Freelancers and Agencies
I am preparing a presentation for the Vendor Management Seminar in Las Vegas organized by IMTT and MWS. The title of my presentation is Vendors and You: A Positive Partnership from the Start. I’d like to include your ideas on this topic. If you are interested in helping, keep reading!
Specializing in vendor recruitment and team building over my 16 years in the language services industry, I have my own ideas about how to encourage a positive freelancer-agency relationship, but am very interested in what others have to say about it. I am particularly interested in your ideas about when you start such a relationship. Please use the comments field below to share your ideas on this topic.
If you are a freelance translator, what factors are most important to you as you begin a relationship with a translation agency? What makes you feel comfortable? What may turn you off, in the initial stages, from establishing a working relationship with an agency that initially seemed interesting to you?
If you are an agency rep, what is important to you at the beginning of building a relationship with one of your freelance translation providers?
Please be aware that I may reference your comments in my upcoming presentation in Las Vegas.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Posted in: News
I think that agency reps need to be able to articulate their agency’s niche and target market so that I can decide if/where I fit in. Get all of the important details (rate, payment terms, TM discounts, etc.) on the table at the start so that the translator can make an informed decision about working with you. Also, at the risk of sounding arrogant, understand that even in this economy, good translators are in high demand and may not have a strong incentive to lower their rates or give TM discounts. However, I think that excellent translators and excellent agencies are equally scarce, so both have flourished even in the downturn!
Oh, where do I even start…?
This year, I had a surprisingly large number of agencies contact me. Out of the blue. They obviously got my contact details from a job site.
So one would think they actually read my profile and all the other information that I spent quite a bit of time preparing. One would think.
But here’s how it usually happens:
A: Hi. We have seen your profile and want you to work for us.
[Then follows a long list of requirements and zero information on what they offer along the lines of:]
A: Please send your resume/CV, fill in the information on gazillion online pages which mostly are not available right now (oops). Give us your best rate, and let us know whether you will be available three months from Tuesday because we will have a huge project come in. Oh yeah, and you have an hour to do an unpaid test translation of 500 words in a field of specialty you have never even heard of. Also, sent 10 references and make sure you are available by chit-chat program between the hours of OMG and WTF 8 days a week. Please note that we expect a really big discount on everything because we have fabulous clients (that you may never ever contact) and we will provide you with full-time work at oh-point-nothing per word.
My reply: —
Seriously, when somebody contacts me, I expect them to have at last glanced at my resume/CV and my rates. And I expect them to contact me only if my rates are in the acceptable range and not tell me that I am so very expensive _after_ I have jumped through their hoops.
Oh, and if I say something like “unfortunately I think that our business philosophy is really not incompatible, so thanks, but no thanks”, I expect them to respect that and not send me dozens of URGENT!!! requests in fields I don’t ever touch and/or in language I do not cover.
I must be too diffifult.
Ellen
Ellen – thanks for the reminder that professionalism on both sides is key to a productive and positive relationship. Great to see it from your perspective!
Here are my thoughts as a freelance translator working with agencies. I agree with all the comments above from Ellen and Corinne. The first contact should show what kind of agency it is, what kind of clients they work with, where they found my information and how much they already know about me.
One thing that really has irritated me lately is agencies that send out an email to all their freelancers in a certain language pair with a job request, especially the ones that claim that they are on a tight budget and state a low lump sum for the project. I take pride in always responding to all emails and calls whenever I can but I have started to delete these emails without responding, unfortunately.
I do have several great agencies that I work with and they know my specialization, my rates (and respect them), they are available for clarifications and we have mutually developed very pleasant and profitable relationships. It is all about relationships these days, isn’t it?
Good luck with your presentation. I am interested to see results later.
Thanks, Tess, for contributing based on your expertise and experience. All good suggestions! And, yes, definitely, it is all about the relationship!
Working with new suppliers is often an interesting challenge.
First of all, we expect to get good translations. A supplier may have a lot of qualities but if his/her work isn’t satisfying we won’t call this person again.
We also highly value translators we can rely on, especially those who meet deadlines.
It also makes things easier if they have good communication skills, for efficiency’s sake.
Needless to say that if a translator asks for a ridiculously high rate, we won’t be able to work with him/her…
Finally, a friendly and easy-going attitude is often the little touch that makes us contact a particular translator again. We understand that deadlines, tricky projects and price negotiations can be stressful for the translator but we also have our share of troubles with our clients!
I am a bit late in my reply, but on the off chance it may still be helpful, here I go.
What makes me comfortable at the first contact with an agency?
That they state clearly and to the point who they are and what they want and then expect me to do the same. I like to know the terms rightaway, as Corinne said, and I like to have the feeling that they respect that I run a business, too. We may not be in the same segment of the market, but at least, we can talk together to discover that and then, work together or be on our respective way.
What turns me off from an agency?
Well, as Ellen said, where to begin?
I don’t like to have to do their admin work for them, filling in forms in about my details etc. Database updating is part of their costs and they charge their clients accordingly, so I don’t see why I should do that for them and gratis pro deo, at that.
I don’t like being treated in a superior way, especially as an introduction to offering me crappy rates (you know this undertone of “you aren’t that great anyway, so, well, that’s the reason why I will pay you peanuts”). I understand that money is important and they have a budget, but once it’s established that I am not in their budget and the gap is too large to allow for negociation, it should be “good bye and good luck”.
To end on a more positive note, there are good agencies out there and generally, I have had a feeling from their first communications that the relationship would evolve in a good way.