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This talk was given at the JAT Tokyo meeting, 20 July 2002.
Bill Lise served as a language specialist for the USN in Japan from 1966 to 1968. After obtaining a BSEE degree and spending a brief period in the US, working in fiber optics research, he joined an electronic measuring instrument firm for the purpose of establishing and managing its branch in Japan, during which period he began translating. His current work is focused on production of English patent specifications for overseas filing from Japan and interpreting for civil litigation in the US.
For colleagues eager to sell their services in Japan, I have some good news or some bad news. As you read this, you are going to have to decide which it is for yourself, based on your particular situation, including such factors as your level of experience, your desire to make more money, and your commitment to translation as a career (and to living in Japan). That last point, living in Japan, is important, because it appears that very few translators have been successful at developing business with high-end Japanese clients from overseas. People have been able to "port" their existing clients over the border when they move away from Japan, but developing a new Japanese client--at least a direct client--is too difficult to be thought of as a reasonable goal, from what I have seen and heard. In fact, few translators have even been successful in getting high-end clients from outside major urban areas within Japan, unless they come to the big cities to sell.
The need to be committed to staying here and doing live, in-person sales for a considerable period is important enough that what I am about to discuss is not going to be very realistic for someone only intending to stay here 2 or 3 years, for example, or for someone intent on living in the countryside and never coming into the big city to press the flesh and get those high-paying clients.
Ok, on to the core content of my presentation.
Probably the best way to tell you where my focus is would be is to tell you what I am not going to be discussing.
I am definitely not going to be talking about getting work from agencies, not because I don't like agencies, but because getting work from agencies generally does not involve sales in the traditional sense of
No, selling to agencies does not generally involve these aspects of sales. In fact, agencies are generally--and wisely--not interested in a translator who is out there selling. I had a very good demonstration of that some weeks ago.
An agency in Ebisu was sending multiple file attachments to all and sundry IJET participants, after having someone in their office laboriously enter the IJET participants' e-mail addresses into their computer. I paid the president of the company a visit to discuss the relative merits of this approach, and she turned out to be quite nice to talk to. But as our discussion progressed, she was clearly getting the wrong impression that I might be interested in doing work she could provide. I didn't want to leave her with this impression, but I didn't want to go into the details of why she couldn't pay me enough money and still make a profit. I didn't want to have to tell her that I don't like working with agencies for reasons that are very compelling to me. But I didn't have to mention any of that.
All I needed to do was guide the conversation to the subject of selling translation, and let her know in a roundabout way that I do the same kind of selling that her people do. Her disappointment was visible.
The message she was receiving was that I would not be interested in rates she could pay, because I was able to sell my own services to the end-user market. This reaction of disappointment is a result of the vastly different positioning in the market of a translator who can sell and a translator who waits for work to arrive. The former type (the selling translator) can target end-users, while the latter type (the sit-and-wait-for-the-phone-to-ring type) is targeted by agencies, and seldom has an opportunity to deal with a high-end user of translation services.
Don't Believe Everything You Hear From Old Japan Hands
Some veteran translators and people who have rarely needed to sell their services here because of special relationships will sometimes mislead beginners (or at least not give them useful advice) by telling them that all they need to do in Japan is do a good job and wait for someone to introduce them to their next client. That approach could work for people with special connections or a product that is available nowhere else. This advice, however, is not generally useful, since very few translators are in that position, and connections or special relationships sometimes go away, for various reasons.
Consider the situation in which an established translator suddenly experiences a drastic drop in order inflow because a good client falls on hard times--and this can happen even to huge Japanese firms--or undergoes an organizational change that takes you out of the picture as a vendor or stops them from outsourcing translation work.
This happened to me several years ago when a large computer firm got into some deep fiscal trouble (at least the group that provides my work) and severely cut their budget for filing patents overseas, and it has happened just recently to me (and my patent attorney client) again with the same company, when they decided to break off their semiconductor operations into a separate company. A fairly steady load of 5 to 6 patents per month from this company has become a trickle of less than 1 patent per month. Last month there was nothing from this client. The good news is that I am not hurting nearly as badly as my client, who was 100% dependent on that firm for his work, because I can (and did) go out and find other clients to take up the slack. A Japanese patent attorney would have a hard time replacing such a top-drawer client with an "equivalent" client.
