Intercultural Zone

Professional service firm web copy: speak with me, not at me!

by Patricia

Many professional service firms’ marcomm tools suffer from navel-picking copy. Sure, they aren’t the only ones, but in areas where a successful practice hinges on the personal touch, you’d think their marketing copy would at least involve you, right?

Wrong.

Take law firms. OK, maybe they are easy to pick on.  I put myself through university working as a paralegal; it’s a context I know fairly well. Continue Reading…

Client bloopers: Translator, you sent me the wrong file!

by Patricia

Many of you know Mox’s Blog and his acerbic take on the translation profession (if you don’t, stop whatever you are doing and head on over there). Mox is always looking for subject matter on which to base his hilarious cartoons. This is my contribution to the sometimes-absurd exchanges professional translators have with (monolingual) clients.

Some time last year, a client – we’ll name him Monsieur M. to protect his good name – asked me to translate a press release from French into US English.  This communiqué announced a major event for his young company and was written in a very ‘markety’, trendy and catchy style.

As is often the case, a close-to-the-source-text translation would fall flat. Also, and readers, you know this: a press release for the US market is structured quite differently from a French communiqué.

So I revamped the document to make it fit-for-purpose. Adapted the style and mode of communication (French is a high context language and culture, American a low context one). Rreplaced French popular culture references with American ones. Polished up the text and sent it off to Monsieur M.

An hour later, the phone rings.

Monsieur M.: Patricia, you’ve sent me the wrong file. This is not the translation I asked for.

Me: Pardon? [panic attack sets in] Hang on; let me look into this …. [Double-check sent email and attached file]. Si, si! It’s the right file [provide file name], are you sure you opened the right document?

Monsieur M.: I am sure you sent me the wrong file. My communiqué had 4 paragraphs and 24 lines. This file has 5 paragraphs, but only 17 lines. And everyone knows a good translation respects the source file’s layout and appearance. This thing does not look anything like my communiqué.

In praise of good clients

by Patricia

Doesn’t it feel terrific when a client drops you a line to thank you for your great work on a project?

Yesterday’s post brought a wonderful surprise: the Bel Group sent each member of the project team a lovely album illustrating the two years of work invested to launch the Maison de La Vache qui rit.

An elegant and thoughtful gesture to thank everyone and celebrate the team spirit that made this project a success.

That made my day!

A few thoughts on the “It’s the New Year, rate increase” debate

by Patricia

As I browse through various translation industry fora and blogs, I notice many posts that recommend increasing one’s rates with ringing in the New Year to adjust for inflation.

Don’t get me wrong, I am strongly in favor of independent professionals charging professional rates commensurate with the level and quality of service rendered to clients.

The New Year “cost of living adjustment” rate increase reflex is perplexing for several reasons:

1. It’s predictable and, as Simon Turner underscored in his presentation at the SFT’s Journée mondiale de la traduction in December 2009, it is counter-intuitive from a marketing standpoint. Building client loyalty is even more important than getting a rate increase from January 1. It’s a smarter move to announce a rate increase, but tell your clients that ,*for them*, it will only be applicable say from June 1. He has a few other tactics up his sleeve that make this (small) discount pay off even more. Continue Reading…

Buzz or cruise control: it isn’t just about rates

by Patricia

Most often, discussions about translators’ business models center around the type of clients – direct or agency – and inevitably about rates.

When translators gripe about lousy or falling per word rates, the first advice others give is look for direct clients. That is not the right reason to prefer them and there is no guarantee net income is higher as a result.

Please note that I am referring to professional rates: if a zero follows the comma or period (depending on your country), it is not a professional rate. Also, I am addressing that part of the translation markets (sic) centered on translation as adaptive copywriting (or transcreation, as it is sometimes called), my bailiwick.

A couple of my colleagues posit there should be no difference in the rates charged to direct or agency clients as long as the expertise and service provided are the same. To an extent, I agree with them: why should there be a difference based on who writes your check? But the service is rarely the same: for example, at minima, professional translators pay a proofreader to do a final check before returning work to direct clients while agencies take on that task (do they always?).

Focusing on unit rates for translating instead of the hourly income earned with all aspects of running a business included can distort reality. I’ve not found any statistics on this: based on my experience, I estimate the net income earned by an experienced translator working for agency clients is similar to that earned by a translator working only for direct clients. If anyone has statistics, let me know.

Why, then, would one prefer working for direct clients rather than agencies, given the time it takes to find them, land them, keep them and secure a credible marketing backlog?

It depends on how one is wired up. In companies, some staff prefer to carry out and some prefer to spearhead. The same is true with translators: some draw satisfaction from the security of cruise control — work comes in, you translate it, you send it back, sometimes you receive feedback, you invoice and get paid (ok, I’m simplifying slightly). Even those who prefer that matrix will complain sometimes about “the black hole”: the frustration of not knowing what the end-client thought of their translation or where it ended up.

Others need the buzz that comes from seeking opportunities that allow moving beyond *production* (for lack of a better word) to partner as consultants in a client’s project.
Continue Reading…