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In 2018, 6 years after starting as a freelancer, I became a six-figure translator. Trust me when I say that no one was more surprised than me when I achieved this goal.
I was probably in the top 1% of translators in terms of annual income, but I wasn’t a public figure. I didn’t teach classes, present at conferences, or brag about this result on my profiles. I was simply following a basic system, which left no room for traditional advice on self-employment.
In fact, I crossed the six-figure mark without ever:
- Charge top 1% rates
- Make a social media post about my business
- Actively network with colleagues
- Using a Website or Blog to Attract Leads
What did I do then? I used 5 simple tactics.
1. I was extremely productive (so I didn’t need to charge the top 1% rates)
To date, I have never charged any client more than €0.15/word. My rates are solid, but not insanely high – typically between $0.09 and $0.12 per word. My secret? I was – and still am – extremely productive.
The average translator can write between 2,000 and 3,000 new words per day. I can easily do 5,000 and reach 8,000 if necessary.
Something interesting happens when you’re this productive.
If you can only translate 2,500 words a day, assuming you work 48 weeks a year, you’ll need to charge €0.17 to get to six figures. As a translator, it is difficult to find clients who can pay that much.
You have to work only with direct customers, you have to do marketing, outreach, content, networking and a number of other constant things. To me, it always seemed like a lot of work.
If you can translate twice as many words per day, you will only need to charge €0.09/word. This is a price that most good translation agencies can pay: you just need to white label them with your services, show them that your work is worth the price, get the job done and deliver it on time.
Boring? Yes. Effective? Equally.
2. I was pretty easy to find
By studying the basics of SEO, I realized quite quickly that I would not be able to rank a website according to the terms that customers would use to find me. Paying someone to do this for me wasn’t an option either, as I would be fighting with translation agencies with a budget 100 times larger than mine.
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Since I wanted leads to come to me, this opened up a dilemma: how could I do this without a website? The answer was simple and involved two channels:
- LinkedIn – I paid someone to optimize my profile to include my language pair and areas of expertise and write decent copy. My LinkedIn profile wasn’t too complex, just 4-500 words of text about what I did. It has generated 5 to 6 customers each year for years.
- Proz.com Directory – the Proz.com directory is the world’s leading directory for translators. Translation buyers use it every day to find translators for their projects! I worked hard for 2 years to rank as high as possible in the directory, and it worked like a charm, providing a steady stream of leads ever since.
My two lead generation channels were intended to attract localization managers from direct customers in my niches and supplier managers from translation agencies in general. And they ran like clockwork.
3. I acted like a human being – which paid off in referrals
This advice was not commonplace a few years ago, and it is even more relevant in the age of AI.
In all my communications with clients, past and present, I have acted like a human being. I didn’t just accept projects and send them back. I asked the client how his vacation was going, what the weather was like, if he had any plans for the weekend.
You know, the normal questions people ask.
I didn’t do this for professional reasons, and please don’t start with that in mind. I did it because I wanted to have a good relationship with them.
If you’ve been freelancing for more than 3 days, you know it gets pretty lonely. I just craved human connection and was really curious about who was on the other side of the screen.
Unexpectedly, this curiosity turned into a marketing tool. I can’t count the number of times someone has contacted me to say I was recommended by a colleague or friend. They were often extraordinary customers.
Looking back, it makes sense: if you communicate through emails all day, your emails begin to define your personal brand, much more than your social profiles or websites.
4. I started throwing
Once my rates increased significantly, my conversion rate (the number of leads that actually converted into customers) decreased accordingly.
I realized I had reached a plateau.
Don’t get me wrong: with $60,000 to $80,000 a year, I could have stopped there. But I had a six-figure goal in mind and I was determined to achieve it.
Cold email launches have proven to be the perfect tool to break the plateau.
The approach I took was pretty simple: several times a year, I identified a very targeted group of boutique agencies or direct clients in an area I wanted to pursue, and then reached out to them.
I never sent a large number of pitches – each time I applied this tactic, my list was probably between 30 and 60 contacts. However, I used different techniques to optimize my emails to a T.
AI/B tested subject lines. I’ve sent 100 word emails as well as 500 word ones. I tried different hooks and modified my call to action.
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Slowly but surely, over a few years, I went from almost zero results to a 25% response rate.
The clients I met through pitches were (almost) always the best paid.
5. I have always invested in my business
As freelancers, we know very well that a DIY approach does not guarantee the same results that a professional would offer. That’s why I chose to focus on what I knew – translation – and entrusted everything else to qualified professionals. Over the years, I have paid:
- CV writing
- Email campaign setup
- LinkedIn profile optimization
- Website creation
- Business card design
I even had an infographic resume designed that cost me $2,500 and never landed me a single client – but that’s another story.
The question here is not what worked and what didn’t. The point is, if you run a business, you have to treat it like one.
Investing in memberships, online courses, and promotional materials wasn’t cheap, but it gave me access to customers I never would have imagined without spending money first.
Key takeaways
You might be tempted to think that the successful freelancers in your field are the ones with huge audiences. Those who have written books on your profession or who give lessons to newcomers.
You probably think that if you want to be successful, you have to do what they do too. Posting on social media as often as they are, presenting at conferences, having websites that look (and probably are) expensive, or implementing complex lead generation strategies.
I know, because I thought the same thing.
The truth, however, is quite different: in my experience, becoming a six-figure freelancer is easy.
You just need to be good at what you do – and if you’re not, work to improve over time – and develop a system for generating and nurturing leads.
Next time we will discuss exactly how to build such a system.
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