 Hello everyone. Today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about finding clients. A lot of you have mentioned in comments or in private messages that you would like to find end clients rather than agencies. If you're a translator, you can deal with translation agencies and be one of their translators or you can deal with the end client, you know, the person who originally commissioned the translation. And it makes sense that you want to find the end clients because then your pay is better. However, it also means you need to do a lot more work. Let's face it. Translation agencies, they know what to expect from a translator. They know the same language. They can talk about source word, target language. They can talk about word counts. They can talk about this, that and the other. The end client doesn't know any of this. So it's a very different language, but it's also a very different mentality you need to deal with when you're dealing with a translation agency or with an end client. It's not enough to just find a client's website and be like, Hey, I'll translate your stuff because they're not going to hire you that way. Let's face it. It takes a lot more involvement. Look, when you're talking to a translation agency, you are talking about yourself, right? You're talking about why you're a good translator. You're talking about why they should pick you, how you're better than all the other translators. You say, I have this much experience. I've translated for this and this. Here's my portfolio. Here's some samples of my translations. I took a test in this language combination and scored this amount. And I'm a member of whatever association, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Your resume, your list of services, all that stuff is extremely important for finding a translation agency to hire you because it makes you stand out and shows that you're a very good translator. When you're trying to find end clients, that doesn't help at all because when you're trying to find end clients, you cannot be talking about yourself. You have to be talking about them. They don't care that you're a great translator, that you've been accredited by this association and you took this test in whatever language combination and you can do so and so words per day or whatever. No, but they don't even know what half of that means. All they care about is their own job. They care about their boss breathing down their neck, about their client who's bothering them, about their day-to-day stuff. So this translation they need done is just part of their day. And you need to understand that and be able to see it from their point of view. Obviously, this can be for anything, for legal translation, for someone who makes websites, for a gaming company, whatever your specialization or whoever you're contacting, whatever industry they're in, that's the industry they live in. That's their own world. When you contact them, you need to understand the world that they're living in. If they are working at a financial company and they are thinking of getting a new client who lives in another country, you know, where you speak the language and they're wondering if they should do that, then they're not worried about the translation per se. We'll say we need to translate our pamphlets and our website into that language. No, they're worried about their business and if it's going to go well, if it's going to succeed or something along those lines. And you need to understand that. You need to understand, say, oh, okay, is this something that they are personally in charge of? And are they, if it succeeds, are they going to do well or if it fails, are they going to do badly? Are they going to suffer because of it? If so, then, you know, they have a lot riding on this and they really want it to work out. Maybe they're talking to a couple of people. They're not sure who they can trust. You need to understand all of this. This means you need to research their business. You're there to make their life easier. You need to research their life, their business life and what's going on in their office. And you need to show that you can understand it. So if they are saying, well, we're thinking of expanding to so-and-so country and, you know, we're not sure which partner to go with because I can't tell, you can contact them. You can say, oh, it looks like you're expanding to so-and-so country. You're thinking about it. I know it can be hard to deal with that because, you know, many times in that country, it's very hard to know who you can trust. I'm from that country. You know, I translate into that language. And so you show that you understand their perspective, their point of view, and then you show them how you can make it better. Because at that point, you can tell them, look, when you're contacting people of whatever country it is, you kind of want to make sure that you can't have a long-term relationship. So if something goes wrong, you want to know about it right away before things start. A good way to do that is to, you know, whatever it might be, you know, just have them start with something small and blah, blah, blah. More than a translator, you're becoming a partner. The translation per se is just a small thing for them. So you need to figure out how to partner up. You need to do more research because if they just need a translation of two sheets or two pieces of paper or something like that, they'll contact the translation agency. They won't even do much research about that. But if you want to partner up and if you want them to use you for all their translations in that language from here on out or for this whole project or something along those lines, then they're looking for a partner and you need to show that that's what you can offer. You almost 100% guarantee that you need to offer more than just a pure translation. You need to offer this understanding and show them how you can make their life easier and how you can help with their business. And that's what I mean. It's just a very different mentality when you're approaching the end client versus when you are approaching a translation agency. So before you decide to step into the issues and try to approach end clients, keep this in mind. Because if you approach this same banker guy who's trying to expand to that country, and if you're just saying, I can translate so-and-so words per day, and I'm accredited by this association there. I mean, they'll forget about it right away because at that point, that's not what they're worried about. I just wanted to point this out. You should keep this point of view, this mentality in mind when you're contacting end clients. It's a very different mentality from translation agencies. And that's why I usually recommend starting with translation agencies until you get used to the translation process. Once you feel comfortable doing translations in this language combination and in this field, if it's financial or gaming or marketing or whatever it might be, then at that point, you can start looking into end clients because then you understand the field more, the industry a bit more, and you can kind of step into their shoes a bit more easily. So I hope you find this useful and I hope if you do try to search for end clients, you keep this in mind because I do think it will help. If you did find this useful, please don't forget to click like because that always helps. 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