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How to convey the worth of our time
Thread poster: Anabel Martínez
Anabel Martínez
Anabel Martínez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Sep 13, 2012

Hello everyone,

I am sure this is a very common issue, but I find it harder and harder to deal with. Let me explain:

Client A wants me to translate a small piece for them. They are a new client, and I never wondered if their texts would always be THIS small (say 50 - 200 words). I do not even stop and think, I just say yes and do it. It so happens that they send me these kinds of texts, even expecting me to reply during the weekends (I pointedly replied on Monday that I
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Hello everyone,

I am sure this is a very common issue, but I find it harder and harder to deal with. Let me explain:

Client A wants me to translate a small piece for them. They are a new client, and I never wondered if their texts would always be THIS small (say 50 - 200 words). I do not even stop and think, I just say yes and do it. It so happens that they send me these kinds of texts, even expecting me to reply during the weekends (I pointedly replied on Monday that I do not work on weekends).

Client B sends me several small pieces per day, and bigger ones from time to time, as well as multiple queries, small favors such as "could you please look at this small text and tell me if it is correct?", etc.

Both clients are direct, so the rate is fair enough, but it is not a matter of rates in this case. Both clients act quite surprised if I say I am not available for a small piece; they just say it will take me five minutes (which of course it won't). The problem is, for several months now I have found myself in the lucky position of having a lot of work, and I feel burned out. Aside from big projects, having to deal with these small pieces on a daily basis has stolen me a lot of time, since every client is always going to say it will be five minutes, and I lose a couple hours that I could have devoted to resting my tired brain.

The even bigger problem is how to make these clients understand that I really am not available for small texts on a daily basis, since it requires a lot of mental effort and I feel the strain. I can do them from time to time, of course, but I cannot go on like that. I tried to "enforce" a minimum charge, but one client begged me not to do it. To be honest, my minimum charge would need to be made of golden nuggets for me to want to do those jobs anyway. What I crave is the free time.

Now my question is, how would you deal with this particular situation?

Thank you very much, and sorry for the looong whiney post

Anabel
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Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 17:11
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Clients can be a pain! Sep 13, 2012

Hello Anabel,

At least the problem is that you've got too much work! That's one thing to be thankful for! It seems that you're in the happy position of being able to lose both clients completely and not suffer. I imagine you've already done what you can to reduce the admin side of things: automating the invoice procedures as much as possible, sending monthly invoices...

I work for some of these clients, too - in fact, they make up quite a large percentage of my work. I
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Hello Anabel,

At least the problem is that you've got too much work! That's one thing to be thankful for! It seems that you're in the happy position of being able to lose both clients completely and not suffer. I imagine you've already done what you can to reduce the admin side of things: automating the invoice procedures as much as possible, sending monthly invoices...

I work for some of these clients, too - in fact, they make up quite a large percentage of my work. I actually think it's inevitable in areas such as tourism and marketing. It's true that these clients can be a pain and it can be difficult to make them pay for your actual time: 5 separate jobs of 10 words MUST bring in more money that one 50-word job, otherwise your hourly rate suffers. Personally, I get so many requests for 50-200 words that I regard them as 'normal'.

I think you've just got to bite the bullet and let them know your new terms. If you really don't want to continue with their work, then you'll just have to make those terms unacceptable. If you want to keep them, couch things in business terms: you're "restructuring your services".

This is what I do with this type of client - it may or may not suit you:

- I don't give ANY freebies to this type of client. They are reserved for those who send reasonably large jobs and ask for very few favours.

- I invoice monthly and I put as little detail as possible on the invoice, otherwise it can take a long while to produce. If I had better IT skills, I would automate it more.

- My minimum charge per 'task' is 2.50€. They surely can't complain about that! But it does at least mean that 10 words are charged at over double my normal per-word rate, and 3 words at nearly 10 times.

- Minimum invoice charge is 30€. That doesn't affect those who order a lot, but it does make them think. I've only had to impose it once: a client had only accumulated 11€ by the end of the month so she paid dearly for those words. I refused her request to leave the invoice until the next month, received the payment and thought that was "goodbye". In fact, she missed two months before finally coming back! I daresay she found out that she wasn't being treated so outrageously badly, after all! We have a good relationship now, with both of us happy to abide by the (few) rules.