Selling versus taking orders
I am going to be focusing on how to get high-end direct clients through sales, and I am going to be talking about "real," fast-lane sales, as opposed to the often-seen approach of handing your business card out at a JAT or an IJET meeting and sitting by your telephone waiting for a call. That isn't sales; it's better described as "order taking;" in which you make a very minimal investment in time, money, and ego, and wait for someone to call you with work.
Passive approaches generally don't work, and are not usually used by people who are successful: You need to go into the tiger's cave if you are going to catch a tiger. Of course, while you are in there in the tiger's cave, you might get your head bitten off.
But just what am I talking about when I say "selling?"
Is selling handing or sending your resume to a potential client?
Absolutely not. One of the easiest ways to convince a client that you are looking for low-paying work is to hand them your resume, because it positions you firmly in the middle of the pack of the general labor market.
Is selling giving a prospective client your business card?
There is nothing wrong with giving potential clients your business card. Think about this, though. I often see translators at various translation events such as IJET anxiously passing out their business cards to one and all, presumably in the hope of attaining work. Sometimes I have heard translators brag about how many cards they gave out at a particular event. I hardly ever hear about what happened after that.
Do these translators follow up the encounter with a live telephone call or visit? I suspect very rarely.
Do these encounters result in high-end work? I suspect very rarely.
Direct mail: Use it if your aim is to blend into the crowd.
A colleague recently sent out about a hundred pieces of cleverly written direct mail packages. His brochure was so clever it was hard to tell it was meant as advertising for his services. However, the main problem with this was not that over cuteness of his brochure, but that he did not follow up the mailing with live telephone calls. He received about 2 or 3 responses, and it is significant that these were all people to whom he was already known. In other words, the leads were already at the stage at which they didn't really need to be sent direct mail. The translator could have called them, and it would not have been a "cold" call, but rather a somewhat "warm" call, since he was not a stranger to these prospects.
Clients who need translation (and often some who don't) are deluged by direct mail from translation companies all the time. They have become impervious to it. It rolls off their backs like water rolls off a duck's back, and it usually hits the wastepaper basket after doing that roll.
My advice is that if you must send direct mail (and I will discuss one of the reasons some people think they must later), don't expect much success unless you follow the direct mail up with a live conversation, either on the phone or in person.
Websites: Are They Useful in Selling to High-End Clients?
I have had a website (http://www.lise.jp/) for a number of years. It has cost me a fortune in time (meaning lost income), and I am very proud of it. Has it ever gotten me work. No, not a single job. Did I create the website to get work? No; I did it for self-satisfaction, and to provide information that might be of value to colleagues. From what I have seen on the Internet, with low-paying clients using the Internet to troll for low-quoting translators, I do not intend to use my website in the future to get clients, and could not recommend that translators build websites for that purpose.
High-end Japanese clients do not go to the Web to get translators. They use translators who do "close-in" sales, meaning live visits, either on the phone or face-to-face.
Talking the talk
Before getting into what you might want to be saying to your clients (as if I could actually pretend to know in the general sense), if your clients are Japanese, you will want to do this in Japanese. Yes, I know there are clients who will speak English with you, or at you, or on you, but why start with two strikes against you? If you want credibility, do it in Japanese.
Spoken Japanese
Good spoken Japanese usable in a sales situation is an essential (and the most difficult to acquire) element in selling to high-end Japanese clients. This should go without saying. So why did I say it? Because, although most translators will say that they believe this, few seem to do much to achieve spoken Japanese usable in selling, preferring rather to aim lower on the income scale.
Revisiting the issue of sending out direct mail packages to prospects, I have come to believe that many translators who take the approach of shot-gunning prospects with unsolicited direct mailings of resumes or other literature describing their services are doing it out of a lack of confidence in their ability to present their story live in front of a Japanese client or on the phone.
You will not acquire such spoken Japanese skills through merely living many years in Japan, and that comment applies to an almost equal degree to native Japanese, and the Japanese used by new hires in Japanese companies is proof. Another more accessible demonstration of the average young Japanese's lack of verbal skills can be found in the help in eating establishments, where customers are treated to the strangest variety of keigo from the kids working in these places who evidently have developed some misconceptions of just what passes in the real world for keigo.
