You may have already noticed that I am this kind of person who likes to meditate (in the Christian sense of this word) on different issues. So I've been thinking about this concept called "a good freelance translator". From a client's point of view. I intentionally avoid the term "successful translator" because I think it describes the translators' point of view. I've noticed that my clients don't quite care about how successful I am. All they care about is how good I am. So I decided to try thinking like a client and figure out what makes a good freelance translator. And the first thing I thought about was motivation.
When your clients see that you put your whole heart into their project they will trust you more. If you are interested in the project your motivation will help you achieve the best possible results! A little tip for clients: Your appreciation, respect and friendly attitude can work miracles. I've had a few cases when marketing texts were so tricky that it was really hard to express the same meaning in Russian and preserve the style of the original text (or change the style so it could meet the client's expectations). But my clients showed their respect and trust in me, thus giving me an impetus to do my very, very best.
There are other factors that motivate me:
These are my main motivation factors. Dear translators, what motivates you?
When your clients see that you put your whole heart into their project they will trust you more. If you are interested in the project your motivation will help you achieve the best possible results! A little tip for clients: Your appreciation, respect and friendly attitude can work miracles. I've had a few cases when marketing texts were so tricky that it was really hard to express the same meaning in Russian and preserve the style of the original text (or change the style so it could meet the client's expectations). But my clients showed their respect and trust in me, thus giving me an impetus to do my very, very best.
There are other factors that motivate me:
- My Facebook fans and Twitter followers. I feel responsible to provide them with valuable information. Thus I keep learning and moving forward in my career. Besides, their kind words and links they share are so valuable! I often save those links in order to read them again and again and to learn from them. I didn't do the #followfriday on Twitter today but I will gladly share with you a few names of my favourite linguistic Tweeters: @wordyrama, @SJCParis, @lingocode, @acgtranslation, @LinguaGreca, @transliteria, @PaulEdgar1, @erik_hansson.
- My colleagues. I enjoy networking! I learn a lot from my colleagues and enjoy the process :) Besides, I met some wonderful friends and made some great connections!
- My dreams and goals. In order to reach many of them, I simply need more money (let's be realistic: while we're in this world we all need it). And more money comes with working smarter (not always working more, but always trying to work smarter and provide my clients with best results and my husband and daughter with my love and care).
These are my main motivation factors. Dear translators, what motivates you?
Do you actually read all the information contained in the articles you retwitt?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the question! I used to be more careless about retweeting different posts until once I retweeted something that looked interesting and found out later that it was really not worth it. Since then I read all the posts that I retweet. If I am very busy, I still look through the posts to be sure they are worth retweeting and save them in bookmarks to read them more carefully later.
ReplyDeleteЭто действительно так, Оленька! Мотивация играет огромную роль в нашей с тобой профессии! Спасибо, что еще раз напомнила мне об этом! Таня М.
ReplyDelete