As a freelance translator or interpreter, you'll be exchanging the freedom of self-employment for the responsibility of finding your own work, charging a fair rate for this work, making sure you get paid, tracking your own tax liabilities, and many other tasks. In this section, we'll take a look at the non language-related skills that make for a successful freelance business.
Communicating.
People do business with people they like, so while you don't want to grovel, it's important to hone your communications skills where your freelance business is concerned.
First, you have to actually do the communicating;
answer all business-related phone calls and e-mails as soon
as possible, always within the same business day and preferably within an hour, and change your voice mail message or e-mail auto-responder when you'll be out of the office for more than one business day. Be honest about your availability and don't promise miracles that you can't deliver.
Second, you need to communicate in a way that is positive
and professional. Answer the phone cheerfully; when someone contacts you for work, thank them for thinking of you. When you call a client back and they've already found another linguist, thank them for contacting you and ask them to keep you in mind in the future, rather than getting angry that they didn't wait for your response.
Accounting.
Like marketing, this is a concept that sounds frightening
if you've never done it before. Especially if you've
always worked as a salaried employee, working as a freelancer will require much more record-keeping than you've done before. However, at its most basic level, accounting for a freelancer consists of keeping records of your income and expenses, something that is definitely within your grasp. As with communicating, the most important aspect of accounting is to do it; record every payment as soon as you receive it and save receipts for every business expense in order to minimize your headaches at tax time.
Using technology.For translators, the days of pen and paper work are long gone, and you'll need to know how to use, at a minimum, the Internet, e-mail, and office software such as word processing and spreadsheet programs and so on.
