Email Signature Invoice Template for Translation Made Easy

Email signature invoice template for translation

hi fellow translators my name is nandy i'm a professional freelance translator and owner of nadu limited i went freelance this past september 2020. in the last two years i've been working in-house in a local creative translation agency here in cuomo but i've decided to go freelance and since then i had to answer the following 10 questions for myself and i thought it might be helpful to wrap them up in a video to give prospective freelance translators some tips in in how to get started if you're already a freelance translator i would really appreciate if you could leave a comment below and maybe agree or disagree with some of my points i think this could be a great platform for us translators to interact with each other and yeah just bounce some ideas off of each other i believe that the most fundamental question is probably to ask yourself if you really want to go freelance and work from home completely or if you might be a person that prefers working in an office with other people and i know right now we're all pretty much working from home so you might have already gotten a taste of what it means to be alone at home every day i think that would have been my tip anyway for anyone thinking about going freelance is just try it out how do you set your daily routines how do you motivate yourself how does it really feel to be alone at home every day and if you have experienced that and you think no you can you like it or you can you can come up with strategies to deal with it then i think that's a good sign that maybe freelance the freelance life is something for you i specifically i think my characters is well suited for this kind of work i like to take ownership you know negotiate my own prices look for my own clients and really be at the steering wheel of my career but if you're maybe just starting out you don't have much experience and you dread kind of being alone at home every day then maybe starting off in an office environment or at least in a company where you have regular meetings and interactions with other people might be a better choice for you especially in translation it can be very helpful to brainstorm with other people and transcript together or even just ask questions online and obviously if you're a freelancer especially in the beginning that might be harder to achieve so it's a common stereotype to say that linguists or translators don't really like numbers and it's certainly the case for me but i just had to tell myself this is serious business i can't just shove it to the side and hope that it will just sort itself out and i just miraculously get paid the amount that i'm supposed to be paid to cover my expenses so what i had to do first thing is actually know what are my outgoings what do i pay for rent etc so i drew up a budget quite simple just in a google sheet and here it's important obviously not to forget your business expenses such as licenses for cad tools etc so once i had those numbers i knew what i needed to earn per hour to make it work a minimal amount but that doesn't yet tell me how much i should charge because in the translation industry you're most likely being paid by word but how what kind of word price should you should you say when you negotiate and here it's really important to know how much you can translate or edit or localize or whatever per hour and in order to figure that out you just need to monitor yourself and i i really get into that i love just having all the numbers and tracking everything but even if you're not that keen just tracking a little bit in the beginning will help you could do that with pen and paper i would suggest to do it with an app such as toggle it's free and you just hit the button when you start and again when you're done and then you really know okay maybe you can translate 250 words per hour you multiply that by the rate that you the word price that you negotiated and then you know what you're earning per hour and you compare that with your budget now don't forget taxes and to calculate vacation etc if you're interested in actually seeing how i drew up my budget i maybe let me know in the comment below so i can do a video specifically on that but yeah you do need to know your numbers because you want to make data-driven decisions and not just some decisions based on your gut feeling or if you really know the numbers and what you need to earn to make a living and not just as we say in german just do ah by therapy so like to work for the sake of working then it's definitely useful to have a budget and to know how fast you translate i found that to be a good ground for my negotiations and if you want to know more about negotiation i read a good book by chris voss which is called never split the difference and there are some good tips and strategies in there in how to approach a negotiation because now you're in charge of the prices and only you can know what a fair price is for your services so now that you've drawn up a budget and you have your price lists all you need is really the clients and the question between should i go for direct clients or should i go for agencies kind of wasn't really a question for me because i didn't have any direct clients so the only solution was to go for agencies and i think there are benefits in that but also i guess we're all aware that if you work with a translation agency or a localization agency as a translator you're at the end of a pretty long chain so your remuneration is probably going to be lower than when you work with a direct client but there are some advantages as i said to working within agencies for example if you there's just one person like i am the agencies can provide the editor that will edit your work or vice versa you can they can already translate it and you can be the editor for them also big agencies nowadays have the process very much streamlined so the job assignment is a question of you just clicking a button accepting it also invoicing is done by click of a button there's not much admin work involved at all the good thing about working with diary clients is that their potential of earning more is obviously there because there is no middle man and you also more directly working with the source with the person who actually wrote the article and that you're translating so you can maybe ask translation related questions and usually the working relationship is really nice there but as i said if you don't really have the network or the experience it might take a while to build up that network of direct clients so starting with agencies is a good place to start and the the cool thing is they have so many big clients that you can just see a plethora of different texts topics text types and you really also get the experience that you need in the beginning when you're just starting out one tip i have though when you do work with agencies is to ask for references and now i know that normally you sign ndas and you're not allowed to talk