 Hello everyone. So today I wanted to talk about something that's been bothering me sort of lately because I've been seeing quite a bit of it and I think it's a mistake that a lot of people are making and that is prices. A lot of people are competing on prices and they're trying to offer lower and lower prices just so they can get business which in and of itself you think well okay that's the nature of the game right? You try to find a good price and the client wants cheaper prices so if you can do it for a cheaper price then you'll get the business and that's good. Yeah well or no because look if you take freelance translation and the client says I need whatever translated so you say I'll do it for ten cents a word someone else says nine cents a word someone else says eight cents a word and blah blah blah and it goes down and down and down and you know someone's gonna say three cents a word someone's gonna say two cents a word someone's gonna say one cent a word at a certain point the client by the way might be like okay one cent a word they're obviously not any good I'll be happy paying two cents a word that's fine great so whoever charged two cents a word they're getting the business except they're getting two cents a word and I don't care where you live or where your situation is you're not going to be earning a living at two cents a word I mean unless you're working 16 hour days for the rest of your life and I don't know because two cents a word is very little no matter where you are and it's a lot less than you can be making if you're worth it the problem with two cents a word then is that you get known as the person who can do jobs for two cents a word which means kind of you get known as a person who's not very good at their job because you're definitely not as good as the people who charge six or eight or ten cents a word right this also means that any client you have paying you two cents a word if suddenly they have a bigger budget for translation then they take it seriously they're cutting you out they're going to find someone who charges a bit more and but they expect more from so it can be a downward spiral that's very hard to get out of many times and so I I really recommend not jumping into that price wars bandwagon kind of thing because it really doesn't end well usually so what other solutions are there well one of my favorite options is to actually offer the translation for free and obviously this depends on your situation or whatever it might be whatever service you're offering but again for translation if you offer your translation for free usually you can get so say someone needs a translation done you and you can tell them say look as you can see I'm just starting out I don't have many reviews or ratings or anything along those lines so how about this how about I do your translation for free and in exchange obviously if you're happy with my translation you give me a good rating or review because you know then I can use it to build up my business no one's going to say no to a free translation okay zero risk for them even if your translation is complete crap they can always hire someone else and they didn't lose a dime so chances are you're going to get quite a few takers for that and if they're happy with the translation most of the people are going to be very they're going to be happy to do that anyway you know they're going to be happy to help out someone who's just starting out they'll be like oh yeah you know sounds good yeah it sounds like a smart strategy okay I need this and this translated if you have any questions let me know so then you work on the translation obviously do a good job just because you're not getting paid doesn't mean you should be doing a bad job in fact these first jobs are usually the most important ones because they build up your portfolio and your ratings and reviews for the future so do a good job send it in and then you get a review once you've done and if you're offering a free translations by the way you can do so you can apply to say I don't know 10 12 jobs out of these even if you're offering translations for free by the way you're still a numbers game not everyone's going to pick you unfortunately that's the nature of the game but out of these 10 12 people you contact say three of them hire you and that's three ratings right there and you can use three ratings three entries into your portfolio already to build up your business so yeah you had to do three translations for free but at least you didn't mess around doing two three sent translations in the long term which is not a long term strategy right and you're able to do this after three translations suddenly have some good ratings and reviews and even the clients you worked for before if they're happy with you they'll be fine actually paying you a real salary because if they have a good translator and they need someone reliable and you're like that they'll be happy to have known you from the beginning and you can say since you were one of my first clients I'll give you a good price and even when your prices go up to eight ten cents a word you can say you know I'll keep you guys at six cents a word because you were my first client want to thank you for that something along those lines whatever fits best for you but that can be a good long-term strategy another good long-term strategy and another way to build up your portfolio I found is an exchange what you'll find is maybe there's someone who needs a website translated and it's uh you know someone is having their website done so a graphic designer is doing this website for them or website designer I should say and they need the website translated what you can say is like look you're starting out a website design and I'm starting out a translation how about we do an exchange of services I will do or even if they're not starting out you can say I will do this translation for free an exchange you whip up a simple website for me something that looks nice and and you can use it in your portfolio and I'm able to use the translation that I did for you in my portfolio how does that sound does that work for you it could or could not I think if they're smart it would work out because they'll say okay I need to make this guy's website but I can do it in my spare time in the meantime I get this translation done for free I don't have to pay someone for it and I get to use it I get a new entry into my portfolio especially if they're just starting out they need to build up their portfolio so they'll be happy for that and so anyway there are a lot of ways you can find exchange of services or just offer your services for free just to build up the ratings and referrals which is the important thing at the beginning I really don't think you should be competing on price it's pretty much the worst way to be competing you don't want to be stuck in that spiral in terms of long-term strategy it can be very bad having said that I'm not a hundred percent against it there are certain and I'm leaving this to the very end because I try everything else first really there are certain situations we can charge a little price at the beginning again just to get your ratings and referrals and just to build that up but there are a couple things to keep in mind first of all you're not going to get any repeat business there's no way you can charge someone two cents a word now and you know and later on when they contact you in a few months say oh now I charge six cents or eight cents or ten cents because they're not going to pay that much okay and even if you explain the beginning oh I'm just starting out so I'm charging a cheap price right now it just sounds off just do it for free because then they understand it's anyway so you can do that but realize you're not getting a repeat business so anyone that you do cheap work for you have to cut them out after that you can't do business with them again they keep track of how much their that's one thing clients keep track of is how much they're paying each of their freelancers unfortunately so you're gonna have to move on to other people if you're fine doing that and if you can do three four jobs at a really low price and then those three four clients you never talk to them again and you try to use this later on and hopefully in their reviews and ratings they don't mention that you that you're very cheap and that's why they like you or anything along those lines then sure risk it I still do not recommend it because it's way too easy to just be caught in that spiral and constantly be doing cheap translations because suddenly you find that that's what you're able to do before you know it that's all you do and you're stuck in a rut so anyway that's just my rant about prices and about the price wars and about trying to avoid them try to use these other strategies I really do think they'll work they'll work pretty quickly and that way you can really start building your business and not be stuck in a rut that's it that's all I'm gonna complain about today if you do find this useful please don't forget to click thumbs up because that always helps so I can tell which videos are useful and which aren't if you want more videos about freelancing freelance translation stuff like that in the future don't forget to subscribe then you get these videos straight to your youtube account and that's about it I'll see you in the next video thanks bye