Category / Marketing and Negotiating Workshops

by kywseminar

A Busy Start to a Busy Summer

Most people use their summers to slow down, relax, and go on holidays, but not us, and definitely not the members of our close-knit and constantly growing Know Your Worth family. After all, what better time to dedicate some of your hard-earned free time to CPD, and to think about ways to change and improve the way you run your business?

Which is why we are so happy – thrilled really! – about the way our summer has been going so far. It started sooner than expected, with glorious weather and an invitation from our colleagues at AIIC Turkey and the TKTD to hold an edition in the beautiful and magical city of Istanbul at the end of May.

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The seminar was organized in record time, and we would like to start by thanking our hosts and local coordinators, Bahar Cotur and Asuman Okatan, for doing such a wonderful job and for welcoming us to Turkey. We would also like to thank Ali Can Karamahmut for the organization, Esin Aslan Gurbuz for the coffee breaks, and Cem Kaan Gundogar for the lunches.

Thanks to their hard work and incredible energy we were able to focus on the seminar, and so we spent two truly wonderful days studying the mindset necessary for successful marketing, regardless of your language combination or current market, and looked at ways to better understand not only you potential clients, but also your existing ones, to ensure they stay loyal to you, and keep returning. We firmly believe that one of the most important steps necessary for any marketing or negotiating to work is making sure you understand your existing and potential clients, as well as the why? and the what for? of the game, and that is why we always make sure to cover these topics during our seminars.

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We also talked about pricing and negotiating, covering same basic principles before diving into an in-depth discussion of real-life practices and the steps necessary to building a more sustainable and a much more successful interpreting business. Our participants also had a chance to work on several carefully selected case-studies, and we were delighted to see how well they coped with them, and how ready they were to think outside the box.

The seminar, business-oriented as always, also covered some market-specific issues, and our participants took a very active part in all of our discussions and brain-storming sessions.

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Overall, it was a brilliant edition, and we are very grateful to AIIC Turkey and the TKTD for the invitation.

Julia’s training was just what we needed: We had known for a long time we had to change our mindset and view our relationship with existing clients and prospect in a completely different way. We knew we were all highly competent and qualified, but always assumed the clients had to understand that – somewhat miraculously. Julia gave us the tools to make this change happen, not overnight, not next week, but in the medium to long term. She shared with us her experience and knowledge that would help us work on ourselves, our way of interacting with the client, correctly positioning ourselves as experts in the relationship. It was absolutely worth the money, and more importantly, the time we invested in this seminar. We’ve all seen how critical continuous professional development is, and we are all grateful to her for that…

Bahar Cotur

 

We would also like to wish the TKTD a very happy 50th Anniversary, with many more years of successful work on the market, and a wonderful celebration in December.

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Following our return from Istanbul, we had a short break before our trainer Julia Poger went to Kyiv to teach at a Know Your Worth spin-off event, a seminar on Consecutive Interpreting and Note-Taking.

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It was wonderful to return to Kyiv again, following our edition there in January, and we are already planning another edition there for the winter of 2020 with our wonderful host and coordinator Andrei Besedin, so please stay tuned for more updates. We won’t disappoint.

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And now, with July already upon us, we are looking forward to a very busy and exciting summer, with an edition a month, and at least two webinars in the works.

Come and join us in Saint Petersburg, Montreal, or Las Palmas, and, 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.

by kywseminar

Moscow Edition. Round Three

Following a relaxing summer – yes, we did need to rest after all of our editions in the Americas – we thought it was high time we returned to Russia, and so the third Moscow Edition of Know Your Worth: Understanding Marketing and Negotiating for Interpreters took place this past weekend, on 30 September 2018. And since it just happened to coincide with the International Translation Day we thought we’d start by wishing you a happy belated St Jerome’s Day!

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It was the third time that the seminar was held in Moscow, and the second time we teamed up with the Cosines International Contest for Conference Interpreters, as our instructor Julia Poger joined the jury of this all-Russia turned international competition, and gave a talk on Seeing Structure and the role of analysis in conference interpreting as part of their three-day conference.

