turktrans blog

As in any other business, freelance translators are not able to work at their own pace. It is our customers, and not we, who determine our workload. Sometimes, we receive multiple translation assignments, some small, some large, from our regular clients that we find hard to decline.

Sometimes, even though you explicitly state that you have some rush jobs to be returned, that you have no time to take another assignment, your clients choose to insist that theirs would take only one hour, that it is very critical, that they should return the translation soon, that they would like to have it translated by you, etc. At the end, you understand that exchanging some emails to politely decline the job already takes some time, and finally you give in. You accept the assignment unwillingly, and suspend your current job to handle the new one.

When we receive such multiple assignments, each with its own “urgency,” we are faced with working overtime, or running the risk of missing a deadline. If you are wise enough to quote flexible deadlines, and have a good typing speed, you can handle a lot of such unexpected assignments.
Currently, I have a large translation project assigned by EUGS-British Council covering some Grant Projects funded by the EU. And considering that I will receive some additional assignments from my loyal clients within this period, I think I will not be able to accept any more assignment for the whole April.

And I have another, but highly challenging assignment for this month: Optimization of the website of a major US State University. Well, it is not a well-paid job, I must admit, since I accepted it as a challenge rather than as a good-paying job, at least initially. I thought that a good reference from a State University for my search engine optimization services would be converted into cash in future optimization projects!

This month is the initial evaluation review period for the said site. I will study the site, its competitors, its position in search engine SERPs (search engine results pages), the potential problem areas that may be leading to its poor position, and remedies to improve its SERP position. At the end of this month, I will write a review together with my suggestions for improvement. Our goal is to have the said University site on the first page of major search engines when internet surfers type in certain keywords. Good luck!

Meanwhile, I am trying to transfer my published English to Turkish Dictionary of Psychology into MYSQL for publishing it online on one of my sites. I need to find a way to uniformly format the existing MS Word document so that it can be converted /imported into Excel, and then to CSV, then to MYSQL. Therefore, I need a good script, preferably in PHP, that does it for me. I tried a couple of such scripts, but failed to get satisfactory results. I think I will have to make some online research, and modify one of the existing scripts to have it fit to my specific requirements.

There is a Turkish saying: “Bir koltukta iki karpuz” that roughly translates as “carrying two watermelons under one arm!” implying that you are bound to break either one or both. I hope I would not break any!

This post would well be categorized under the “hot bloopers.” But the point to be covered here has more to do with marketing than with bloopers.

Successful promotion is the key to success in any business, and first impression is the critical element in it. And a well-written message (be it an email reply or a short promotional message posted at forums, mailing lists, etc.) is the most critical factors of all in translation business, since the text is the only measuring rod against which our target audience measures the quality of our service. That is why I am posting this message under the “Business” category.

For the last couple of weeks I am receiving a promotional message from one of the Yahoo translation groups to which I am also a subscriber. The message originates from an Istanbul based agency that claims to have decades of experience, professional staff, and the like. But reading the first line of the message, you would probably think that it is the last one to whom you would trust your translation projects. I am including the whole message here:

Our company which is giving translation services and written and orally translations (simultaneous, concecutive) for any subject in whole world languages for five years, has all sorts of knowledge, aggregation and technological supplies.

Each of our written and orally translator staffs approximately near to 1500 in all over the world are formed by expert persons who have at least 5-10-15 years knowledge, aggregation and experince and are at the world standards.

Our translators are orientated through the translation projects which are classified one by one about their subjects, such as technical, medical, law, engineering etc..

Our translators’ professionalism and our coordinatos’s efforts are effective on submitting the translation businesses on time.

For all of your written and orally translation projects, you can get into contact with us by contentmently through the following addresses…

This is really a terrible first impression for a translator claiming experience and expertise. Anyone reading this message would hardly consider assigning a translation job to its originator. They would simply ignore it.

For freelance translators, self-promotion (bidding for a particular translation project, writing personalized emails, submitting CVs and references, counting relevant experiences, or designing a profile page) is the only marketing tool available. If used effectively, it may help us to attain a high level of “conversion.” And if not used properly, it can forestall our efforts to win new clients. Using this tool effectively means nothing more than using the language effectively (fluent, grammatically correct, focused, succinct: neither too long to be boring, nor too short).

We can theorize about the stages of winning a new client in freelance business such as: plausibility (first impression), capability (relevant experience, having required qualifications, credentials, etc.), affordability (cost), and the like.

As in any other human interaction, here too first impression plays a determining role in establishing or failing to establish a relationship of any duration (short-term or long-term). It is necessary but not a sufficient condition for winning clients. Necessary, because without a good first impression, the potential client simply turns away to other alternatives. Not sufficient, because we have to meet a couple of other criteria set by the potential clients. And since the words are all that we have for yielding a positive impression enough to have potential clients consider using our services, we should be extremely careful in our first attempt at contact.

Mostly, outsourcers have an initial, but mostly accurate judgment as to the quality level of your services simply through your first email. (I said “mostly,” because there may be cases where the outsourcer himself may not be good at the communication language, and therefore may fail to form a sound judgment on the language skills of the translator. But this is the exception, and not the rule.) Therefore, writing a good email, or a message is essential in yielding a favorable first impression.

Then, how can we learn to write a good message? We can study messages written by native-language speakers: How they introduce themselves, how they address the issue, and how they conclude the message. Sooner or later, we would notice a discernible pattern: A proper greeting, stating the reason why the message is written, elaborating on it, concluding about it, and closing the message with a thanks and regards phrase.

After all, this pattern is easy to learn. What is difficult is to convince the outsourcer that we are capable of delivering quality services, and meeting their requirements. To this end, text of our message should give the impression that we know the language in question well, that we are capable of expressing ourselves well in that language. Failing to give this initial impression amounts to a lost client!

In summary, writing a good initial message may draw the line between success and failure. Therefore, a non-native speaker should check every single line of his message, every phrase and term he uses against reliable resources to ensure that the text of his message is grammatically correct, the phrases are appropriate, and the terms are used properly. Never write a message like the one mentioned above. It would be better not to write it at all!

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