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Dear Guidance,
If you’re already in full-time salaried employment as a translator, check your contract to see whether it allows you to freelance in the same field.
We suspect not—think conflicts of interest. Don’t make any move at all without sorting this out or you could face a lawsuit.
But even without a legal barrier, the ethics of freelancing via a broker currently pitching for your full-time employer’s business get messy very
fast.
How did this agency find you in the first place? If your contact details are in an online directory—if you’re a member of your country’s
professional association for translators, for example, and haven’t specified your place of employment, and your areas of specialization correspond to
skills the agency is looking for now to line up talent for your current employer, well, that may be understandable. Set them straight. But if they
contacted you after meetings on your company’s premises to discuss potential assignments, the deal sounds much more questionable.
If your office is swamped with work and you’ve got time on your hands after hours, why not bypass the wannabe middleman and work out an overtime deal
directly with your boss?
FA & WB
Q:
Dear Fire Ant & Worker Bee,
I like my clients but two of them periodically drive me crazy with flurries of little questions. These concern minor points (often single-word changes they
want to introduce into something I’ve translated), but since the original work was done a week or month earlier, there is a lot of look-up involved.
You can’t translate a word or two out of context, after all.
While I’m familiar with them and their businesses, I’m dealing with enough volume that I generally have to stop everything and search back in
my archives. It then takes me time to get my mind back into whatever I am currently translating.
Maybe this is not a big deal, but I want to deal with it constructively. That is, I like it that they take the time to check with me when they change
things; if I charged for my time (splinters of time, actually), they might stop checking with me, which means the translations would probably be less good.
But right now it’s a little frustrating. Any suggestions?
Detail Driven
A:
Dear Minutiae,
If there are different departments involved, your clients may not realize just how many of these queries you’re receiving.
One solution would be to incorporate each minor request into a monthly invoice as a line item identified by time/date/length, but billed zero.
Your invoices then become a reminder to bean counters and others that you are more than pulling your weight in the “going the extra mile”
stakes—something you can leverage next time you renegotiate your rates with them, for example. Don’t forget that their apparent addiction to
your opinion is a very good sign indeed.
FA & WB
Q:
Dear Fire Ant & Worker Bee,
I entered the translation profession due to my fascination with foreign languages and my knack for writing. To that effect, I have found great satisfaction
in deciding to become a freelance translator.
However, I've recently realized that I need to develop a specialization not only to attract higher end clients, but also because my passion for language
has not proved to be motivation enough to translate any old text that comes my way.
I've noticed that green translation agencies have started popping up and I'm now wondering how to tap into the alternative energy market. Having worked as
a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa and a US National Park ranger in Alaska, I have experience in both sustainable development and environmental
protection. While I'm not sure that this last detail matters, my language combination is French to English. Would you happen to have any advice for a
would-be environmentalist translator?
Going Green
A:
Dear Green,
Yes: follow the money.
There are plenty of congenial tree-huggers out there, but to build a specialized practice based on sustainable development and environmental protection
that is capable of sustaining you and your family, you’ll have to link up with clients that have comfortable budgets.
So think Ramsar Convention and Sierra Club, but also investment funds dedicated to alternative energy and a healthy planet.
Read up on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and the many listed companies that not only fund replanting of mangrove swamps and Alpine slopes, but also
produce websites, reports and films to explain to their shareholders just how dedicated they are. Examine the English versions of those websites, reports
and films to identify who needs your services, and then get out to sector events to meet their representatives.
Pro bono projects, too, can be a good way to ease into the NGO sector, but be prepared to shift things over into the realm of commerce after a project or
two.
You should also work on developing your own network of like-minded specialists and on-their-way-to-specialist-status translators. Here you might start with Trash Girl, who clearly has her eye on the ball and finger on the pulse.
Along the way you’ll notice that translators who have invested the time and energy to master specialized topics have a lot of intriguing market
intelligence to share, regardless of their language combinations. And when you’re starting out, fellow translators who share your passion can be as
fruitful a source of paid assignments as direct clients.
Good luck as you ratchet up—your previous lives in West Africa and Alaska should serve you well!
FA & WB
Q:
Dear Fire Ant & Worker Bee,
Please can you advise me about giving discounts? A new client approached me with a very interesting job but seemed to expect a discount as a matter of
course. I had quoted a very reasonable rate and couldn’t see any reason to drop it, especially as the job was urgent and I had not applied an urgency
surcharge. The client was very condescending and tried to make me feel as though I didn’t quite understand how business worked.
I did agree to a small discount on this first job, and the client was extremely happy with the quality of my translation. However he came back demanding a
bigger discount on subsequent work. I politely pointed out that I had more than enough work at my existing rate and had no reason to take on work at lower
rates, assuming that as he was pleased with the quality of the job I’d done, he’d agree to my rate, especially as he had previous paid peanuts
and got monkeys. But instead he went off in a huff.
What is your view on the principle of offering discounts?
Not Cheap But
A:
Dear Not,
Generally speaking, we think discounts are a bad idea, especially when your client pretends they are standard practice—which they are, of course, at the
most price-sensitive end of the market. But you don’t want to be there, do you?
In fact, we’re convinced that it makes far more sense to work for free on short, critically important texts for premium clients than waste time on
low-ballers—or “pimp for losers” as one industry observer puts it.
For an insightful analysis of why you don’t want to get sucked down this drain, see Walt Kania’s comments in a recent post at thefreelancery.com.
FA & WB
Q:
Dear Fire Ant & Worker Bee,
I am currently an in-house translator with a brokerage firm where I have been for about seven years. My original boss here has moved on to bigger and
better things, i.e., he has gone freelance.
I contemplate becoming freelance on a daily basis but am frightened to make the leap for various reasons, most of them financial, as I’m worried that
I might not be able to earn as much as I do now if I start to work freelance, especially in today's particularly tough climate. On top of that, I am the
main breadwinner in my family, so I really need to make sure that it will work from the outset or as soon as possible after I start, since I don’t
have huge financial sums stashed away to tide me over for very long (who does?).
Do you have any suggestions for me?
Stretching My Wings
A:
Dear Stretching,
First, start building up a nest egg. Have at least six months’ and if possible one year’s cash socked away before you make your move.
Second, start networking with freelancers—including your former boss—to collect data on how much/how long/gross/net and so on. Talk to a financial
adviser, too, and draw up a business plan.
Third, given your family responsibilities, look into taking a year or two of unpaid leave. Under French law, an année sabbatique is possible
for virtually all employees in the private sector, and makes it reasonably certain that your job will be waiting for you if things don’t work out. In
the very worst-case scenario, you’ll get a hefty cash payment if your employer refuses to take you back.
Fourth, if you haven’t already done so, build your network: subscribe to the Financial Translators Forum and plan to
attend next summer’s Summer School for Financial Translators in Spiez, Switzerland. Your in-house experience is likely to serve you very well in
these circles.
Finally, make sure your family is on board. And once things are under way, check regularly to ensure that you are on track to achieve milestones in your
business plan. Be sure to factor in all the positive energy that comes from being your own boss.
FA & WB
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