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We also thought it was time to experiment, to shake things up a little bit, so we decided to revert to our original, one-day format, and the results were as interesting as they were exciting. We still focused in great detail on marketing and negotiating, and we covered such questions as branding, position, and client relations, but this time the speed was slightly different. True, this meant that everything had to go faster, and was considerably more intense than usual – even though some of you might say it’s hard to imagine things getting even more intense – but that also meant a new rhythm, new dynamics, and a much livelier discussion after the event.

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We started 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 were also able to devote some time to looking into how the interpreting profession is perceived from the outside, all in order to better understand our potential and existing clients.

The seminar covered all the bases for me. From reaffirming some practices I had tried out tentatively or providing applicable insights into “something that had felt reasonable to do somehow maybe,” to being an eye-opener.
Fedor Makhlayuk

Despite this edition being held in a special one-day format, we still wanted to see our participants brainstorm at least a couple of new cases together, as this often leads to them finding new and exciting solutions to different marketing and negotiating problems. It also means that they are more likely to start implementing the new principles and ideas sooner, and in a more direct manner. And once again we were not disappointed. On the contrary.

We were particularly happy with the way this edition’s participants responded to the new information, and how they took to the format, and all the commentary and remarks showed that they had come prepared, and with a solid understanding of their respective markets, but with an open mind and a desire to learn more, and to figure out how to navigate it better and more efficiently.

It was super helpful and I’ve already used some of the techniques today trying to ask a client some questions rather than blindly giving them my rates.
Natasha Kharikova

We always say that it’s best if people come prepared, and with a well thought through agenda, and with this group this was clearly the case. Perhaps that’s why the one-day format didn’t seem as daunting as we had feared at first, and why it seemed that everyone had found answers to at least some of the questions bothering them, and for that we are immensely grateful.

Notwithstanding my already considerable experience on Russian interpreting market, I’ve learned a whole number of new insights from Julia regarding the principles of self-promotion among prospective clients, psychology of negotiations, ways to convince the customers of the value of interpreting services and the need to pay for them adequately.
Alexey Prokhorenko

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It’s become a tradition of ours by now that we devote considerable attention to the general atmosphere we create at the seminar, and we were extremely lucky – and very grateful – to be able to return for the second year running to the truly incredible Impact Hub Moscow. We would like to thank their team for all their help in the run-up to the seminar, as well on the day, and for making sure our participants had a wonderful time and nothing to worry about, except getting to the seminar, and getting the most out of it.

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Last year we thought that we’d found our perfect Moscow location, and that we could not have possibly wished for a better place to hold the seminar. This time simply proved us right:  a beautiful location in the heart of Moscow, wonderful atmosphere, and lovely people to help along the way – in all honesty we could not have wished for a better place.

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

by kywseminar

Next stop: Paris!

It’s been exactly one month since the last Moscow Edition of the Know Your Worth: Understanding Marketing and Negotiating for Interpreters, and we thought this would be a good moment to share some truly exciting news with you, as we are finally ready to announce the dates of the next Know Your Worth edition.

So, we are very happy to announce that the next edition of the Know Your Worth seminar for interpreters will take place in Paris on 20-21 January 2018.

Paris

For those of you new to the community, Know Your Worth: Understanding Marketing and Negotiating for Interpreters is a two-day seminar aimed at any interpreter who wishes to improve relationships with clients and prospects, gain more respect, and negotiate higher fees.

The seminar is taught by Julia Poger (AIIC). The seminar language is English.

By examining the mindset underlying the marketing and negotiating tasks that interpreters carry out every day, participants will obtain invaluable tools for marketing their services and negotiating contracts that they may put into practice immediately, whichever market they target.

Various question will be addressed, such as:

– What can you do to increase your chances of getting the job once you have targeted the client?

– What should you avoid saying, or else the client may never hire you – or anyone else?

– What phrase should always end your conversations with any client?

– How do you increase your chances of earning what you are worth?

The trainer will work with you on your examples, as well as case studies from her own experience, showing how these techniques are replicable across markets.

Concepts such as branding, selling, client relationships, pricing, negotiating tips, and “coopetition” will also be discussed, all illustrated with real-life examples.

Julia draws on parallels with other – often surprisingly similar – professions, and what lessons we could learn from them. She focuses on the upstream work that must be done by the interpreter before advertising his/her services, as well as on the preparation involved before beginning the selling or negotiating process.

