Hello and welcome to the longest post we’ve published on our blog yet. So before you scroll down, please prepare yourself for some exciting news and very colourful images. After all, it’s spring, and in some parts of the world it feels like summer already, and we thought a bit of colour would be in order.

If you follow us on social media, you probably know that we’ve had a rather exiting (to say the least) couple of months, as just a few weeks after the end of our Paris Edition we embarked upon a little marathon that took Know Your Worth two three locations over two continents, and what a journey has that been.

 

 

First up: Washington, D.C.

 

First, AIIC USA invited us to hold a seminar in Washington, D.C., which we did on 17 – 18 February 2018. This was the first time that the Know Your Worth seminar was brought to the AIIC USA region, and, needless to say, we were very excited to expand to the American market.

One of the most important steps necessary for any marketing or negotiating to work is making sure you understand your existing and potential clients. The why? and the what for? of the game are probably among the most relevant questions you can ask yourself before diving in, head-first, into that big negotiation, or picking up the phone to make that one call.

Which is why we decided to kick things off by talking about the mindset necessary for successful marketing, and covered some general principles (as well as a number of highly practical aspects) of pricing and negotiating, all necessary steps in building a more sustainable and much more successful interpreting business.

We like to keep are seminars business-oriented, so you can imagine that too was a major part of the discussion.

We are big fans of an interactive approach, and we also want to make sure that all our participants have their questions answered. Which is why we send out a survey to our participants before the seminar, to find out what they would be most interested in discussing, and which subjects they would be most interested in covering during the seminar.

Julia also offers one consultation for free to all of our participants, be it next steps, or looking at a CV or website, or a strategy question, and we are very happy that our participants are finding it helpful.

My favourite thing about the seminar? Julia’s offer to have a consultation. I have my question and I am excited to ask it soon.

Jesse Tomlinson, KYW Washington, D.C., February 2018

We would like to once again express our immense gratitude to the AIIC USA Training Committee, and our wonderful colleague Cyril Flerov in particular, for inviting us over, and for doing such a fabulous job at hosting our first-time US edition. We would also like to thank Sonja Swenson, who helped us make sure everything ran smoothly on the day of the seminar, and without whom it would have been much more difficult to take care of all the things on the ground.

Next stop: Brazil

The São Paulo Edition

 

After Washington, we went to São Paulo at the invitation of AIIC Brazil and their Training Committee, and our first-ever seminar in Brazil took place on 21 – 22 February 2018.

The seminars in Brazil, just as the one in Washington, D.C., were held in what has become our traditional two-day format. The format, that allows to focus on both marketing and negotiating, also gives us and our participants an opportunity to delve deeper into such subjects as branding, positioning, pricing, pitching, and client relations, all of which are important factor to achieving success.

As freelancers we face many challenges on a daily basis, and since the nature and character of these challenges vary so much from market to market, and from case to case, it is extremely important that we share our stories and examples and learn from the experience of our peers.

That is precisely why we always look forward to welcoming new colleagues to the community, as they always have something new and interesting to share, be it a case study, an idea or a principle they’ve been trying to apply to their work. All of this feeds into the overall ‘bank’ of experience, which helps us avoid mistakes in the future and considerably improves our performance in the present.

After all, it’s all about learning new things, and what better place to learn than an intense yet interactive event, surrounded by like-minded and highly experienced colleagues.

And if it’s a fun environment and a warm and welcoming atmosphere – well, that’s even better.

Here’s what one of our participants had to say about it:

We looked at theoretical approaches, role-played some sample scenarios, discussed client behavior, and I took home a lot of new ideas. The way she really strives to add as much value as possible to the course, such as by recommending books, videos, websites, and more, is in itself a great example to follow with my own clients.

Daniel Erlich, KYW São Paulo, February 2018

 

Final stop: Rio

 

After São Paulo we continued our marathon – and tour of Brazil – to our final destination: the beautiful and magical Rio de Janeiro, where our seminar took place on 24 – 25 February 2018.

The atmosphere in Rio was truly amazing, in every sense of the word, and we have our participants to thank for that, for readily taking part in the discussion, and for bringing so much to the table.

We like to see our participants brainstorm some of the more challenging cases together, as this way they are often able to find new and exciting solutions to different marketing and negotiating problems. We also urge them to share cases from their own experience, as often this proves to be even more interesting to solve than any usual textbook examples.

We would like to thank all of you for taking such an active part in the discussion, and for being so generous with your own cases and experience. The discussion could not have been as relevant to the current situation on the market without that, nor would we have been able to cover such a broad spectrum of problems – and problem-solving techniques.

We would also like to take a moment to thank the APTD in general, and the brilliant Denise de Vasconcelos and Cecilia Tsukamoto in particular, for their incredible hospitality, and for organizing nor one, but two memorable and truly unforgettable editions.

Honestely, I did not expect to have a colleague prepared to confidently share so much knowledge on marketing. I thought we would be talking about our market a few suggestions would be made here and there on how to approach it.

KYW Rio de Janeiro participant, February 2018

 

The content was a great fit for the current market situation in Brazil, and Julia delivered it with knowledge and grace.

Anna Vianna, KYW Rio de Janeiro, February 2018

 We learned lots from the participants everywhere, as they brought new cases and new ideas to the table. Funnily enough, the Washington, D.C. edition was almost as full of Portuguese interpreters as the ones we held in Brazil, but they had different contexts they all worked in.

…this seminar has changed and validated some principles I can use not only for my business, but also for my personal life.

Franziska Becskehazy, KYW Rio de Janeiro, February 2018

 

These three editions allowed us to reach more than 50 new interpreters in the Americas, and travel across two continents in the span of a little over two weeks. We met new colleagues, talked about new cases, and got to grow our community even further, helping our newest members find the answer to that one very important question: do you know your worth?

Do you?

This year has already given us much to be grateful for, and even more to look forward to, and we would like to end this post by thanking all those who took part, and helped us make it all possible.

If you would like to hold a seminar in your area, please contact us via this website, or by contacting the seminar organizer Tatiana Kaplun at kaplun.tatiana@gmail.com.