Month: January 2026

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[Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast – Episode 37 – Kole Wright on Moving to France

Image of Strasbourg
ATA FLD Podcast. Photo Credit: Unsplash

The A Propos LogoTo make our Continuing Education Series Podcast more accessible and searchable for FLD members and the general public, we are now offering transcriptions of our episodes right here on À Propos. Many thanks to our volunteer transcriptionists, who are credited at the bottom of each transcription. If you’re interested in helping us transcribe podcast episodes, email divisionFLD [at] atanet [dot] org.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL EPISODE

SOUNDCLOUD: You can listen to or download Episode 37 and all previous episodes on Soundcloud here.

ITUNES: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes here. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us and review us! It really helps get the word out.

[Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast – Episode 37 – Kole Wright on Moving to France

Andie Ho: This is Andie Ho, host of the Continuing Education Series, a podcast produced for the members of the French Language Division of the American Translators Association, offering educational content about the craft of French to English and English to French translation and the division.

Kole Wright is a French and German to English translator and interpreter specializing in science and technology, in particular patents and the chemical industry. He is originally from Kansas, just like me, and graduated with an MA in French, German, English Translation and Interpreting from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California in 2022. Along with his wife, Emma, and two cats, Pepper and Juniper, he now lives in Strasbourg, France, where he has re-established his freelance activity as the mostly one-person, but sometimes mini agency called Le Quatrième Œil, the fourth eye. So, Kole and I met a couple of years ago, I want to say, at an ATA conference, and then we hadn’t seen each other for a couple of years. And then we ran into each other in Boston at ATA 66 in October. And I said, “Kole, how have you been? What have you been up to?” And Cole said, “I have moved to France and set up shop there”. And I said, “How do I do that?” So, then I lured him onto this podcast to tell me how I too can immigrate to France and build a beautiful life there. So, thank you, Kole, for sharing your secrets with us.

Kole Wright: Of course.

AH: You’ve been in France now for how long? Several months?

KW: Yes, I arrived in mid-May, and I’ve been back to the US twice for about three weeks total, but generally I’ve been here the whole time since.

AH: Okay, so about six months. And you went there on a program called le passeport talent, the talent passport. What is that exactly? Give us an overview.

KW: Yes, so this is a program that the French government set up, I think, in the latter part of the last decade under the Macron government, I think. And the idea is to bring all types of skilled labor into France. So, there are different subcategories of this visa type, and they range from researchers and scientists to innovative projects. There’s one category, I think, for artists or famous people, and I’m under one which they just reorganized this summer, the naming convention. So, the main category is porteur de projet, and under that there are a couple of different options, and mine is création d’entreprise. So, I have founded a company which is just my freelancing activity, and that’s it.

AH: What are the requirements? What kinds of entreprise do people tend to créer?

KW: Well, I only know about two for sure, which is mine, which is a freelancing business. And the lawyer that I’ve been working with, which we can dig more into if you’d like, mentioned that they helped a Chilean person open a restaurant in France, a Chilean restaurant. So, I think it can be many different types of businesses.

AH: And clearly there’s no size minimum, right, since you’re a freelancer and able to do this.

KW: Yes, asterisk. There is probably an income limit there. Notably, France has a company type, which I think is called just auto-entreprise, where if you make more than, I believe it is €77,000 per year, then you can no longer be that type and you have to go to a different tax regime. The reason this is important for visas is that if you’re under that, then I am told by my lawyer that the authorities will very likely advise you—they’ll refuse your application and advise you to instead apply for a different category, profession libérale, which also may suit very many freelancers who could be listening. That visa has a couple of different requirements. The requirements are lower, but it also has more upkeep you have to do. Like, it is for one year maximum and you’re reevaluated every year, whereas the one I’m on can be granted for multiple years. The profession libérale visa also does not allow you to bring family, whereas the passeport talent does. So that’s one important reason for me to choose the latter because my wife is American. So, if I were to go for the profession libérale visa, then she would have to get her own visa some other way.

AH: Is she allowed to work in France?

KW: Yes. The lawyer joked that she has more rights than me while we’re here. She has the same duration of stay, but she can do anything, working, studying, anything. Her visa is just tied to our marital status, so she doesn’t have any extra requirements on her work or anything like that.

AH: Whereas you are… I don’t want to say stuck but tied to the business that you came in with.

KW: That’s correct. I do not have the right to be an employee of any company. I also cannot change careers while I’m on this visa. So, for the duration, and in my case, it’s four years before I will renew it, I am doing this.

AH: Okay, let’s talk about the duration. They give you four years to do what?

