Language Agency | When to Decline A Translation Project
Occasionally we decline to accept projects. It pains us to do it, but sometimes it’s the right thing.
While we’re an active and growing translation company-agency in pursuit of as much business as we can secure, if a project doesn’t have a high probability of success we’d rather decline. It’s taken several years to develop the sense for which projects are right for our capabilities and which ones are better to pass on.
On the rare occasions when we defer on a prospective project it tends to be for one or more of the following reasons:
- The client has an unrealistic expectation concerning the time requirement for processing the translation project.
- The client is so concerned about the price of the project that they’re completely unconcerned about the implications of making compromises in the translation process (e.g., omitting post-translation proofing).
- The project involves a language where we don’t have adequately vetted translators (e.g., Bengali-to-English).
As a general rule we’d rather pass on a project rather than accept work that presents red flags at the very beginning. For one thing I sleep better at night knowing that our ongoing projects are in good hands with translators we trust. For another thing we build our company’s client base best by performing one successful project after another, after another, after another.
So even if a translation project is lucrative we’ll pass on it if we’re not confident of a high quality outcome. Our current and future clients might take comfort in knowing this.
