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tranfree issue 8 - 15 November 1999

 

What to do when you have a quiet spell

By Alex Eames

When you have a quiet spell it is perfectly natural to be concerned. Translators are not robots (although some customers seem to think we are - but that's another story) and we all have to eat! So if there's no money coming in, we worry - even if we have adequate financial reserves, we worry that we are depleting them! This is normal!

From one point of view you might think. "I never want a quiet spell." But you can't be earning money ALL the time! You have to rest sometimes and a quiet spell can be more helpful than you might think. If you think of it in terms of an 'extra holiday that other people aren't getting' this helps to...

  1. stop you from worrying so much
  2. make up for all those times when you have to work all week-end for a Monday deadline

But despite all this, after a few days, or even a week or two, with little or no work you WILL get concerned. So what can you do about it?

One of the things I have done in the past is to phone a couple of my best clients, and in the course of a 'nice little chat' to ask them if they've been quiet or busy recently. This helps in several ways...

  1. it helps develop your relationship with your client (as long as you do not take up too much of their time if they are busy)

  2. it brings you to the front of this client's mind in case a suitable job comes in

  3. you can find out if it's just you, or if the industry is quiet as a whole. [You can also use online newsgroups and discussion lists for this.]

  4. you can reassure yourself that all your clients have not dumped you for someone cheaper/ quicker/ better/ nicer/ closer etc.

So if you call a couple of clients and find out that things have been a little slow recently, at least you won't feel like they've all dumped you. We all need a little reassurance from time to time. No matter how good you are and how successful you become, you will always wonder what happened to that client who hasn't called you for the last few months.

If you don't try calling a few clients and you go a few more days without work your mind will start wondering...

  • "am I charging too much?"
  • "is the competition getting greater?"
  • "are they all sub-contracting overseas so they can get it cheaper?"
  • "didn't they like the work I did last time?"
  • "have my levels of service dropped?"
  • "aren't they pleased with my service?"
  • "should I launch a massive marketing campaign or will my clients all wake up soon and start sending me work?"

And this is when it really eats you up. It is good that you are asking these questions because it keeps you honest and makes you examine your business. It also shows that you still care. Are you still giving such good service as you used to? You should ask these questions of yourself from time to time to stop your standards from...

... slipping.

The worst thing is that when you have no work, you are at your lowest emotional security. This is a minor natural disaster because this is the time when you need to be doing more marketing activities to boost your business. But in order to do successful marketing you need to be fairly emotionally pumped up and feeling good about yourself.

Let's be honest, marketing is very time-consuming and, apart from the copy-writing, it can also be quite boring. If you are emotionally 'down' you won't make yourself do it, and there's no point in doing it half-heartedly. Your emotional state really comes across in your letter writing. It may therefore be best to write your marketing letter(s) when you are feeling good.

When you are in a slack period you can then spend your time productively by researching companies, agencies and any other new potential sources of work. Then you can do the 'boring bit' of actually printing the letters or sending the emails, and it doesn't really matter if you feel good or not, as long as you don't do things carelessly.

If you want to pump up your business, but don't want to spend a lot of your valuable time researching new clients, you can get hold of two ready-made lists of new potential clients...

  1. Karin Adamczyk's Reputable Translation Agencies Database
    To find out more information about this excellent database of translation agencies around the world whose payment habits and business ethics have been screened, just go to http://www.translation-agencies.com (launched last month this is a sister site of translatortips.com )

  2. tranmail - list of 1800 translation agencies around the world, with email addresses, and a booklet on how to write a stunning email that will get a fantastic response rate. Just go and visit the tranmail page or go to the tranfree archive and read tranfree edition 3 to find out more about this product.

I expect to be announcing another excellent source of translation clients in the next edition of tranfree.

 

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