KW: They may give one, two, three or four years. In my case, they chose to grant the maximum, but the authorities can choose anything between one and four. I think by the end of that, they’re going to look at my financial results and whether they match the business plan and projections that I submitted. I’m not sure to what degree things can just be the same or even lower, but still above the limit. The absolute limit is minimum wage in France, SMIC, which I believe right now is about €21,000 a year or $25,000. So not terribly out of reach for most freelancers, I think, but still worth keeping in mind.

AH: You said you submitted a business plan. What kinds of things did you have to submit to show that you were going to create this business?

KW: Yeah, so I wrote a business plan, which goes into what my business is, what kind of services I provide, why I am qualified to do this. Additionally, the visa requires either a master’s degree or five years’ experience in the field. So, you know, just talking about my experience, why me? Why am I the one starting this business? Why France? Why can’t I just do it from where I was already? And then sort of market research, who are my clients? What types of projections do we see for the period of validity of the visa, economically? I wrote this all in English. It ended up being like 18 pages. I had it translated by a colleague. You can submit in English, but I wanted to submit it in French. I thought it would be a better look.

So, I went that route and in addition to the business plan, you have financial projections that you submit. There are templates online, which are very helpful. They’re in Excel and they have multiple pages where you populate in your projected earnings and costs, and it filters through multiple years of projections. So, that part is necessary, but it’s not the headache you may imagine if you’re working from absolute scratch.

AH: And is there an age limit or do you have to show a certain amount of money in savings? Because I know a lot of immigration requirements have that.

KW: Yes, so there’s no age limit that I’ve heard of. I think probably the younger you are, the better it looks on paper, but I don’t think it’s going to be… I don’t think it’s going to make the difference for anybody.

As for money, this is the main reason why people may want to go for the profession libérale visa if its limits are acceptable to them. Because to get, specifically, the création d’entreprise subcategory, you have to have €30,000 in savings. You have to put that into a bank account owned by the business, or if you can’t get a bank account in France without being in France first, then you can deposit it with a notary in France, and they give you a document that says they’ve received it, and you can use that instead of a bank statement. But yes, you have to have €30,000, which is about $35,000 right now, I think. And you have to just have that.

And then you also want to have financial documents showing that you can support yourself. So, I have, I’ve submitted different bank statements. I have money in my bank that I submitted statements. I have some managed investments that I had statements printed out and I sent those. So, all kinds of… whatever you can do to prove your ability to support yourself.

AH: So, you’re still in your first year, what happens at the end of the year?

KW: Well, at the end of the calendar year, I’m going to be paying taxes in France for the first time, which is going to be interesting. I’ve chosen the somewhat expensive route of going with a professional because I don’t—I’m not confident in my ability to figure it out perfectly the first time. Maybe in future years, we’ll see. But the… so I’ll be paying taxes and we’ll see how that goes. Since my visa was granted for four years, I will renew it at the end of those four years. And then I will apply for citizenship after the fifth year, which is the current requirement. And yeah.

AH: Okay, that was going to be my next question, whether there was a pathway to citizenship built into this.

KW: Yeah, if you can get your visa renewed enough to get five years consecutively, then you can apply. I believe the application process itself takes another one to two years. And so, if you’re still residing in France during that time, I mean, you’ll want to have that covered as well. I’m not entirely sure how they count years as a student. I’ve heard of some countries not counting that. So, I would, if that applies to anybody, I would check on that.

AH: What happens if you don’t hit the benchmarks that are required, the SMIC? Do they kick you out?

KW: I assume then they, basically, I mean, I assume then they don’t renew your status. And then if you don’t have another way to stay, then you have to leave. If you have a US passport, then you can stay for another 90 days as a tourist. If you… I suppose in an emergency, maybe you could enroll in a university or something and get a student visa and stay. But yeah, if you don’t meet the renewal requirements, then they don’t renew, I assume.

AH: You mentioned an immigration lawyer a couple of times. You had someone help you through the process?

KW: Yes, absolutely. This also came through the ATA. I got a recommendation from, I believe, I forget this person’s name, but it was an El Salvadorian translator who was established in Paris under the profession libérale visa. I got the name of this lawyer. Daniel Tostado is the name of the firm. There’s him and there are other lawyers working under the same firm that just has that name.

I did a consultation and then they helped me with the application process, the drafting of the business plan, and the financial projections. They gave me some critiques and, you know, saying like, “We would like to highlight this aspect more. The authorities are going to want to see X, Y, and Z.”

And then they walked me through all of the necessary steps to getting the appointment with the—it’s not the consulate anymore. It’s a private company that the French government has hired to do all of their consular appointments. You get that appointment, you go through everything.

