There are both positives and negatives to working with direct clients when you’re a beginner translator.

Starting off with Direct Clients

There are both positives and negatives to working with direct clients when you’re a beginner translator. Translation agencies provide certain safety nets, and as a newcomer to the profession it can be helpful to have these backups: for example, working for an agency means that your work will be proofread before being forwarded to the end client – thus protecting you from any potential disasters.

On the other hand, a direct client may be more likely to take on an inexperienced translator. If there’s a client who prefers to work with someone local, they may have the incentive to work with someone new.

If you’ve decided to take the direct-client route, there will be hospitals, businesses, and/or school systems in your area that could possibly use your services. Our suggestion is that the best source of direct client contacts would be international business organizations, such as the International Chamber of Commerce. Joining an organization such as this is the perfect way of networking with potential clients. Do a Google search for the Chamber of Commerce in your language pair; like French – American Chamber of Commerce, for example.

Start Locally

If you believe that you present better in person than you do on paper, contact every translation agency in your area and ask for an in-person meeting. If your local agencies have no current work in your language combination, don’t be dissuaded. Your in-person meeting will ensure that you’ll be contacted should their needs change.

Get Busy Marketing

One of the common mistakes beginner translators make is that they send out 5 or 10 inquiries and assume they’ll soon be working full-time. If your goal is to be working full-time as a freelance translator, then you’re going to have to put in a lot more effort - you may need to contact hundreds of potential clients during the first year! Some of these contacts will include United States translation agencies, companies in your area that could use your services, and agencies in countries where your other languages are spoken.

Don’t Let Them Forget You

Don’t wait to hear back from potential clients or agencies – keep in touch. Keep a detailed account of each person you email or speak to, and what their response was to your inquiry. Then, contact these people on a regular basis to let them know you’re still available and you’re still interested. Keep them informed as to the types of projects you’ve been involved in, and remind them that you would love to assist with their translation work.

Never Stop Marketing Yourself

Marketing becomes easier once you’ve landed your first few clients because now you’ve got something to tell your prospective clients. Generally, successful translators spend a minimum of 10% of their time marketing. This figure might increase to 50% for beginning translators. Either way, you should never stop marketing. Even experienced translators lose major clients, or experience a downturn in the economy, and that’s why it’s vitally important that you maintain an effective marketing strategy.