The translation sales handbook

A roadmap to higher rates, better clients

Proven strategies to find new and higher-paying clients, and to convert existing clients to higher-payers

No doubt you’ve experienced your next project arriving minutes after the last. As the last few weeks of non-stop project requests continue, you wonder when you will be able to actually stop and breathe for a minute. This treadmill of projects makes you a living, but leaves you no time to live. It’s enough to smother a business; or at least the person running it.

If you had a plan to streamline your business, to continually improve the rates and deadlines of these projects as the months went by, you could start to look forward to spending more time living and less time working. This book offers a whole approach, a roadmap, to put you on that path.

Leaving money on the table (that you hadn’t seen before)

I’ve spent the last few years reading and talking to sales and marketing consultants in other freelance professions, and learning the latest techniques they use to find clients, both online and offline. I’ve also studied the marketing plans and tactics of startups from Silicon Valley to Berlin, many of whom have shared their successes in countless blog posts and discussions online, and have applied the most suitable of these to our business of translation. They have enabled me to invoice five figure amounts in single peak months and to consistently generate high volumes of freelance work with capacity to spare.

I rarely talk about earnings to anyone, to be honest, but in order to inspire confidence and action I need to show you that it is possible to go from just a few clients to a solid and growing workload in a relatively short time, and that this book contains tested and proven ways to get there. Even if you’re already generating enough income from your translation practice, yet can find little time for much else, then this approach will help you to restore that balance between work and life.

You’re more in control of your rates than you realise

After reading this book you’ll be able to immediately raise your working rate by up to double in some cases by employing the strategies used by some of the world’s top freelance and consulting businesses.

You will have actionable steps to take via a checklist to make sure you’ve covered everything needed to boost your income or improve your work/life balance.

After reading this book, you will be able to:

  • Confidently justify a higher rate
  • Make your website work harder for you
  • Save money on ‘SEO experts’ through DIY SEO
  • Streamline your sales approach
  • Position yourself to find the best clients
  • Use productivity tools to grow faster
  • Measures to ensure maximum data security
  • 12 translators interviewed on their strategies*
  • The risks and benefits of outsourcing for growth
  • Work your way to higher rates and better clients systematically with the roadmap
  • Use the reader-only calculator to set a rate for growth and run different scenarios**
*Lucy Brooks, Céline Graciet, Anne Diamantidis, Catherine Christaki, Michael Roberts, Oliver Lawrence, Elaine Farrell, Marta Stelmaszak, Erik Hansson, Corinne McKay, Eric Bullington, Gaetano Fabozzi
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**Not your average calculator. This one takes account of spare working capacity, based on your words per hour and hours worked per day. This tells you how much your current and hypothetical rates will allow you to grow and save as you require, and how any productivity improvements will affect your total potential income.
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Extracts from testimonials sent in by readers:

A valuable addition to the literature.
(Member, Chartered Institute of Linguists)

[...] clearly something that was missing from the translation publications market. A sales, marketing and pricing book appropriate (finally!) mainly for seasoned translators.
(Internationally renowned blogging translator)

[...] one of the most practically useful of all the translation/business books I have read.
(Professional translator and agency owner) 

[...] practical advice that’s easy to relate to and use right away. Many of the tips were new to me, and I have read quite a few business books and translator books already.  I highly recommend all translators to take a look at it.
(American and Swedish translation association member, blogger)

I downloaded your sales handbook yesterday and have read through it twice since then. I’ve read many of the books available on freelance translation from a business perspective, and yours is by far the best that I have come across. I feel that many of the others out there offer basic start up information which is easily accessible elsewhere. Yours has a completely different take on approaching the industry, and I found that your book came up with some really interesting sales and marketing techniques.
(Professional translator, UK)

 

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Read the full testimonials and comments, with attribution, in the box below:
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- A license for 1 reader per copy ordered

- A single download of the latest version

- Access to future updates of the book

- A license for up to 10 colleagues or clients

- A single download of the latest version

- Access to future updates of the book

“A valuable addition to the literature.”
Oliver Lawrence, DipTrans, MCIL, freelance Italian translator

“A very well-written and super interesting book. I’ve read some of the popular books focused on translators but yours is clearly something that was missing from the translation publications market. A sales, marketing and pricing book appropriate (finally!) mainly for seasoned translators. Most (if not all) of the books out there focus on new translators with only a few useful parts for the experienced ones.

I particularly loved the sales and marketing parts of the book. You’d think these would be a bit boring for translators, but they are so well adapted to us and offer so much food for thought.”
Catherine Christaki,  translating blogger/blogging translator, @linguagreca

“[...] I would also just like to say that your book was probably one of the most practically useful of all the translation/business books I have read, and I now have so many ideas to revamp my site content, restructure my rates and have more confidence to go out there and hook some direct clients.”
Nicola Hawkesford, Awendan Translation Services , @awendantrans

“The book is written in a very practical, no-nonsense way and includes a lot of practical advice that’s easy to relate to and use right away. Many of the tips were new to me, and I have read quite a few business books and translator books already.  I highly recommend all translators to take a look at it.”
Tess Whitty, Swedish Translation Services, from this book review

I downloaded your sales handbook yesterday and have read through it twice since then. I’ve read many of the books available on freelance translation from a business perspective, and yours is by far the best that I have come across. I feel that many of the others out there offer basic start up information which is easily accessible elsewhere. Yours has a completely different take on approaching the industry, and I found that your book came up with some really interesting sales and marketing techniques. I completely buy into the majority of your techniques for enhancing business and rates.

I have a degree in Business and a few years’ experience in sales account management. When I set out to start up as a translator, I had a certain level of background knowledge on sales and marketing and spent quite a bit of time researching and reading business start-up books, marketing books, social media, SEO etc. to try and prepare for setting up a business. I felt that the translation books which I read before the translation sales handbook were essentially a really basic guide for readers who had done very little research into the industry. They had some useful elements, but on the whole there is a lot of information in them which is easily accessible on-line or which highlight basic business principles. Your book on the other hand offered a completely different insight into how to conduct your business as a translator/consultant and was very specific to the sales process of translation, linking it to good practice in similar professions.
Liam Curley, TradeTechTranslations.com

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Preview the book’s contents page here.

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The price is set to be the equivalent of an investment of one working hour, with a view to helping you to earn many times more over the coming years. It can also be noted down as a business expense, and be included as part of your CPD.

Formats: .pdf, .mobi

Estimated release date: 12.11.12

Word count: 45,000

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Luke Spear has been a freelance translator for the last 10 years. He also runs a translation agency that is in good standing with clients and linguists alike, and has recently built a translation management site for buyers and LSPs that aims to vastly improve the perception of and access to the translation market.
His tweets can be found at @lukespear.