Then once you are in France, you go to your local prefecture and get the actual residency card, which I don’t even have yet, by the way. This is a sort of a long story. I won’t get into the details, but I believe if they are going to give you one year, then they just give you a visa for one year that goes in your passport. Otherwise, if they’re going to give you more, then they will give you a three-month entry visa that goes in your passport.

And then you go to your prefecture and get the residency card, your actual titre de séjour. In my case, that has been delayed and delayed and delayed due to administrative errors on the part of the prefecture. And I will be picking up the card actually next week.

AH: Oh, wow. So, you were kind of floating around France for three months?

KW: Right. I didn’t even know that I was going to be granted three or four years until late October. I registered for the ATA conference so late because I didn’t know. My status was set to run out on October 17, and I think I got the notification on October 9 or 10, actually. And that was after my status had already been extended twice. It was originally set to run out in August, and then the prefecture issued a prolongation d’instruction, so they just give themselves another two months to think about it, and your legal status is extended. And they had already kicked the can down the road a couple of times, and then they finally processed my application in October.

AH: Bureaucracy at its finest.

KW: Yes. I hear that the Paris prefecture is generally faster. I’m in Strasbourg, so the relevant prefecture is Bas-Rhin. And they, I guess, work a little bit more slowly.

AH: Do you receive any support in moving to France or in running your business? Or is that just all on your own?

KW: That’s pretty much on my own. Through the lawyers, I was given the contact information for a comptable, which I have been working with. So that’s sort of some business support. I’ve been supported by the SFT, which is sort of the ATA equivalent here in France, Société française des traducteurs. It’s a union for translators and interpreters both. And they have different legal support options. They have, a lot like the ATA, some boilerplate language that you can use in contracts and, on my website, my terms and conditions and stuff are mostly taken from there.

AH: So, you chose Strasbourg. It’s not like the government put you there and said, this is where you’re going to live.

KW: Yes, absolutely. The government has no—they do not care, I think, where you are. I assume, when you submit the business plan, especially if your business is of a more physical nature, like say, a pure interpreter might have to make more of a case for their specific location. I am an interpreter and translator.

I did in my business plan make a case for the location. Since my language combination is German in addition to French, it made a lot of sense. There are EU institutions here that are possible clients. I highlighted all that in my business plan. I would imagine if your business is much more physically oriented, then you may have to make a stronger case, and that case might be scrutinized more.

But beyond that, I don’t think the evaluators are going to care much where in France you are unless you’re in one of the overseas territories. I’m not sure those work exactly the same way. But, you know, don’t quote me on that.

AH: How was the logistics of moving? Where were you based at the time that you moved? Were you in Kansas?

KW: No, I was in Denver, Colorado before. The logistics were interesting. They were easier than I expected. But I spent a couple of months getting rid of all my stuff in Denver, giving it away, selling it. I stowed a couple of items at my parents’ house and finally sold my car. And I just took a flight with as much stuff as I could physically carry over to Strasbourg, where I had booked an Airbnb.

I had to book it for three months for the filing. They want to see that you have, like, a place to stay. So, if you’re staying with a friend in France, you can get them to write a letter or something. But if you’re booking, like, an Airbnb, then there’s an easy, like, print to PDF confirmation of that that you can use.

I was in an Airbnb for three months and I came alone. My wife stayed in Denver. I was going to try to find an apartment and then do the main move with her. I ended up finding one within a couple of weeks. I was told it would be a lot more difficult for a freelancer. I was told that there’s a bit of discrimination against people without an employer traditionally, but I did not actually find that to be the case. So, I got a very nice apartment without too much trouble. Then I went back to Denver, helped my wife clear out that apartment, and then we came back here together. And yeah, That’s it.

AH: Wow. That sounds, I don’t want to say simple, but simpler than I would have thought.

KW: We did not bring a lot of stuff. We chose the route of getting rid of everything and then repurchasing the essentials on this side. Because I mean, we’re both 28. We had—most of the stuff that we own was just, like, random furniture that we’ve had from our first college apartment. You know, it wasn’t really—it wasn’t like we had decorated our space, like, perfectly. So, we weren’t super attached to a lot of that stuff. And what we were attached to, we put in—we have stowed in our respective parents’ houses because they’re kind enough to grant us a few square meters. Yeah, then we just, you know, made multiple trips to IKEA Strasbourg on this side.

But I know that if you do have a lot of stuff that you want to bring, there are services that do that. I think it can get a little pricey, like in the, maybe in the $10,000 to $20,000 range, but you can, you know, get a box delivered to your door that you fill and then it goes, you know—U-Haul has a service like this, but I don’t know if they go internationally—but it works this way. And then, you know, it eventually gets stuck on a container ship and then eventually it goes to like the port of Marseille or something. And then there’s ground transportation within France to wherever you’re going. You may not see your stuff for a few months if you go that route.

