Ingratitude!

Remember the “Decimation” post here, back in May 2007?

Now take a look at this terrible tale of ingratitude from Matthew Bennett‘s blog.

What do you think of the way Britain treats our colleagues?

A.M.Sall

P.S. Click here to download your copy of “The Insider Guide to The Strategic Marketing of Translation Services“, the book no translator/interpreter in his/her right mind should even think of going without . Or maybe you’d rather take a look at the Free Preview first? This is the book you’ve been waiting for so impatiently: it’s here NOW. And did I mention I’m now working on the 2nd edition, which will be much more complete, but also with a higher price (yes, there’s going to be a price rise!). Now here is the deal: if you get the book now (at the current price), you’ll get the 2nd edition for free. So why wait any longer…!?

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Translator Experience Day – Disappointment, then Relief and “WOW!”

(Translator Experience Day (TED) last week: Sheila Anderson (German/English/German translator/interpreter) and her friend Valerie Chen (Chinese/English/Chinese translator/interpreter) have decided to launched an all-out assault on the Iron and Steel industry. Their friend Ron Wilkinson, an industry insider ageed to introduce them to at least 80 people on the list …)

Sheila and Val were slightly disappointed. They had asked “Translator Power” readers to “send them suggestions on how to carry out their strategies or even new strategies they might consider as more efficient.” They found it rather depressing that not a single one of “Translator Power“‘s thousands of readers had reacted.

“These translators are such as lethargic lot!” they thought

Val was looking at the “Translator Power” site. Suddenly she said quietly: “Hey, Sheila, the book is out!”

“The book? Which book is that?”

As soon as they learned that “The Insider Guide to The Strategic Marketing of Translation Services” was out, they rushed to the publisher’s site and bought one copy each.

They didn’t even bother to look at the Free Preview.

And they were not disappointed this time

They discovered “How to Position Yourself as THE Expert People in Your Target Market will Unhesitatingly Turn to on the Very First Occasion”

They learned everything about A.M.Sall’s 3A+ System, “Amsall’s new, revolutionary, play-to-win system which brings radical transformation not just to your business life, but more importantly to your whole life in general.” (pp. 31 to 38)

How to Avoid the “Commoditization” of Your Translation Services

How to Define, Identify, Select your “Ideal Client” and Charge As Much As You Want

How to Set your Goals, Strategies and Tactics

Create and Dominate Your Own Niche

Now segmenting and niche marketing held no more secrets for them (IG. pp. 19, 20), neither did USP, Adding Value, Elevator Speeches (pp. 24, 25)

Or setting strategic marketing, communication and financial goals (pp. 26,27)

Or coordinated multi-channel marketing (pp. 33, to 37)

Or PR (pp. 44 to 48)

Or Direct Mail, GTM CTM (pp.57 to 61)

They understood Why You Should not Merely Want to be ‘the Best of the Best’, but rather ‘the Only One who Does What You Do’

How to Learn the Basics of HTML and Build Your Own Clean and Functional Website in Less than a Week (‘elegant minimalism‘ is the name of the game!) or simply use a CMS platform (pp.66 to 71)

Now, they knew how to build a database of their clients and prospects, then work their list through follow up, so that they could build better profiles representing each segment which they would then laser target and turn into a permanent income-producer for themselves.

And when they got to “The World’s TOP 100 Resources that are Definitely Indispensable for any Translator/Interpreter who is Really Serious about Starting, Growing, and Profitably Marketing His/Her Business”, (pp.76 to 82), it was the apotheosis!

Many “WOW!s” later, and after going through the book for about 2 hours the 2 friends decided to write to A.M.Sall to ask him to raise the price of the book! All this for just $18.75! That was RIDICULOUS! The man was CRAZY!

(To be continued

A.M.Sall

P.S. We have turned the free 7-Part PR ecourse into a free downloadable PDF and all you have to do is visit this link and instantly download it!

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Translator Experience Day – Sheila-and-Val’s All-out Assault on the Steel Industry. Part IV – The Trojan Horse (Ctd)

(Translator Experience Day (TED) 2 weeks ago: Sheila Anderson (German/English/German translator/interpreter) and her friend Valerie Chen (Chinese/English/Chinese translator/interpreter) have decided to launched an all-out assault on the Iron and Steel industry. After shortlisting 100 US SMB, all active in the Iron and Steel sector they’ve decided to use an insider, their friend Ron Wilkinson, “as a Trojan Horse to get into the Iron and Steel Fortress”…)

Ron looked at the list and quickly discovered that as a prominent member of the National Association he knew most of those selected by the 2 friends.

“Today is your lucky day”, he chuckled, as he slowly went through the list, ticking off names “John B., Bill G., Bob Z….”

When he got through, they had over 80 names, people Ron was going to introduce and recommend them to, either by email or by phone for those who were not in their State (65).

Then he promised to secure appointments for them with the 15 who were close enough, either in the State or in neighboring States.

