How do you balance your private life and household duties with work? There are up and down seasons, what do you do when there is a surge in incoming work that you don’t want to turn down? Would you cut off your social life, exercise, sleep or anything else (like admin tasks to be postponed […]
Author Archives: Jenae Spry
Dear Jenae — What inexpensive and easy customer relationship management tool do you recommend?
“CRM tools – can you recommend any that are easy to use and not too expensive? I am looking for something to help me with marketing to new clients and scheduling for chasing up new leads etc.” – Becky Hi Becky, Thanks for your question – it’s a great one. There are a lot of […]
Dear Jenae — How do you remain professional in a disagreement with your client and when do I skip signing that NDA?
Q: How do you remain professional in a disagreement with your client and when do I skip signing that NDA? Hi Jenae, I’m very grateful for this opportunity to ask you about our profession. I’d like to have your advice or opinion on a couple of questions. The first one is about customer service. As entrepreneurs, […]
Help! I was asked to discount my rate and I need the work. What do I do?
Q: Could you please give some advice on how to deal with the pressure to lower rates? This is an issue that I have been faced with just recently. An agency with whom I was working regularly for almost 4 years asked me out of the blue to lower my standard rates by almost 25%. I […]
Looking for an affordable worldwide phone? It’s here.
If you’re a translator or interpreter who travels frequently, I might have some good news for you!I recently returned from a trip to Hong Kong and Thailand, which was my first time anywhere in Asia and while I’d been to Europe several times, just a couple of months away from my trip, I realized that […]
3 Instant Productivity Boosters
Systems are important and so are processes but both take time to develop so if you’re looking for a way to boost your productivity instantly, check out these tools. You might have one or two, but I’d be willing to bet you don’t have the last and most important productivity booster in this list!1. Extra MonitorIf […]
Dear translator/linguist/resource…It’s not personal – it’s just business
We’ve all gotten those impersonal e-mails from agencies and companies starting with “dear translator,” “linguist,” the dreaded “resource” or some other generalized category. I know many translators who immediately delete these without reading them, others who jump on them trying to be the first to respond and still others who are either silently offended or…not-so-silently […]
8 Reasons Why I “Work from Home” in an Office
In 2008, I left my one and only true professional office job to pursue my freelance business full time, and I swore to myself that I would NEVER EVER work in an office again. I was now free…I was free to work in my house, cafés, hotel rooms in distant lands, the beach or a […]
3 Reasons Why Introverts Are Better at Sales
The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who owns an internet marketing company and manages their sales team. He mused that he and most of his entire sales team were all introverts. As an extrovert fascinated by psychology, I’ve actually read quite a bit about introverts but it wasn’t until that […]
17 Last-Minute Tax-Saving Tips for Freelance Translators & Interpreters
It’s almost tax day and if you hate numbers or organization is not your strong suit, you’re probably not looking forward to it. Here are some last-minute things you can think about to get the most out of your deductions! Niche research: books, magazines, and any other materials you use to research for your job…and […]