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Have a clear idea of what services you offer (translation/ interpreting/DTP/typesetting/) and what subjects you can and can't do.
A good way of forcing yourself to sit down and work out what you offer is to write your own brochure. It does not really matter whether or not you actually have it printed. The idea is that if you sit down and write something worthy of representing your image then you will at least think about things like:
- what sort of services/specialist subjects
you want to concentrate on
- how much your standard rates are
- how negotiable are your prices
Then when a potential customer calls you'll have all the information handy and you don't have to suffer the indignity of sounding stupid while you timidly pluck a number out of your head. Then the translation co-ordinator beats you down to a much lower price because you clearly are not wise in the ways of the translation world. If it's all there on paper by the phone you'll feel much more confident about your prices, you won't have the classic feeling we've all experienced:
"I don't think what I'm doing is really worth this much money; how can I possibly charge this much for two hour's work?"
If you think this way then you'll have a real problem sticking to your set prices. If you've done your homework and researched the industry standard rates then both you and the co-ordinator will know pretty accurately (within 20-30%) how much you are worth. If the agency says it can't afford your rates then you have the choice of reducing them or turning down the work.
If you have a previously thought out policy, on a piece of paper, in front of you regarding the amount of flexibility in your prices then to a large extent this gives you something to cling to during negotiations. You can say:
"I'm sorry it is my policy to not go below $xx per thousand words for
this type of work. The best price I can offer you is $yy"
This is one of the hardest things to do when you are first starting out or
going through a quiet period. It can be very tempting to take work at any
price, but in my experience those customers who squeeze you the hardest on
price are the ones who...
...cause the most problems because they are only in it for a quick buck, so they really don't care very much about you or their customers. This short-term attitude will not do you any good;
...are the most likely source of customer complaints (and therefore reductions in payment or damage to your confidence/ credibility/reputation) because these agencies accept the sort of awkward/problem work that other agencies will not touch;
...are the most difficult to deal with because they cannot be bothered to issue proper written instructions "I've got lots of balls in the air" "I'm too busy";
...are most likely to pay you late or not at all.
Also, once you are involved with a customer it is very hard to increase your rates to this customer. I did manage this recently as follows: A new agency called with a job and quoted my "old" prices to me. They had held my details on file for 18 months before they had any work for me and my charges had increased slightly during this period.
Because they had already quoted for the job to their customer, I agreed to do it for the old price but made it clear that this was a one-off special and future work would be at the new rate. They accepted this and I've subsequently done quite a lot of work for them at the higher rate.
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