“Oh, Ron, you’re SO very nice”, Sheila gasped. She was so happy she felt like crying

Ron just smiled: “It’s my pleasure. I’m happy you’re happy”

Sheila and Val were elated and excited! Even the erstwhile rather reluctant Val was now a “true believer”.

They talked strategy, tactics, techniques. Ron’s introductions were going to “soften the target” and then all they would have to do would be “move into land assault” and finish off the job, “picking’em out” and working on them one by one!

Personal meetings, phone calls, email, good old Direct Snail Mail…

And of course they would have to get their BATNA ready, just in case they had to negotiate their way in…

The final objective was: 10 good clients immediately, and the rest to be followed up and converted later

Two very important things to remember here:

1. 45% of the list were already 1st connections on LinkedIn, (25 for Val and 20 for Sheila)

2. It’s better to have 10 clients you know very well than 100 you hardly know: Once you have a handful of really good clients, cultivate and deepen your relationships. And then expand from there.

Tune in for the next edition of Translator Experience Day (TED) to follow our two friends in their exhilarating adventure!

(Meanwhile, why not send them your own suggestions on how to carry out their strategies or even new strategies you might consider as more efficient

A.M.Sall

P.S. We have turned the free 7-Part PR ecourse into a free downloadable PDF and all you have to do is visit this link and instantly download it!

Subscribe to Translator Power and successfully market your translation/interpreting services either by Email or if you prefer the feed, just look on your left and make your choice!

Translator Experience Day – Sheila-and-Val’s All-out Assault on the Steel Industry. Part III – The Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse

(Last Sunday’s Translator Experience Day (TED): Sheila Anderson (German/English/German translator/interpreter) and her friend Valerie Chen (Chinese/English/Chinese translator/interpreter) have decided to launched an all-out assault on the Iron and Steel industry. They’ve started to research their market using online social networking, more precisely LinkedIn. They have shortlisted 100 US SMBs”, all active in the Iron and Steel sector and all first degree contacts in their networks…)

Of the 100 SMBs, 45 were in Sheila’s network and 55 in Val’s. They were from 12 different States.

This gave them respectively and very approximately 175.000 2nd degree/900,000 3rd degree for Sheila and 250,000 2nd degree/1,000,000 3rd degree for Val to turn to just in case. 2nd and 3rd degree connections mean people who could be recommended by their 1st degree connections.

Now remember if you cultivate it well, a 1st degree connection eventually becomes a strong tie, someone you have a strong connection with, not just someone you know, but someone who knows you.

The two friends quickly realized this was the case with only about 45 of their 1st connections, 25 for Val and 20 for Sheila. They had known them for some time, between 8 months and one year and in that time they had been in contact either by email, or by phone. They had even met some of them at a party hosted by the local Chamber of Commerce.

Suddenly, Sheila had one of her ideas. She was in a “creative” mood, one of those times when she seemed to be flooded by what she called her “flashes of genius”!

“Val, remember Ron?” asked Sheila

“Sure, Ronald Wilkinson, the one with the jealous wife!”, laughed Val

“Do you know we’re real friends now, with his wife. That was easy once Eva Wilkinson realized there was nothing between her husband and me. Now, listen Val, this is what we’re going to do: Let’s use Ron as a Trojan Horse to get us into the Iron and Steel fortress!”

They were going to show Ron their list and ask him to recommend them to all those he actually knew on the list. As Sheila put it, they would “leverage” Ron’s professional, and even maybe personal relationship with those guys. And this was an extraordinary shortcut, an awesome time-saver!

As it happened, Ron was a prominent member of the National Association. To obtain a truly reinforcing and multiplying effect, they wanted him to recommend them only to those already on their list, people who already “knew” them through email exchanges or phone conversations.

Sheila and Val were going to use good old “Chamber of Commerce” networking to reinforce their online social networking strategy…

(To be continued)

A.M.Sall

P.S. We have turned the free 7-Part PR ecourse into a free downloadable PDF and all you have to do is visit this link and instantly download it!

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Subscribe to Translator Power and successfully market your translation/interpreting services either by Email or if you prefer the feed, just look on your left and make your choice!

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Translator Experience Day – Sheila-and-Val’s All-out Assault on the Steel Industry. Part II

(Last Sunday’s Translator Experience Day (TED): Sheila Anderson (German/English/German translator/interpreter) and her friend Valerie Chen (Chinese/English/Chinese translator/interpreter) have decided to launched an all-out assault on the Iron and Steel industry. They’ve started to learn as much as they can about this industry… So, they worked, and worked, and worked. And very soon became experts, real metallurgists, I’m telling you!. Their conversations were peppered with expressions such as “low and high carbon wire rod”, “coated steel”, “scrap steel”…)

Today, they are discussing marketing

The two friends quickly came to the conclusion that to build something solid, you should be prepared to take all the time necessary. It’s much more like long distance running than sprint.

They also remembered Abraham Lincoln: “If you have eight hours to chop down a tree, spend six hours sharpening your ax.” In their particular case, “sharpening your ax” meant “market research“…

And also, “the deeper your foundation, the taller your building”. It’s better to have 10 clients you know very well than 100 you hardly know: Once you have a handful of really good clients, nurture and deepen your relationships. And then expand from there.