AH: What is your wife doing now? Has she found employment? Is she just enjoying the croissants?

KW: Enjoying the croissants a little bit, a little bit of employment for me and my business. She’s just helping out with a couple of admin things and proofreading. She is a much better proofreader than me. She’s helping with that. She’s doing French classes for adults, which are offered in town.

Yeah, she already had a bachelor’s degree in French, honestly, not honestly, like actually. She had a bachelor’s degree in French and is now just sort of reactivating that because we graduated from college together. We went—we both went to Kansas State University and then we graduated in 2020. And so, it’s been five years with very little French conversation practice. So, she’s like, you know, reactivating all that and that’s only, like, half days, and then she’s doing some work within my business and enjoying the croissants for the rest of the time.

AH: Well, what a lucky duck. You make this all sound very doable. We may be crossing paths in Strasbourg soon at this rate.

KW: I hope so.

AH: Is there anything else you’d like to tell the audience, either about your experience or life, the universe, and everything?

KW: I think for… for people in our profession, especially into English translators and interpreters, it is definitely a good idea if your family and financial situation allows you to do a move like this, even temporarily, even if you just want to go for a couple of years and then eventually go back.

You can notice that when you’re going around the ATA conference, like, most of the work that is on offer is out of English. Now, there are many threads to pursue here, one of which is that the structure of our industry is changing quite a bit, and working for agencies in the same way is probably not going to be what most successful translators and interpreters are doing anymore. I don’t know how those agencies are going to survive, but that’s not my problem.

I think it’s useful to be where your potential direct clients are for many, many reasons, even if all your work is mostly remote. It’s—I think a lot of them still prefer to see a local address. The billing systems are more compatible if you’re in the same country, of course. And of course, there’s a question of time zones. I was, as an interpreter, I was always getting up at 5, 6am to interpret for any meeting at all. There was nothing at an hour that I would normally be awake. It’s worth doing if you can.

AH: And then last but not least, tell us about Pepper and Juniper, your cats.

KW: They are two precious kittens. They are Balinese, which is the long-haired variety of a Siamese. We got them here. My wife and I have wanted animals for many, many years. I’m originally more of a dog person, but she’s convinced me of the benefits of cats. And during the pandemic, I lived with her family, and they have a couple of cats, and I raised one of them, Beans, from kittenhood. So, you know, I enjoy cats now. And so, we decided to get these two. Pepper and Juniper are brother and sister. They are loving Strasbourg, looking out the windows at the pigeons and the old German-style roofs. Very—just idyllic.

AH: How old are they?

KW: Four or five months, I think. Five months now.

AH: Babies.

KW: They’re getting to the size of adult cats, but they’re babies.

AH: Okay, we’re going to try to get pictures of the cats from Kole to post with this episode so you can see Pepper and Juniper with your own eyes. Thank you, Kole, for doing this. It sounds very exciting. I’m going to convince my husband to move to France. So, see you soon.

KW: Excellent. See you soon.

AH: This concludes our episode for today. You can subscribe to the Continuing Education Series podcast on SoundCloud or iTunes by searching for “Continuing Education Series”. You can contact the FLD at divisionfld [at] atanet.org, visit our website at www.ata-divisions.org/fld, or get in touch with us on social media. This is Andie Ho signing off. Thanks for listening and à bientôt.

ATA Podcast host Andie Ho is a certified French to English translator specializing in the food industry. She earned her M.A. in translation from Kent State University and is now based in the Houston area. She currently serves as the ATA’s French Language Division administrator. You can follow her on Twitter at @JHawkTranslator or email her at andie [at] andiehotranslations [dot] com.

FLD Editor

[Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast — Episode 22 — Natalie Pavey on Scaling Your Freelance Business

ATA FLD Podcast. Photo Credit: Unsplash

The A Propos LogoTo make our Continuing Education Series Podcast more accessible and searchable for FLD members and the general public, we are now offering transcriptions of our episodes right here on À Propos. Many thanks to our volunteer transcriptionists, who are credited at the bottom of each transcription. If you’re interested in helping us transcribe podcast episodes, email divisionFLD [at] atanet [dot] org.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL EPISODE

SOUNDCLOUD: You can listen to or download Episode 22 and all previous episodes on Soundcloud here.

ITUNES: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes here. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us and review us! It really helps get the word out.

Episode 22 — Natalie Pavey on Scaling Your Freelance Business

Andie Ho: This is Andie Ho, host of the continuing education series, a podcast produced for the members of the French Language Division of the American Translators Association, offering educational content about the craft of French-to-English and English-to-French translation and the division.

