Understanding Your Finances

No business can do anything without finances. Do budget properly, and do the math to understand your bottom line. How much do you need to make to turn a profit? How much is too much for customers to afford?

Knowing when and where to cut back on your finances and where to invest is critical to keeping your business afloat. With the huge impact of the pandemic, it’s no question that the loss of sales affected many businesses too much. To weather these hardships, downsizing on your output, office space, or perhaps even prices might help you keep the business going.

Making and Keeping Connections, even Remotely

Many language service providers rely on freelance translators and interpreters as vendors for their business; most times, getting in touch with them is often done through phone calls or emails. But, how do you get the vendor—especially interpreters—to their assignments, when in-person meetings are restricted?

Phone and video methods are hardly secrets. Even outside of the pandemic, these are common ways to get an interpreter to someone immediately regardless of where the client and interpreter are. Those LSPs and other small businesses that had already been getting ready to use remote or online options were in a good place to adapt their services to the pandemic.

Communicating with Your Team

To keep open communication with your team members is vital. Just as upper management relies on associates to get the on-hands work done, associates rely on upper management to answer their questions. The back-and-forth dynamics and momentum are crucial to move your business forward.

In times of hardship like the pandemic, transparent communication is very important. Employees may be nervous about job security or keeping certain accounts going. Positive reinforcement, support, and leadership can provide teams with the confidence they need to weather any circumstance.

Don’t be Afraid of Change…

New technologies come out constantly in today’s world, even during the pandemic and afterward. Learning how to use them can help your business stay up-to-date, and can even help with your output’s quality and/or quantity.

Other changes might include the coming and going of staff, a vendor changing their prices, the laws you have to keep in mind, etc. Keep abreast of these changes and remember to stay flexible; taking too long to adapt might leave you in the dust of your competitors.

Adapting to pandemic looked different for all sorts of companies, but what’s important is to stay creative. Some businesses turned remote, others decided to automate work flows, and some decided to host online events.

…But Try to Stay Consistent

Sudden, unexplained changes even outside the pandemic can upset a person’s balance and leave them scrambling for an answer. For example, having to reduce the price per word for a translation could result in a vendor refusing to work with you, or raising the prices too high for a customer could result in the customer backing out of a deal.

As important as it is to stay flexible, people like to stick to tried and true methods—things remain reliable that way. So, whenever possible, keep consistent in your work, and be as transparent as possible with your customers. Consistency and transparency will always be appreciated by those you work with.

Let’s start with freelancers. Why would someone want to work as a freelancer rather than an in-house translator? One of the main attractions to being a freelancer is the ability to be your own boss. You can decline the jobs that you don’t like while accepting the ones you do. You are able to set your own rates and your own hours. You have more flexibility to arrange your schedule around your needs versus regular employees who are expected to work a scheduled amount of time each day. In general, freelancers have the potential to make more money than in-house translators as well, so it is a very attractive path for many.

So why would someone not want to be a freelancer? The freedom sounds like it would be enough, not to mention the potential amount of money that you can make. One of the main reasons that some people prefer working in-house over freelance is because of the variance in the work. The frequency of work that you receive is not always guaranteed even if you have repeat clients. You are reliant on people offering you work rather than just having a steady stream of guaranteed work. Also, you need to be able to market yourself and compete with other freelancers for work. If you are unable to set yourself apart from the other translators out there, then you will have difficulty finding work because you will just be blending in and not showing off your skills.

What makes working in-house so great then? One of the biggest draws to working in-house is having structure. If you are hired as a translator or interpreter for a company, you will only have to worry about the work that they give you. You will have a schedule for your work hours, you will have a team to work with, you will have a steady salary, and you will have company benefits. You might even receive training that will help you improve your skills or work better in the company. There will also be opportunities to use new technology or receive benefits that you would have otherwise have had to pay for on your own if you were a freelancer.

The downside of working in-house though is the fact that you are working for a company and have to play by their rules. You have to make sure that you conform to their company culture and values, so that could mean that you lose a lot of your individuality and uniqueness. The translation or interpretation styles that you had in the past might not work at the company anymore. You also have no ability to choose the work you do. If your employer gives you the same kind of work over and over again, then you have no choice but to do it.

To keep an online presence. This might seem a little strange, but think about it this way: if you are looking to accept a car ride from someone, would you go with the person who has a five star rating, many customer reviews, a profile picture, and a little blurb about who they are? Or would you go with the person who has no profile picture, no rating, no reviews, and no profile picture? Obviously, you would go with the former. You would have many reservations about going with someone you have no information about. It’s the same thing with work. Having an online presence will help people who don’t even know you quickly get a feel for who you are and how you operate. Just make sure that you keep your presence online professional and active.

