Smart Habits for Translators

Episode 80: Smart Habits for Thriving in the Premium Market with Michael Schubert If you’ve ever heard a colleague mention working in the “premium market,” you may have thought, “Hmm… how do I tap into that area of the market?” After all, who doesn’t want to work for clients who value our work and pay premium rates, right?! Well… we’ve found the perfect guest to share insights with us about working and thriving in the premium market! We’re excited to welcome our colleague and friend,...

Episode 79: Smart Legal Habits for Translators with Nicole Fenwick Legal protection is a must for any freelance translator. And we all know how vital it is to get this part right! But it can be overwhelming, time-consuming, and nerve-racking if we don’t know where to start or feel unsure of the legal protections we have (or should have) in place. That's why we're excited to be joined this month by a guest who can talk to us more about the legal aspects of running a freelance translation...

Episode 78: Smart Habits for Continuing Your Professional Development with Eman Abdo We know the beginning of the year is the time when many people set their intentions and aspirations for the year, and this often includes training and development goals. So, we thought we should dedicate our first episode of the year to professional development. We’re very happy to welcome a guest who takes continuing professional development (CPD) very seriously and openly shares her CPD journey on...

Episode 77: Smart Habits for Kicking Off and Wrapping Up Your Week In June 2020 (wow, time flies!), we released an episode on delineating your workday in which we talked about some things we like to do at the beginning and end of a workday. So, for our last episode of 2022, we thought it would be good to do a follow-up episode to talk about some smart habits related to kicking off and wrapping up your workweek. Tune in to hear our conversation on our: • Why it’s important to kick off and...

Episode 76: Smart Habits for Preparing for an Exam or Test December is certainly a busy season for most of us, with so much work to wrap up before the holidays and so many personal and family commitments. It’s also a time when we reflect on the accomplishments we made this year and what goals we’d like to set for the coming year. If one of your objectives next year is to take a certification exam or translation test, we think you’ll find this episode useful. Several listeners asked us for...

Episode 75: Smart Habits for Forming and Maintaining a Translator Collective Today, we’re thrilled to share with you a concept that we know is something our colleagues are interested in. In fact, we have not only one guest, but two here to tell us more about it! We’re excited to be sharing the microphones today with our colleagues and friends, Jamie Hartz and Nathalie Reis, who are here to chat with us about translation collectives. Jamie Hartz is an ATA-certified Spanish to English...

Episode 74: Smart Habits for Your Social Media Presence with Kelsey Frick In our latest episode, we’re talking about some smart habits related to developing and maintaining a social media presence for your business. Besides coming up with ideas for content, it can be hard to stay consistent when it comes to marketing your business on social media. That’s why we invited a colleague who we think has great insights to share on this topic to join this conversation, and we’re excited to hear her...

Episode 73: Smart Habits for Setting Boundaries in Your Business Before we jump into the topic of Episode 73, we want to remind you about our next quarterly virtual business retreat, which will be on December 14. We’re excited that our colleague and podcast guest Dorothee Racette has agreed to be our guest speaker this time! She will kick off our retreat with some tips and wisdom on how to set reasonable and realistic goals for the new year, and then we’ll focus on discussing our business...

Episode 72: Smart Habits for Diversifying in a Niche Specialization with Abigail Dahlberg Today, we’re really excited to be joined by a colleague we both admire very much. She is a translator, content writer, mom, and expert in environmental issues and sustainability. She has been working as a translator for over 20 years and has grown and diversified her business within a very niche specialization. In fact, her success in this area has even earned her the nickname “Trash Girl,” believe it...

Episode 71: Smart Habits for Attending In-Person Conferences We’re recording this episode a week after our quarterly virtual business retreat, and we wanted to thank all of our colleagues who participated. We’ve been holding these quarterly business retreats for over a year now, and this was our best one yet—we had great conversations and a guest speaker who we all enjoyed. It’s never easy to find uninterrupted time to sit down and review how various areas of your business are going and...

