Winning clients as a freelancer; an LSP perspective- Abrates 2016
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•515 views
In the busy freelance world, how do you make yourself stand out from the pack and attract those clients you have always dreamed of having? Whether experienced or not, approaching and signing new clients is not easy. There is a plethora of advice available on how to get new clients, selling techniques, and client relationship management but there is not much information available on these topics from a vendor management perspective. So, how do we know what our potential client looks for? This presentation will analyze freelance communications and selling techniques using real examples and will then share SpeakLatam’s perception in general and what we look for in candidates. This session will provide you with a fresh perspective to analyze your own selling techniques as well as helpful tips to improve how you market your services (and yourself) based on your goals.
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Winning clients as a freelancer; an LSP perspective- Abrates 2016
Similar to Winning clients as a freelancer; an LSP perspective- Abrates 2016 (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (16)
Winning clients as a freelancer; an LSP perspective- Abrates 2016
- 1. WINNING CLIENTS AS A FREELANCER An LSP perspective
- 2. presentation Analyze Communications Selling techniques What we look for this will…
- 3. presentation Provide Fresh perspective to analyze your own technique Tips to improve this will…
- 4. Draw a business plan with short, medium and long term objectives and a timeline. freelancer a is… Production Sales Training Admin Etc.
- 5. SpeakLatam = regional language vendor Serving LSPs & MLVs globally Staff 5 PMs 1 VM 1 Production 1 Sales Linguists 2 in house 2 full lancers 61 freelancers are Who we
- 6. Database 61 Translators (in 4 years) Recruited 3.3% Experience 51% -3 yrs xp. Areas of xpertise 85% 2 to 3 areas Rates 40% spread offreelancers
- 7. Opportunities for all Most people approached us No fixed rate What is important
- 8. 100% of first contact was via email Who do you contact?
- 11. If you are not standing out, you might NOT be selling effectively consider that you might not be targeting the right clients! but also
- 12. Subject line: Cooperation between SpeakLatam and XXX Have you done yourresearch?
- 13. Relevant Subject line Polite Well structured Simple to browse No language issues Talking to ME! Why did I readit?
- 14. Not addressed Generic subject line Bcc’ed No information Most DISCARDED!are CV s Why?
- 15. You are the right person to define your profile, don’t leave that task to me!
- 16. Your client wants to KNOW how thorough, confident, smart and dedicated you are. First impressions Matter! Is this person a good fit? Issues • Lack of effort • Communication • Confidence?
- 17. Dedication • Talk to me! • Poor structure • Proofreading
- 18. NEVER leave your potential client wondering if you are not dedicated enough…
- 19. Engage on the first contact
- 20. Why is this engaging? o Format o Friendly o Clear o Name dropping o DIFFERENT
- 21. Les escribo con la intención de que me tengan en cuenta para desempeñarme como traductora en su empresa. Sería de gran agrado para mí poder formar parte de su grupo de trabajo. Me contacto con ustedes porque me interesa trabajar con SpeakLatam como traductora freelance. En archivo adjunto mando mi cv porque me interesa trabajar con ustedes y formar parte de su equipo. I am interesting texts about marketing, law, social science, economy, finance, mining, education, business, commerce, pharmaceutics, chemistry, energy, healthcare, tourism, general articles, etc. I am interested in working for your company to sell my services and acquire more experience in the translation/editing field. To whom it may concern, Please find attached my cv. Yours Faithfully I have worked for 1 year now and I’m eager to continue both learning and working. I’m currently working as a translator and I would like to work with new agencies to gain more experience. I’m a responsible professional who works hard to achieve the best results. I’m eager to learn and be sure you can count on me. Hola, buenas tardes. Soy Micaela estudiante de 5to año de Traductorado de Inglés- Les adjunto mi CV para que lo lean y me contacten. Me gustaría comenzar a trabajar haciendo traducción y tengo horario full time. Sería grato para mi tener la oportunidad de trabajar en su equipo de trabajo por lo cual espero recibir noticias suyas a la brevedad. Sin más, saludo a usted atte. In contrast…
- 22. You know who you are, what you offer. Say it CLEARLY. Do not use the passive approach!
- 23. What happens next? We will READ your CV!
- 24. Same principle applies! o Clear info o Relevant o Easy to browse o Well formatted o Correct language o CONSISTENT!
- 25. An example… Basic but… • Clear • Well formatted • Easy to read
- 26. A few ideas… o Picture o Education & work: Make it count o Courses: just a few! DO NOT ASSUME THE CV WILL NO BE SCRUTINIZED!
- 27. An example… Is the information relevant?
- 30. valueto something, If you assigned pursue it!
- 31. consistent! Know yourself & be
- 32. They contacted you. What now?
- 34. Second email from linguist She stopped selling!