With a good online presence, you can also network. Networking is incredibly important for many reasons, but the most important one goes back to the previous example of a driver who you can easily read up about versus a complete stranger. When you submit your resume and cover letter to a company, especially a big company, they have to make a decision based off of the information you give them. If you don’t give them enough information, they will give the position to the person who they have a better picture of. Networking helps to get your foot in the door since you will have an opportunity to display who you are in a different, more informal setting. Networking will also help get your name into conversations making it easier for prospective clients or companies to identify you in the midst of other applicants.

You should be sure to start off small and get as much experience as you can under your belt. You would be surprised what an opportunity here or there will be able to get you in the future. Just be sure that when you do the work, you always treat it with as much care as possible. This means taking the time to ensure you have no errors, have translated everything perfectly and do not have any formatting issues. Just in case, you should have someone proofread your translation. Even if you are confident with the translation you have put out, it would be a good idea to have a pair of fresh eyes go over the work that you have done. They might have a new perspective or be able to point out some simple errors that you might have glossed over.

The last tip for this post is to set aside a specific time to do your translation. This might seem simple, but you do not want to be spending too much time or too little time on the translation. It is better to have a set time to work on the assignment than to just do it whenever you feel like it. With a schedule, you will be more committed to finishing the job, and will have clear boundaries where you can ensure you are not interrupted or distracted.

Starting out as a translator or interpreter is simultaneously exciting and frightening, but no matter where you start, you are sure to end in a good position if you persist. These tips are to provide a good starting point as well as a good base to build off of. We hope this helps anyone looking to break into the industry.

Insurance Companies

Insurance companies are being pushed out of business, and reacting with panic. In particular, Worker’s Comp providers have been hard hit as it becomes increasingly difficult for companies to rule out or prevent employees’ exposure to Covid-19. Some providers have begun cancelling Workers Comp coverage at just the suggestion that employees could be at risk of exposure.

Media

In a situation like the current one, it’s important to stay up to date and have access to information from trusted news sources. Unfortunately, media outlets are not immune to the effects of the outbreak, and in its wake publishers across the country have been forced to reduce their print schedule, or stop printing altogether. According to the New York Times, local media outlets in particular have been crippled by the outbreak.

Translation and Interpretation

The effects of the outbreak on the T&I industry have been unmistakable to both translators and interpreters themselves, as well as language service companies.  With business across the country screeching to a halt, and more and more areas ordering citizens to shelter in place, last week saw a string of cancellations from clients across the board – depositions, business meetings, tech presentations, medical appointments have been postponed indefinitely, and freelance translators and interpreters face an uncertain future.

We are all being affected by the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus, and for our part, Monterey Language Services will continue to keep an eye on developments across industries as the situation progresses. Stay safe and keep healthy!

It was quite interesting and enlightening to hear students’ stories. They come from all over the world and have incredibly diverse backgrounds, both personally and professionally. Many students have come to MIIS to begin their careers in the language industry, and show clear excitement for their current course of study and potential career paths. Other students already have years of experience in translation or interpretation, and have come to MIIS to hone their skills in a certain specialty or even to change their career trajectory entirely, for example by moving from a linguist to a project manager. Whatever the case may be, we were happy to connect with these talented people.

Students at MIIS, whether they are studying Conference Interpretation, Translation and Interpretation, or Translation and Localization Management all share a passion for languages and a keen desire to put what they are learning at school to work. We are glad to see that so many of these young professionals share our goal of bridging the world’s languages and cultures.

We are always looking for talented freelance translators and interpreters. We are also looking for Office and Project Assistants. During the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, Monterey Language Services is poised for action – we have years of experience working remotely. For us, every challenge, downturn, or recession is an opportunity to reflect on what we can do to improve and move up to the next level. While most people and companies are focusing on the tasks at hand or cost cutting, we are thinking about what our contributions to the future would be and if we will be ready when our clients need us. Now is indeed a good time to think about all of this, and try to figure out how we can make better contributions to the environment we are in and to the people who we care about. We don’t lose faith in a crisis, and we believe those who survive the crisis will stand out when the crisis is over. To us, our career is a long journey. What’s most important is that we are ready to help when our help is needed, and staying connected to help each other out in a time like now.

One important part of maintaining a positive mental attitude for yourself and the whole team is taking responsibility and being accountable for your actions and inaction. Realizing that you are responsible allows you to ask yourself what you can do to improve or change and do better in the future. Overall, a good and positive attitude creates a respectful and dynamic team atmosphere focused on serving the customers rather than on who is to blame.

In conclusion, at Monterey Language Services we feel privileged to be able to work with such excellent team members, all of whom share a positive attitude in work and life. Our employees, freelancers, and contractors embrace human interaction, feeling grateful to serve our communities and make contributions to global communication.

Monterey Language Services is committed to bridging the world’s languages by providing quality, professional and efficient translation & interpretation services in over 175 languages. Please feel free to request a quote from us.