The Savvy Newcomer team has been taking stock of the past year and finding that one key priority for many freelance translators and interpreters has been diversification. Offering multiple services in different sectors or to different clients can help steady us when storms come. Diversification can help us hedge against hard times.

We’ve invited a series of guest authors to write about the diversified service offerings that have helped their businesses to thrive, in the hopes of inspiring you to branch out into the new service offerings that may be right for you!

Why did I diversify into translator training?

When I was asked to write about my diversification into translator training, I had to take a step back and really think about how it all came about. The short answer is that it was not a conscious decision and ended up being a natural development of my career.

Before I became a translator, long ago, I studied and worked with international marketing. After moving to the US with small children, I understood that I needed a career change. When launching and growing my career as a freelance translator, I took advantage of the marketing skills I had learned during my studies and my previous marketing career. These skills provided me with useful tools and a strategic outlook on how to market my services.

How did I diversify into translator training?

I started attending the American Translators Association’s conference every year from the beginning as soon as I began my career as a translator. I did this to learn new skills and to network with colleagues and clients. After a few years, I was encouraged to submit a presentation and share my marketing skills, so I did. That led to several more presentations at translators’ conferences, with a lot of good feedback. I also took several courses held by other colleagues on building my freelance translation career and saw a niche in sharing my marketing skills.

After pondering this idea for a while and talking to colleagues, I decided to write a book. I chose a unique format for the book – the recipe format. The book is divided into starters for beginning translators, main dishes for more experienced translators, the building blocks of a successful translation career, and lastly, desserts, the little extras that you can choose from to enhance your business. Each recipe was a specific marketing strategy, or tactic for translators, with ingredients and step-by-step instructions. That is how the Marketing Cookbook for Translators was born.

The book was well-received. Many people started to ask for my help and advice in marketing their translation services. After a while, I decided to distill my experience as a translator, my marketing skills and background, the tips in the book, and the various presentations and workshops I gave into a marketing course for translators. I have given marketing courses and workshops for translators for more than five years and genuinely enjoy helping other translators to create a system to market their translation services based on their situation.

Around the same time I started writing the book, I began to listen to marketing podcasts. There were not many podcasts for translators at that time, especially not focused on marketing and business skills. I enjoyed bite-size tips in audio format and the convenience of listening to marketing tips while driving the car or walking the dog. I decided that I could try sharing marketing tips in a podcast format, and the idea for the Marketing Tips for Translators podcast was born. In the beginning, I set a goal of 100 episodes. Now I have published over 260 episodes and have no plans to stop any time soon. Even if it is a lot of work, I love interviewing colleagues and other experts, sharing new and old marketing tips.

The courses and the podcast have increased my motivation for the translation industry. I learn a lot from the interviews and my students, which provides a nice counterbalance to just doing translations. It brings variety to my working days. However, translation is still my primary source of income, and I hope it will remain so for a long time to come. The marketing courses and workshops bring in a nice additional income, but it is more of a passion project than a business. The podcast and courses motivate me to try the new marketing strategies I learn about myself, plus I must make an effort always to practice what I preach.

How do I find clients or students?

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but despite having a marketing background and sharing marketing tips to other translators, I wouldn’t say I like the selling part of marketing. Some say that selling is the end goal or marketing result, but I tend to focus on the marketing part and let the selling be a natural result. This means that I share my tips wherever I can and consciously try to find avenues to share my marketing training, podcast, and books.

I offer many tips and advice “for free” in the form of podcast episodes, an email newsletter, blog posts, checklists, and small guides. The people who find these resources useful and see results from them tend to be interested in taking it further, sometimes as a student in one of my courses. I also continue to share marketing tips in presentations and workshops at translation industry conferences, and as an invited speaker for different translator associations. Translators learn about my services through all these venues.

How has translator training helped my business?

The courses and paid workshops have added an extra buffer of income for my business. This was particularly helpful in 2020 when I lost a couple of direct clients due to the pandemic cut-downs, and the work from agencies slowed down dramatically during the first months of the pandemic.

But above all, the courses and workshops have kept me in touch with the marketing of my translation services and the translation industry, and have motivated me to learn new things. They have also provided an outlet for me to be more creative, satisfy my passion for helping people (I once thought of becoming a nurse), and give variety to my workdays.

Tips for other translators thinking of diversifying into training

If you have a skill that you have noticed has helped colleagues or friends, you could start teaching it to others. Look at things you have helped others with. Could your knowledge or skills be shared in the form of presentations, workshops, or a course? Do you have an “audience” interested in learning more from you about these things? Then you could diversify into training. I know many colleagues that I admire who share their specific knowledge this way. If you want to try it out, my best tip is to focus on a niche or target market that you know well, just like you do for your translation business.

I am optimistic about the future for freelance translators and believe that we will continue to be successful if we are open-minded and embrace change. This includes exploring options to diversify our businesses to have secure income streams in any situation.

Author bio

Tess Whitty is a certified English into Swedish translator, specializing in digital marketing and localization. With a degree in International Marketing and background as marketing manager, she also shares her marketing knowledge and translator experience with other freelance translators as an award-winning speaker, trainer, consultant, author, and podcaster. She is involved in several translator associations as a committee chair, language chair, trainer and mentor. For more information, or to connect, go to www.marketingtipsfortranslators.com, or www.swedishtranslationservices.com.