Should experienced translators cut out the middleman?

One of the perennial debates among translators is whether or not to cut out the middleman, i.e. the translation service provider, and work directly for the end customer. Of course, as with most debates, the answer isn’t just a simple “yes” or “no”, but rather “it depends”. So on what exactly does it depend? Today I’d like to take an “integral” approach to answering that question.

Naturally enough, this debate usually arises in the context of complaining about the low rates paid by many translation service providers, with the solution most often proposed being that we should work “direct”. And not that wanting higher rates isn’t a perfectly valid reason to consider working direct, but I don’t think that should be your only motivation for ditching the translation agencies. Indeed, you may find, after a bit of reflection, that you’d be better off staying with agencies and just doing what you can to find the ones that treat you the best.

So first of all, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that agencies do play an important role in the translation market and that there’s at least a certain segment of the market that is best served by these translation service providers. I know some of you may say that most agencies just pass texts back and forth between the customer and the translator and make translations unnecessarily expensive, but that issue goes beyond the scope of this article.

So the first question to ask yourself, then, before you go off looking for direct customers is, Are my skills and specializations suited to serving the segment of the market that is best served by a translator directly? We might call this, in AQAL terms, an upper-right quadrant (UR, or individual/exterior) question because it concerns the “external” expression of your individual abilities.

Now, I would argue that most of the situations in which working direct is most appropriate are situations in which the translator essentially acts as a consultant to the customer, and so provides a range of advisory services in addition to just translating the texts they’re given. So if you have a good deal of expertise in a particular field that you can use to advise customers on how best to create their texts in your target language and that sets you apart from the competition, then you may indeed be a candidate for working direct.

However, the next question you should ask yourself is, Do I have the drive and passion for this field of expertise in order to go out and find the customers and deal with all of their requests, questions, and (hopefully very few) complaints? This we could call an upper-left quadrant (UL, or individual/interior) question. After all, this extra work is what justifies your higher rate, but if you don’t really love what you do, then you’re probably going to have a hard time attracting enough customers, and the direct customers that you do get will probably annoy the hell out of you with all their questions and demands. (Of course, if you don’t really love what you do, then maybe you should be doing something else, but that, too, goes beyond the scope of this article.)

So if you have to answer “no” to either of these two questions, it’s likely that you would be better off working with translation agencies. In the case of the first question, you may not have particularly unique expertise in your field of specialization, but fortunately agencies are not usually looking for that, since their customers, in turn, aren’t usually looking for a great deal of expertise. And as for the second question, if you don’t really, really love what you do, agencies are great because they just give you the texts to translate, and you’re free to focus on getting that specific job done without having to worry about all the other hassles that come with dealing with the customer directly.

Of course, hopefully you do have “enough” expertise and passion for your job to be able to attract the high-quality agencies that are able to pay you a better rate and that know how to treat translators right because, to be perfectly blunt, if you don’t specialize in a particular field or don’t particularly enjoy what you do, then you may already be earning the rates you deserve (and again, perhaps you should consider a career change).

So what about the other two quadrants, the lower left (LL, collective/interior) and lower right (LR, collective/exterior)? Well, questions in these quadrants tend to deal with the issue of which customers are better served by agencies and which by translators directly, what kind of skills a translator needs to work direct, what sorts of relationships tend to be formed with the customer, how much competition there is in your specific field, and that sort of thing, so I’ll deal with these two quadrants in another article.

In the meantime, if you’re not totally satisfied with your career as a translator, take some time to think about the issues in these first two quadrants, and see if you’re taking advantage of your skills in the most appropriate manner and if your current customers (whether they’re agencies or direct) are giving you enough satisfaction and enabling you to express your passion for your job to the fullest extent possible.

All the best,
Grey

Note: This article is also being posted as a newsletter as part of the Integral Translating "campaign".