- 35. Your goal is to get past the VM. Be engaging!
- 36. o Set yourself a path and goals o Sell Proactively o Define your profile o Do your research o Target the right clients o Be relevant o Polish your communication style o Structure the information o Engage o Be consistent and… NEVER STOP SELLING! summary
- 37. Thank you!
Editor's Notes
- We’ll analyse communications and selling techniques using real examples, and I’ll share our perception from those communications, and what we look for in candidates.
- Hopefully, you’ll be able to use it as a tool to analyse your own technique and the way you market yourself!
- The amount of time you devote to each one of the task you have as a freelancer should be consistent with your needs, so it needs to be planned. Draw a business plan with objectives AND a timeline!
- This presentation will address the “sales” part of your job, from the perspective of an LSP, So let me explain who we are so you can see were I’m coming from.
- I’ll focus now on the freelancers. Our databse of freelancers was developed over a 4 years period, and has the following caracteristics. As you can see, it’s fairly varied in terms of experience, areas and rates.
- Lets focus on the people that got into the database by approaching us. For example, our database lists the managing team and their email addresses, and there is a “contact” form. Do the reaserch, and if you know who the VM is, contact him directly! Most people send their CVs to us using the contact email address on the form, not the VM’s address. That account, and that is the case with most companies, that account is monitored by sales personnel, and they will not bother to forward your CV to the VM, why would they, if you didn’t bother to do your reaserch!
- This leads me to the first important point. Do not spam, but target clients! How do you define your target? This is an exercise you need to do as a freelnace, just as if you were a company. Defining your target is the step that will get you closer to your objectives. You’ll not reach your goal by chance!
- Some criteria you might use is Size: define a company size that might fit your work style, or you think might be easier for you. On a smaller company you might find it easier to get into, or to get noticed and build a relationship with the people! Location: You might choose to target first the companies in your area, maybe ask to visit them and build a relationship, find common ground with the employees. Or maybe you have someone in common that can introduce you! Think of added value: you can deliver the projects personally should something happen, or maybe fill in for an employee if they have an issue? Use it as a differentiator! Areas/languages: Needless to say, you should target the companies that work in your particular areas of expertise and language pair… The better the match, they higher the chances to get a decent workflow! Don’t waste your time targeting companies that have very little work to offer you. Culture:Try to “read” the Company’s culture. Reaserch their values, their communication style, their goals. Do they match yours? Ultimately, you are trying to become part of a team, and if you are successful it means you’ll be working with them daily. If/when you ran into an issue, the better you like the people you work with, the easier it’ll be for all parties to have honest conversations to resolve them.
- If you find that you are not being successful, analyse what you have been doing. Go back to the beginning and rethink your strategy! It’s a very healthy exercise to keep a record of the approached clients and to analyse how each of them came about so you can grasp what are you doing right and what you can improve.
- It’s quite easy to read, from the recruiters side, if the applicant has done it’s reaserch. Most often than not, specially when we are not proactively looking to expand the database of vendors, the emails that “don’t talk to me” or are not interesting, look the same as the rest, don’t even get read. For example, company from Egypt will NOT offer something we need, but if the first few lines are engaging, I will most likely read it, at least out of curosity!
- All of the above AND They were telling me what they can do for ME Now, if you do your reaserch you’ll easily find out that my company focuses in Latam languages, so that was a nice, but wasted effort on their part!
- EN>ES freelancers are the bulk of our databse of freelancers, and we receive plenty of CVs mainly from Argentina, but most of them I don’t even save for future review. Why? This is a generic one, similar to many I receive. All of the above There is no information about the person’s profile! I have to open the CV and do the heavy lifting!
- EN>ES freelancers are the bulk of our databse of freelancers, and we receive plenty of CVs mainly from Argentina, but most of them I don’t even save for future review. Why? This is a generic one, similar to many I receive. All of the above There is no information about the person’s profile! I have to open the CV and do the heavy lifting!
- Sadly, this was actually an interesting CV and I only found out because I was preparing this presentation. It did make me question my ability to detect valuable resources, but putting a bit of thought into it, it also made me think: Why was this her approach? She might be good, BUT, there ARE some communications issues… Maybe lack of confidence and effort aswell? Is she a good fit??? If this was the effort put into contacting me, how much effort will she put into my projects? I DON’T KNOW The client wants to know all of the above
- About not being thorough and dedicated, I’ll give you a quick and obvious example. Nice try, BUT Rellevant info was not on the bullets, which is were you naturally go looking for it! I am have… Was this poor proofreading, or lack of proper grammar? I don’t know! Does it matter???
- Your client needs certainties, not question marks! Don’t leave a question mark above your head in their mind!