The market

1. Preferably, a small business, where you can walk straight to the boss and talk to her. And this does exist in the Iron and Steel sector, contrary to what you might think. Val Chen remembered her grand-father always used to tell her: “When you go to a place, always talk to the boss!”

2. “Later on”, they said “if we still have the time and if we still really need it, we’ll tackle the big ones.”

Now, on to SMBs. I’m sure all TP readers know what an SMB is. Anyway, it’s just a Small and Mid (or Medium)-sized Business. In Europe and some other parts of the world, you often hear SMEs instead, where the “E” stands for “Enterprise”.

Let’s just look at one way Sheila and Val did it. The two friends had always been true believers in online social networking. They both had their profiles at LinkedIn, Ryze, Ecademy, Xing, CEOSpace, Reuters Insight, MySpace, etc.

They decided to try LinkedIn.

Val had 155 1st degree connections (direct connections, you can communicate with them directly, cultivate the relationship, even become real friends, ask them to introduce you to their own 1st degree connections, etc…), 728,000 2nd degree (your direct connections’ connections), and over 3,000,000 3rd degree (your 2nd degree connections’ connections)

Sheila had 112 1st degree connections, 576,000 2nd degree, and over 2,500,000 3rd degree

We’ll follow them, step by step, as they go through their search.

Their Goal: Build a list of 100 SMBs, importing/exporting Steel products, working with China, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, Austria

1. Val went to the LinkedIn site, logged in and typed “Iron and Steel” in the searchbox. They got the following message:

“We found 504 users in your network matching your criteria: * Keywords: Iron and steel * Sorted by: keyword relevance”

The Sheila did exactly they same thing. Because their two networks were not identical, they got still more results. The total was now over 1000.

2. Many of these users were in Europe, India, Latin America, and other places. Others were very big corporations.

They selected 100 U.S SMB (about 10% of the total). Most of those whose profiles had one or more of the following decriptions: Owner, Sole Proprietorship, Managing Director, General Manager, Consultant, President, Director of Procurement, Technology Strategy and Management Professional, V.P. Global Sales & Marketing, One was decribed as “independant consultant for the metals industry providing advice, operational and technical recomendations to customers to maximize their plant efficiency and product quality”…

They targeted sectors such as: Selling and Exporting Commodities, sales of Coated Steel Products, steel Trading, Specialize in brokering international deals of commodities such as scrap steel…

3. Now, the two friends had to find a way to directly contact those 100 they had selected

How are they going to do it?

What strategies are they going to use? (as we all know, your ‘marketing strategy’ simply means how you use ‘tools and techniques’ to reach your ‘markets’ and make them perform the ‘desired action’. A marketing strategy connects “markets” on the one hand with “tools and techniques” on the other. Don’t let anyone give you any complicated, half-baked definitions of what a strategy is

What tools and techniques?

What “desired action“?

Is “buy immediately” a good desired action”?

You’ll get answers to those questions and many others in our next editions of “Translator Experience Day“.

Meanwhile, why not put in your own $0.2 worth ) BTW, we’re delighted to note that comments are slowly but surely taking off. Thanks a lot, and keep them pouring in – whether they are positive, negative, or… neutral!

A.M.Sall

P.S. We have turned the free 7-Part PR ecourse into a free downloadable PDF and all you have to do is visit this link and instantly download it!

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Subscribe to Translator Power and successfully market your translation/interpreting services either by Email or if you prefer the feed, just look on your left and make your choice!

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Technorati is Important!

If you have a blog, and I think you should, as any self-respecting translator/interpreter,  remember to get on Technorati. This is a must for all blog owners if you really want to increase, maximize and optimize your visibility. And of course, be a regular and assiduous visitor to Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report

P.S. Have you signed up for the Free 7-Part ecourse on How to Market Your Translation Service Through Press Releases?

Translators and their customers or clients

What do you think of these 2 quotes?

1. “Differentiate your customers. Find the group that’s most profitable. Find the group that’s most likely to influence other customers. Figure out how to develop for, advertise to, or reward either group. Ignore the rest.” (Seth Godin)

2. “If you’re smart enough to be a translator and/or an interpreter, you’re smart enough to do your own marketing” (A.M.Sall)

Translator Power Paradox or The Translator’s Hidden Powers

The translator’s power lies in latency

This is just a fancy way of saying that a good translation must not read like… a translation

The translator is only powerful when he/she disappears and his/her motto should be: the more inconspicuous, the better

In the case of an interpreter, the two communicating partners should not even feel his/her presence.

Translating is very much like impersonating, you play a part, very much like an actor, you are sometimes an engineer, sometimes a medical doctor, sometimes an IT expert, an accountant, a banker, a politician, etc…

Translation requires empathy and EQ (emotional Intelligence), on top of a reasonaly high IQ, of course

The translator gets the script in one language and produces it (says it, plays it out) in another language.

Now, don’t let this put you off seeking Maximum Visibility and Maximum Audibility in your target audience when you market !