinner, you can either go with inexpensive choices and accept lower quality in return, or you can pay a much bigger price for something more delicious. This is just the way it works and it has always been like that. Once you think about puchasing a new car, you are well aware of what type of machine you can get in exchange for the amount of money you have. You won't complain about not getting an Audi A6 if you only have half the money of its actual price. You will be compromised with the one you can afford. Yet when a company wants to buy translation services from a professional, they are likely to pay averages prices and expect nothing less than ultimate quality. We have to make them understand once and for all: quality is something you only can ask for if you are willing to give a fair compensation.

Secondly, as many of my fellow translators would sure agree with that: I studied and worked very hard for decades to attain every skill and expertise I have today. I have spent money on tutors, language teachers and (unreasonably) expensive language books. I have spent weekends and summer holidays with learning German, with practicing English grammar or with living in Italy, improving my skill there. I truly have worked my heart out and made a lot of sacrifices. I think it is more than acceptable that I have become a little pretentious. I am determined to enjoy the fruits of my year-long labor and I won't give away my knowledge for pennies.

Thirdly, as I said, saving money on unnecessary business expenditures is more than reasonable. If your company needs cutting, go and get rid of business models than won't work, machines or tools you can do without or co-workers who are lazy, disloyal or incompetent. The one thing you should never spare on is language-related services. That is because for cheap money, you always get cheap quality - and lack of great quality is certainly not the way to go in today's economy. Improper and unprofessional translation will cost you more in the long run. It could cost a tender. It could cost your quarter year. Even worse, for small companies, it  could cost their reputation and eventually, their entire existence.

Last but not least, I would say to all companies to not look for cheap prices but for the best value for money options. Go and look for a professional who can provide great quality on reasonable prices. We are more than ready to help you out - in case you respect us enough to pay us our fair share!

Most difficult languages to learn - Hungarian ranks 4th

Long before we have become professional translators / interpreters or proofreaders, we all were language fanatics first.

We were the kind of students whose favourite school subject always happened to be the foreign langauge we studied. As much I had been a fan of literature or history, I would always pick English whenever I had to name my alltime favorite. I am sure this holds true for many translators. First, we fell in love with the beauty of words and phrases of another language and are eager to learn about them. Then, and only then, we start seeking pleasure from comparing the foreign language to our very own and beginning the process of translation.

I honestly believe that one cannot become a great language pro without having a wild passion and utmost respect for his or her own mother tongue. You can only appreciate the art of subtlety once you have experienced it. You have to become an expert in your mother tongue before mastering a foreign one.

The nature of your native language pretty much determines how easily you can learn foreign languages. I give you a good example; Neo-Latino languages have basically the same logics to follow and very similar grammar rules. A native speaker of Italian could learn Spanish without much trouble. Similarly, a Slovenian native would (may not speak, but) understand almost any other Slavic languages (except for Russian). For Dutch people, it is pretty simple to learn the basics of German.

Speaking of me, I have never had any of these similarities when I started learning foreign languages. My mother tongue is very unique and expectional in many ways. Hungarian is one of the Uralic languages and belongs to the branch of Finno-Ugric. In Europe, Hungarian is the most widely spoken language which does not belong to the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by cirka 15 million people around the globe.

Hungarian, or "magyar" as we call it, is the 4th hardest language to learn for foreigners. (According to the statistics of www.mylanguages.org) It is followed by Mandarin, Arabic and Tuyuca (one of the languages of the Amazon). How can it be that hard?

To give you a clue, let's just say a normal European language has like 4-5 cases and noun forms. Hungarian has 35. Our language is also full of idioms and suffixes. Unlike most languages, we do not use any prepositions - our language is agglutinative which means that we form words by joining morphemes together. To top all of that, we have a high amount of vowels and accents as well.

Despite the difficult grammar, it is truly worth a try to learn it because it is utterly beautiful. I know I am biased but I have heard this from many foreigners in my life. We have our most beautiful words (according to a famous Hungarian poet, Dezső Kosztolányi) completely different-sounding than in any other language I can recall.

These are láng (means flame); gyöngy (pearl); kard (sword); csók (kiss); vér (blood); szív (heart); sír (grave) and my favourite, édesanya (mother).

Which one seems nice to you? What is your opinion about Hungarian (if you ever got to hear it spoken)? How about your mother tongue?

Freelancer vs. in-house translator

Have you ever noticed that when you as a translator work in freelance on a daily basis, you eventually start yearning for the safety and security of an in-house position? Similarly, when you get stuck in a normal, 8-hours-a-day desk position, you want nothing but become a freelancer and have a chance to drink your morning coffee in your pajamas at 10. am. Boy are we so hard to please.

Speaking of me, I have been a freelancer for over 4 years when I received my first in-house position. For almost a year now, I get up at 6.30 am and go to work like any other person. Finally, I have a "normal job" as my mother used to say - for people like her, freelancing often seems like being on a neverending holiday. All that she has seen during my freelancer years was me getting up late in the morning (usually at 10 am or later) - only because I preferred working at night. She noticed me missing lunch or dinner - only because I hate to stop translating when I am in the middle. She also complained about how I had no free weekend or holiday to visit grandma - she could not understand that freelancing requires you to be flexible and yes, to occasionally work on weekends as well. She also remembered how carefully I tried to save money - only because freelancing means you are going to have weeks and months when money is tight.

