| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | What should fair translation rates be for professional translators Thread poster: LilianNekipelov
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| Be yourself! | Jun 29, 2012 |
Nicole Schnell wrote:
What is marketing about, anyway? To make a brand stand out from the crowd. As a freelance translator, you are your own brand which is highly defined by your personality. You will for example not achieve any personal profile or brand recognition by sending standardized emails or being too chicken-livered to develop your own letterhead, as horrific as it may turn out.
I entirely agree. Cheerfully contributing to becoming a commodity is the worst of mistakes. In a way, I think the best way to market yourself is simply being yourself.
Good customers like to know who they are dealing with and every now and then they can do with a little relaxing chat about things other than business. Those of you who have been in business long enough know that, when you deal with customers, you not only represent your service, but your person as a flagship of your culture or country in the customer's community (travel advice, cultural insight, occasional help in completely unrelated things, ...).
All these apparently useless extra factors, which you cannot create artificially and have to be there in your personality, easily add to your value in the eye of your business partners.
BTW: I hope this contributed to the new-age-ish tint of this topic!!
| | | | Phil Hand 
China
Local time: 10:20
Chinese to English
| Not so much the practice | Jun 29, 2012 |
as my jokey description of it. Calling anything a "state of mind" makes it sound new-agey.
I agree completely with the description you gave and the practices you describe, and no, they are not in themselves new-agey.
| | | | 564354352 (X)
Denmark
Local time: 04:20
Danish to English
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| They should reflect the value of the goods you sell | Jun 29, 2012 |
I like (some of) what Nicole said earlier, and agree that translators need to see themselves as professionals who have a great and valuable product to offer. We would all be doomed to live in poverty, if we allowed the clients to establish terms and conditions for the highly skilled professional services that we offer.
I don't offen bid on jobs here at ProZ, but when I do, most clients reply by stating what they want to pay and when they want to pay, and very often, that first, they... See more I like (some of) what Nicole said earlier, and agree that translators need to see themselves as professionals who have a great and valuable product to offer. We would all be doomed to live in poverty, if we allowed the clients to establish terms and conditions for the highly skilled professional services that we offer.
I don't offen bid on jobs here at ProZ, but when I do, most clients reply by stating what they want to pay and when they want to pay, and very often, that first, they want me to do a trial translation. I reply by telling them what the price of my services is, what my terms of payment are, and that I don't do free trial translations, but will be happy to do a test at my standard rate. If they do not like my terms, the contact ends there, simple as that.
I doubt that it would be possible to establish global 'fair rates', as the cost of living differs from country to country, so what would seem a decent price in one country, would seem exhorbitant in another. My personal approach has been to determine a target average monthly income, considering the average amount of work I expect to have and the amount of hours I wish to work.
Remember, YOU own the product that the client wants to buy. Who in their right mind would go the supermarket, fill up their shopping trolley and go up to the checkout and say: this is what I want to pay for these goods, and by the way, I won't be paying you now, but in 30 days' time?
On the marketing issue, Nicole, I'd love to hear more. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 19:20
English to German
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In memoriam | This attitude actually has a name: Soft Skills | Jun 29, 2012 |
Wikipedia managed to provide a neat summarized description:
"Soft skills is a sociological term relating to a person's "EQ" (Emotional Intelligence Quotient), the cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with other people.[1] Soft skills complement hard skills (part of a person's IQ), which are the occupational requirements of a job and many other activities.
Soft s... See more Wikipedia managed to provide a neat summarized description:
"Soft skills is a sociological term relating to a person's "EQ" (Emotional Intelligence Quotient), the cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with other people.[1] Soft skills complement hard skills (part of a person's IQ), which are the occupational requirements of a job and many other activities.
Soft skills are personal attributes that enhance an individual's interactions, job performance and career prospects. Unlike hard skills, which are about a person's skill set and ability to perform a certain type of task or activity, soft skills relate to a person's ability to interact effectively with coworkers and customers and are broadly applicable both in and outside the workplace.