Full-disclosure at the top of this episode, I am a subcontractor for the company whose owner we are interviewing today, although, as of this recording, I have not worked on any projects for the company, and, anyhow, it doesn’t affect any of the content that we discuss today, but I just wanted to let you guys know.

Today we’re joined by Natalie Pavey, a certified French-to-English translator who holds a bachelor’s degree in French from the University of Pittsburg, and a master’s degree in French language and culture from King’s College, London. She translates for clients located primarily in Canada in the fields of business communication, marketing, the environment, and sustainable development. Since beginning as a freelancer in 2011, Natalie has worked with more than 300 clients, and since 2021, has been collaborating with other freelancer to become a one-stop shop for French-to-English and English-to-French translation services, which is what we are here to talk about today. Welcome, Natalie.

Natalie Pavey: Hi, Andie. Thank you for having me.

AH: Thank you. So, you brought something to my attention which I found very interesting, and so I wanted to talk about it on this podcast today. You have a company called NP Translations, or Traductions NP in French, and it’s a slightly different take on what most of us think of as a traditional agency. So, give us a quick overview of how your business works.

NP: Sure, well, I don’t think it looks too much different from the client’s point of view. I present myself as an agency, as well as a freelance translator, but freelancers know the difference in that the unique thing about my business is that translators, the freelancers, communicate directly with my clients through a dedicated email address, and that’s usually not the case with most translation agencies. Usually there’s a project manager who’s the middleman, and the companies don’t disclose the names of their freelancers. So, my agency is built on a collaboration. It’s like an informal translators’ cooperative. So, I work as a French-to-English translator, but I subcontract English-to-French translations, and I also subcontract French-to-English translations when you’re overloaded, so that I’m not turning clients away when I’m too busy. So, it’s a bit risky, in that I could potentially lose clients to my freelancers by putting them in touch person-to-person, but I feel like the benefit of attracting more clients, because we have a higher capacity, outweighs the risk.

AH: Yeah, so do you have any parameters in place to protect that level of trust with your fellow translators?

NP: Well, I have an NDA that everyone signs, and there’s a clause in there stating that they can’t approach clients for a certain number of years, until the contract expires. And I work with colleagues that I trust, that I—most of them I know personally—and I just think the translation world is pretty small, that if someone was taking clients from me, I don’t know, I’d, like, hear about it or, it just… the relationship wouldn’t be good, like, there must be something underlying it that the freelancer wouldn’t want to continue working that way to benefit both of us.

AH: So, they’d just be shooting themselves in their foot anyway since the community is small enough.

NP: Well, I’m thinking, I think that if I did lose a client to a freelancer, the client would probably be approaching them, or the freelancer would be approaching them, to work at a lower rate, so, in the end, the freelancer is losing out if they take a client from me.

AH: Ah, I see what you’re saying. Oh, that’s interesting. That’s a good point, a good perspective. So…

NP: I was advised not to subcontract, to put clients in touch with my freelancers because there have been stories of people who’ve lost clients but I don’t know anyone personally who has, so… I’m trying it out.

AH: All right. Well, yeah, you hear all these stories floating around the industry about various scams and whatnot, but on a personal level, anecdotally, I have never met anyone, I don’t think, who has fallen victim to them. So I think, in my opinion, people are pretty trustworthy.

NP: Yup. And then that’s the whole foundation of it is you have to trust the people you’re working with.

AH: So, why did you decide to go this route at all. Why not stay a freelancer?

NP: Well, at one point I was… just couldn’t keep up with the work that was coming in. So, I was realizing that I needed to subcontract some of my own work, but… I should explain that I live in Saint John, New Brunswick, which has a large majority of anglophones, even though New Brunswick, which is the province in Canada, is the only bilingual province in Canada, officially bilingual, and the population is about one-third francophone. So, there’s a need to translate a lot of content into French for that minority, and people were contacting me regularly for English-to-French translations. They were just seeing my business pop up on Google, and they’d just give me a call, so I was losing business by referring work to my colleagues.

And that was my original philosophy, was to refer colleagues… refer projects to colleagues who were in other fields or who translated in the opposite direction, because I felt like they would return the favor, but, in the end, people weren’t returning the favor. Maybe they just weren’t getting those inquiries. Maybe they’re not networking, so they’re not getting those potential clients. So, I just thought that I should take advantage of the opportunity of the high demand. And there’s also only one other English-to-French translator in Saint John, whose very selective about her projects and she doesn’t even call clients back if she’s not interested, so I really had heard that there was a need.

And I also bring a lot of experience to the table as being my own, as a translator, having worked for eight years as a translator at that point. I have learned how to network. I feel like I’m comfortable networking. I’ve learned to quote appropriately on projects and set the appropriate rates and determine the right turnaround time. And I’ve also established a network of colleagues that I’ve met at conferences, so I have a lot of experience and people that I can contact, which is my added value. Yup.

