| Pagina's in het onderwerp: < [1 2] | Offer from agency suspicious? De persoon die dit onderwerp heeft geplaatst: Jenny Nilsson
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Sounds to me, the agency is trying to win a big contract from a client with help of your translation.
You would be essentialy getting money for the agency and they should definitely pay you for your effort.
It's also possible, after they win the contract, they'll give the acctual project to a translator that accept 0.03 cents.
| | | | Tony M
Frankrijk
Local time: 16:05
Lid
Frans naar Engels
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Exactly this happened to me! | Jan 7, 2012 |
Gabriela Diosiova wrote:
It's also possible, after they win the contract, they'll give the acctual project to a translator that accept 0.03 cents.
This is exactly what happened to me once — I helped an agency win a big contract, but then they said I was too expensive and wanted me to give them a big 'volume discount' (why?) on the promise of future work; so they ended up outsourcing to a cheaper translator (half my price) — needless to say, non-native EN speaker, and not immersed in the European culture of the source / target languages.
They then had the cheek to ask me to proof-read it for them — I was well aware that my proofing rate added to the original translation rate still came out slightly under the translation rate I had proposed. Needless to say, I declined their kind offer!
The translation was then rejected by the newly-acquired customer, so they came back to me on bended knee asking me to correct it at any price. The translation was truly awful, gibberish in places, and I refused to correct it, but did agree to re-translate it from scratch, at my original rate + a surcharge for now being a rush job.
So the end result was that overall they paid more for the translation than they would have done in the first place, plus all the to-ing and fro-ing meant that the original fairly tight deadline was even shorter, so I had to do a really hurried job on it, and in any case, they'd already missed their customer's deadline.
Lots of egg on faces, and an expensive lesson learned — but at least thanks to me they managed to keep the customer, who has been a very lucrative one ever since!
With another agency, the PM asked me to do a special rate in order to get a new customer; I reluctantly agreed to apply a once-off discount, but stipulated that this rate would only apply for this first job.
When I subsequently reverted to charging my normal rate, the agency moaned, so I said "take it or leave it", and I'm pleased to say they left it (it was an awful customer anyway!)
The stupidest thing was, this same PM complained like heck that I was trying to increase my rate by 11% (not true, I was simply removing the discretionary 10% discount I had originally given them!), and argued back and forth all afternoon about it — though the job was so small, the difference only amount to €2 anyway!!!
I have two techniques I use for dealing with this kind of situation:
1) I always invoice at my 'standard' rate, but it the customer has negotiated a special rate with me, I give it to them in the form of a 'special' discount, thus emphasizing the fact right there on the invoice that this is entirely discretionary. It's a purely academic point, of course — but it's surprising what an important psychological effect it has!
2) If people ask for a big discount on the promise of future high-volume work, I refuse, but tell them I will happily grant the discount retrospectively, once that work has materialized!
This would mean, for example, that if I did an initial job worth €100 at full rate, with an agreement to give a 20% discount if the volume exceeded a certain level, then when I came to invoice the next job at say €1,000, I would then deduct from the invoice the €20 they had 'over-paid' on the first job.
Although a little unwieldly to implement, this is quite a good commercial gesture — though so far, the situation has never actually arisen (surprise, surprise!)
[Edited at 2012-01-07 12:34 GMT]
| | | | | Tony's "Why" explained | Jan 7, 2012 |
Tony M wrote:
I helped an agency win a big contract, but then they said I was too expensive and wanted me to give them a big 'volume discount' (why?)... (My emphasis)
Before being retired, my father used to trade in office and industrial light fittings. The maths was simple: if you buy, say, 100 pcs, you get a 10% discount; if you buy 1,500 pcs, you get a 30% discount. He could afford this: when the client bought 1,500 pcs, the fittings would be transported directly from the assembly line to the client's construction site (i.e. less costs of keeping stocks etc.).
Unfortunately, project managers at translation agencies, as well as vendor managers at direct client companies tend to think of a service the same way as of goods: the more units you buy, the less you should pay per unit. It's difficult to convice people that if you have more words to translate, it doesn't mean that you need to spend less time on the job.
[Upraveno: 2012-01-07 13:09 GMT]
| | | | | One for the good guys | Jan 7, 2012 |
Tony M wrote:
The translation was then rejected by the newly-acquired customer, so they came back to me on bended knee asking me to correct it at any price. The translation was truly awful, gibberish in places, and I refused to correct it, but did agree to re-translate it from scratch, at my original rate + a surcharge for now being a rush job.
Aww, I love a happy ending. In a lot of cases I hear of, the agency gets away with their cheap tactics and the customer never notices a thing.
[Edited at 2012-01-07 14:10 GMT]
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sunanoo wrote:
Would it be possible for you to work for €0.03 for this file.
Is that €0.03 in total, or per word? I see they haven't actually said "per word", which is another reason to be wary...
| | | | Jenny Nilsson 
Zweden
Local time: 16:05
Engels naar Zweeds
ONDERWERPSTARTER | New offer from the agency | Jun 14, 2012 |
Thought I would post an update on this.
I did the short "test" translation and sent it back and then kept bugging them with emails each week asking where the project was. They kept telling me they were still negotiating with client. After some time I sent a rather harsh email and they snapped and said they did not want to work with someone making rude accusations.
Now, months later I received a new email from them saying that they have won the project and attached were ... See more Thought I would post an update on this.
I did the short "test" translation and sent it back and then kept bugging them with emails each week asking where the project was. They kept telling me they were still negotiating with client. After some time I sent a rather harsh email and they snapped and said they did not want to work with someone making rude accusations.
Now, months later I received a new email from them saying that they have won the project and attached were two pages to be translated. Comic book, so not many words per page. I thought this was very little so I asked them some questions:
1. Are the files you sent me the entire project or another sample file? If not how big is the project in words?
Yes, this is Project file and not sample for you. Although client has proposed 02 type of project i.e. comic stories and pre school stories. This is small part of pre school stories to give you idea about its content. We can expect around 20000 words per month but it just rough idea and you need to be patient about it
2. As I remember it the per word price is $0,05/word, is this correct?
It will vary between 0.04-0.05 since our association with client will be based on per page model so we need to calculate as per individual project
3. The files are in pdf-format which can not be edited, is this for reference only and will I be provided with editable (word) files?
Pdf file are for reference only to give you idea about expressions, mood etc of the character and you need to provide translation in word format only. You can simply copy paste English contents from pdf into word file and provide translation below English text.
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