Pursuing High Success Probability Translation Projects

It’s rare that we turn down an opportunity to bid on translation work. We work so hard just to have an opportunity to quote projects by investing in various forms of marketing, so there’s a cost for every lead we receive. A lead not pursued is a waste.

Projects We Don’t Bid On

Still there are sometimes potential projects that come our way that we don’t bid or quote on. Here are a few of the categories:

1) Someone who considers themselves to be a translator, but just wants an official translation of their material, frequently is not a good translation client. Often what clients like this want is someone to translate in the same way they would. Any departure from their preferred terminology, approach, or style, is considered incorrect.

2) The source material is in such poor condition that post-delivery attention is almost a certainty due to poor legibility.

3) The schedule objective is unrealistic. We understand that sometimes clients have time requirements for translation projects. However, if they exceed human possibility then it’s better to pass on the project than to be excessively stressed about meeting a deadline.

The above project scenarios are ones where we nearly always decline to provide a quote when the request comes from a new client.

Not Bidding On Basis of Principle

There’s one other scenario that out of principle we’re tempted to decline:

1) We receive a request for quoting a project and we’re one among multiple translation companies copied in the cc email address field. Are our services a commodity? That’s the implication.

We build our business by successfully performing one translation project after another and earning repeat business from happy, satisfied customers. That’s what choosing projects where the probability for success is high, not disadvantaged due to circumstances beyond our control, is a factor in choosing which projects to pursue.