Tuesday, November 29, 2011

10 Defense techniques against evil clients

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More defense techniques coming soon in Mox's Illustrated Guide to Freelance Translation.

10 comments:

  1. Clever! The logic of both answers at the end is simple, brilliant and funny. I wish there were seminars like this one, with practical demonstrations included. Translation seminars I have attended to were often too focused on theory.

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  2. LOL! @Anonymous, you need to attend some of our eCPD Webinars! This sounds just (a bit) like our recent event on negotiation skills for freelance translators :D

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  3. Thanks Sarah. I will definitely have a look at your webinars.

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  4. Brilliant, once again. I love the "Then you'd better get used to my rates" response!

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  5. Wow, I couldn't agree more! And haven't we heard them all... Thanks, Mox, for making my day!

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  6. Ha, I will definitely try these techniques next time I hear similar suggestions and keep you posted on the results :) Any suggestions how to parry the persistent question for "competitive rates"?

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  7. Kaja: This is my competitive rate. With lower rates, your assignments will be no competition to staying in bed.

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  8. Alejandro, that's really fun! I specially love that "get used to my rates".

    I once got a complaint from one agency that HIS customer was so pissed off because the gender of a standard sentence in a parts list (repeated a few hundred times throughout the text) was most of the time wrong in Spanish, because sometimes the gender of the part was male, and in other cases female, but the "repetition" was always male.

    So I pointed out that I was perfectly aware of that, but since he did not pay for repetitions I simply did not check or correct it. (After all, I don't work for free).

    He eventually had to pay me (again) to correct all the repetitions, which actually did cost him more because I charged for reviewing all the text. Tough luck!

    (He paid, but I never got an order from him again. Good riddance!)

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  9. I think Sarah might have been referring to my "Pricing Strategies for Translators" webinar. Mox could help teach it. This might be our very favorite cartoon thus far.

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