Here's hoping you get less, but better-quality, work in the future!

Sheila
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Catherine Bolton
Catherine Bolton  Identity Verified
Local time: 18:11
Italian to English
+ ...
In memoriam
Sheila has given you good advice Sep 13, 2012

Sheila Wilson wrote:

- My minimum charge per 'task' is 2.50€. They surely can't complain about that! But it does at least mean that 10 words are charged at over double my normal per-word rate, and 3 words at nearly 10 times.

- Minimum invoice charge is 30€.

Sheila


I don't know how you're charging, but here in Italy it's by the cartella (around 220 translated words). Anyway, just say that for each small job you have a minimum charge. Here I use half a cartella, so around 110 words, even if it's only 20. I don't do this with customers who pass on a lot of work because it balances out, but these two sound like time-wasters. I even had one customer send me a skype message asking me to check something (for free): "It's just a couple of sentences." I've stopped working for them
Catherine

[Edited at 2012-09-13 11:36 GMT]


 
Anabel Martínez
Anabel Martínez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Time-wasters Sep 13, 2012

First of all, thank you Sheila and Catherine!

Yes, the advice is very good! I had never thought about charging per task. It is a good idea! Although I think I will try to get rid of at least one of the two clients.

Incidentally, there is another client C who asked me via Skype if i was available, even though I told him I was swamped during the whole week and totally unavailable. He began saying "oh, it's not much, it will just take you two hours I think". Two hours?! I
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First of all, thank you Sheila and Catherine!

Yes, the advice is very good! I had never thought about charging per task. It is a good idea! Although I think I will try to get rid of at least one of the two clients.

Incidentally, there is another client C who asked me via Skype if i was available, even though I told him I was swamped during the whole week and totally unavailable. He began saying "oh, it's not much, it will just take you two hours I think". Two hours?! I wish I had two hours to sleep, take a walk, get a massage done, that very week! I did that one job, which actually took like half an hour, because I really did not know how to deal with him without being rude otherwise, but stopped loggin into Skype for a few days...
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Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Follow Sheila's advice... with higher rates Sep 13, 2012

I think the charge per job and minimum invoice are very good ideas indeed, but I would raise the bar a little bit and ask for 10 euros minimum per job and monthly invoice 50 euros minimum or something like that. Otherwise it will hardly compensate you for the lost rest and leisure time you are in dire need of at the moment.

Edited to add this: Of course these are measures targeted only at the it's-not-that-much type of customer. Your good, high-volume, respectful, and strategically
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I think the charge per job and minimum invoice are very good ideas indeed, but I would raise the bar a little bit and ask for 10 euros minimum per job and monthly invoice 50 euros minimum or something like that. Otherwise it will hardly compensate you for the lost rest and leisure time you are in dire need of at the moment.

Edited to add this: Of course these are measures targeted only at the it's-not-that-much type of customer. Your good, high-volume, respectful, and strategically valuable customers should experience business as usual, I reckon.

[Edited at 2012-09-13 12:05 GMT]
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Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 17:11
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
You're too nice, you know! :-) Sep 13, 2012

Anabel Martínez wrote:
I told him I was swamped during the whole week and totally unavailable.
(. . .)
I did that one job, which actually took like half an hour, because I really did not know how to deal with him without being rude otherwise

Seeing as how he had completely ignored your notice about being unavailable, I would have had no problem with being brusque, i.e. nearly but not quite rude!

You did add a surcharge of at least 50% for queue-jumping, I hope?

Edited to fix quotes (I hope!)

[Edited at 2012-09-13 12:07 GMT]


 
Anabel Martínez
Anabel Martínez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Queue-jumping surcharge, a new concept! Sep 13, 2012

I had never thought about that! If I applied it to each client trying to do it, I would be rich. But I would still have no free time!

Seriously, I think that is such a great idea. I am going to organize a template with all of these new concepts, the task charge and the queue-jumping, and I will fire them to those annoying clients with no regard for my time and health!

Chances are in a few months I will ha
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I had never thought about that! If I applied it to each client trying to do it, I would be rich. But I would still have no free time!

Seriously, I think that is such a great idea. I am going to organize a template with all of these new concepts, the task charge and the queue-jumping, and I will fire them to those annoying clients with no regard for my time and health!