As I already mentioned, I got hired by a company to be an in-house language pro for over a year. How about the benefits?

• As mother said, I have a normal job with the usual social insurance and everything. I have sick leaves and paid holidays. I get the sense of security that I am being taken care of. 

• I have a fair amount of income every month that I can rely on.  It is not so little that I should worry about it yet not so much that I could live carelessly. As an ambitious person I always strive for the better in every aspect of my life - this holds true for my salary as well.

• For the first time in my life, I got colleagues to work with and share the room with. Although I take care of the majority of my work by myself, I appreciate any great advice from people who are smarter, wiser, older and more experienced than I am.

• When you land on an in-house position, you also get the chance to relax a bit: all those marketing, advertising and business activities you had to put up with while freelancing suddenly disappear. For now, you are solely a translator who does nothing but translates. It is kind of a 'give or take' though. There are translators, like me, who simply enjoy doing marketing and advertising and consider it to be a part of our usual work, almost as much as actual translation.

You might realized that my list of benefits is not too long. That is because I consider myself a born freelancer and sadly, there are many more drawbacks of in-housing  than benefits. Mind you, I say all this coming from MY OWN EXPERIENCES. I am sure there are many of you who would enjoy in-house translation jobs and would not trade them for the ongoing uncertainty of freelancing. However, for lack of a better term I would say I am pro-freelance. I also tell you why.

• First and foremost I am a highly individual person. I simply hate hierarchy and having a boss. I am not a great team worker and I like to create my own rules. I am at my highest potential whenever I get a chance to work individually. Therefore freelancing for me has never felt like some kind of disaster, instead, it feels deliberating. 

•  Secondly, I used to work more when I was a freelancer. At my workplace I always stop workflow at 17.00 pm. I am not motivated to work more or work with greater quality since my salary is pretty much fixed. No matter how hard and determined I am, I always get the same amount. Whereas in my freelancing years I could rely on the simple truth that the more time I spend with working, the greater amount of money I earn. Whenever I was in need of making (quick) money, I could always find work. Whenever I wanted to take some time off and be away from my home office, I was able to do that because I managed my working days and I had no boss to tell me not to relax. 

• Thirdly, I used to make more money when I was a freelancer. Surely, that higher amount was never regular  and I had some days and weeks spent in sorrow. (Kicking off your freelancer career is extremely hard - that first year is crucial to survive). Yet I had days and weeks when I made more money than I could ever imagine and hope for had I been a regular worker. I had the luxury to spend on my greatest passion in life: travelling. I certainly believe that with great time management and an unyielding passion for translation, a freelancer can make more than an in-house professional. 

• My work has been so much more interesting and fun while freelancing. Why? Well, at a company or at a translation agency, you are mostly  charged with the translation work of a certain specific area. For me, this is mainly business translation now. At the same time, a freelancer has a chance to meet a range variety of other topics. Back in time, I would start my Monday with some legal translation. On Tuesday, I contributed to business correspondence via e-mail and phone. On Wednesday, I had a chance to translate excerpts from a pharmaceutical handbook. The list goes on. My professional life was more colourful and challenging.

I could go on and on about the joys of freelancing - presumably you all get it now how much I enjoyed it. However, I also think that being an in-house translator helped me grow professionally and as a person. It also made me realize how much I want to spend my career with freelancing and building my own business.

I am curious about all of you - feel free to share your personal stories and views on these two possible career paths for translators!

Starting off a joyful conversation

Before I launch my brand new blog, first let me have the opportunity for a brief but to-the-point introduction of myself.

My name is Andrea and as many of you already know, I am a twenty-something language professional. I am closer to twenty than to thirty yet I am closer to be someone called an experienced linguist than an inexperienced one. My nickname  and so-called brand name 'Translatorana' comes from, obviously, my profession (translator) and my first name (Andrea). Having a brand name instead of going with your official one is a risky idea but it has been paid off so far. The way I see it, the language industry is definitely the place where sometimes you have to take risk in order to succeed.

I am a native speaker of Hungarian and my working languages are English, German and Italian.  In the majority of time I translate from English to Hungarian and vica versa. I have limited working proficiency in German and Italian which means I only translate them into Hungarian. My relation to these languages can easily be determined in one sentence: living near the Hungarian- Austrian border, German is the one I started off with (at the age of 5), English is the one I love the most and speak at its best, yet Italian is my true love story. As a total lingua fanatic, I have future plans to study one of the Slavic languages (preferably Russian) and improve my skills in Neo-Latino languages like Spanish and French. I am also highly interested in learning Catalán language - I guess it has something to do with the fact that I am a longtime supporter of FC Barcelona :)

In this blog I am intended to address professional issues that I am mostly concerned about - whether it is the relation between translation and social media; the gift and the curse of being a freelancer; the importance of being a great marketer for your business or how to be the master of your mother language (first and foremost). Speaking as a native Hungarian whose mother tounge is ranked 4th on the world list of most difficult languages to study, I think I can speak from perspective.

I encourage all translators, proofreaders, interpreters, teachers and language lovers to join me and engage in a powerful conversation to help things moving forward and to achieve something great together.