Episode 70: Our Favorite Podcasts About Habits Before we dive into this episode, we have some news to share! We are excited to announce that Susie Jackson, our guest from Episode 69 on Smart Habits for Negotiating with Clients, will be a guest speaker at our upcoming virtual business retreat on September 20, 2022. So, if you need help making an action plan for 2023 to keep working toward your goals and let go of what's not working for you, we hope you'll join us! Susie will kick off our...

Episode 69: Smart Habits for Negotiating with Clients with Susie Jackson In today’s episode, we’re happy to welcome back a colleague who joined us on the podcast two years ago! She is a translator and a mentor for freelancers who need help figuring out their pricing and getting their business finances in order. We love learning from her through the various courses she teaches and her blog, and we’re sure that she has a lot to share on today’s topic: negotiating with clients. Susie Jackson...

Episode 68: Our Favorite Books About Habits In this episode, we’re chatting about what is probably our favorite topic ever—books! And not just any books… but our favorite books about habits. It’s no secret that we love reading about smart habits and discussing how to adopt them in our businesses and personal lives—so much so that we started this podcast! That's why we thought we should dedicate an entire episode to this topic. Tune in to hear our conversation about some of our favorite...

Episode 67: Tools for Organization and Follow-Through As professional translators and business owners, we have to stay organized to make sure our businesses run efficiently. And there are so many things that can be organized: finances, client projects and information, plans for our business, marketing campaigns, and so much more. Keeping your systems in check by using tools that help you stay organized and follow through on your projects and communications is vital to the overall health of...

Episode 66: Smart Habits for Maintaining a Sustainable Business with Rafa Lombardino We are excited to welcome a wonderful colleague to join us in today's episode. She is a translator, teacher, fellow podcaster, and expert on audiovisual translation and tools and technology for translators. She has been working as a translator for over 20 years and has grown and diversified her business during that time. We enjoyed hearing from her about ways to grow a sustainable business while doing what...

Episode 65: Smart Habits for Overcoming an All-or-Nothing Mindset with Nora Díaz In today’s episode, we are joined by a colleague who is an expert on tools and technology for translators and interpreters. She is one of the organizers of the popular Innovation in Translation and Innovation in Interpreting Summits, and she is very active in our profession. We always enjoy following her work and are in awe of how she handles all her projects and responsibilities. We know she has a lot to share...

Episode 64: Smart Habits for Overcoming Limiting Beliefs In this episode, we are having a conversation about limiting beliefs—what they are, how they can affect the work that we do as translators and interpreters, and how to challenge or overcome them. Limiting beliefs are like deeply ingrained stories we tell ourselves about why we can or can't make progress in a given area. We all have limiting beliefs about something in our freelance translation or interpreting businesses. Some are...

Episode 63: Smart Habits for Aligning Your Business With Your Values and Goals with Marina Ilari In today’s episode, we’re joined by a colleague, fellow podcaster, and fellow working parent, who will help us explore the topic of staying organized and focused when you have a lot on your plate. So many of us can relate to the feeling of being overwhelmed and scattered when we have an endless list of responsibilities, projects, and goals. We’re very excited to welcome Marina Ilari to the...

Episode 62: Smart Habits for Following Up With Clients It’s been said many times that it’s easier (and less expensive) to retain clients than it is to find new ones. But we know of so many freelance translators and interpreters who say that following up with clients is just really hard for them. They don’t want to bother anyone or come across as annoying or desperate for work. In today’s episode, we’re talking about the importance of following up with your translation or interpreting...

Episode 61: Smart Habits for Drumming Up New Business with Melanie Padgett Powers So many of us have experienced the ups and downs of freelancing, which have felt magnified over the last two years as a result of the pandemic. We’ve heard from many of you that you’d like more ideas for ways to grow your business and get more recurring work from clients. Well, our guest today happens to have some excellent advice on this topic, and we’re thrilled she agreed to join us. In today’s episode, we...