A person's soft skill EQ is an important part of their individual contribution to the success of an organization. Particularly those organizations dealing with customers face-to-face are generally more successful, if they train their staff to use these skills. Screening or training for personal habits or traits such as dependability and conscientiousness can yield significant return on investment for an organization.[2] For this reason, soft skills are increasingly sought out by employers in addition to standard qualifications.
It has been suggested that in a number of professions soft skills may be more important over the long term than occupational skills. The legal profession is one example where the ability to deal with people effectively and politely, more than their mere occupational skills, can determine the professional success of a lawyer.[3]
Soft Skills are behavioral competencies. Also known as Interpersonal Skills, or people skills, they include proficiencies such as communication skills, conflict resolution and negotiation, personal effectiveness, creative problem solving, strategic thinking, team building, influencing skills and selling skills, to name a few."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills
Put it to work. It is one heck of a marketing tool, especially when the majority of your contacts at your clients' offices don't speak a single word of your language and wouldn't be able to evaluate your true value as a translator even at gun point. ▲ Collapse
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Nikita Kobrin
Lithuania
Local time: 05:20
Member (2010)
English to Russian
+ ...
Nicole Schnell wrote:
Marketing starts as soon as a translator will erase and replace the following phrases and thoughts from his / her memory:
- "they pay..." (instead of: "I charge...")
- "the employer..." (instead of "client" or "customer")
- "the industry standard for discounts" (there is no such thing)
- "without Trados I am not a professional translator" (hahahaha!)
- "standard rates" (no such thing)
- "the customer is always right"
and the worst of all:
"I AM ONLY A TRANSLATOR"
Perfectly put. Congrats, Nicole!
| | | | Suzan Hamer
Netherlands
Local time: 04:20
English
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| Indeed, Nicole; that's a major reason for working freelance. | Jun 29, 2012 |
Nicole Schnell wrote:
Marketing starts as soon as a translator will erase and replace the following phrases and thoughts from his / her memory:
- "the employer..." (instead of "client" or "customer")
I work with my clients, not for them.
[Edited at 2012-06-29 08:38 GMT]
| | | | LilianNekipelov
United States
Local time: 22:20
Russian to English
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TOPIC STARTER | The attitude to translation is wrong | Jun 29, 2012 |
I think the whole attitude to translation is wrong. Translators are highly educated and specialized people, like doctors and lawyers. No one can tell a doctor what to charge. Let's imagine you go to a dentist and say," my budget is $25 and I need the best crown that will look like a natural tooth by tomorrow". They will laugh at you. this is what it reminds me of when I read some of the offers, not necessarily on this site, sometimes. I agree that a professional translator should always say"I ch... See more I think the whole attitude to translation is wrong. Translators are highly educated and specialized people, like doctors and lawyers. No one can tell a doctor what to charge. Let's imagine you go to a dentist and say," my budget is $25 and I need the best crown that will look like a natural tooth by tomorrow". They will laugh at you. this is what it reminds me of when I read some of the offers, not necessarily on this site, sometimes. I agree that a professional translator should always say"I charge", "this is my fee" and not" what is your budget", or" what do you pay". We cannot call customers employers, because employer is only someone who has an employee-employer relationship with you, meaning the person or the company pays you regular wages with tax deductions and everything else, plus there are some other requirements for a company or a person to be called employer. Unfortunately the customer is not always right -- if they have unreasonable requirements and want to pay you starvation rates, they are not right. I know there should not be a standard rate, since translation rates will always be regulated by the market to a certain extant, but the market should not the the the sole basis for them. I have a feeling that many translations are being done by unqualified translators, for very low rates, and this is one of the factors that add to the deterioration of language. Unfortunately I don't think you could train on translation -- you have to be a fully competent translator to translate. It is not that someone who can translate only certain words should be paid $0.02/word and keep training for two, five, or fifteen years, and in the meantime, people will die because of his or her wrongly translated medical reports. This is serious stuff -- not really kindergarden. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dinny
Greece
Local time: 05:20
Italian to Danish
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| Small things do wonders, sometimes. | Jun 29, 2012 |
When I raised my rates some time ago and communicated this to my clients, some of them went "uh, we might not be able to send so much work to you anymore." Well, that is up to them, of course, and I did notice, that the requests from certain clients were reduced. But if I in connection with a job I was doing made a phone call to them to solve a "whichever little problem I could invent", their attitude changed. Suddenly I became "a person" instead of just "an anonymous translator", and suddenly t... See more When I raised my rates some time ago and communicated this to my clients, some of them went "uh, we might not be able to send so much work to you anymore." Well, that is up to them, of course, and I did notice, that the requests from certain clients were reduced. But if I in connection with a job I was doing made a phone call to them to solve a "whichever little problem I could invent", their attitude changed. Suddenly I became "a person" instead of just "an anonymous translator", and suddenly the requests for new translations are up to normal rate again.
