posted 06 April 2006 16:01            

Hiring translators is easy enough - particularly if you're willing to invest and test them.

The hard part is getting clients willing to pay enough to give you a profit margin.

In the early days (1997-2000) we had a couple of ideal clients and some reliable cheap suppliers which enabled us to charge a competitive rate and still make 100% markup - ie, charge 100 pay 50.

Depending on the language this is still possible. But so many more people are happy to outsource directly via internet using sites like ProZ that this is harder than it was 9 years ago.

We kind of bugged out of the agency thing after I started translatortips.com, but while it worked it was great. We had one or two big clients and some good suppliers.

The clients communicated well and the suppliers generally delivered. It was great. Multi-hundred quid for sending and receiving a few emails. We like

It can still be done, but you have to be a good recruiter and a good salesman. You do the work up-front and get the pay-off later.

A bad job or a bad client can wreck it all. The other thing is that since your contract with the translator is separate from that with the client, you expose yourself to much more risk than as a freelancer because you are still obliged to pay the translator if your client refuses to pay.

If that happens on a big job, it can take you down

One thing we found was that the ideal client was one who was based in your home country and seeking to do business in the target country. But what ultimately happens here (with a large company) is that they set up their own local branch or develop local relationships and cut you out of the loop later on. It's to be expected, so don't rely on one client.

Trade show programmes are a great source of potential clients like this.