As times are getting harder and as the world economy is running on the brink of going through another word wide recession, it is only normal for companies to go through their goals and objectives to see what realistically can be reached and what adjustements might need to be implemented in order to meet these goals. This is not very different for  Translation Agencies. Below, please find 7 points of how more sales can be generated:

1)    Analyze the biggest Accounts – In our industry, the total number of projects and the total amount of revenue should be detected for each business year (2011 in this case) and these numbers should be analyzed. Account Managers can adjust their offered per Word Rates according to the total Revenue, to see if the client will purchase more projects in 2012. Additional language pairs can be offered to clients in order to have higher potential of closing translation projects. TMs  (Translation Memories)  can be offered to give the client a monetary benefit, as this will over the long run reduce the translation cost for the client.

2)    E-mail Campaigns – Sending e-mail campaigns by e-mail and offering 10% discounts helps generate more sales and might even persuade long-lost clients to come back and take the offer to his/her advantage. This incorporates an added value to your client and can increase trust and confidence levels.

3)    Increase Database of translators/editors that have TRADOS as this will enable you  to offer Repetitions, Fuzzy Matches, 100% Matches etc. and will make you more competitive on the market. This can be a huge benefit for your client.

4)    Sales Incentives should be established for all Account Managers, as this will keep them motivated and can result in higher Sales.

5)    Performance feedback – twice a year, the Sales Mgr. should sit down with the AM to give feedback over the AM´s performance. This will enable the AM to improve on bad habits and can result in generating higher Sales if these bad habits will be stopped.

6)    Every Quarter, the per word rates of all language pairs need to be compared to various markets, to see if if the company is still competitive. This can result in higher sales if appropriate actions are taken.

7)  Adwords and SEO: whenever the Revenue forecast shows that a “slow” month is coming, additional investment into Adwords and SEO should be invested, in order to overbridge the “low” time period. This means the company can proactively act to overcome slow sales and not react to slow sales.

I hope I was able to give you a few ideas of how higher Sales can be generated, as these points helped our Company a lot to generate more Sales.  Do not forget that all of this goes along with being focused and following your goals.

Trados can be extraordinarily useful for translating and editing your documents, but using it can be a little daunting if you don’t have much experience with it. This video will help you get started.

Source: Trados Video Tutorial

Multiterm is one of the most useful translation tools available, and this video will show you how to use it in Microsoft Word.

This is a brief tutorial that will get you started on the basics of Trados.

Source:

How to Get Started with Trados

In this video tutorial you’ll learn how to process xml, xdt or mdb files to create a termbase in Multiterm (Spanish).

Source:

How to Import xml xdt mdb in Multiterm

The act of translating has changed significantly over the past decade, with the personal computer having replaced the giant multilingual dictionary as the translator’s single indispensable item. If you are starting out as a freelance translator or interested in a career as a professional translator, there are a few things that are absolute musts in order to a) find work b) keep the work coming in.

1) A computer with a reliable high-speed internet connection. Finding out the next day that the file you emailed off never actually arrived is similar to having your computer crash and losing all of your unsaved work. All of your work has gone to waste, not to mention the fact that your reputation is tarnished and you may have lost a client.

2) Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools, while generally not technically necessary to translate, will do wonders for the number of job opportunities you have. Having Trados, Deja Vu, Wordfast or MetaTexis will make you stand out from the hundreds of other translators vying for the project.

There are lots of sites that will teach you how to use these tools (as well as how to handle a computer crisis) so spend a little time familiarizing yourself with the basic computer programs and tools.

Anyone using Trados is going to break a few tags at some point. It happens. There’s no way around it (that I’ve found), and it can be an extremely frustrating experience. If you are translating with Microsoft Word and you haven’t yet tried to close the segment or done any other Trados operation, you can undo your last action (Ctrl+Z) and hopefully fix it that way.

If you have however tried to use Trados, your best bet is the “Fix Document” command. This is the second to last option in the Trados menu ( Alt+Ctrl+U) and will usually fix small errors and broken tags. It finds the damaged tag, repairs it and then takes you back to the beginning of your document. Unfortunately, it is not always so “magical.” If it does not work for you, you can try to copy source and re-translate or try and copy a good tag and paste it over the damaged one.

Trados Fix Document should not be seen as a failsafe way to fix tags, but rather as a first attempt that will sometimes save you a big headache. In my experience, it has worked about 2/3 of the time. So keep it in mind, watch your tags and good luck!