Suppose you are looking to enhance your prospects of becoming a successful translator. In that case, the tips below will help you become the preferred translator for your customers.
Tips to become the preferred translator of your clients
If you work as a translator with Universal Translation Services and have done excellent quality work for some of our clients, those clients might want to use your services in the future, and they will ask us if we can assign you to their job. If you didn’t have the chance to become the preferred translator of some of the clients you have worked with, the following tips will help.
Research the prospects
Start by knowing more about the client or company. If most of the prospects are translation companies, try to find out whether they like new translators to mail them or fill out a form on their website. If a company has such a form on its website, fill out it rather than email them. Once accepted, please do your best with your translations so they won’t receive complaints from their clients. If they do receive objections, address them quickly in a professional manner.
Know more about the type of work they do
Try to search about the specializations that they want their translators to have. Any client would want the best translation at the lowest rates; that is human nature. If they know your work already, they might use your services in the future. In the meantime, you can do more research in their field and try to accommodate the terms.
Message carefully
When sending a message to a prospect, the notification must be written professionally, eventually in the client’s language. If you have a possible Dutch client, you may want to write him in Dutch rather than English, which would show respect.
If you are a true bilingual, mention it carefully.
If you are a true bilingual (a native speaker of multiple languages), mention that in the resume, but do so carefully. Talk about how you became bilingual rather than just saying you can translate stuff from one language to another.
Ensure the language pair and your name are mentioned in the resume’s subject.
For instance: “Amelia Bernard, French to English translator.” Still, it may be a good idea to try something else as well due to more fake translators flooding the market. Your subject needs to be unique and attract the receiver into reading it.
How can I promote myself as a translator?
- Maintain a solid online presence so people can get familiar with you
- Use social media as a networking tool
- Always keep your business cards to share them with people at every opportunity.
- Join forums and groups related to translation and communicate with linguistic experts regularly.
- Create your website so people can learn more about your expertise
How do translators get clients?
- Freelancing websites: Some linguistic experts join these websites so they can get projects easily
- Translation agencies: Many translators nowadays work with agencies so they don’t have to look for clients themselves
- Word of mouth: By being good at their job, translators can get free publicity from their previous clients
- Marketing: Marketing themselves properly can also help translators in finding clients
What to study if you want to be a translator?
- Languages: If you pick a language as your major, you will also get to learn about its cultural aspect, which will be very useful for you as a translator
- Translation: Various courses of translation are being offered nowadays that future translators can join
- Computer: Having computer skills is a must for translators now, which is why studying this subject can help you in your career as a linguistic expert
How fluent do you have to be to be a translator?
To become a translator, you should be the native speaker of the language you will be translating into, which means you should be as fluent in it as possible. But you should also be fluent to a great degree in your second language to do your job as a translator perfectly.
How do you do research prospects?
To research your prospects, you should:
- Learn about them as much as you can through their social media interactions.
- Be updated about the latest happenings in the relevant industry so you can carry the conversation quickly.
- Search for trigger events for the prospect so you can avoid them altogether.
Why is prospect research important?
- It can help you uncover shared interests to keep the communications with the prospect intriguing.
- It can also help you in formulating the perfect ask strategy
- It proves whether or not a prospect will be helpful to your company
- It will allow you to come up with the kind of engagement strategies that work
What is a prospect research analyst?
A prospect research analyst is tasked with identifying, researching, and analyzing prospects. They allow companies to find the right prospects for gift cultivation and solicitation. They have enough experience in the field to analyze prospects perfectly. Without them, no fundraising campaign will become successful.
What are your prospects?
The prospects of each company and business will be different. But understanding what they are can lead you to them. Prospects are often potential customers analyzed and declared to fit certain criteria. They are part of a business’s target audience. They can make buying decisions independently.
Make sure that the resume is crisp and not too long
If you don’t have much experience in the field, try to ensure that the summary is no longer than one page and not more than two pages in other cases.
Add published work
Translators must let their clients know about their past work. So, if you have some published work significantly some research articles for a popular platform, you can add the URL of the same in the resume.
Never talk about the rates in a resume or email message
You can always talk about that later when the client or company responds to the mail.
Do not add the references
This, too, is something that you should save for later.
Ensure that there are no mistakes in the resume.
Your resume should have no errors, especially if you are not writing it in your native language. Ask for help from a native for editing and proofreading the resume.
Localize the resume as per the target market.
The resume requirements vary as per the geographical region. So, make sure that you localize it before sending it. For example, you should add your photo to the summary if the resume is to be sent to a French prospect. However, do not add a shot if sending it to an American option.
Verifiable information
Lastly, ensure the prospect can verify the information in the resume and message.
Why clients should have a preferred translator
A preferred translator is a translator who has translated most of your projects. Suppose you’re a client who is happy with a translator’s job. In that case, you can ask your translation agency to ensure that that particular (preferred) translator provides priority access to your project. Select translators can be assigned to all the tasks on ongoing support by making the request online or speaking to a designated account manager. Generally, your preferred translator will have local language expertise and specific domain experience.
Ensuring consistency in your translations is essential. Different translations for the same word at various places on your website might confuse users and make your site look unprofessional.
Hire the same translator to examine all the translations for the same project. This way, not only could the selection of words be kept consistent, but the nature and style of your work would also be more consistent.
Following the above might get you more clients but can also help you become your clients’ preferred translator.