I was in an izakaya with a Japanese friend some months ago and we were treated to things like お箸になりまーーす. Naturally, when I quipped なるんですか？お箸に？ そうか....このお箸の前世はどこかの熱帯雨林の木だったが、今回は何かの運命のいたずらで、お箸になるだろう. しかし、見るからには、この熱帯雨林の木が既にお箸になっちゃっているんだよ。熱帯雨林の木がお箸に変貌するのが見たかったね. My friend--slipping slowly into 抱腹絶倒 (ROFL) mode--got the message, which was entirely missed by the guy who brought us our chopsticks. ○×になりまーーす is not a keigo equivalent for ○×です. When the kid brought us our first order, we got ツクネになりまーーす。With all the recent news concerning falsified packaging of food and counterfeit marking of origins and ingredients, I resisted the temptation to ask our server what this tsukune was before its rebirthing as tsukune.
Silly examples, of course, but my point is that as a foreigner you don't need to feel out of place not knowing how to conduct yourself in spoken Japanese when dealing with clients, because most Japanese start out that way, and many go to their next re-incarnation (as a stick of tsukune?) without ever learning.
How valuable is good spoken Japanese? Can you place a yen amount on its value? Perhaps.
Since good spoken Japanese skills often mean being able to sell or not being able to sell in Japan, I would estimate that, over a 10 or 20 year period, it could make a difference in income of between 100 and 200 million yen. If I needed it (and assuming that I wanted this extra money), and if I were at the beginning of my career, I would spend a lot of money and time acquiring the spoken Japanese language necessary to get that incremental income.
It is extremely strange to me that there is hardly any discussion among translators of this critical income-affecting issue. I do not think the lack of discussion is an indication that people who are translating already have the spoken Japanese level required to sell in Japanese.
I would have thought that there would be a market for intensive Japanese-language sales skill development courses, aimed specifically at non-Japanese who need to sell. Are there such courses for Japanese?
My guess is that the schools that teach Japanese as a foreign language rarely get to that level, and in Japan there might just be a mindset that tells the people running such schools that there would not be a market--after all, foreigners don't sell, do they? Remember, even a salesman from Tokyo feels very uncomfortable being transferred to Osaka to sell.
In any event, there appears to be a never-ending stream of Japanese customers for English conversation courses, so perhaps the idea of going after a tiny sector of the market with a very special product is not very attractive.
I think new employees here in Japanese companies--at least the larger companies--are sometimes put through training that readies them to do things like answer the phone without sounding like they are at home and such, and this training is sometimes directed at sales people. I have found several examples on the Web. Of course the people attending these courses are assumed to have native Japanese fluency, but that in no way means that they have acceptable skills in using keigo, for example. Some of the students are starting pretty much at the beginning in that area.
Getting in to see someone
Making a cold call in a foreign language can be a frightening experience, but making a slightly "warm" call can be much less painful. For people who have a problem making a cold call, learning how to apply some calories to the situation to get a little more warmth can be very useful. But just how do you do that?
Here are some ideas that might suggest ways of getting to make slightly "warm" calls.
Assume that you are selling 24 hours a day
An example:
I will be in Nagano next week interpreting at a meeting between the patent department of an established client of mine, company A, and a team of their US lawyers I have not met (from law firm B with whom I have never dealt). The client is paying for me to interpret, but I might get much more out of the meeting if I can ultimately get interpreting work from law firm B. I can assure you that they will learn sometime during our encounter that I do deposition interpreting.
Remember that in sales in Japan, your organizational connections, including past connections, are often more important than any formal qualifications you might have.
If you have had occasion to watch Japanese who could be prospective business partners exchanging business cards, you might recall that there is sometimes a great song and dance that goes on, the aim of which is to find some sort of common denominator.
As another example, I am going to interpret next month in depositions of witnesses from Japanese company C (not yet my client) that is being sued by a US firm. My client for this interpreting, law firm D, knew me from a set of depositions in which they were on the team suing company A (noted earlier). Law firm D saw me "gently" destroy their interpreter (she was pretty bad), and decided they would use me in the future.
I will be traveling to Osaka to do this interpreting, but am going to visit company C with law firm D, when they visit for preparation next week. I can assure you that this sales prospect company C is not going to get away from me without hearing--subtly, of course--that I occasionally do translation work for another division of their firm. Why? Two reasons. (1) These are first timers for me, and such a previous "connection," even though it is very indirect, might give them a tiny bit of warmth about me doing interpreting as their department head gets interrogated by the opposing attorneys, perhaps predisposing them toward me and possibly removing any fear they might have had of having their words interpreted by a non-Japanese. (2) They might just become a client for translation, which for me is more lucrative (and less restrictive) than legal interpreting.