Chances are in a few months I will have no clients though, and I will miss them (who am I kidding, I don't think I would miss them, they don't feed me anyway!)

Thanks again Sheila for the great idea, it seems even though I have plenty of experience in freelancing, I had never learnt how to deal with this type of clients!

This is all very interesting!
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Anabel Martínez
Anabel Martínez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Different client categories Sep 13, 2012

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

Of course these are measures targeted only at the it's-not-that-much type of customer. Your good, high-volume, respectful, and strategically valuable customers should experience business as usual, I reckon.

[Edited at 2012-09-13 12:05 GMT]


I agree absolutely, Tomás, on everything you said! I did not include in my ranting my other clients who also send me small pieces to translate, almost every day, but then almost every week send me also bigger projects. Of course I am willing to help those other clients, even though that part of the business is not profitable; the fact that they rely on me and can count on me repeatedly is the profitable aspect in this. However, in my swamped times I did not have time to stop and reflect that I cannot apply the same conditions to people who act as if I was there only to serve them at all hours...

Thanks for all of the nuances here, I am pretty sure I will begin applying them. I will give them... a weekend's notice I guess


 
Alexandra Schneeuhr
Alexandra Schneeuhr  Identity Verified
Cyprus
Local time: 19:11
English to Russian
+ ...
Refer these clients to your trusted peers Sep 13, 2012

Hello Anabel,

I understand only too well what your working schedule might be like at the moment! )) It is equally bad to have dry no-work spells AND these busy hectic weeks with not enough time to do your hair or have a cup of coffee in peace. Raising rates could be one solution, but it is also possible to refer these clients to your trusted peers when you have no time to take these assignments on yourself. I've got two friends who work in the same language pair and we do refer the
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Hello Anabel,

I understand only too well what your working schedule might be like at the moment! )) It is equally bad to have dry no-work spells AND these busy hectic weeks with not enough time to do your hair or have a cup of coffee in peace. Raising rates could be one solution, but it is also possible to refer these clients to your trusted peers when you have no time to take these assignments on yourself. I've got two friends who work in the same language pair and we do refer the customers to each other occasionally, for a variety of reasons (when busy with another project, when going away or taking a day of, or simply when I know that my colleague would love working on this new dog's-food-leaflet which I personally hate)).



[Edited at 2012-09-13 13:14 GMT]
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Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Never without educating the customer first Sep 13, 2012

Alexandra Schneeuhr wrote:
...it is also possible to refer these clients to your trusted peers when you have no time to take these assignments on yourself.

This is mean! So you want Anabel to swamp her friends and colleagues with unprofitable customers, huh?


 
Anabel Martínez
Anabel Martínez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:11
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Unprofitable for most people Sep 13, 2012

Thanks Alexandra!

I actually do refer to my colleagues and trusted friends, but then again, only when the projects are reasonable; I think I would waste even more time asking my friends if they are interested and telling the client than doing the 100 words myself... I feel like I need something that will let them know the reason why I cannot take on these so-called projects; for them they might be super important, but I do not want to put my risk at health for my business, and this
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Thanks Alexandra!

I actually do refer to my colleagues and trusted friends, but then again, only when the projects are reasonable; I think I would waste even more time asking my friends if they are interested and telling the client than doing the 100 words myself... I feel like I need something that will let them know the reason why I cannot take on these so-called projects; for them they might be super important, but I do not want to put my risk at health for my business, and this is not even business, it feels like a charity already...
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 18:11
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
I have a very similar problem Sep 13, 2012

Anabel Martínez wrote:
Both clients are direct, so the rate is fair enough, but it is not a matter of rates in this case. ... The problem is, for several months now I have found myself in the lucky position of having a lot of work, and I feel burned out. Aside from big projects, having to deal with these small pieces on a daily basis has stolen me a lot of time, since every client is always going to say it will be five minutes, and I lose a couple hours that I could have devoted to resting my tired brain.


Yes, I've had this problem recently (and still have it, to an extend), although my such clients are agency clients who don't pay very well, although they do pay very promptly, and have shown themselves to be trustworthy when it comes to issuing POs for even the tiny jobs. The problem is (similar to yours) that I don't have a minimum rate for these clients. A minimum rate won't work because these tiny bits of text form part of a larger, continuous project for their end-client.

