Tag Archives: business

Are You Sure You Can Be a Translator?

Uncategorized, , ,

false-98375_1280

The idea of writing this post appeared during one of my ordinary proofreading projects when I had to correct other translator’s mistakes.

Today translation market is overcrowded with translators and all of them claim to be professionals. At the same time every now and then we see awfully translated manuals, menus, brochures, let alone more serious specialized texts which can be really dangerous if translated erroneously. Sometimes I have to select a team of translators for a specific project and I look through many resumes and test translations. And every time I get very surprised why so many people with higher education in linguistics and translation do their job so bad!

I remember that starting from my school years I have been from the human sciences league. I loved languages, history, literature… But the Russian language was my favorite.

Continue reading Are You Sure You Can Be a Translator? →

Regular Follow-Ups: They Pay Off

Uncategorized, , , , ,

at-706903_1280Sometimes you may get the impression that you regularly contact with your pool of customers and there is no way they can forget about you. However this impression is illusive. Your client is most probably a very busy person and he/she can easily confuse you with another freelancer.

When I am not too busy with projects I spend some time looking through the list of my clients and send them small reminders about myself: I may ask them to leave me a feedback or I inform about my new services or send them my vacation dates, etc.

A few days ago I’ve got one more prove that follow-up letters are extremely important in freelance. I contacted one of my best clients with the feedback request. Guess what… He was very surprised to hear from me and wondered if I was still freelancing. Continue reading Regular Follow-Ups: They Pay Off →

Accounting and Visualization — Drivers of Freelance Business

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

IMG_2058All my life I’ve been living in Russia. Moreover I live in the Urals and summer is something unreliable and unpredictable here. For example, last year most summer days were cold and rainy. Thankfully my husband and I are both freelancers, and without a moment’s hesitation we left this God forsaken place and spent 1.5 months in Spain and Greece.

But this year has beaten all. June 2015 has turned out to be unexpectedly intensive, productive, and fruitful. I didn’t have time to post enough in Social Media and on my website, let alone diversified menu of my family which was badly-hit. Finally, this crazy month has ended, all invoices are issued, and I can catch a break and summarize a few things.

Continue reading Accounting and Visualization — Drivers of Freelance Business →

Rules for Getting All Your Invoices Paid

Uncategorized, , , , ,

photo-1460400355256-e87506dcec4f
Finally all holidays are over. Even the old style New Year celebrated in Russia passed yesterday. Although freelancers do not live by official calendars, now we feel ourselves more decisive to throw into work with enthusiasm.

Probably most of you have already summed up all your achievements and set new goals for 2015. However when it comes to finance in freelance the results can be assessed only a month or even two after the year is finished. A couple of days ago I decided to check my statistics file for 2014 and found out that almost all my invoices had been paid already. There are only a few due in January and February. This fact allows me to say that the year has finished without any debts. Continue reading Rules for Getting All Your Invoices Paid →