The ITI East Anglia Network’s most recent online monthly chat (on 21 May) was a brainstorming on how our work as language professionals is changing, how the group members got to where they are and how they are adapting to the industry’s new normal. This was a follow-up to our last session “How (not) to make £100k as a freelance translator: a fresh take on advice for newbies” by Sarah Bowtell.

We discussed how we are positioning ourselves in terms of rates, both in resisting downwards market pressures and trying (sometimes successfully) to put our rates up occasionally to reflect rising costs. We also talked about the importance of investing our time in marketing in the broadest sense, by identifying our USP, as well as using all avenues available to us, including wider industry networking events. Face-to-face meetings allow us to meet people from our communities and business sectors and can bring all kinds of opportunities. When we think about networking, we most often think of selling, but actually it can be more effective to ask for help from contacts with questions like “do you know somebody who needs x?”

We agreed that it is now more important than ever to be ready with our response to the AI question. We should be prepared to counter the sceptics and clearly communicate why our work as translators and interpreters is still needed and what AI can’t do for our clients.

We also talked about how we need to feed back to clients on the workflow, and how this is even more relevant as processes change with MT and AI. When something does not work as we are expecting, or when it takes longer, we need to tell clients in a clear and timely way. If a job was meant to take three hours and took ten, we shouldn’t quietly absorb the costs for that. We recognised that this becomes easier with experience, when we are more confident in how long something should take.

We are looking forward to the next monthly chat on “Managing expenses and keeping costs down” on 25 June.

Blog post written by our ITI East Anglia Network member Catherine Fox

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