Business development resources for freelancers and LSPs

To make a living in the translation industry, translators will benefit from being proactive about marketing their services and building their own brand. This is kind of obvious and no different from any other field. To support the growth of your business, Easyling created some useful tools and plan on continuing to do so. (See our previous articles about Income diversification and Easyling’s Sales Tool.)

Translators will benefit from networking with peers, sharing thoughts and tips with colleagues and getting inspiration from time to time. The feeling of community is especially crucial for translators who tend to work mostly by themselves, from their home offices. Fortunately, there are many great resources around the web, many of them for free.

Here’s our subjective list to check out for freelancers.

**Blogs advocating marketing-savviness**

The business development side of freelancing may not come naturally to many translators; these blogs will introduce you to the business side of freelancing and draw attention to key ingredients of running a successful business.

http://marketingtipsfortranslators.com/ Tess Whitty, a Swedish-English translator, writes about the role of building an own professional brand and making it on the market, including negotiating, resume writing and self-positioning tips. She also invites fellow translators to talk about the aspects of life as a freelance translator.

http://rainylondonbranding.com/rainy-branding-blog/ Valeria Aliperta, the author of the blog, is marketing consultant and a translator herself. In her articles, there are many useful ideas to consider for freelancers, including choosing your businesses name or differentiating yourself from the competition. Most importantly, the blog offers a more marketing-conscious approach for freelancers.

Knowledge hubs and professional forums

http://alexandria-translation-resources.com/ The Alexandria Project, a promising initiative by GXP Language Services, a German translation agency aspires to become a knowledge hub and forum for translators and interpreters. They already have a rich (and growing) collection of webinars, training materials and conferences - many of them available for free, on demand.

http://www.proz.com Probably still the biggest pro network for freelancers and agencies to learn about training events, resources, get in touch with colleagues, discuss translation issues and find new clients. The proz.com community also has its list of favorite bloggers, it’s worth to check them out: http://www.proz.com/community-choice-awards