Poll: Which do you find more difficult? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Which do you find more difficult?".
View the poll results »
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 19:25
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
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Either you deliver quality translations or you don't. Either you work for acceptable rates or you don't. If you deliver quality translations for acceptable rates you will find and keep clients. If you don't, you won't. End of story.
| | | | | Finders, keepers | Sep 2, 2022 |
Anyone who can't keep clients needs to change career...
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I haven’t been looking for new clients for a while, usually they come to me and when they do what I really want is to make them happy so that they become regular customers. The success of any business or service is largely decided by the number of satisfied and happy clients, isn’t it?
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Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 19:25
French to English
Getting a new client requires skills that don't come naturally to me: basically marketing myself, telling people about how great I am and how much better value I am for the money even though I charge more than whoever else is under consideration.
Keeping a new client requires skills that do come naturally: doing the best job possible in the time allotted. I don't accept work unless I have the time, and it's well within my comfort zone, so there's no reason for me to fail.
... See more Getting a new client requires skills that don't come naturally to me: basically marketing myself, telling people about how great I am and how much better value I am for the money even though I charge more than whoever else is under consideration.
Keeping a new client requires skills that do come naturally: doing the best job possible in the time allotted. I don't accept work unless I have the time, and it's well within my comfort zone, so there's no reason for me to fail.
That said, I'm so good at keeping the ones I have, I don't really need to get any new ones. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 19:25
French to English
Lieven Malaise wrote:
Either you deliver quality translations or you don't. Either you work for acceptable rates or you don't. If you deliver quality translations for acceptable rates you will find and keep clients. If you don't, you won't. End of story.
Getting a new client requires you to persuade them to at least let you do one job for them, so it's not really as simple as you're making out.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 19:25
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| Minimum effort. | Sep 2, 2022 |
Kay Denney wrote:
Getting a new client requires you to persuade them to at least let you do one job for them, so it's not really as simple as you're making out.
Either they are persuaded by your cv and give you a first job or they are persuaded by the 300 word test translation they asked you to do. Minimum effort, I'd say.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:25
Member (2008)
Italian to English
ProZ.com Staff wrote: This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Which do you find more difficult?". View the poll results »
Which of what two things?
I don't understand the question.
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 19:25
Spanish to English
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I don't need any new clients. I currently have to beat them away with a stick... maybe I should put my rates up as a deterrent, as everything else is going through the roof.
| | | | Rita Utt
France
Local time: 19:25
English to German
+ ...
| I would say, keeping clients | Sep 2, 2022 |
not because they don't like what I do anymore, but because they tend to pay less and less...
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 13:25
German to English
| Sometimes there are one-off jobs | Sep 2, 2022 |
I've found in the past that sometimes agencies seek someone outside their normal range of specialties, e.g. an agency devoted mainly to Spanish-language services needing a German to English translator for a regular client or an agency usually specializing in legal translations requiring an automotive specialist. Such clients were difficult to retain because they just didn't need my services on a long-term basis. I was grateful for the work, and occasionally these agencies contacted me again.
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Perhaps, U are trying to get a client then U want to keep'em as possible as U can.
Perhaps U got clients and U don't care if they gone, because U are a successful translator and U just don't care about'em. That means U have a lotta work in U're hands, doesn't that tiring somehow??!
I believe that whatever we do or trying to do is hard, difficult.
You almost finished till U get clients or U want'em to work always with U and U do your best for that.
I got si... See more Perhaps, U are trying to get a client then U want to keep'em as possible as U can.
Perhaps U got clients and U don't care if they gone, because U are a successful translator and U just don't care about'em. That means U have a lotta work in U're hands, doesn't that tiring somehow??!
I believe that whatever we do or trying to do is hard, difficult.
You almost finished till U get clients or U want'em to work always with U and U do your best for that.
I got sick!!
All in All, it's hard ▲ Collapse
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| Recommendations | Sep 3, 2022 |
Kay Denney wrote:
Getting a new client requires you to persuade them to at least let you do one job for them, so it's not really as simple as you're making out.
Most of my new clients become so because they've been recommended to me by an old client. No persuasion is required - not by me, anyway.
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