As translation professionals, we spend a great deal of time thinking about how we can improve our work, what we can contribute to the sector and what new goals we can set for ourselves throughout our career. To that end, we usually resort to all kinds of resources that are related to learning and acquiring new knowledge. In translation, for example, it is common to take courses in new translation modalities (medical translation, legal translation, creative translation, audiovisual translation, literary translation, etc.), as well as other courses on the use of computer-assisted translation tools. It is a well-established reality that more and more clients work with new translation and management programs, which is why having prior knowledge of them is advantageous for all professionals who seek to stand out in such a competitive market. Furthermore, there are many translators who are looking for new opportunities in other markets and therefore decide to learn a new language. Although it may be a worthwhile decision, it is a long-term goal that involves several variables, such as the labor demand in a particular language combination. Likewise, there are also people who start from scratch to specialize in an area of expertise and after completing their studies, they become an expert in the field. It is clear that language services professionals reflect on the present and think about how they can prepare themselves for the future. To do so, they take on a perspective where they focus on their own profile and seek to perfect it through a series of training strategies that make said profile attractive to potential clients and take into account their needs. However, as is well known in the industry, a high level of qualification, extensive knowledge and the mastery of countless programs are sometimes not enough to reach more clients. Moreover, this may work against us in some contexts, since there are clients who rule out the most qualified profiles because they associate them with a higher financial outlay, without, of course, taking quality into account.
For this reason, translators who want to win new clients and expand the scope of their services have to think not only about increasing the level of their skills or promoting new ones, but also about learning how to advertise their services, attract the attention of potential interested people, stand out from the crowd, demonstrate the quality that they can deliver on different jobs and, in short, create a professional brand that faithfully reflects their values and the commitment acquired to the satisfaction of clients and their localization needs.
In today’s article we discuss some of the most common strategies that translators and other professionals in the language services sector put into practice when developing and promoting growth and dissemination in the market.
As would be expected, one of the first goals that translators should set is to increase their presence in the industry or create it from scratch. To be successful, it is important to be present, we have to make sure we can be found and, above all, others have to know who we are and what we offer. Therefore, one of the first steps may involve increasing our presence on the Internet. This is because the Internet is one of the two most frequent translator “search engines”, along with word of mouth. In the world of translation, it is advisable to join a translators’ association, create a profile on translator discussion forums, join translator forums or create an account on a social network. The main reason is that this allows us to stay in touch with other sector professionals (by topic, by work mode, by interests, etc.) and create a small network of contacts in which everyone knows each other or, at least, knows that they have specific profiles in their network. When the time comes, this may be of great interest, since when a translator receives a job for which they are not properly qualified, they can recommend a translator whose profile they know and believe can complete the assignment properly. Likewise, these forums are often used to request help for translation issues, meaning that they become an ideal space for demonstrating our skills.
Another idea is to make oneself known through a social media account, one’s own website or even a professional blog. In these spaces, we can share all the information we want and as we see fit: our education, our work, projects we have worked on, examples of challenges we have faced in translation and how we have solved them, opinions about the sector or its development perspective, etc. This gives clients a more complete picture of who we are and they can access much more personalized information than what should be included on a résumé.
There is also the possibility of taking on an individualized approach and searching for potential companies of interest to which we directly offer our services. The important thing here is to know the significance of maintaining said personal approach, even if we are presenting ourselves to several companies at the same time. Ideally, one should write a personalized cover email, addressed to each individual company and mentioning the specific advantages that may arise from a business relationship between both parties. For the client, it is important to know that special attention will be given to their needs and they will not be treated as just another account.
Therefore, to succeed in the translation sector, we not only need to grow as professionals, but we must advertise our services intelligently to achieve our goals.
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