Every year, ProZ.com staff in Argentina organizes a year-end powwow. This year, during the annual powwow held in La Plata, I had the pleasure to meet, among other great site members, a new member who has been in the site for only 4 months and who addressed me directly, almost as soon as I arrived at the restaurant, with "Hi, I'm Verónica, I'm new in the translation business, but I've already met 5 clients, all of them through ProZ.com!". This statement-- originally in Spanish, by the way-- would certainly set the tone of the gathering, and serve as an inspiration to write this article...

As her profile's "About me" shows, Verónica Sardon is an English-Spanish bilingual lover of languages, a journalist and now, a freelance translator. She registered with ProZ.com on August 22nd, 2012, and joined the site as a member soon after, on August 23rd. "When I decided that I wanted to make a career out of translation, I started looking for ways to market my services as a translator and I guess this is how I found ProZ.com. As soon as I created my account, I started wanting to quote on jobs, realizing that it didn't make that much sense not to be a member of the site if I wanted to have access to as many jobs as possible. So, I purchased my full professional membership and that's actually when all started."

Personally, I have met a very good number of site members with great success stories, members who have met many, if not most of their clients via ProZ.com. However, I was amazed at Verónica's testimonial not because she is one of the many freelance translators who have learned how to get the most out of ProZ.com, but because she has done so in such a short period of time! "The return of my membership investment was really fast, ten days at most. As soon as I joined, I got a job that paid for about a third of my annual membership and a couple of days after that I found another job that paid for the rest. So, for me, ProZ.com membership has paid off pretty generously and quickly too."

Verónica is also an active KudoZ participant (with over 100 KudoZ PRO points already!) and a big fan of ProZ.com training (she has attended at least 3 training sessions on CAT tools, social networks and site promotion). "When you are a freelancer, you are sort of isolated and it's nice to have this idea of being part of a community, even if it is virtual. It's been about three months and I'm actually pretty amazed about just how well it's gone. If you consider what I invested in membership and then also training, it appears that I certainly got big returns on those investments already."

As a staff member working daily to make sure that site members are getting the most out of their membership investment, Verónica's words are certainly rewarding and encouraging. Thanks Verónica, and ProZ.com members in general, for sharing your success stories and using ProZ.com to network, expand your businesses, improve your work and have fun!

And don't just take my word for it. Read what Verónica and others have to say in their own words >>