Translation Journal Update | October 13, 2014 | Featured Article

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Translation Journal Update | October 13, 2014

October-13

It has been a very busy time and we are soooo very pleased let you know the October 2014 Edition of the Translation Journal is now available online. Click here to read. The October edition is still a work in progress, so please be forgiving of some broken links and formatting issues that we in the process of fixing.

The October 2014 edition of the Translation Journal features articles by authors hailing from France, China, Cameroon, Australia, Cuba, India, and the United Arab Emirates. While the term "cultural globalization" may be cliché of late, there is no denying the rapid increase of interconnectedness and interdependence present in our amazingly diverse world today. Here at the Translation Journal, we celebrate these new connections and take great pleasure in bridging geographical and geopolitical distances in order to help disseminate the ideas of authors from all around the globe, and we encourage everyone reading to participate in sharing your knowledge with the world.

Recent Contributor Spotlight--Written by Phuc Thien Le, PhD

This issue includes a translator's take on NAATI (the National Association of Translators and Interpreters), an Australian organization that provides accreditation to translators and interpreters. The author writes about NAATI's role in the current accreditation system, the inadequate training for translators and interpreters and the effects of NAATI's intervention. Read about this author's perspective here.

Chris Durban

Return of the of Fire Ant & Worker Bee-written by Chris Durban

We are pleased to present a new installment of Fire Ant & Worker Bee column written by Chris Durban. Many readers say this column is always their first stop in a new issue of the Translation Journal. Chris is well known in the translation industry, and if you have not yet had the good fortune to experience her workshops or presentations, they are highly recommended - you will come away with new insights into and appreciation of the translation and interpreting business.

Here is a recent Fire Ants and Worker Bee post:

Dear Fire Ant & Worker Bee,

I've landed face-to-face meetings with potential clients through my network, and they say don't have any work for me, they just want to meet. After the first few meetings like this I feel there is more that I could do.

Besides my background and what I do, what should I be prepared to talk about? How can I gauge after the meeting whether or not they are interested (or rather, how do I keep them interested)?

On Hold

Dear Hold,

Congratulations on the face-to-face meetings-an excellent first step in building trust and exploring scope for a meeting of minds/keyboards. A few suggestions:

1. Your aim is not to carry on about yourself, rather to get them talking. So your priority at the meetings is to do some serious listening. The best preparation we know is researching their products and markets thoroughly in advance, and formulating insightful questions around these. "So tell me about your business," while blander, is often enough to get most people talking.

2. Be sure to bring some samples of your own work, a crisp bio, and client education materials such as "Translation, Getting it Right"-now available in 14 languages. (You will naturally leave copies of all these with your contact.)

3. Jeffrey Gitomer's punchy Sales Caffeine eZine is free and has tons of ideas for "closing the sale." Our gut feeling is that some of those are brash and pushy, even tacky, for premium segments of the translation market. But read them anyway, for their insights into buyers' motivations, thinking processes and pressure points.

Follow-up to your meetings might include emailing a pithy thought or example or article linked to a topic you discussed. The aim here is to remind your contact that you are thinking of them as you go about your daily business, and to link your interest and energy to the fascinating work they do-where translation projects may pop up at some point.

In any case, your time is never wasted if these meetings give you a better feel for the market and the give & take that are part of any business encounter. Needless to say, anxiety ("so, where's the work already?") and insecurity are both huge turnoffs.

FA&WB

For more FA&WB posts like these click on over to FA&WB posts as well as other articles here of the Translation Journal.

Head on Over to Translation Journal Facebook Page

When it is Friday are you exhausted, relieved, excited or ______. Head on over to the Translation Journal Facebook page and share your comments.

 

It's gonna be a great week!!

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