[both talking]

NP: Go ahead, sorry.

AH: You talk about, you know, learning how to quote and all these new things. What all sorts of new skills and new explorations did you have to do to set up this business?

NP: Well, I was just going to mention that in 2021, it was when I was really overloaded, and I realized that I needed some professional advice, so I got a little bit of funding to work with a business coach, Dave Veale, who lives in my own town. And he took me on because he has a similar business model with other business coaches. He’s the business owner and he subcontracts to other coaches who work under his company, but they are not employees. So, I’m sorry, I’m losing the question here.

AH: Oh, what did you have to do to set up your business?

NP: Okay, let’s see, I made some notes about that. I realized I needed a lot of help with project management. Just the process of assigning projects, managing deadlines, and keeping track of those, and making sure I was being billed correctly by the freelancers for their rates and number of words, it was just too much to track. I was using an Excel sheet. So I got translation project management software called Projetex, which is the agency version of Translation Office 3000, which I was using previously as a freelancer.

I also needed to find a better way to manage my accounting because of the billing issues, and I got a grant to get accounting consultant services. They set up QuickBooks for me, and they educated me on how to use QuickBooks to issue POs to subcontractors, so that I can easily subcontract revenues and make sure I was managing my billing right and paying people by the deadline, by their billing deadline.

And then, lastly, I worked with an intern for ten weeks. I had someone who was interested in working with me. She’s a translator and also has project management experience, so she helped me find—analyze my workflows and my project management process, identified gaps, and also, we figured out a way for me to maintain my translation memories and term bases in Trados, without paying for an expensive agency account with Trados. And we also improved my sales process, so I use a CRM now to track requests for quotes and to follow up on them. So, I became much more systematic in how I work.

AH: So, I don’t know anything about your—you’re based in Canada. I don’t know anything about Canadian business structures, but did this change your business structure at all?

NP: No, I’m still a sole proprietor, and I did speak to a lawyer—my accountant advised me to incorporate for tax purposes—but I spoke to a lawyer about it and he was… he advised me that it’s not necessary to incorporate because, as a—from a lawyer’s perspective—the risk is that I could be sued, and then that’s when you want to have your own business separate from your personal tax identity. But since I have insurance through the Quebec Translators Association—it’s professional liability insurance—it covers work performed by subcontractors up to two million dollars, one million dollars each incident per year, so it’s really… he told me that it was substantial enough that I don’t need to incorporate for accountability purposes. So it’s just… I can’t imagine paying a thousand dollars to file a business, incorporate a business tax return every year, which is required in Canada. So it just didn’t make financial sense either.

AH: Every year, wow! Okay. [laughter]

NP: Yeah. I don’t know if that’s how it is in the US. I know you can also be an LLC in the US, but we don’t have that here.

AH: Okay. So you said your translators who you subcontract to, they are in touch directly with the client. Can you tell me more about that? Why you made that decision?

NP: Yeah. I guess there are a few reasons. I thought it would be beneficial more than risky. So, the big risk is that I could lose a client once the client knows who the freelancer is, but the benefits are that I am not fielding questions, which is time consuming for me, and it also reduces the turnaround time because translators can ask their questions right away to the client and get answers faster. They’re not going through me. And if the answer isn’t clear enough, they can ask for more clarification, and it also helps build relationships between people, so that it’s not just me being like, “The translator has a question,” and, it’s just much more personal. So I feel that that’s a big benefit. And the freelancers get to know the client more, just… their way of communicating, and I think it just makes you understand their company more. So, that was the big reason.

AH: But you were still cc’d on all communications?

NP: Right.

AH: Okay, so you can kind of maintain, not necessarily control, but at least have oversight of what’s going on.

NP: Yeah, and then the risk is that the client could also contact the freelancer when they have another project, thinking that the freelancer will field the project, but since I get all the emails, I can intervene and take over at that point to give a quote and assign the project.

AH: So, from the client point of view, do they understand that your partners are not employees? Is that distinction important at all to them? Or does it even matter?

NP: Well, that was a point I brought up with my business coach. And he’s actually, after we started working together, he sent me a couple of things for translation. So I asked him his perspective on how it went as a client, and he was like, “[sigh] I don’t know, it just feels like,” well, at that point they weren’t using email addresses, but he said that from a client perspective, he doesn’t care who’s doing the translation. He just needed it done, and if you have trust in the company you’re working with, you’ll trust that it’s quality work.