As a matter of fact, given the opportunity (and I will certainly make the opportunity), I might even slip in mention of my decades-ago relationship with one of their group's factories: 「昔の話ではあるんですが、計測機の○×△□の日本支店をやらせて頂いていた頃、マルシンさんにかなりお世話になりました。」 ("Marushin" (the character 神 in a circle) is the in-house jargon for this company's Kanagawa factory.)
What information does this single utterance--which takes only about 10 seconds--convey?
I repeat: Your organizational connections, including past connections, are often more important than any formal qualifications you might have. If you had a life before translation, use it. If you have only tiny scraps of connections, scrape those scraps together for what they are worth and use them. The client is not going to go check on them, although I am not recommending that you tell mistruths.
If you have gotten the impression that the network resulting in work inflow in my case is complex, you are right. As a matter of fact, I have even simplified it for the purpose of this discussion; if I drew this as a chart there would be dotted line connections between some of the entities, and there would be entities that I have not even mentioned.
The point of all this is that these connections are made. They are nurtured, rather than left to wither away. I have found that successful selling is heavily dependent on the process of building this web of interconnections to the point at which a call on one of the "nodes" in the web is not a cold call, but a "warm" call.
What do you do after you succeed in getting to see someone to talk about translation?
If you have succeeded in warming up a prospect to avoid an absolutely cold call, what is next? Finding out whether they even need your services. That is mostly a process of allowing the client to do the talking. Given the chance and a reasonable number of pointed questions, many clients will direct you to the information you need. One thing to remember not to do, is sit there and spout off endlessly about how you are the ultimate translator. You might just find that the conversation grinds to a very embarrassing halt.
When you uncover a need, you make a decision as to whether you have a service to meet that need. If you do, you go into the next phase, that of converting the client to be your client.
Why should a prospect give you work?
"Because you asked them to give you work" is not the right answer, since that is no better than those unemployable guys who look like they just crawled out of a gutter to sell you newspapers.
Every client you should be talking to is already using translations. They all already have translators they use--in-house or outside vendors. Why should the client switch? Your first job in selling is to discover what you might be able to provide them that will make them switch.
That might seem like a tall order, since you can't read the client's mind, but a little conversation with the client might reveal just the pieces of the puzzle you need. The hot button you are looking for might be things like quality or price. One thing that often gets overlooked is the value you can provide them by just being an accessible translator. Most of the clients I have (and prospects I didn't get) had never met a live outside translator until I approached them. This essentially means that they never had the experience of dealing with a translation provider who could discuss and was willing to ask questions about and discuss the content of their manuscripts.
Handling questions about your rates.
Even if you are happy getting 30 yen/word (6000 yen per mythical 200-word page), would you ask for 30 yen if you thought the client might be accustomed to paying much more?
The other day I walked into a prospect (now a client) and told him I would do his work for 30 yen a word. His immediate acceptance of this told me that I had blown it. I should have gone in at no less than 35 or 40 yen. It turns out that, because of repetition, a 10,000-word job from this client the other day took only the time that a normal 7000-word job would have taken, and even at 30-yen a word, I can net at least 25,000 yen per hour, which is enough for me. Still, I lost considerable potential income by being overly cautious, and going in with a low bid. You should remember that it is very difficult--almost impossible--to raise your rates to existing clients.
My general advice about questions on your rates is to be cautious and not reply with a rate until you have a concrete manuscript to discuss. After all, you could point out to the client that all manuscripts deserve individual treatment, and you would not want to quote a price that would be unfair to either of you just because you had not seen the text. This approach has generally worked for me. Clients who insist on getting a number at this point often are best avoided.
Your Competition
As an individual translator selling your translation services, your competition is generally in-house translators and agencies, and mostly the latter if you are selling J-E translation. It is pretty safe to say that you are not competing with many individual translators who are doing sales, because you will practically be breaking new ground as an individual. Agencies will have brochures, Agencies will have silver-tongued salespersons. And agencies will often paint a picture of a quality control system that in many cases is at great odds with reality.
As an individual, you should use your strengths--hand-crafted translations, field-specific knowledge, and an identifiable translator accessible to the client. Those strengths, combined with the sales skills to bring your message to prospective clients, can place you in a position you never thought possible, and bring you rewards that are well worth the effort you need to make to break out of your passive approach to getting work.