One thing that I've done is to be stricter with the types of jobs that require an awful lot of effort for very little money. This includes jobs that utilise CAT tools that require a lot of preparation for each "job" (unless you're using the same CAT tool for the same client all day long). If a job takes a lot of time to prepare, then I only accept larger jobs of that type.

Another thing that I've been able to accomplish is to push most of these jobs from "ASAP" to "before midnight tonight". I simply tell the client that I'm very busy with a job that has a deadline today, and that I'll deal with their job by midnight (or by SOB the next day). This often works. I often do the job within the hour anyway, but having the freedom to move the job to a time-slot that I feel up to it, takes off a lot of pressure.

Another thing that I did to treat my burn-out was to open up my weekends, officially. I don't actually tell clients that I don't work on weekends, but when I get a job that would be a weekend job, I simply propose a new deadline on the Monday or Tuesday. About half the time the client is okay with it (or is able to negotiate it with his end-client). And I often work on weekends anyway, but because the pressure is off, I can relax if I want.

Another thing that I started doing for longer jobs (which I didn't really do before) was to evaluate whether I can make a deadline based on the hours available. So instead of thinking to myself "I have three days for this job", I see it as "I can spare twelve hours for this job, starting tomorrow". All incoming jobs are converted to hours, and that helps me to see quite quickly whether I would be able to take on another job that comes in.

One thing that I've been thinking of doing, is to split my day into chunks based on function, and set my out-of-office reply for the times that I'm not willing to answer e-mails and do small jobs. For example, limit my "guaranteed to answer e-mails" time to e.g. 12-16 hours.

A last thing that I'm sure you're already doing, is to streamline the tasks that go with these jobs, so that you are able to do them quickly when they need to be done quickly. This includes having shortcuts on the Desktop to specific useful folders, and setting up ready-to-use configurations on the CAT tools so that you can simply load the file and go.

Samuel


 
NataliaAnne
NataliaAnne  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 14:11
Portuguese to English
I really understand where you’re coming from with this post! Sep 13, 2012

Sure a short text can be quick and easy to do when you’re focused on it, but I find the hassle is in changing my headspace. When I’ve spent hours/days buried in specialist terminology for a large project, switching to another field in the middle of it – and then switching back again – is what really wastes my time.

 
Alexandra Schneeuhr
Alexandra Schneeuhr  Identity Verified
Cyprus
Local time: 19:11
English to Russian
+ ...
Yeah, not the brightest idea that was )) Sep 13, 2012

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

Alexandra Schneeuhr wrote:
...it is also possible to refer these clients to your trusted peers when you have no time to take these assignments on yourself.

This is mean! So you want Anabel to swamp her friends and colleagues with unprofitable customers, huh?


Oh, you are so right here, in most cases it'd turn out to be quite a disservice )) I just thought of the irony of the situation, when one person is rightfully annoyed by a stream of small worthless "jobs" while for somebody else (a part-timer, a trainee, a young parent trying to juggle up caring for a child, homework and some job on the side) these could be heaven-sent.

I am not good at all at saying "no", so I often find myself in a situation close to the one Anabel described... till now could not think of a proper solution though. May be pretending that I am dead could work


 
Catherine Bolton
Catherine Bolton  Identity Verified
Local time: 18:11
Italian to English
+ ...
In memoriam
More advice Sep 13, 2012

Samuel Murray wrote:

Another thing that I've been able to accomplish is to push most of these jobs from "ASAP" to "before midnight tonight". I simply tell the client that I'm very busy with a job that has a deadline today, and that I'll deal with their job by midnight (or by SOB the next day). This often works. I often do the job within the hour anyway, but having the freedom to move the job to a time-slot that I feel up to it, takes off a lot of pressure.



With customers like this, who say "Oh, it's really urgent", I tell them that I will apply my urgency surcharge, minimum 30%, and - voilà! - suddenly it's not so urgent When it really IS urgent, they are definitely willing to pay!
Just saw Natalie's post as I was writing. Yes, having to shift gear takes more effort than people think. And, Anabel, you're totally right in wanting to have a little time for yourself!
Catherine


 
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