So, now that I’m working with—freelancers are working with a dedicated email address, I’m transparent that they’re not employees. I call them my colleagues or my team. On my website, even in the “About” section, I have their bios, nine out of the ten people I work with regularly, including you, Andie… that they’ve agreed to use an email address and it’s clear on the “About” section that they are freelancers. So it’s clear to everyone. But I think that the added value I bring and the reason that people contact us still, or contact me, initially, is that I have experience in project management, I know who to contact for the right project—for each project, and they don’t have to go around looking for someone, which is really—there’s a lack of visible freelancers in New Brunswick. People just have trouble finding them. So, that’s the added value I bring is that I can find someone quickly and make sure they get the translation done, which is their main concern.

AH: So, how did you choose your subcontractors. You mentioned that you know almost all of them personally.

NP: Yup. Over the past ten years, I’ve gone to like at least one conference a year, usually two, and it’s the best way to meet people and start building trust. I don’t know, I consider the people I work with friends. Even the people I haven’t met in person, I’ve had a virtual call, a virtual chat with someone that I started working with, and I intend to do that with other people that I start working with that I haven’t met in person. Or they’re, they’ve been people that have been recommended to me by other colleagues that I trust and respect. And occasionally, if I’m in a bind, I’ll post something on one of the Facebook groups I belong to and people will tell me if they’re available and what their experience is, and I’ll assign a project to them and evaluate their work. But I also look for certified translators. The majority of people I work with are certified, and I feel that’s a gauge of quality, also.

AH: Um, so what are the pros and cons of this new way of working versus before, when you were “just” a freelancer?

NP: Yeah, I mean, I think as a freelancer it’s really lonely. I have to have double the social life because I don’t have colleagues, coworkers, that I see regularly. So, it’s nice to collaborate with people regularly, who understand you and your work and you can talk about the work together. So, you feel more like a team. Another major “pro” is that it’s more income for about the same number of hours per week, if you set your margins right. And there’s a potential for unlimited growth, whereas, if you’re a freelancer, you can only get paid for the number of words you can translate and there’s a limit to how much you can get done in a week. So, when you’re subcontracting, you can subcontract a large project and get a significant margin without putting in all the hours. That was the big benefit, I realized, when I spoke with my business coach was that, if I continued to freelance, I would be losing out on a lot of potential for growth.

But the “con” is that it’s hard to get away from work. For example, I signed a contract with my largest client to be available for all the projects they outsource. They have internal translators, but sometimes those two people are overloaded, so they’ll outsource work. And I signed a contract with them to be available at all times, so that’s a little stressful when you want to end the day and you have to assign a project, or deliver something. I’ve also worked with a virtual PM to manage that on two occasions: to take a vacation, which has been a way to deal with it, but it’s another cost, and then you need to train that person.

And there’s a risk, another “con,” that clients won’t pay you and you’ll lose money, because you have to pay your freelancers—it’s just a best practice. And that works to the freelancer’s advantage, which is a benefit of working with an agency, but it’s a big risk to me. And there’s also the risk of errors, that the subcontractors will make errors, but as I mentioned, I have NDAs in place and also professional liability insurance to cover subcontractors’ work, so there are… I think the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

AH: You mentioned at the top that you went for this business model to begin with because you wanted to capture all this excess demand that was floating around. Have you been successful in doing that, you feel?

NP: Uh, well, in Saint John there’s more of a demand for English-to-French because most of the people are English speaking. So, when they need translation, they need it translated into French. So, there’s been a lot of growth with the English-to-French side, but I’m still working on gaining more French-to-English clients. 2021 was a really busy year and the work has decreased a bit this year in that respect, but I really see the English-to-French side growing, so that’s a good sign. I just need to get out there more for French-to-English clients.

AH: Did you consider any other business models besides this one?

NP: Not really. The only other thing I considered was not subcontracting, stopping subcontracting, because my initial thought was, well, to actually do the translation is so much… you get so much more pay for it. If your project comes in and you do the translation, you get 100%. And I was just thinking it didn’t make sense to subcontract because the margin was so small, but, in the end, the more you subcontract, the more you’re making. So that’s why I decided to not really be the traditional freelancer anymore. And I’ve considered having an employee but I’m not at that point yet. I don’t have the consistent enough work coming in that I could pay someone, and there’s also a lot of time management that goes into managing an employee, so I’m not ready yet for that, but, for now, I’m just happy subcontracting.

AH: So, I assume that you personally are spending less of your time translating, actually translating, than before. Do you miss that at all? Do you like having that mix? I personally loved project management, so, you know, I enjoy that. What have you found?

NP: Yeah, it does feel like I’m translating less, but I think it’s that I’ve… I don’t think that I’m really translating that much less. I’m starting to track my time to see where my time’s going. Money-wise, I’m making the same amount as how much I normally make translating, because I’ve raised my rates over the years and I’m translating less but making the same amount, if that makes sense. But tracking my time, just the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that I’ve been translating 25% of the time, and then the other time is spent with business development. I’m working on my blog, quoting, following up on quotes, planning networking events to go to, and then project management is probably about 15% of my time.

