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Poll: Do you plan on passing your contacts on when you retire? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you plan on passing your contacts on when you retire?".
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I don’t plan to retire for good! I have been freelancing for 15 years, since I retired from my full-time position as a staff translator in an EU Institution. One of my daughters is a translator (working in a biotechnological company) and the other one (a restaurateur) has been helping me with the administrative side of things, so I will keep on working as long as health permits and in the distant (?) future they will take the reins…
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Liena Vijupe 
Latvia
Local time: 22:30
Member (2014)
French to Latvian
+ ...
I still have 20-30 years until retirement and at this point I would consider it a miracle if I could even stay in the business that long.
If I were to retire now, I would just stop working without passing on anything.
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Rita Utt
France
Local time: 21:30
English to German
+ ...
| I will have to work | Dec 28, 2021 |
10 more years (I don't mind working). If clients will ask me then, if I can recommend somebody, I will of course ...
But as Liena said, maybe there will be no more demand for well paid human translations by then.
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I generally work with agencies, who find translators themselves, and I have not had very good experiences of recommending agencies to colleagues. While I have negotiated good rates myself, the agencies have not always been willing to pay the same rates to colleagues who join later.
I recommend colleagues to clients, but then they have to negotiate between themselves - I am out, as they say in the Dragon´s Den!
In fact I have partly retired, and only work for my best clients,... See more I generally work with agencies, who find translators themselves, and I have not had very good experiences of recommending agencies to colleagues. While I have negotiated good rates myself, the agencies have not always been willing to pay the same rates to colleagues who join later.
I recommend colleagues to clients, but then they have to negotiate between themselves - I am out, as they say in the Dragon´s Den!
In fact I have partly retired, and only work for my best clients, or very promising new ones, but when I stop entirely, I will not pass on any list to colleagues.
Working for direct clients is different. It is a question of finding the right translator to work with the people in question and in the right subject area. I have turned down at least one offer, because I simply could not fulfil the client's requirements - or did not want to commit myself to doing everything they wanted.
Compared with working for an agency, there will often be more administration, coordinating with other languages, and perhaps DTP work, which call for different skills besides translating. There is more teamwork, so the translator must have the right profile.
When I recommend colleagues to a client, it is often a colleague with a different profile from mine, who specialises in a different area, and will be able to do a job I cannot take on myself. ▲ Collapse
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Anna Herbst
Australia
Local time: 05:30
English to Swedish
+ ...
MODERATOR SITE LOCALIZER | What does retire mean? | Dec 28, 2021 |
Retirement is not a word in my vocabulary. I am well past the usual retirement age, but will continue freelancing as long as my brain allows, and at least until I have paid off my mortgage a month before I turn 86.
Work not only keeps a roof over my head, it also keeps me on the go, following my constantly evolving languages.
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Barbara Villa
Brazil
Local time: 16:30
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| No retirement plan | Dec 28, 2021 |
I don't think I will ever be able to retire...
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Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 15:30
German to English
With luck I hope to retire at the end of 2022. I have been slowly winding down my business for the past two years, so I haven't taken on any new customers. Most of my trusted colleagues have the same agency and direct clients, so there's little to pass on.
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jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 15:30
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| Selling your business | Dec 28, 2021 |
One of the potential responses listed is “I plan on selling my customer list.” Is that possible? Who will be the buyers? Will your clients work with the buyers?
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| Selling what? | Dec 28, 2021 |
jyuan_us wrote:
One of the potential responses listed is “I plan on selling my customer list.” Is that possible? Who will be the buyers? Will your clients work with the buyers?
Our biggest (and only) asset is our knowledge of the trade, not our list with clients. They come and go. The rest is air!
[Edited at 2021-12-28 15:58 GMT]
[Edited at 2021-12-28 15:59 GMT]
[Edited at 2021-12-28 16:00 GMT]
[Edited at 2021-12-28 16:00 GMT]
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:30
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Retirement is for people who don't like their work.
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LIZ LI
China
Local time: 03:30
French to Chinese
+ ...
jyuan_us wrote:
One of the potential responses listed is “I plan on selling my customer list.” Is that possible? Who will be the buyers? Will your clients work with the buyers?
Unbelievable right?
But YES.
There are actually some paid members of this site who are selling their so-called customer list AND forward the job posts at Proz to others. Some of them have 10k+ followers in social networks.
They are translators/interpreters themselves, and they offer their buyers "in-field trainings" (playing the role of a mentor) as well as job infos.
So I suspect that their buyers are mainly young students, new graduates, or else who would love to get a side job from translation.
As for the sellers, they are able to have some extra income in subscription fees & streaming.
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[Edited at 2021-12-29 06:33 GMT]
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| Live to work, or work to live? | Dec 29, 2021 |
Tom in London wrote:
Retirement is for people who don't like their work.
When you are married to your job, your statement might be true.
Don't misunderstand me, I love being a translator, but in my book there is life after work!
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 22:30
Member
English to Turkish
Tom in London wrote:
Retirement is for people who don't like their work.
That's often the case with footballers. But then, there are those like Zlatan Ibrahimovic...
[Edited at 2021-12-29 10:37 GMT]
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