Comments on: Supplier or demander?

By: Karen Tkaczyk

Karen Tkaczyk — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:22:58 +0000

Great post, and great comments.
Never a) or c). Either b) or d)
b) has worked for me this year with two good, regular clients whom I didn’t want to drop. I was feeling like I would have to start refusing them because I was bringing in new, higher paying clients at a word rate $0.02 higher. I was debating though, that perhaps absolute rate isn’t the point. Familiarity with an agency’s process or the subject matter means that that familiar work will probably be done faster and in a more cost effective way than a one-off higher paying job for a new client. Who knows if that new client will become regular? So the two current clients gave me a $0.01 raise and I felt comfortable at that making decent business sense.
I’d love to have a wider client base but I don’t find that many high-quality new clients that need me frequently (I’m highly specialized). There are always some, but it’s not a huge turnover. I only have about 8 regular clients, then I have about 15 new contacts in any year who end up being one-offs or only offer me work infrequently. They are rapidly put in my ‘dormant clients’ folder.
d) for me would simply be refusing eveything they offer.
I wouldn’t use c) because if I don’t want to work for them any more I tell them so, and if I do want to work for them then I have effectively decided I’ll keep them on even if they refuse, and am asking simply in the hope that it might work.
I have one lower paying client (my first regular client ever) whose projects i still take once in a while (say twice a year) because they come with a huge, jam-packed, useful TM. Some entries have to be edited, but the temrinology that crops up makes it worthwhile for me every so often.

By: Kevin Lossner

Kevin Lossner — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:37:49 +0000

A point I have made innumerable times with other translators is the need to spread risk across a wide client base. Ten or fewer clients really doesn’t cut it in my opinion. The situation to work toward is being able to make up for the loss of your top clients from the volume you turn down from others every week. Try never to allow any client to contribute more than 20% of your annual volume and try to keep the number well below that if you can, no matter how much you like that client or how interesting the projects are. I used to work with a fairly small group of clients, but after losing two big ones in the same month to buyouts years ago, I decided to protect myself by spreading my business risk over a client base which is now about ten times as large as back then.

The advantage of doing this with respect to pricing is that you can be as bold as you like about setting rates, specifying charges for rush jobs, bad formatting, etc. If the client objects, there are dozens more waiting in line for services.

By: Anyword » Blog Archive » Comment augmenter ses prix ?

Anyword » Blog Archive » Comment augmenter ses prix ? — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:10:32 +0000

[...] qu’ils consentent à leurs clients ? Telle est l’intéressante question soulevée par Corinne McKay dans son blog, souvent cité ici, Thoughts on Translation. Après avoir mis en évidence la [...]

By: Judy Jenner

Judy Jenner — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:43:55 +0000

Those are really good points, Corinne. In general, prices rise throughout the economy (well, yes!), but for our industry, there’s still a huge pressure for price decreases, which is really unique among professional services. It’s because translation is increasingly (and erroneously) being seen as a commodity.

I am still trying to figure out a customized approach (many times it depends if it’s a repeat customer, how much work we have been getting from them, how specialized the translations are, etc.), so mostly I would go with d). For instance, last week a client asked me to move up a six-day deadline by one day and asked me how much that cost. Clearly, she was willing to pay more, but it was only one day, so I charged her the same, for which she was very grateful. It did get me thinking of perhaps coming up with some pricing strategy should the client move up the deadline after the project has started. Again, that’s a new topic again, and more food for thought. As translators, we definitely need to increase our rates over time, at least to adjust for inflation.

On a similar note, my accountant had quoted me $100 for some work two weeks ago, and when I went in to sign papers, he charged me $150, saying his rates had gone up (in the middle of the month?). Seemed pretty unethical to me, so I don’t want to adapt his pricing strategy, whatever it is. I hate to admit it, but I did pay the $150. However, I am not going back, so he lost a client. In addition, he had no rate sheets to display his new (or old) rates, so I felt cheated.

Great blog, Corinne!

By: Ryan Ginstrom

Ryan Ginstrom — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:11:16 +0000

That’s a very good point about our relatively small number of clients making the dynamic different from other professions like dentists and accountants.

Personally, I usually take the (d) approach — gradually get too busy for the lower-paying clients (turning down jobs more frequently), replacing that work with work from the new, better-paying client. In my experience, clients (agency and direct) are almost pathologically opposed to paying their translators higher rates. In the end it hurts the clients, because their best translators end up leaving them.