95%自由译员给你的建议都是错误的！

圈圈有话说

我实在忍不住又要跟大家分享一篇Matt的文章了，特别有意思的见解。

我个人觉得Matt说话有时候挺偏激的，但是激进比平庸要有趣的多，入喉辛辣的白酒比四平八稳的白开水更带劲。

他的论点是，去倾听你的客户，而不是你的竞争对手。

我不完全赞同他的意见，但是他很多想法都是非常值得回味的。

特别是去真正地弄清楚客户想要什么。

我之前一直觉得就是质量！质量！质量！

但是有前辈跟我说，质量是重要的，但不完全对。

我现在读到Matt的文章，我发现他俩的观点极其相似。

果然，牛逼的人都是有共通之处的么！

我也跟过长期性的大项目，以项目质控的身份跟PM交流比较多，比较了解她们对译员的期望。

另外，因为我自己也开始在对接直接客户，需要揣摩他们的心思，也有给其他译员派稿，变成了间接的客户。

所以我现在觉得自己更能理解客户的心态了。

在不同场景中，客户想要的东西都是不一样的。

Matt的这篇文章，有些地方可能会改变你原有的想法。

比如说，不要对客户过分叨叨叨，无休止地提出翻译确认问题，或者是加了N多注解。

你自己觉得自己很专业，客户觉得你很烦。

不是专业翻译么，难道不能给我一个权威的解答？

比如说，不少客户不追求最最最顶尖的质量，而是希望你顺手好用，译文过得去，别给他惹事。

还有就是，客户往往希望vendor不要占用他们过多的时间。客户很忙的，没时间给你一一解答。

你要察言观色，或者说，体察圣意，好好伺候~

这错我也犯过，现在读起来非常对胃口。

Listen to your customers, not your competitors.

Before we get into it, I need to clarify that here I'm using "competitors" to refer to other freelance translators. Now, I know that a lot of you prefer the friendlier term "colleagues" for your fellow freelancers, but whether you perceive other freelance translators as buddies or rivals is irrelevant for the purposes of this article. Sure, it's an interesting issue, and one I may cover in a future article, but it's beyond the scope of this one.

圈圈：你是以什么样的眼光去看待你的同行呢？竞争者？还是友善的“同行/同事”？

So what I'm saying is that you should be paying attention to your customers rather than other freelance translators if you want to attain success.

The main reason is that 95% of the advice from 95% of freelance translators is nonsense.

There! I said it!

I could talk about this for hours, so let me just give you one example to sell you on this idea, so to speak. One of my most popular articles here on Linked in is How To Earn Six Figures as a Freelance Translator, 

圈圈：我之前读Cornnie的文章，得出的结论就是，十万刀收入在美帝译员行列已经算牛逼的了，这里正好可以印证）

which provides some concrete guidance on reaching a financial goal that I myself have achieved without too much hardship. Anyway, because it had been so well received, I decided to post a link to it in a facebook group for "successful translators." The first word in the first comment that it attracted was "unrealistic" (which it isn't - I didn't say seven figures!), and it all went downhill from there. I woke up the next morning to find that the post had been deleted and I had been kicked out of the group. What all this basically means is that most freelancers consider making an income of double the median to be pie in the sky.

这跟网上很多译员认为翻译过万就是不切实际，真的是非常相像了……反正我被质疑过，感动身受ING==

我还没说顶尖的译员多少收入呢，好多大佬闷声发大财的……

Still wanna listen to their advice?! By denying that success is even possible, they are instantly ensuring that they will never enjoy success.

But they'll still give you their advice!

Wait a minute, how does this work? How is it that wrong advice can be continually given and accepted?

The reason is that there's always a logical reason for it.

The point here is that bad advice survives and thrives because it seems to make sense superficially.

So my advice to you (don't worry, I'm aware of the irony!) is to listen more to your customers than your fellow freelance translators.

And when I say "listen," I don't mean set up a face-to-face meeting and ask them a ton of questions. As we've seen, explicit advice (even from customers) can often be wrong, and customers generally prefer vendors who make minimal demands on their time. So no, what I'm recommending is just that you keep the antennas up and pay attention to their actions.

For example, if you're not getting any complaints from them, you might be able to boost your speed a bit with them.

Or if they don't respond to your queries about terminology, it could imply that they are really busy and are hoping you'll be resourceful and just get the translation done somehow - even if the quality isn't top notch.

My own success skyrocketed when I started turning a deaf ear to what other translators were advising me to do and started focusing my attention on my customers.

I'm a business and finance translator, working for government departments, financial institutions, and large corporations, and to get you up to speed, here are a few of the things I've learned about my customers:

They're rarely interested in top-flight quality. They obviously don't want translations that are riddled with errors, but they certainly aren't looking for elegant sentences most of the time. Even clunky translationese is often okay - provided it gets the job done. If something's mission critical for marketing purposes, your translation will probably end up with a marketing or ad agency who will rework it before it goes live anyhow.

客户不关心顶级质量，这个点可能很多人都没想到吧。

不过事实确实如此，以我现在的经验来看。

They don't mind a few mistakes here and there. In fact, they expect it. They're super busy, and they assume you are as well.

They don't want to be bothered. They don't like you to create extra work for them with questions, comments, etc.

They want to be able to trust you. That means having professional qualifications that THEY understand. Translation degrees, association memberships, etc. don't cut it. They don't even know what these things are.

They're not impressed by flashy logos, websites, resumes, etc.

They don't want to be "educated" about the translation process.

They don't need to be kept updated about your current progress with the assignment.

They're not looking to build relationships. Got some free time and fancy a coffee? Call a friend not a current customer.

You MUST deliver on time.

And earlier is better.

尽快尽快尽快交稿~

Look, you don't have to cut off all your ties with other translators. Relationships are important, and some people really benefit from the feeling of support they get from being part of a community. All I'm recommending is that you shift your gaze a little. That you alter your focus.

Matt大佬的原文链接：

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/listen-your-customers-competitors-matt-stanton/?trackingId=aTdkzh2NzFUKpyoSEIn5QA%3D%3D

很拉风的圈圈

Google随机数抽取的是7和14哦。

中选的是“咕咕”和“咬咬饼干”，可以选免费加入圈圈的翻译之路知识星球。

或者是当！当！当！

跟我聊一小时哈哈哈，一小时内随便你问什么翻译相关问题，我都尽力给你回答了。