I got a mentor
With the help of a mentor who has experience in running both online and offline businesses, I can now see and plan for the future with a clearer vision.
This mentor is a business coach and he also has other professional skills.
He trains his clients for self-development, running a business, planning, and he has a doctorate degree.
I started building a website for profit
Even though I am focusing much less on web development this year, I have enough computer skills to build websites.
I started creating a website for-profit lately. Besides, learning how to code helped me land localization jobs for software. In short, I have another specialism as a translator and I aim to have a new specialism as a translator to increase my income further.
Main turning points for the 2nd half of 2021
Besides, having a mentor that I consult, I have acquired and fine-tuned new knowledge in this period.
No need for a lot of info and reading, otherwise I will fall victim to infobesity and I won’t be able to take full advantage of what I am studying.
You can see in my previous post that I love books and I aimed at reading more than twenty this year. However, the quality of my learning is more important than the quantity.
The coach has advised me to write down summaries and notes of the books/podcasts/videos I explore in a notebook, after that I need to reread and get in-depth and activate this knowledge. Tiago Forte also speaks about taking notes and organizing.
With time and practice, I am internalizing what I learn and study, the roadmap is getting more lucid. As a result, I am getting closer to my goals as I have a fruitful work plan.
Main business & training goals
As any business owner and freelancer, I seek to have more clients and improve my revenue. To do so, I follow the principle of continuous training & improvement. By focusing on:
– Marketing
– Writing/blogging
– New translation specialism
– Recruitment
– Time management
Marketing
I am working on more direct email marketing and changing my rates, meantime improving my online visibility with more frequent blogging and article writing.
Besides, I am building a website for a translation agency that will focus as a start on 3 languages only and on the international market.
Writing / blogging
Writing/blogging is a fantastic skill that can be developed and improved further. I could in the future become a copywriter, blogger, storyteller, and much more.
In fact, even writing and taking notes about my personal life is an efficient technique to solve problems and have a better understanding of what I am devoting myself to. Writing is an easy tool to save my thoughts for future analysis or to archive them and document how my life unfolds.
New translation specialism & new language services
I already translate Android-related text on Upwork, but this is not enough. As people are using smartphones and tablets more than PCs, it is vital to dive into the Android market as a localization specialist. I already have coding skills thus localizing Android apps would be rewarding both on a financial level and would be an easy job.
Moreover, I have previous experience in transcription and it suits my profile. I may also try to work on subtitling jobs. However, it is essential not to bite more than I can chew, and concentrate my effort on only a few main goals, then if I reach my primary goals move to the next ones.
Recruitment
This year I recruited a freelance translator who helped me a bit when needed, she only did only a couple of jobs. To be ethical I did not give her jobs that were under NDA. I contacted another translator via LinkedIn and then phoned him, then I figured out that it is best to use email and LinkedIn and avoid phone calls, as I am more comfortable when writing than speaking.
My mentor advised me to recruit a translator full-time, however, I need a larger volume of work to make this idea profitable and sustainable.
It is essential to train myself in communication and recruitment to avoid basic mistakes that can be very costly. Besides, testing then training the team members requires some work and expertise.
Time management
To optimize my time and be efficient I simply take advantage of promodoro technique. When I take a pause between two work sessions, I listen to podcasts.
These listening breaks promote my productivity and level up the quality of my thinking as I only listen to high-quality broadcasters. I listen to relax and to learn, for example, I enjoy listening to Aljazeera podcasts that use perfect classical Arabic, moreover, I listen to English language podcasts/radios such as NPR One, Freakonomics, The New Yorker Fiction, etc…
Final note
Summary of the most notable professional news this year:
- I got a mentor
- I am setting up my own translation agency
- I summarize what I learn and I focus on quality more than quantity