about the yen client or the actual product you're translating for but maybe they're still able to give you a couple of lines about your work ethic or your working relationship with that agency so that you have you have proof or you have some sort of testimonial that you can use for future applications at other places you want to be able to showcase the experience you're gathering with direct clients this is a bit easier you can maybe just at the end of the project ask them what they thought if they can give you feedback and if you're allowed to use maybe a statement of theirs on your website the question if i should be a generalist or specialized in a specific topic was almost made for me because every time you apply to an agency for example they will ask you where your expertise lies and here i usually say i have extensive experience in translating for it but also creative marketing translation so i usually get these kind of jobs but you will be able to diversify and get lots of different um text types and topics when you work with agencies anyway but in general i think it is helpful to specialize because yeah machines are getting better and better and very general texts that are repetitive i think machines will be good enough quite soon to tackle these and as a human translator who has a brain and thoughts it's valuable to use me for example in creative marketing translations that need to really spark emotions with a target audience so yes i do think specializing is a good idea but if you're not really interested in legal translations of medicine or you don't have that kind of background you don't have to despair it doesn't have to be a classical a classic topic like that you could also just make your hobby a specialization for example i'm really interested in fitness and health and so every time there is a translation project coming up in that area i can say oh yes i have actually an interest in that and i i know a thing or two about this so i would be a good candidate yeah so maybe you've studied something at university that you can use as a specialization and then just build up on that so i put in legal requirements here because it's definitely something that i was thinking about a lot in the beginning here in the uk the question was mainly if i'm going to go for a sole trader or if i'll create a little company which i did in the end nadu limited and there are obviously a lot of pros and cons for both and i won't go too much into detail because it really varies depending on country and also your circumstances i personally decided for a limited company in the end for tax reasons i just made sense also for my circumstances because i don't need to pay myself a specific salary every month um i have to look sure that i can wait to to the end of the fiscal year and pay myself in dividends so that was something that made sense for me but you might have to uh research that specifically for your country um so i i can't say much more on that it's definitely important to consider if you have to pay vats or taxes or and how much or where you're gonna pay your pension um so yeah the only thing here i can say do your research or ask someone who knows about it and don't just make assumptions because you don't want to run into problems with these kind of things so when it comes to working hours i think there are two different types if you're anything like me you might rejoice and think oh cool i can work weekends and evenings and say yes to every project and just earn more all of a sudden i don't have a earning ceiling anymore i can earn more the more i work which is great you make your own destiny kind of thing you create your own career and you can if you have more time why not take on more projects or you could be on the other side and maybe sometimes you lack motivation or you get up a bit late and then yeah you don't work that many hours as you maybe did before in a corporate or office job it's not to say that either is right or wrong but i think it is important to kind of think about that in the beginning and set some hard and fast rules like are you going to work on the weekends are you going to work out of hours are you going to work um in the early mornings are you going to take vacations and how many weeks etc and i would really set that in stone i personally don't work on weekends and i usually keep my evenings free for gym and other things but i do make exceptions when there's a really great opportunity and i really think that would help me in terms of my career or my experience or sometimes right i do a passion project which i know is maybe not paid that well but it gives me a lot of experience or it's a lot of fun and that's just my personal decision that i make for myself because for example right now i'm translating a book and yeah that obviously takes a lot of my time but i decided consciously to make that exception but normally yes i don't work weekends and i try to keep some sort of routine i do catch myself sometimes feeling a bit guilty when i don't work that standard eight hours or when i work in the weekends but i think here you just have to remind yourself that the beauty of freelancing is that flexibility that sometimes if you have time and you have nothing else going on and you don't mind working on a sunday then you can do that but maybe on a friday weather is nice and you want to go outside you take some time off and i think that with time i'm learning that that's completely fine and i don't have to like chain myself to my desk from nine to five as i did maybe before in office but i said i can work more with my rhythm for me that maybe means that in the afternoon when i get a bit tired i go to the gym then instead of trying to push myself through a translation when i'm not as focused so if you're anything like me as well like when it comes to networking i'm not really the most outgoing extrovert person and going maybe to a workshop or conference where you don't know anyone and you have to kind of introduce yourself to people you have you have no idea who they are um is a bit daunting and well right now with coronavirus it's not like we can meet other people or have these kind of events take place so which is why i really found networking online to be very useful and i was actually quite surprised about the effectiveness of linkedin a lot of people contacting me through that platform asking if i'm available for jobs and some good working relationships have resulted out of that so i would really suggest to polish your linkedin make sure it's in english or at least your the source language you translate from so that customers can understand what your experiences are if you're available for work then don't hesitate on linkedin to click that button that makes your logo green and it says like free work or something that really shows people that they can contact you and yeah i was surprised how well that worked apart from networking via linkedin and other social media i think an important thing not to overlook is definitely just to produce good work and