Well, I don´t know if that is "marketing", but it sure works out fine every time!
Dinny ▲ Collapse
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| Market and rules..... | Jun 29, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
I think the whole attitude to translation is wrong. Translators are highly educated and specialized people, like doctors and lawyers. No one can tell a doctor what to charge. Let's imagine you go to a dentist and say," my budget is $25 and I need the best crown that will look like a natural tooth by tomorrow". They will laugh at you. this is what it reminds me of when I read some of the offers, not necessarily on this site, sometimes. I agree that a professional translator should always say"I charge", "this is my fee" and not" what is your budget", or" what do you pay". We cannot call customers employers, because employer is only someone who has an employee-employer relationship with you, meaning the person or the company pays you regular wages with tax deductions and everything else, plus there are some other requirements for a company or a person to be called employer. Unfortunately the customer is not always right -- if they have unreasonable requirements and want to pay you starvation rates, they are not right. I know there should not be a standard rate, since translation rates will always be regulated by the market to a certain extant, but the market should not the the the sole basis for them. I have a feeling that many translations are being done by unqualified translators, for very low rates, and this is one of the factors that add to the deterioration of language. Unfortunately I don't think you could train on translation -- you have to be a fully competent translator to translate. It is not that someone who can translate only certain words should be paid $0.02/word and keep training for two, five, or fifteen years, and in the meantime, people will die because of his or her wrongly translated medical reports. This is serious stuff -- not really kindergarden.
Like in all cases of extreme liberalization and uncontrolled market, once a small company becomes a giant it begins to monopolize the market imposing its prices. They offer end customers acceptable services at lower prices (or higher prices with what end customer perceives as added value). When the growth of these companies becomes excessive in a market they on the one side choke the market by preventing freelancers to access certain customers, while on the other side the huge centralization of workflow they get puts them in the position to affect rates. As a professional i can charge X per 1000 words and feel cool with that as i deem that rate the right price for my work (acknowledged by part of the market); on the other side, there is a point where customer (not agency, end customer) comes and tells you "Hey Enrico, you are asking X but this company is offering a cheaper Y, with more services so if you still like to work for us you should go down with rates). In other cases, big companies ask as much as 3 times more than they pay us, but offer a wide range of services a single freelancer can't offer. Hence, i don't think we, as single freelancers are able to invert this trend. That is why i mentioned the fact we do need a basic legislative framework with rates.
Someone mentioned doctors, comparing them with translators. In some countries doctors' rates have a min charge and a max one, or a min charge but not a maximum. This is done to prevent cases in which a doctor, after years of study, ends up by becoming worse than a maid. You can't let the market decide for everything for the simple reason that an uncontrolled market ruled by giants will always head for price reduction. And that is how the unskilled people paid 0.02 USD per word enter the market, and ruin it. I know of in-house working for even less (Because you know, word amount is so big that they do have to grant their employer a little discount).
