| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Contacting the vendor himself Thread poster: Gregor Trebec
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Gregor Trebec
Slovenia
Local time: 08:15
English to Slovenian
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Oy!
A while ago I had a short project to translate. It was done trough an agency and I really liked the theme. It suited me. Now, I have done a bit of research on the net and found the vendor himself. Should I contact him and offer my service? Some advertisement for myself cannot hurt, if you know what I mean.
| | | | Daryo
Local time: 07:15
Serbian to English
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| You mean the client? | Feb 28 |
i.e. the end-client or more accurately the real client?
| | | | | I would consider that to be unethical... | Feb 28 |
..., though that might not count for much these days.
The agency (not the "vendor") is your client, even if no NDA has been signed.
And if the agency found out that you had secretly contacted THEIR vendor directly, would they outsource to you again?
I'd suggest you ask your agency if they'd have any objections. But I suppose for you it depends on how much work you get from the agency.
As I said, IMO it'd be unethical.
Oy!
| | | | Daryo
Local time: 07:15
Serbian to English
+ ...
'though that might not count for much these days'
I don't know about that specific agency, but too many agencies are 'your client' only when it comes to limiting your own access to the market - and not much for anything else.
'The agency is your client' is a nice mantra, but how many agencies act as such? i.e. check themselves and accept your work and pay for it, no matter what happens after? Or instead act as no more than a pass-through intermediary that won’t... See more 'though that might not count for much these days'
I don't know about that specific agency, but too many agencies are 'your client' only when it comes to limiting your own access to the market - and not much for anything else.
'The agency is your client' is a nice mantra, but how many agencies act as such? i.e. check themselves and accept your work and pay for it, no matter what happens after? Or instead act as no more than a pass-through intermediary that won’t take any responsibility for anything and will in a blink offload al the troubles they got from the real client on you?
If I understand well that agency went to great lenght to hide who is the real client, so on which ground they should complain if the translator found that client simply by looking for clients? ▲ Collapse
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What's that in English?
I can only speak for myself.
For 30-odd years, I/we outsourced some translation tasks - others we did inhouse. We were a translation office, not a translation agency. All work delivered to us was checked internally before delivery and we always took full responsibility for it. Had an external translator tried to poach a client, it would have been more than just seriously frowned upon. Hence "unethical".
"Agencies" might operate differently... See more What's that in English?
I can only speak for myself.
For 30-odd years, I/we outsourced some translation tasks - others we did inhouse. We were a translation office, not a translation agency. All work delivered to us was checked internally before delivery and we always took full responsibility for it. Had an external translator tried to poach a client, it would have been more than just seriously frowned upon. Hence "unethical".
"Agencies" might operate differently. ▲ Collapse
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Read the Non-Disclosure Agreement. It has a section on this topic with explicit provisions.
| | | | Daryo
Local time: 07:15
Serbian to English
+ ...
| I passed few times work on other translators | Feb 28 |
Cilian O'Tuama wrote:
What's that in English?
I can only speak for myself.
For 30-odd years, I/we outsourced some translation tasks - others we did inhouse. We were a translation office, not a translation agency. All work delivered to us was checked internally before delivery and we always took full responsibility for it. Had an external translator tried to poach a client, it would have been more than just seriously frowned upon. Hence "unethical".
"Agencies" might operate differently.
Agree with you. I passed few times work on to other translators. Once I made a mistake in choosing who to rely on and got back an unusable translation - a relatively short one. I still paid for it and redone it myself. My point was: how many agencies would do that as Standard Operating Procedure?
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 08:15
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Gregor Trebec wrote:
I have done a bit of research on the net and found the vendor himself. Should I contact him and offer my service?
This is considered unethical. You should do this only if you are satisfied that you will never work for the agency again, and if you are satisfied that they might tell other agencies that you have behaved unethically and should therefore be treated with caution. Translators talk to each other about bad agencies... don't think that agencies don't do the same thing.
Even if you do decide to do this, you would have to convince the end-client that you can offer them everything that the agency offered them, and better or cheapter. The agency offered them more than just a translation. They offered him e.g. an independent revision, access to additional experts, prompt and professional communication, knowledge of the client's business, and an existing relationship.
On the other hand, if the end-client is quite large, and has multiple departments or divisions, then it may be safe to contact other departments or other divisions to offer your services. As long as you don't let on that you have worked for them (or that other department/division) before, it should be fine. (Different opinions exist about who exactly is the end-client: if you did a Coca-Cola translation, is Coca-Cola your end-client?)
