By Himani Khera

Language professionals are people who support authors in their quest to publish by helping produce documents of appropriate scope and quality in any language. Their role is particularly important in research setting, especially when authors are not familiar with other native languages but required to publish their work in that language for international communication.

The writing support provided by language professionals may involve teaching specific writing skills, translating documents into the desired publishing language, editing drafts at various stages of completion, guiding the creation of a new document and in some cases writing for authors. Language professionals may be self employed as a freelancer or small entrepreneurs or employed at universities, research institutes and companies that generate scientific technical documentation. They may also work indirectly through a translation o editing agency. As professionals, they work with confidence and use specialized knowledge and skills tailored solutions for each client’s request. Education opportunities and materials, including conferences, training workshops and publications, are offered by numerous membership associations open to linguists, editors, translators and writers.

A translator can achieve heights and desirable fame by Personal Branding i.e., by maintaining and building professional identity. As said above, language professionals may be freelancers or they can do in-house translation, here is a distinction between freelancing and in-house translation stating their benefits and disadvantages:

A Freelance translator is a translator who, depending on his interests and level of experience, works as an independent contractor or vendor from home or a private office with a variety of clients and with no binding agreements to accept all tasks.

Advantages of working as a freelancer:

• Flexible schedule
• Good time management skills
• Ability to choose what and for whom to translate
• Refuse any job that you might not like or are unable to take
• Diversified projects to work on

Disadvantages of working as a freelancer:

• Need to spend lots of personal time and effort.
• Requires a multi-talented and multi-tasked person.
• Need to provide his own equipment, CAT tools, glossaries, references, etc. which costs a lot.
• No constant source of income and other benefits.
• No time for oneself.
• Difficulty in specializing in a particular field.

An In-House translator is a translator who works for a specific company as an employee on a full-time basis, usually at the company office.
Advantages of an In-House translator:

• No worries­­
  • ­­­­­­ about new client’s prospecting, acquisition and retention.
  • Customer relations management.
  • Finding the workplace, PC and software to work on.
• Constant source of income, annual leave and insurance.
• Become an expert of specific field.
• Get promoted.
• Translator’s talent will be used solely for translation.
• Work with a team or group of translators or other stakeholders and share ideas or even experiences.

Disadvantages of an In-House translator:

• Working on a less flexible schedule.
• Inability to choose or even refuse a project.
• Need to adhere to company’s policies and code of conduct.

How to maintain Professional Identity— Personal Branding
Once you have acquired skill and qualification in a language, you must look forward to stand out from the crowd in the competitive translation industry. One way to do so is by Personal Branding. Factors that are needed to keep in mind while working on Personal Branding:

• Identify yourself as a translator
• Communication
• Attitude-Professionalism

Identify yourself as a translator
It is very important to tell the clients with whom they are working. Hence you would have to mention the following things about yourself:

• Name.
• Whether you are a freelancer or working with translation agency.
• Working language pairs. For example- French-English, English-French.
• Services offered by you. For example- translation, interpretation, editing/proof reading/ back-editing, etc.
• State the fields you are specialized in (not more than 5).
• How much do you charge and on what basis.
• Professional experience.

Communication
Communication is very important in every field. You would have to communicate clearly with your clients regarding your terms and conditions, so that further there’s no misconception or problem among you and your client. Always make it a well versed two way communication.
Make sure that you do the following:

• Stick to your words or deadlines.
• Be accessible and responsive. Never ignore your client.
• Listen, Ask, and Suggest.
• Be open and frank when things go wrong.
• Avoid miscommunication and know your pitfalls. Always learn from your mistakes.
• Request feedback from your clients.

Attitude-Professionalism
Having a professional attitude and entrepreneurial mind-set is equally important. Following are needed to achieve this:

• Membership of professional associations.
• Websites/ Marketing/ Blogging.
• Stay updated.
• Attending meetings, conferences pertaining to translation.
• Have a critical approach.
• Invest in quality. Don’t take things for granted.
• Keep updating your work and advertising yourself through social media websites.

Aim of Personal Branding
Before moving towards the aims, what exactly Personal Branding is?
Personal Branding is how to market and promote yourself as a freelance translator, maximize your marketing efforts and make biggest impact possible when promoting yourself.
Aim:

• Find better jobs,
• Have better clients,
• Growth in professional network, and
• Acquiring valuable feedback from clients.

To conclude, here is a small recap of Personal Branding:

• Identify your goals.
• Identify your target audience.
• Determine your unique value proposition.
• Build your own website.
• Start blogging.
• Become a social networker.
• Review and update your personal brand regularly.

We are done with promoting ourselves, identifying ourselves, etc. now comes an important part of our struggle, how to find clients! This part is important not only as a translator professional but while starting any company or business it is an important task to achieve. It will become easier if you put your best qualities forward.
There are two types of clients:

1. Translation agencies, here companies work as middlemen between client and freelance translator
2. Direct clients, here there is no middleman and freelance translators work directly for the client.

One can get clients by involving into a contract with local organizations or companies, by attending translation conferences, webinars, etc. A freelancer must keep in mind following points while searching clients such as; they should be quick and responsive and never start any project without getting final confirmation.

Another important thing is to keep in touch with your clients, let them know what new experiences you are gaining, and that you are interested in taking more of their projects. As we all know happy client = happy translators, maintaining good relationship with client is a win-win situation for both. For that one needs to do effective communication with the client, provide them excellent service with good quality, provide free gift to the client by giving them discount or if one is doing their big project and they ask for a small translation too, one can do it for free.

Customer prospecting and marketing yourself as a continuing process is important; if you stop chasing it, it will stop chasing you!

For detailed information please refer:
https://youtu.be/kitwvclAgZg
https://youtu.be/CMIVwT7Jlo8

Writer's Profile: http://www.modlingua.com/interns/375-himani-khera-french-english-translation.html