maintain good working relationships so many times i've done a translation and the editor liked my work and then down the line put my name forward for another project and so other translators other linguists can be a good source of work if you consistently deliver good work and you're reliable and friendly to work with so i would in the beginning just focus on that focus on delivering good work with the customers that you do have and then that word will spread and just update your linkedin profile the question if i should create templates for invoices and quotes was a big thing for me in the beginning because i wanted to create all these shiny beautiful looking templates and have everything ready until i really realized that most customers agencies in my case i work with um already have it all sorted out like most bigger agencies as i've previously mentioned they have their tools and their project management suites where you just press a button and it creates the invoice automatically and you don't actually raise any invoices anymore if you work mostly with direct clients or small agencies you might have to generate invoice at the end of the month but in my experience if you're just a freelancer like me a simple word document that you convert into a pdf will suffice and i think less is more in this case don't spend too much time or even money in in tools and in creating templates and invoices and quotes and such when you don't need to so i would always first assess what you actually need and then go off of that usually you get enough time at the end of the month to create an invoice anyway so you don't need to stress about that too much a big thing for us freelancers is to keep the overhead low so don't be tempted in buying software especially in the beginning when you only have a handful of clients and a google sheet will do just fine the same goes for the project management system i previously worked as a project managers in different translation agencies and yes definitely project management systems software it makes the whole process very streamlined a lot easier but that's when you have multiple translators and freelancers to work with and various clients but as a freelancer you're just yourself you have to remember that anything you buy will add to your overhead and it has to be worth your while and i found that if i just work for myself i'm perfectly fine with is the windows office and like google sheets that kind of thing i don't need to invest in the software at all what is important though is to really be meticulous when you log your information so try to log as much information about the project as you can because that will help you later down the line in drawing insights about your profitability about the time you work about what kind of tool you use most are you actually using the cad tools that you that you pay for every month or is it not worth your while so definitely be meticulous when logging the information but you don't have to invest in expensive project management tools at all i've previously mentioned power bi it's a free tool free software and in my case i link my project information in my google sheet with power bi so that i can make data driven decisions and not just make decisions based on gut feeling i always know how much i'm earning how much i'm working etc and i think it's been really helpful starting out as a freelance translator but yeah this is a bit of a bigger topic so leave me a comment below if you want to know more about it and i'll make a video on it so the last point touches on marketing and while i think that uh just starting out you don't have to do a great deal i did ask myself if i should create a website have a logo if i should have a specific professional looking email signature and i personally answered yes to all of these first of all because nowadays it's quite easy and free to do these things um but also i think it just makes you look professional and like and a bit more serious having a website actually has been really useful because i can when i apply to some place i can always refer them to my portfolio on the website they can see immediately what my expertise is what kind of experience i have in the translation industry and it's even led to me not having to do trust translations because they just saw the experience and that was good enough so i would definitely recommend doing a website and i personally just had a blast doing it i think it's so much fun to create something and see the final product i used wix for my website i'm not sponsored by them but i think they're quite well known and it's really easy to use you just drag and drop and you see exactly how it's gonna look at the end um so yeah it's great fun creating the website because you it's a creative process but you actually have your final product at the end and yeah you can always update it make it better um down the line but i think having some sort of website a presence online is very important when you apply to agencies i also used wix logo creator but more for inspiration just to kind of see what i like what kind of style i would be going for but in the end i created my logo in canva and this is also a free online tool that slides i use for this youtube video actually were also made in canva so that's something maybe you want to check out for creating nice titles and slides etc for the email signature i use hubspot's email signature creator so again you don't have to reinvent the wheel for everything so many things are already online that's the beauty of the internet you can you can just use those craters and put it in your information in the field generate the signature and just see what you like better which kind of layout and then download it or download the code and adapt it more to your liking so i think it's really easy nowadays to create logos and let's say basic logos and websites if you want something more sophisticated more professional then by all means contact the professional you just that's another cost that you'll have to factor in and i think in the beginning less is more less overhead just keep it simple and get going and if you're really into your freelance life and you've established yourself and you want to update your logo or your email signature then you can always use a paid service but yeah i personally i was really happy with wix canva and the hubspot signature creator so yeah that might be something that you find useful let me know if you've used those tools before i'm aware that each of those 10 topics could be its own videos and could be talked about at length when i started off sometimes i give so many questions you don't really know where to start so i hope that this video will help you make a start in your freelance journey and i'll really be curious to hear how you're faring if you're using any of those tools if you ask yourself the same questions now more than ever we freelance translators we work in isolation it would be great to kick start a discussion about translation on this platform and yeah see you again soon you