| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: What percentage of your clients have asked you to lower your rates due to the economic crisis? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Hi Sebastian
You wrote:
For instance, when I was asked to translate some birth certificates and the like, I quoted
X per standard line. The PM was like: I'll get back to you soon. I was sure she was not gonna call me again, but instead would pick a cheaper colleague. So I decided to lower my rate by 7 Cents per line. That got me the job.
So, you effectively caved of your own accord?
Will you be able to raise your rates back up with this customer when the economic downturn has passed?
[Edited at 2009-08-07 05:17 GMT]
| | | | | I do not lower my prices | Aug 7, 2009 |
There is always another translator who charges at least one penny less than I do.
Translators loose in price wars.
| | | | | Less work from current clients; fewer new clients | Sep 17, 2009 |
My existing clients have less work. But the biggest difference is that, even though I have reduced my rates, many new clients are asking for further reductions, and when I don't yield they go somewhere else.
| | | | | More specialized work, less (if any) plain-vanilla gigs for specialists | Sep 17, 2009 |
Muriel Vasconcellos wrote:
My existing clients have less work. But the biggest difference is that, even though I have reduced my rates, many new clients are asking for further reductions, and when I don't yield they go somewhere else.
Muriel, your comment made me take a quick look at what I've been working on lately.
The point here is not to brag about it, but after having been translating professionally for 36 years, I'm no longer a beginner nor an amateur. A few years ago, now and then I worked on jobs that any high potential begnner or amateur could have done properly. I don't any longer; clients now find these newbies faster that they'd call me.
The reason may be that before ubiquitous www times clients were happy enough to find "a" translator for the pair they needed, regardless of the level of specialization required. Nowadays the web will help them find "the" translator they need in no time at all.
This enables clients to choose the adequate professional for each job. Plain-vanilla jobs may be done by less qualified/experienced/specialized/whatever (i.e. cheaper) translators offering acceptable quality; specialized work will still require specialists.
The problem is in one same translator being unable to have different prices for each kind of work, and to justify any - always subjective - such ranking decision on any job for the client. Some subjects that are plain-vanilla to me may be rocket science to another translator. Meanwhile, I'd be wasting time translating simple texts if I could spend the same time working on something I'm specialized in.
Therefore, taking these discount-seeking clients' soundness for granted, they want to limit their vendor count. They ask specialists for lower rates when they have simpler jobs at hand. This could be labeled as "risk management while outsourcing to newbies", since they might wind up assigning their less complex work to people who aren't yet capable of handling it properly.
So, if you are already a specialist in some areas, you may keep proper high rates for such specialties, however you'll have to face that they will always be in lower demand than simple jobs. Specialization is one of the reasons for higher rates, as everyone has the same number of hours in a day. Also, there can only be so many clients in any given specialty; new specialized companies don't pop up in the market every week. The plain stuff can in fact be handled by less specialized translators, consequently at lower rates.
So, if you stick to your specialties, you should keep your rates consistently. If these specialties vanish as such, and you decide to go for unspecialized high volume, then lower rates will be the solution to compete.
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Shu Ma 
United States
Local time: 11:12
English to Chinese
+ ...
| no ones asked me | Jan 11, 2015 |
No one has asked me to lower my rates..if they do I no longer have a client very protective of my self worth.
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