But I do enjoy it, and that’s another realization I had with my business coach is that I do enjoy business development. I enjoy getting a new client. That’s really exciting for me. And I like, when clients come back, I like knowing that they like working with me and my colleagues. So, yeah, I don’t know for sure that I’m translating less. I’m figuring out that right now, just to know, but, yes, so there’s a lot of different tasks that go into subcontracting.

AH: Interesting, interesting. Okay, I have to know, juicy question. Are you saving all the best projects for yourself to translate?

NP: Um…

AH: Because I would.

NP: Let’s see. I have, yeah, but actually, the strategy I learned is that there are lots of rush projects. I mean, I charge a rush rate. I feel that there’s a significant amount of projects that come in that I consider rush, like, delivering within 24 to 48 hours, and about, I guess, probably seven years ago, I started charging a rush rate. But when I was subcontracting, so much was coming in that I was like, well, I’m at my limit and I can’t take on anymore so I have to subcontract this rush project. First of all, it’s stressful to subcontract a rush project and, second of all, you’re giving a higher paying project to someone. So now I leave more leeway for myself. I’ll take on projects that have more of a longer, maybe a longer deadline, to leave room to take on the rush projects so that I’m getting the projects that are more high paying. So that’s a strategy I’ve learned, but I do sometimes subcontract things that I just don’t feel like translating.

AH: Yeah. Been there [laughter].

NP: Yeah. Sometimes it can be a challenge everyday to get the actual paid work done.

AH: All right. Is there anything else you want people to know?

NP: Well, I guess, I would recommend, definitely recommend this business model if you’re interested in—if you like business development and you’re starting to feel burned out, if you’re getting too much work and you can’t manage it, it definitely could be for you. That was the position I was in. But the model isn’t also for everyone. For example, I have a—there’s a colleague who doesn’t… he speaks French, translates into English, and he doesn’t like really communicating in English and especially negotiating. So he told me once that he appreciates that I do the negotiations, and that’s another benefit of working with me is that he just gets to do the translation. So, if you’re not into business development, or working with direct clients and you just want to translate, then I would say don’t go into this.

AH: Yeah, I was thinking about that, because you were talking about all the new things you had to learn and set up and put in place in order to make this business the way it is, and I thought, “You know, um, agencies earn their keep [laughter] you know.”

NP: Right!

AH: You know, that’s a lot of time and expenses.

NP: Right. Yeah. It is—that’s the one reason I justified subcontracting at one point, too, is that there’s work involved in getting clients. I have to keep my website up to date. I pay for my project management software. There are other expenses you have to have. So it’s just, yeah, I am just doing different work, but, in the end, I’m hoping that it will—I will grow and… I don’t know if I ever want employees, but I don’t want to limit myself, so yeah. There’s a lot to learn, and you really have to learn a lot about a lot of different things to make it work, so it’s not just translation, which I still love, but I do enjoy learning these new things about business.

AH: Well, fortunately, as a translator, you’re an expert in research and teaching yourself new things.

NP: Yeah, yup. It’s one of the great things about working for yourself, and not being told what to do.

AH: All right, well maybe we will record a follow-up episode in a couple years and see where you’re at then, huh?

NP: Yeah! That would be great. I also would love to talk about virtual project management, because I find that that’s a great way to go when you’re overloaded. So, another idea, for another podcast?

AH: All right! Stay tuned, everybody.

All right, well, thank you, Natalie, for your time today, and your very interesting story. We appreciate it.

NP: Thank you so much, Andy. I appreciate being able to talk about my experience.

AH: This concludes our episode for today. You can subscribe to the Continuing Education Series podcast on SoundCloud or iTunes by searching for “Continuing Education Series.” You can contact the FLD at divisionFLD [at] atanet.org. Visit our website at www.ata-divisions.org/fld or get in touch with us on social media. This is Andie Ho signing off. Thanks for listening and à bientôt!

Natalie Pavey is a certified French-to-English translator specializing in the fields of marketing, sustainable development and business communication. She helps purpose-driven companies and organizations attain their professional objectives through effective communication in both French and English, whether their target market is Canada, the United States or an international audience. Visit her website here.

ATA Podcast host Andie Ho is a certified French to English translator specializing in the food industry. She earned her M.A. in translation from Kent State University and is now based in the Houston area. She currently serves as the ATA’s French Language Division administrator. You can follow her on Twitter at @JHawkTranslator or email her at andie [at] andiehotranslations [dot] com.