Is your business making money?

On my daily net surf today I stumbled upon this interesting post on LinkedIn:

Are you running a business or a hobby?

When working freelance, in any sector, it is easy to get caught up in the excitement, stress, detail and buzz of performing your work, leaving the number crunching on the back burner, or even completely on hold. While many freelancers have accountants to handle all that - which may or may not be avisable/affordable, depending on the scale and complexity of your business - it is also important to keep track of exactly how much money you are making on a day-to-day basis. Becuase the bottom line is this - no matter how much you love your work, if it's not making you money to pay your bills and put food on your table, then in the long term it's not a business, it's a hobby. The latter is all well and good - but you need to know which of the two you are putting all that time and energy - and money -  into.

It's vital to keep up to date with the figures

All it takes is a few minutes on a regular basis to feed your income and expenses into an Excel spreadsheet (or similar) and let it do the maths. I do this weekly, although in the meantime I keep a log sheet on my desk to jot down all the basic info on each job as I deliver it. Apart from helping to keep on top of your accounts - your daily/weekly records make accounting and tax returns so much easier - it is a simple way of getting a feel of how your business is going and allows to you take steps to improve your profitability as you go along, rather than getting a nasty surprise at the end of the quarter.

Back in 2008, some of my fellow members of the Spanish Association of Translators, Copy-Editors and Interpreters, ASETRAD, developed a fantastic little tool for calculating rates called CalPro, which is designed specifically for the translation business and is an excellent way of measuring exactly what you earn depending the rates you charge. It is a handy way of getting back in touch with the "business" side of the business and also a good reminder to examine all those hidden costs and productivity issues which you may not be taking into account on a day to day basis.

I have also discovered a Canadian-based website called More for Small Businesses, which I think offers some excellent, common sense guidance for owners and managers of small businesses in general.

In these times of economic recession, with stiff competition, price wars and belt-tightening, now it is time, more than ever, to ask yourself the question: Is this a business or a hobby?

The "All Nighter"

Working when everyone else is asleep...

While for most this is a distant memory from university days when youth was on our side and cheap pints at a seedy nightclub on a Tuesday were higher up the scale of priorities than impressing our tutors, I have to admit that the (relatively few) times I sat up all night writing an essay, surprisingly, turned out to be all part of the training for real life and working freelance.

I must say first and foremost that the main lesson I learnt from scribbling away at my desk in a cloud of fag smoke and coffee fumes was that the "all nighter" was something to be avoided if at all possible - even when flopping back into bed for the rest of the day was still an option: I soon discovered that work produced under these conditions was inevitably sub-standard, and even found myself making up the last two paragraphs of an essay on Medieval Spanish Literature as I was reading it out because what I'd written was illegible.

The occasional late night may be inevitable, but don't let it become a habit

But when you are being paid for what you produce, you have to up your game. Translation is a competitive business and clients are not as forgiving as my university tutor - quite rightly they expect to receive the highest quality job for their money. Your work must always be the best you can produce, regardless of the hours you choose to work. Ideally, we freelancers all know that we should set ourselves a strict timetable for work and stick to it, yet "real life" sometimes dictates that we simply cannot work a bog standard 9am to 5pm.

In a hugely competitive line of work such as translation, and in particular in the current economic climate, we are less inclined to turn down jobs despite a tight deadline. And not forgetting the old "London bus" analogy: you can spend days waiting for a job to come through, then 5 or 6 come along all at once. Add into the mix the frantic juggling of work with other commitments, family, and thousands of other reponsibilies and activities, and the sad truth is that, from time to time, you find yourself working strange hours, and yes, the occasional "all nighter" or "late nighter" at least, once the chores are done and the house is finally quiet. This is fine once in a while when you have a lot to get through, a busy daytime routine and a deadline to meet, but it is important to remember that lack of sleep on a regular basis can have serious knock-on effects, not only on your work, but on your health, family relationships, emotional state, stress levels, and much more.

However, for those tight moments when a late night work session is unavoidable, here are some tips:

1- Plan ahead. If at all possible, leave plenty of time to revise and proofread your work the next day once you have had a chance to sleep. All translations need to "rest" between completion and checking - even more so in the case of an all-nighter. You'll be amazed at the amount of silly mistakes that can slip through the net. It's much better to polish up your work in the morning when you are no longer cross-eyed!

2- Power nap. Taking a siesta before settling in for the long haul can work wonders. I find napping for 20-30 minutes can make all the difference and I wake up surprisingly refreshed and productive. Don't forget to set an alarm though!

Almonds are full of minerals and vitamins which can help boost mental functioning

3- Keep hydrated - and go easy on the caffeine! I find the best thing to drink while working late is water. Coffee and tea are tempting, but they can often make you too jittery to concentrate properly. Similarly, try to avoid snacking on the wrong things - you may think sweet foods and high GI carbohydrates will give you a temporary boost, but this actually takes the form of a sugar rush / insulin peak followed by a slump and loss of concentration. Drinking plenty of water will actually keep you much more alert and ward off most of those hunger pangs. If you must snack on something, try low GI foods such as an apple, or a handful of almonds, which provide you with the sustenance you need to keep going.