- On the other side of the “engage on the first contact spectrum”, I recently received this email. Even though it has some flaws (there is definitely room for improvement) it was engaging
- All of those (NON name dropping actually, and I suspect was not quite the case, as she didn’t write specifically to someone, and used a generic email account) BUT She describes what she OFFERS! Describe herself, her abilities, her background and her experience. It was not too long, and it had a good enough text flow that I continued reading it…
- Flawed as the previous example was, it’s a massive difference from what I normally see. Here is an array of examples. In most cases, it’s a canned email were they tell me what they WANT, rather than what they OFFER.
- That was what I call the “passive approach” to selling/jobhunting. The client already has a job, and it’s not being your career advisor You should know who you are, what you offer. SAY it, and say it clearly. That is the path to get through the first filter and get your foot on the door.
- Recruiting the right people is extremely important, so your CV will be read, and by read I mean scrutinized! The freelancer is at the core of any LSP business, so we choose carefully to whom we work with!
- On your CV, the same principle applies: Make the information clear and relevant to the recruiter, make it easy to browse and to find the relevant information by structuring it smartly, Send a well formatted and well written document, as they will tell me you KNOW how to write, and know how to format, and that you care! Hopefully, you’ll apply the same care to my projects! And, VERY important, make it CONSISTENT with the email and with REALITY!
- Let me show you an example. This is a very basic CV, yet well structured and formatted, clear and easy to read. For a newby, this was actually pretty good! I’d have loved to have more concise information, a list of services for example, although in this case I imagine it’s not there because she hasn’t got much experience…
- From that CV, we can get a few ideas by contrast! -A picture is not common, and might feel unimportant (you are not applying to a modelling position), yet from the buyer’s perspective, it does help me feel a real person is talking to me. Helps with the “CHAT vs. SALES PITCH” effect. -Just a few items in “Education and WORK” section is just fine. Make it relevant and make it count. Don’t let the minor things mud the bigger things, it diminishes their value! -Courses/exams: Those are fine, but list the prestigious or relevant ones! No need to list everything. YOUR CV will definitely be scrutinized, so you should make an effort.
- For example, on the same CV, and this might be a bit extreme (but funny): Check the DOB and the exams listed… Do you really need to list things you did before you were 18? Unless you are applying to translate refugee camp’s material, and you were a refugee aged 12 so you can relate, I don’t really need to know about your childhood. So, this was an extreme example, BUT, have you checked your CV recently? That “creative writing” seminar you took aged 18. If it wasn’t thought by someone I’ll be impressed and ask you if you have an autograph, drop it. You are a professional linguist now.
- On the same “being consistent” topic… A lot of times we receive CV’s stating a specific ability, some knowledge or skill, for example the use of a CAT tool, even saying “I’m an expert”. What happens is, if you said you use a specific tool, and its one of our preferred ones, we send the translator a test project in that tool. We expect that person to be able to handle the project without technical issues, and receive back what we asked for!
- That is not always the case. Here is an example of the files delievered by a person stating he was a “Studio expert”. I sent out a Studio Package and requested a return package, yet he managed to open the files individually and made a mess. Other examples of what we receive back include: -bilingual files with the name changed -Broken files that we cannot open -Bilingual files with a different language pair than the one we sent out…
- If you placed value on being a power user of a specific Cat tool, so much so that you thought that listing it on your CV was a selling point, what are you waiting for! Go for it, find a course, reaserch it, use it, play with it, DO become an expert user! There is so much training available for free online that you don’t have an excuse!
- On the same line of thought, and wthout making a “moral judgement”, I’ll say that many people list their areas of expertise, but when presented with a choice while doing a test, they go for a different area “because it was easier”. That DEFINITELY doesn’t go unnoticed! What do I do with that? Do I send you projects within your area, which I have never seen your production? Or do I send you projects in the tested area, that might be outside your expertise? Well, neither!
- So, you did your reaserch, contacted the right person, cought their attention by conveying what you offer and your expertise, and they contacted you! What now?
- Here is an example of the second email I received from the “emoticons” linguist after I asked her to fill in a form and a few questions about areas of expertise, etc. That was such a disappointment! Not even a header? All of the sudden I was chatting and she was sending a Memo to her secretary!
- She stopped selling. Maybe she was unimpressed with my message… Or maybe, she had put a lot of thought into the first sales pitch, but left it at that. Never considered that seeling is an ongoing process! Selling never stops, even when you work with a client daily, you need to foster that relationship.
- Remember your goal. You need to get past the Vendor Manager to get into the pool of translators. If you build rapport with the VM, they might put in a good word for you! You need to get past this stage, and then, continue selling every day, as it’s the Project Manager the person that will be sending you work, so the process starts again! Remember to always be engaging, people choose to work with people that they can trust and they feel comfortable with. Find a way to be that person!