After all, a freelancer working in a particular industry is actually quite likely to reach out to companies in that industry. When the agency hears of this, and they complain, you could apologize and lie and say that you found the company independently, and that you will honour the NDA or implied NDA with them. As an ethical translator, you should decide if lying is something that you want to do. Myself, I prefer to stay away from slippery slopes.
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 08:15
English to French
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| Not only unethical | Feb 28 |
It’s a legal breach. And believe me, an agency has corporate lawyers that will press you really easily and gladly if you breach any of their clauses.
And all that aside, that end client wouldn’t even answer your email. If they were interested in working with individuals, they wouldn’t be hiring an agency. Your email will be fully disregarded as an unsolicited offer.
| | | | Peter Motte
Belgium
Local time: 08:15
Member (2009)
Dutch to Flemish
+ ...
| Only after a long time | Feb 28 |
Gregor Trebec wrote:
Oy!
A while ago I had a short project to translate. It was done trough an agency and I really liked the theme. It suited me. Now, I have done a bit of research on the net and found the vendor himself. Should I contact him and offer my service? Some advertisement for myself cannot hurt, if you know what I mean.
No. It's the agency's client, not yours.
You can contact them some time after you got a project for that end-client from that agency, but it takes time before you can do that.
I have no idea about the period which should elapse between the moment you contact the end-client and the moment you did the last project for that end-client through that agency.
| | | | Peter Motte
Belgium
Local time: 08:15
Member (2009)
Dutch to Flemish
+ ...
| Big ones are impossible | Feb 28 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Gregor Trebec wrote:
I have done a bit of research on the net and found the vendor himself. Should I contact him and offer my service?
On the other hand, if the end-client is quite large, and has multiple departments or divisions, then it may be safe to contact other departments or other divisions to offer your services. As long as you don't let on that you have worked for them (or that other department/division) before, it should be fine. (Different opinions exist about who exactly is the end-client: if you did a Coca-Cola translation, is Coca-Cola your end-client?)
A big client is not interested in the services a single translator can offer, because they usually have lots of language combinations to deal with. It's not translations they want, it's translation management.
Some of my end-clients ask for more than a dozen target languages. Contacting something as big as Coca-Cola is a waste of time. Even if they have different departments.
| | | | Gregor Trebec
Slovenia
Local time: 08:15
English to Slovenian
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TOPIC STARTER
So it is a no no.
Btw, in order to read my English just use ChatGPT.
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kd42
Estonia
Local time: 09:15
English to Russian
| Not completely "So" | Mar 1 |
Gregor Trebec wrote:
So it is a no no. It is all in gray clouds.
If an agency works with you for a decade and then they find a translation student
or a bilingual housewife
who can be paid per word 0.00014 less, and ditch you without a notice and a regret, it is "market forces".
When your hard underpaid work helped this agency gain a solid reputation among numerous end clients and ensure a steady flow of orders, and then they find a translation student
or a bilingual housewife
who can be paid per word 0.00014 less, and use these rates and your reputation to get more work, it is "unethical and/or illegal" to go straight to the end clients.
The key problem here is that a professional linguist is forced to complete with an amateur. Doctors and lawyers don't have this.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 08:15
English to French
+ ...
| Doctors and lawyers | Mar 1 |
Doctors and lawyers don’t have it, because their field is highly regulated. For starters, the education in the field. How many freelance translators have a targeted translation education degree? 2% maybe?
Second, you listed some examples to prove your points. Why didn’t you list that agency spends $10k monthly marketing budget in order to find that client? But it doesn’t matter anyway, the OP can go ahead and email the end client, it will go to the spam or trash bin.
| | | | kd42
Estonia
Local time: 09:15
English to Russian
Lingua 5B wrote:
Why didn’t you list that agency spends $10k monthly marketing budget in order to find that client?
Because they don't. You don't, lying publicly is bad.
Because I don't believe in Santa and unicorns.
Because I had a client who gave me work for top-tier automotive end clients and when the end clients saw the ideal quality and eased up the QA, the work was channeled to cheaper translators.
Because I lost a very noble client in the USA to a bunch of friendly Ukrainians who get benefits from the state, so they can drop the rates, and they produce horrific translations, I saw them in the TM.
The root cause is that the "industry" is deregulated, and nobody gives a damn.
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