 Hi everyone, this is Robert Gephardt and today I wanted to talk to you about a way to use websites to your advantage. Basically, how you can start earning more per hour based on the websites you're using. By websites I mean like pros.com, translators, cafe, Upwork, whatever you might use to get your job because you can use them not only as a translator, but as a client as well. I think the best way to explain this is by an example. Once upon a time there was this translator who translated from Italian to English and that's all he translated it. That's me. I'm that translator. What happened was I could do these and every now and then people would ask me, can you do this Italian to English? I'd be like, yes, I can do it. I can do it. But every now and then I get requests for other things like, oh, by the way, do you also do French to English? I'd be like, no, sorry, I don't do that. Do you do Italian to Spanish? No, sorry, I don't do that. Do you do English to Italian? No, I don't do that. I only do Italian to English and that's it. But I would get these requests for other types of languages. And after a while I kind of had enough and I was always on these forums, on these websites. I knew other translators and, you know, I kind of had been chatting with them and knew them on the internet, let's say. So at a certain point I got asked by a client who was already my client. I'd already done translations for them and I got an email saying, oh, by the way, can you also do this French to English translation? So I said, what the hey, sure, I can do it. I charged them, you know, I gave a price that's a bit higher than what I usually charge. And I asked for more time. That was my main thing. I want, you know, I wanted to make sure that I could get this done. And so as soon as I received the document, I sent it off to one of the French translators I've been talking to, basically through the website. This is through pros.com. And, and I look, I was honest, I didn't pretend to be, you know, an agency or anything. I was like, you know, I'm, then you know, I'm another translator. But yeah, you think this is something you could work on? Obviously, I'll pay you. And they're like, yeah, sure, no problem. So, so I got the translation. I think a day or two before it was due. And then I was, I was really paranoid because, you know, I hadn't translated it. So I wanted to make sure checking it was fine. But, you know, I'm not a French English translator. So I ended up sending it to someone else to proofread it and edit it. And then it came back turns out it was fine. And so then I sent it off to the client. And the client was happy, paid me for it. I ended up paying the translator and the editor more than I got paid. So I lost money on that. But it did show me that I wasn't limited, just based on what I could do personally on the Italian to English translation. I could, if it made my client happy, and if they wanted other languages done, I could get that done myself. And I, and I liked this because I felt like it put me ahead of the curve, right? If, if they're dealing with two different translators, one who only does one language and the other who can provide a couple other ones, then, you know, they might go to the one who's more of a one stop shop for a couple other ones. Now the client knew that I wasn't doing the translation myself. I wasn't sure at the beginning. So I worded it all weird. I was like, I could have that translation to you, you know, from French to English rather than saying I'll do it. And anyway, I'm still, I still work with this client. And so when I did talk to the client, they're like, no, we know, it's not you. But as long as it's the same quality that you've been sending us, we don't care. And in the end, it was, I mean, that's why I was so paranoid that I ended up losing money on that first translation because I wanted the quality to be good. So you can't skimp on quality or stuff like that. But what you can do is that when you receive requests that aren't completely in your expertise, you can try to find other translators who can help you out and who can work on it. So I would do this and I'd be completely honest. I'd say I'm a translator as well. You know, I'm looking for a translator who can work on this, that and the other. And, and then they give me a price code and send it back to me. And then I'd send it to the end client and usually try to make some money off of it in exchange, you know, for the extra that I get, I do project manage the different languages for the client. So it's not like I'm sitting back doing, doing nothing. But what I like about it is that you're not necessarily paid just for the time you put in translating. Over time, if you start doing this more and more, then you can get paid not based on your time, but on how much you have going on at the same time. And this was a big reason why I transitioned, or I am transitioning now, into being an agency. And that's what I'm trying to do with my agency is, you know, to be able to not only have to rely on my own hours of work, but be able to use other people's work and basically use that to make money. The thing is anyone can do this because everyone has access to pros.com. Now, obviously, you have to make your client happy, you need to make sure they're good translations, you need to work well with the translators, and with whatever editor goes over, you need to make sure it's good quality, like there's a lot you need to do, and you need to make sure and these are in languages that you don't know. So you need to be sure of what you do before you do it. Actually, I say that I wasn't sure at all, but I did give myself time, extra time and extra leeway with the price, even though that wasn't enough at the beginning, to make sure that I had enough margin to make it right. So if you get a translation from Russian to English, and if you don't do Russian, then, you know, you might not know where to start when you have to look. So the best way would be to find a translator. If you use pros.com, you know how to find a good translator because you're on it all the time, you yourself being a translator. So you find one, have them translate, find another editor, an editor pretty much gets paid to find mistakes in the translation. So through them, you can usually, you know, spit out a good quality document, and then you can send it to the client. This takes a lot of work, especially at the beginning. But once you start doing it, and you keep doing it over and over, and you kind of get a flow, and you work with various translators, and you're happy working with them, then it can be very good. And look, it's good for the translators. They're, you know, because as being a translator, I can tell you, I'm very happy when people come to me. And I don't have to go out searching for new jobs, and people come to me and want to keep working with me. Of course I am. And the client's happy because the client gets something and that's good quality. And I'm just kind of a middleman, but I'm not just sitting there twiddling my thumbs. I'm project managing the whole thing in these various people and parties. So if this is something, if you want to basically stay ahead of the curve, and if you want to be able to use these websites for all their worth, especially something like pros.com where you're paying for membership, then this could be a good idea. And if you do get a request from someone says, hey, by the way, do you think you could do this or that in the other, then try it. And also, by the way, this doesn't have to be limited to languages. Maybe someone's happy with a translation and they say, hey, by the way, do you also do transcription or do you do coding? Can you also do this coded up so it looks nice on our website or something like that. And I've mentioned this in other videos about diversification. And this is a very simple way to do so. If you get a request yourself, then you can say, yeah, I think I can work on that. And let me check or else, you know, what you can do is before replying, check right away, see if you can find people who are good at that. And then and then see if you can provide something like that to the client. It's always kind of risky. So I would say always give yourself plenty of margin, especially with time with money. You know, if it doesn't work out, worst case, you lose a bit of money. But if you don't deliver on time to the client, you know, very often, they don't want to work with you again. And I'd rather it cost me a bit. And then that way I know, at least I won't do it again, rather than risk sending something late to the client and risk them never contacting me again. So anyway, it's just something to keep in mind a way to leverage these websites that you're already a part of in order to get more out of it and to get more out of them and to be able to find new ways to earn money, especially for those of you who maybe aren't getting much work on your language or if you have a rare language combination or something along those lines. Hopefully, this can help you out to earn a little something extra. So I mean, that's pretty much it. Like I said, I kind of just went into there almost by accident. But I did find it useful. So hopefully you find it useful as well. And if you do, please click thumbs up. That always helps. And also, if you want more videos like this, feel free to subscribe and get more videos for help with freelancing, freelance translation and stuff like that in general. And otherwise, I will see you on the next video. Thanks. Bye.