So you thought you’re going to be a freelancer and you’ll be free from any managerial stuff? Is this why you left your full-time job? Well, bad news today. Every freelance translator is a manager. Have a look at this list of managerial skills and audit your own staff!
1. Relevant professional knowledge
You have to know your stuff better than anyone else. You simply have to know what you’re doing. If you translate, learn about your source and target cultures, habits and traditions. Develop your knowledge and understanding, hone your translation skills. As a manager, you always need to know better!
2. Command of basic facts about business
Apart from your professional knowledge on translation, you need to know how to create and send invoices, what to include in your terms and conditions, how to operate your brand new fax machine. You also should find out what are the biggest agencies around, who are their managers and where to meet them.
3. Responsiveness to events
You need to be open and watchful, as there is a lot of opportunities out there. Successful freelance translators know what’s going up in their language pairs and learn how to analyse events. They plan the future based on what’s happening now.
4. Decision-making skills
Face it: you are wholly responsible for all your decisions. If you forgot to invoice a client and now you have to wait another light years to be paid while bills can’t really wait, there’s no-one else to blame for that. You must develop your own system of judgement and decision making to be able to carefully select projects, clients and go about rates.
5. Social skills
Translation is, after all, about communication. You need to know how to communicate with your clients, how to talk to them on the phone explaining delays, how to negotiate. These days when translators could be these antisocial alienated creatures are gone. Time to prepare your socialising kit!
6. Emotional resilience
No, freelance translation is not this easy, stress-free job you do in your pyjamas. You actually need much more emotional strength to be able to cope with various situations managing self-control and not panicking. Do you know how would you react if your client tells you that your translation is rubbish and wants you to spend another 2 days on it? Or when they refuse to pay? Or when another translator undermines your reputation just for the sake of it?
7. Proactivity
Successful freelance translators perform. They are always planning and getting the best out of every situation. There’s your regional shop opening in the area? Go there and talk with the owner, suggest co-operation and help with translating documents. A conference somewhere around on the topic of interest, but you can’t be a speaker? Volunteer to help with organisation and take your business cards with you. Managers don’t just sit and wait.
8. Creativity
Competition is tough, but creativity is what makes you stand out. Have ideas, share them, talk about them. Ever wanted to translate a book? Think of some marketing tricks you could suggest to the publisher. Want to be more recognised? Start doing something unique and special. Take a new approach!
9. Mental agility
Multitasking is the pillar of any freelance profession. In translation, you can’t be just a decent translator. You have to be a good accountant, sales person, marketer, manager and strategist. You need to have brains for that! Train your mind to act quickly and to switch rapidly from task to task. Anyone can do it.
10. Self-knowledge
Be aware why you are here as a freelance translator and where do you want to go in your career. Make sure that you understand how your values, feelings, strengths, habits shape your professional profile.
Over to you
How do you feel about these skills? Do you need to work on any of them?
Marta Stelmaszak
Thanks for reading this article! I hope you found it useful. If you have anything to say or add, don't hesitate to leave your comment below. Don't forget to sign up for a newsletter to make sure you won't miss a thing.
Follow Me:
No Comments