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Nuri Razi 
Türkiye
Local time: 09:02
Member (2008)
English to Turkish
+ ...
| Yahoogroups? | Mar 15, 2014 |
How can I find clients from yahoogroups? Dear Jose, I would really appreciate if you could explain networking over yahoogroups. Thank you.
| | | | | Yahoogroups & networking | Mar 15, 2014 |
Nuri Razi wrote:
How can I find clients from yahoogroups? Dear Jose, I would really appreciate if you could explain networking over yahoogroups. Thank you.
Not exactly finding clients, but building a peers network.
There are countless forums on Yahoogroups, it's a matter of searching and finding those you'd like to be a part of.
For many years already I subscribe to four Yahoogroups whose common feature is "translators whose working languages include Portuguese". Two are general, one is focused on book translation (not exactly my forte, however this one has low traffic), and one exclusive for Brazilian sworn translators (credentials required).
Try to imagine an e-mail-based (though online access to messages exists) mini-Proz only having one forum and e-mail-based Kudoz, limited to language pairs involving Portuguese as target (mostly) or source.
Of course, most participants are Brazilians living in Brazil, and the most frequent other language is English. Over time, the most frequent participants get to know some others, their specialty areas/services, and so on from the answers they provide. Small powwows occur, however quite rarely.
I'd guess the participants overall count on all these groups, considering that some are in more than one, add up to some 3-4 thousand. The really active ones are about 200; the others are spectators mots of the time.
Over time, from the questions and issues posed, ase well as from the answers and solutions given, some get to know each other, make contact directly by e-mail, Skype, or even telephone.
I don't translate technical finance, i.e. material intended for professional practitioners. I got acquainted with two leading specialists in this area, we met an powwows a few times. Though they are no longer participating actively in any of my lists, I immediately refer to them any request for such services.
I don't translate similar material on medicine. I also got acquainted with two leading specialists, and do the same with them. Incidentally, one of them worked with me in the same company, in 1989-91, we met again after so many years.
Likewise, I know an extremely talented legal translator who - as she told me - asks her husband to put a DVD in the player to watch it, so little she knows about video. She has memorized my phone number, and she recites it immediately whenever a client mentions "video translation".
The key in networking is that you never owe favors to any specific individual there who has referred clients to you. You may owe - if anything - to the entire network.
So these financial and medical translation experts I'm always referring clients to have never referred a client to me. Meanwhile I often get video translation & subtitling requests from clients who were referred by list fellows I barely know, but they have learned that I do the entire subtitling job.
Some sworn translators have better marketing skills than mine, so now and then they bite much more than they could chew. When this happens they split overly large jobs with me and a few others, to meet tight deadlines. All of us met in these Yahoogroups.
A fellow translator did the same kind of video work I do. Then she moved up (?) to become an agency. We often exchanged information, jobs (she does the dubbing work, had her recording studio, I only translate), knowledge, etc. When she shut down her agency to follow other endeavors, she handed me her most frequent video client on a silver platter. Now she is back into translating. For some unexplained reason, I got 2-3 Christian religious material translation requests on the same day. As I know she is very active in her church, I dumped these prospects on her immediately.
So I'm not saying it works. Anything may happen. However nothing of the kind will ever happen if you don't give it a try.
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LaurentiusDM wrote:
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
Conversely, there is another such site, completely free, which recently set a lower limit of EUR 0.04/word for job posts. Now, 98% of the jobs there are offered at EUR 4¢/w (and no longer less than that). It's like 'mining' for gold in a gold smelting plant's effluents. Yet some people do it!
Just for the sake of information: this lower limit never prevented any low-rates outsourcer from contacting me through my profile. A recent example is this offer for 3K words (DE to FR, medical) within 24 hours and @ USD 0.0275 per source word.
Need I say more? To this outsourcer, their rate is certainly "fair".
The most puzzling aspect I see in the translating profession is people offering the price they want to pay for someone else's work.
I don't see such a thing taking place in any endeavor other than in auctions (where people bid for the ownership of inanimate objects).
For instance, my dentist is a close friend of mine. Actually our entire families are friends. Two kids, one from each, have been classmates at school for years (that was how we first met). All of us have travelled together on vacation, more than once, and overseas too. However I would never think of suggesting her how much she should charge me for dental work.
[Edited at 2014-03-15 12:55 GMT]
| | | | Nuri Razi
Türkiye
Local time: 09:02
Member (2008)
English to Turkish
+ ...
| thank you a million times | Mar 16, 2014 |
Dear Jose,
Thank you a million times for your detailed explanation, it was utmost helpful.
Nuri
Eng-Tur Translator
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