[Edited at 2012-06-29 11:10 GMT]
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:20
Portuguese to English
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| Define "professional" | Jun 29, 2012 |
I suppose to answer the question you'd first need to define whether you mean someone making a living out of translation or an educated, certified individual working according to professional standards.
| | | | | Definition of professional | Jun 29, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
I suppose to answer the question you'd first need to define whether you mean someone making a living out of translation or an educated, certified individual working according to professional standards.
Hi Lisa, i don't think the definition of professional leaves any space for imagination. How do you define a a professional doctor? As a an individual who has the titles to work in his field, has a remarkable experience in that specific field, operates on a permanent basis and follows professional and ethical rules providing the services required AT LEAST at an acceptable standard or above.
I assume the definition of a professional translator is not much different. The key difference is doctors operate within a well acknowledged legislative framework for which in most parts of the world there are rules and laws with minimum honorarium, registers and endless associations protecting the categories. As a matter of fact, where this doesn't happen, also professional doctors are treated like trash (I live in Asia and can tell the difference in some places).
[Edited at 2012-06-29 12:36 GMT]
| | | | Loise
France
Local time: 04:20
French to Chinese
+ ...
| PhD translator | Jun 29, 2012 |
Alexander Onishko wrote: LilianBoland wrote:
I have been wondering what, in your opinion, fair minimum rates should be for professional translators, with years of academic training and experience. The trend which many companies exhibit is to pay as little as possible, which is not fair to highly qualified professionals with years of experience and study -- many with Phds, even. With all due respect, please let me state that exactly PHD is not something indispensable to produce good translations. In my humble opinion a PHD is simply overqualified for this job. [Edited at 2012-06-28 20:00 GMT]
I could not agree more. A PHD is overqualified for lots of translation jobs...And most translators not having PhD do this job as well as or even better than a PhD translator...
But as a PhD translator, I have a much more comfortable income than many of my ex-classmates pursuing an academic career...(I live in France). Maybe most academic jobs are just underpaid. So are a great number of PhDs...Therefore I won't complain of myself being overqualified. And I do enjoy my job.
[Edited at 2012-06-29 12:39 GMT]
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Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 04:20
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Suzan Hamer wrote: Nicole Schnell wrote:
Marketing starts as soon as a translator will erase and replace the following phrases and thoughts from his / her memory:
- "the employer..." (instead of "client" or "customer")
I work with my clients, not for them. [Edited at 2012-06-29 08:38 GMT]
Indeed, this little four-letter word makes a tremendous difference. Working with someone instills a more positive psychological conception of one's value, both as a person made of blood and bone as well as professionally than working for someone.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:20
Portuguese to English
+ ...
| No argument here | Jun 29, 2012 |
Enrico C - ECLC wrote: Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
I suppose to answer the question you'd first need to define whether you mean someone making a living out of translation or an educated, certified individual working according to professional standards. Hi Lisa, i don't think the definition of professional leaves any space for imagination. How do you define a a professional doctor? As a an individual who has the titles to work in his field, has a remarkable experience in that specific field, operates on a permanent basis and follows professional and ethical rules providing the services required AT LEAST at an acceptable standard or above. [Edited at 2012-06-29 12:36 GMT]
I'm just not convinced many people on this site would be aware of that definition.
| | | | Oleg Rudavin
Ukraine
Local time: 05:20
Member (2003)
English to Ukrainian
+ ...
| Translators vs. doctors, lawyers or plumbers | Jul 2, 2012 |
neilmac wrote: I want at least the same hourly rate as my dentist, mechanic, plumber, electrician etc. And my per-word rate should be equal to that. If I manage to actually earn more than that rough guideline, then whoopee!
OK: what do we actually pay for when we use medical services? - We are trying to buy health or even life.
Layesr? - We pay them so they saved our property, freedom or money.
Plumbers or electricians? - They restore the comfort generally regarded as an essential - something we believe we can't live without.
Translators? umm... only very few of us provide translation services in areas that can be tagged as health, safety or essentials and charged accordingly. The rest mostly work in the run-of-the-mill segments. Mediocre goods, mediocre rates...
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