4- Pace yourself.  Set yourself achievable targets. Personally I have discovered that I can function pretty adequately the next day if I've gone to bed before 3:30 am, so I aim to use that as my absolute cut off limit. Setting yourself a goal of X number of pages or words is an alternative option. It's much easier to work towards one or more pre-established milestones than simply plough on blindly through the night, only to wake up at 6am dribbling onto your spacebar and with "qwerty" imprinted on your left cheek.

Keep your blood flowing and release tension with a foot roller

5- Take regular breaks. When working at night, the same rules should apply as during the day. Get up, stretch, walk around, breathe in some fresh air. Also remember to sit properly and take care of your posture and circulation. I have a great little foot roller under my desk which helps prevent getting heavy legs as well as keeping me alert by stimulating endorphine production. A squeezy ball is also a good idea for exercising and releasing tension in hands and wrists.

Obviously, the best advice is to avoid a situation where you have no choice but to work at night. Sometimes taking on that extra piece of work at the last minute simply isn't worth it, no matter how well paid it may be. Negotiating with clients, organising your week differently, and learning to say "no" are all a key part of striking the balance between work and the rest of your life. But freelancing is also about flexibility, and having the freedom to work as you please - so if working the occasional late night (without compromising the quality of your work, or your health) means you can watch your son's all important football match or do your Christmas shopping in a blissfully empty shopping centre on a Tuesday morning... then so be it!

But what do you actually DO, Mummy?

When my children were younger and were asked at school about their parents' occupations, they would offer their teachers quite a colourful description of Mummy's job: along the lines of  "she sits at her computer all day and sometimes shouts a lot" or "she gets money for English".

Now they are that much older and grasping the concept of thinking in two languages themselves, it is easier for them to understand that I am a translator, and I like to talk to them about what I do every day. But I am still sometimes surprised, if not alarmed, at how little is known out there in the big wide world about what being a translator actually entails. Here are just a few of the remarks I've had made to me over the years, often by people who should know better :)

What do you need dictionaries for if you're a translator?
Believe it or not, having an excellent command of one's native tongue , and one or more other language(s), does not automatically mean we can throw away the dictionary. I have considered myself a "fluent" speaker of Spanish for many years now, but not a day goes by without my learning a new word or a new turn of phrase. The same is true of one's own native language... languages are alive, ever-changing and evolving creatures. Throw into the mix the technical element - I recently translated a 40 page catalogue for a company selling industrial bolts and screws - and the dictionary, in all its different shapes, sizes, types and formats - remains a fundamental tool for the translation process and the translator's best friend.

In a few years time, your job will be done by machines.  
Not if you want half decent translations, it won't.
If you've never tried it, I would urge you to visit any of the many online sites offering instant translation from and into seven thousand different languages. Enter any sentence you like - the "quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is one of my favourites - and translate it into the language of your choice and back into English a couple of times. The results are amusing but they also demonstrate my point, and that of so many of us in the language industry who find us fighting our professional corner over and over again in this regard - machines can do an awful lot, but they will never be able to match the human brain when it comes to understanding context, tone, intonation, phrasal verbs, proverbs, exclamations... to name just a handful of the different elements which form part of a translator's world.

 My cousin spent two weeks in Seville last summer, so she knows Spanish. She could be a translator too!
While I will always maintain that living in a country is the best - the only, even - way to learn a language properly, unfortunately there is a great deal more to becoming a professional translator than that. One of the things I love about my job is that I never stop learning how to do it. Each new job will present a linguistic assault course of some kind and it's up to me to rise to the challenge. But it is important to remember that translation requires so much more than fluency in a second language. It demands an excellent command of your native tongue, many years' total immersion in thte language and culture of your other working languages, extensive reading and study of grammar, and an extraordinary capacity for mental gymnastics, often under pressure. I would encourage anyone with a love and a flair for languages to consider going into translation, but my advice would always be not to run before you can walk. Start off with two weeks in Seville, but don't be fooled into thinking that's enough.

You're so lucky, all you have to do is write things in English!
I could spend hours talking about the translation process in itself, but I'll save that for another time. Yes, I consider myself lucky to be able to do a job I love, and be my own boss...and yes, translating takes up the bulk of my time - but there are many other things to do as well: accounting, taxes, expenses all need to be taken care of; you need to keep up to speed with fast-developing technology and software to boost productivity and stay competitive; clients have to be found and negotiations made, not to mention researching specialist subjects, compiling glossaries and refreshing your skills in all your working languages, including your mother tongue.

Obviously, my children can't quite grasp all the ins and outs of my work yet, but at least they no longer ask, "What do you actually DO?"