Since there is always new material to study, and you know how much we love to read about marketing, there will be quite a few new elements on both days of the Course.

Participants will be encouraged to take a step back from their own position, and envision the entire client relationship from new perspectives.

Coming Soon

To register, please use the contact form in the Registration section, or contact the seminar organizer Tatiana Kaplun directly at kaplun.tatiana@gmail.com.

Please note that the number of participants is limited to 15 students.

by kywseminar

Teaming up with the Cosines International Contest for Interpreters

We are very pleased to announce that the next Moscow Edition of the Know Your Worth: Understanding Marketing and Negotiating for Interpreters seminar in Moscow on 23-24 September will become an official warm-up event to the Cosines International Contest for Simultaneous / Consecutive Interpreters.

Finalists in the contest will be offered places on the seminar, and Cosines will include our instructor Julia Poger as one of the official judges of the contest the next weekend. If you are in Moscow, please join us for 3 days of lectures, round tables, master classes, and the finale of the contest, from 28 – 30 September!

For more information about the contest, please visit their official website at cosines-pi.ru.

by kywseminar

Cambridge Conference Interpretation Course

The Marketing and Negotiating workshop has a been an indispensable part of the Cambridge Conference Interpretation Course (CCIC) since 2002.

img_4186-ccicThe Cambridge Conference Interpretation Course (CCIC) has run annually since 1985. It is a unique, high-level, specialised training course carefully tailored to the needs of experienced practicing conference interpreters. The CCIC format is at once intensive yet relaxed, and demanding yet friendly, and the Course is centred on teaching simultaneous interpretation from an array of general and technical speeches delivered by video, specialist guest speakers and members of the teaching faculty.

Apart from extensive training, practice, and coaching in professional simultaneous interpretation techniques, the Course programme features daily specialised additional training workshops covering, inter alia, on-sight translation, “B” language strategies, working from and preparing texts, booth & stress management, marketing & negotiation, AIIC, International Institutions, and interpreting approaches to Shakespeare, the Bible, and Latin.

Just like the Know Your Worth seminars, the Marketing and Negotiating workshops at the Cambridge Conference Interpretation Course are aimed at helping interpreters improve their relationships with clients, negotiate higher fees, and gain a better understanding of the interpreting market in general. The workshop focuses on key concepts such as branding, selling, client relationships, pricing, and negotiating, all illustrated with real-life examples that make it considerably easier to understand the subject and later implement the new tools and information, all of which makes the Marketing and Negotiating workshop a highly valuable asset to the course.

Here is what the students have to say:

Well, already knowing Julia I had quite high expectations from the get go. So the fact that it was EVEN better than expected is praise indeed. What I found particularly ‘better than expected’ was the way in which I could immediately recognise how it was relevant to me and my work. I found the constant links made by Julia between the theory she was talking about and the every-day business realities of interpreters particularly relevant and useful.
It certainly made me think about my marketing and business strategy in a way I never had before. It provided me with a lot of food for thought.

Again, what I found really great was that Julia constantly referred to real-life examples and the specificities of interpreting. That made everything seem highly relevant and directly applicable. So that should absolutely be maintained.

Student, CCIC, Cambridge, 2015

I didn’t think the marketing and negotiating class would be as enlightening, but I actually learnt a lot and – believe it or not – that which I have managed to apply thus far has worked without exception.

Camila Oeyen, CCIC, Cambridge, 2015

What I found particularly ‘better than expected’ about this marketing and negotiating class was the way in which I could immediately recognize how it was relevant to me and my work. I found the constant links made by Julia between the theory she was talking about and the every-day business realities of interpreters particularly relevant and useful.

Student, CCIC, Cambridge, 2015

The CCIC teaching faculty comprises respected and highly experienced interpreters from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from the freelance market on both sides of the Atlantic to staff interpretation for International Institutions. Many are former or current chief interpreters.  Most work bi-actively, and are long-standing members of examining boards for, and teach on a regular basis at, a range of internationally recognised interpreting schools. All work in such venues as the ECJ, EU, NATO, OECD and UN.

Julia Poger is one of the CCIC organizers.

For more information, please visit the CCIC website.