Discussion: Managing Stakeholders

A point of view of a freelance localizer and translator

• Who was the stakeholder and what was their role?

For this discussion, I am going to use my freelancing experiences and use my clients as stakeholders. These clients are mainly LSPs and within that, primarily need to deal with translation project managers or project coordinators. In some cases they are more on the junior side, meaning they are not involved that much in the entire project but only in the coordination between linguists, and in some cases, they are senior project managers who have more interests in the project outcome because they need to manage them from beginning to end and they also need to deal with their clients. In some cases, depending also on the client and the size of the company, the project manager can be the owner or the president of the organization at the same time. As I mainly had pleasant experiences with these stakeholders, I am going to explain how I learned to deal with them in general going into detail in some particular areas but I don't address only one particular situation.

• What was your role and what did you need to deliver to the stakeholder, or what kind of project or initiative did you work on for or with them?

This is usually a translation project and the delivery is documents or document files. But before I get there to get an assignment from my stakeholder, I needed to do some initiatives to gain their trust and to turn them from leads or prospects into clients. First, I needed to understand that in this pyramid, they are above me because they are the ones who are requesting something from me and they will pay for it. Even though initially I thought that freelancing means I set up the rules, this is not entirely the case. You need to be able to follow your clients' instructions and accept their terms. If you don't like any of these, you can negotiate but ultimately they will decide. For that, staying professional in your communication is essential. According to my experience, clients turn away from you if you are difficult to deal with and you are not reliable no matter how high quality is your work.

• How did you go about establishing a relationship with the stakeholder, building trust and turning them into a partner?

In general, one of my most useful verifications working as a freelance translator and language services provider is that there are two things you can do to win your clients, stakeholders. First, you offer high-quality work, this is your technical skill and you can improve that and you should improve them continuously. And second, you prove to be a trustworthy and reliable partner. How do you do that? I always kept my deadlines. If there is a conflict with delivery dates, I always inform my stakeholders about it and I explain it. It's important to always justify if you need to ask for a deadline extension, such as you had an emergency, you needed to take your mother to the hospital, or there is an evacuation in the area due to fire danger and you are affected by it. Communication is very important because most of the time there is almost always possible to add a few extra days to the project, I think smart project managers calculate denying forces when they set up deadlines. When I need to ask something from my clients, I try to be very polite and it's more like, I am trying to find out whether it's possible to do things differently if I find that there is a more effective way. However, most of the time I don't try to change the way they set up the project even if I have differing opinions due to the fact that I also think like a project manager not just a translation services provider. I only offer suggestions if I trust the client and I am sure that they will appreciate my insight. For that, I usually need to categorize them into three categories:

1. Long-term clients who work with me for several years and we have already built up a partnership that is based on mutual trust.
2. Short-term or occasional clients who send me jobs once in a while, either because they don't have enough projects in my language combination or because they work with other linguists. These clients are still to be tested and I tend to be more careful with them when offering suggestions or asking favors.
3. One-time clients who find you for a single project and you never hear from them anymore. In spite that I won't hear from these clients anymore, I still try to maintain some kind of partnership between us, by sending them thank you-notes or similar. Usually, these one-time clients are the most inexperienced in localization and translation and I need to spend some time evangelizing, explaining things related to their requests because most often they don't really know what they are asking for. Some of them realize that after all, they don't want to translate a 58 pages casual email conversation because it's not worth the effort and money. And even if I don't gain anything material on these projects, I always make sure to invest enough time and pay attention to these stakeholders as well because you never know, they may come back and turn into paying customers one day. And even if they don't, they may recommend you to their colleagues or friends.

 

• If you were successful, which of your efforts were most effective?

Professional and on-point communication with all these stakeholders is essential. If I send them something that is out of the scope of the project, that's usually a Holiday greeting, or a thank you note once a year. Another strategy is that I try to understand where they are coming from by following their instructions. They usually work with their own clients who set up the requirements for them too and it's not my role to try to reinvent those. However, if I notice an error, I politely try to point it out to them making sure that they understand that I am doing it for the success of the project and not because I want to make their lives even more difficult. I guess some freelance translators have bigger egos and vanity and they like to feel that they rule their clients. However, I did not find that approach very beneficial. If you can make them happy and satisfied with the final product or delivery, at the end of the day, both partners feel accomplished.

• If you were not (completely) successful, what went wrong, what was missed, and what could have been better done?

Of course, in the past, I made some smaller mistakes because I was not entirely sure how to deal with some of my stakeholders. The most problematic stakeholders were the lowballers who did not want to pay my rates or complained about the rates. I used to be upset in some cases by their offers and I just wanted to shoot back an email saying not too nice things to them but I learned that this attitude almost never wins. First, it takes too much energy and I am taking that energy away from another stakeholder who might deserve my attention more because they are willing to pay my rates. So, I learned to keep it short and polite. I don't engage in arguments but just state my point and move on. I found that people appreciate it when you keep your own standards even if that sometimes contradicts their needs.

I must admit it really helps that most of the communication I have with my stakeholders is through emails because I have time to think about the answer. I think dealing one-on-one with stakeholders is much harder.

• Anything else you'd like to share with, which might be helpful?

In general, the most useful thing I learned when dealing with stakeholders as a freelance language services provider is that a professional attitude is half the battle as well as to listen to your stakeholders and treat them as human beings. Most of the time these project managers are already overwhelmed and busy and they really appreciate working with easy-going providers. And by easygoing I don't mean a completely passive attitude that accepts and sucks up everything. I meant an attitude that is trying to be helpful. Because if you can make them feel that the project's success is also your primary interest, they will most likely come back to you and work with you again. And this is how you build up trust. And another good piece of advice is that you cannot think of your stakeholders as living valets or something similar. You might get away with this attitude once or twice and they pay you and you deliver something mediocre, the ultimate goal is to keep them. And that takes time and effort.