The upcoming train of pent-up demand

                                         [Railroad track with clouds in the distance*]

Worldwide, the corona virus has shut down almost all businesses, big and small, and hit the income of almost workers, salaried and independent. In regards to the day after, when social and business activity is allowed to fully restart, the latter group, the independents, are especially worried. While it is difficult to accurately predict the future, one concept seems relevant in regards to forecast for the short-term future: pent up demand. It is clear that certain professionals will be extremely busy for months to come.

Accountants, doctors and attorneys always finds a way to profit. Given the need to take advantage of the various government support programs and their complexity, accountants will be quite busy and even gain new customers. Their cousins, the financial service providers, will be active helping people manage their debt and get into more debt. On the medical side, the stress of these months on everybody, not just healty care workers, will be boom of those doctors that treat the effects of it, including dermotologists, alergists, cardiologists, dentists, psychologists and psychiatrists, as if their clientelle was not large enough already. However, the lawyers will enjoy the greatest boom. Whether handing divorce, estates, breach of contract or payment issues, the courts are going to be busy. Jewish mothers knew something when they wanted their children to enter these professions.

The busiest service providers, at least in the short term, will be in the beauty care industry. Tens of millions of women will not have had a proper heart cut, dyeing, manicure, pedicure, injection or skin treatment for months. To clarify, I do not state that in derision but in appreciation of their need and its impact on those that provide this service. In fact, it is possible that these businesses will more than make up for the lost income. I also expect to prices to rise in these industries as many women will not want to wait an additional month for an appointment.

To misapply Newton’s 3^rd law of motion, every action has an equal but opposite action. After several months of no serious physical exercise or social activity, people are going to go extreme on sport and going out. The gyms, sports centres and country clubs are going to be jammed the minute such activity is considered safe. Many people will feel the absolute requirement to lose the kilos (or pounds) that they gained while stuck at home. It is unclear how long these people will maintain their enthusiasm but demand for such services will be initialy very strong. Cafes, bars and sports stadiums will be also be packed. These places represent the polar opposite of being stuck at home: lots of noise, talk, non-family and vicarious pleasure. The coffee or beer may the same but everything else is different. Vive la difference! Flights probably will  be packed as people travel to see their “long-lost” loved ones. Any professional involved this social approaching will gain.

Time will tell if how correct these predictions are. Clearly, for some independents, the return to the “good old days” before the corona device will take time, possibly years.  For others, the shutdown period will be an unpleasant but short hickup in their business development, even a shot in the arm. It is the challenge of independents to figure the route of the recovery train and somehow catch it.

* For the sake of the millions of blind, always post a description of your picture.

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Famine relief – Profiting from lean times

Most freelancers, including translators, suffer the extremes of work demand. A period of having to refuse work is suddenly followed by one of seeking work.  To one degree or another, this instability is a part of doing business.  As such, the freelancer must learn to cope with it both psychologically and actually benefit from the free time. The key to keeping in an even keel in those quiet times is to view the free hours not at a threat but instead as an opportunity.

To clarify, the cause of the quietness on the email front may be known or unknown. Worldwide, August and the three weeks from December 15^th to January 6^th are great for retailers but awful for service providers simply because most non-retail businesses close or go in sleep mode. Likewise, national and bank holidays affect transactions for one to three days.  A quick Google search can quickly identify the various and multifarious off-days of a given country.  In fact, in Israel and many countries, there is the term “after the holidays” to explain why nothing can be done during certain times of the year. A hidden factor may be an internal company matter or specific sector crisis. The long term and fundamental causes of downtime are slow but constant trends in the economy or business sector, such as a recession or conglomeration, which change the supply and demand curve. Clearly, a despairing freelancer can often but not always find a comforting explanation for the down trend.

A time to breath after a long stretch of intense work can actually feel quite refreshing.  It is the ideal moment to clean up unfinished matters.  These include ongoing accounting or financial issues, bill collecting, financial reporting, email correspondence and inventory, to name just a few. Given the importance of the Internet for most businesses, it is vital to periodically review and revise all profiles, brand identifiers and approaches.  All these tasks tend to be postponed while work is heavy but must be carried out in order to maintain a business.  In industrial management terms, these actions are considered productive even if they are not lucrative since they must be performed in order to maintain business efficiency.

Having completed these essential tasks, the freelancer can use the time to develop known potential contacts. During busy periods, the names of people and companies that could turn into clients come up. The quiet now makes it possible to carefully consider the manner of developing these contacts and actually follow up. Not only is this time productively spent but such actions are an essential part of future growth.

For sole proprietors, the background quite allows them to switch hats and become the director of marketing and research.  The problem with being a freelancer is the multiplicity of roles that need to filled and leads to the problem of “jack of all trades and master of none”. With only one hat on the head, the entrepreneur can analyze, research and discuss macro medium- and long-term trends and decide on actions to take to stay in line with them. Such a process requires time and concentration, which is only generally available when work is slow.

Of course, business people are also human.  Quiet times provide the best opportunity to spend time with family and friends without watching the clock. Short and even long trips become possible. It is a great time to lose a few grams of extra weight or see nature (or pick mushrooms as we do.).  It becomes possible to put a check on household tasks that have been put on hold for months or higher end purchases that must be considered carefully, such as buying a car. 

The message is that down time can be up time, both psychologically and operationally. It is the ideal time to accomplish all tasks that cannot be or simply are not handled when work is aplenty. As such, the freelancer can more easily maintain a good attitude and worry less. Remember that growth in children occurs when they sleep. Likewise, freelancers prepare their growth when business is slow. They can profit from the worst of times no less than from the best of times.

Starting up the freelance business leanly

This week, I attended a short lecture and workshop given by Prof. Rami Gazit from the Braude College of Engineering.  The subject was the lean startup model, which was new to me.  In a few hours, he provided the background and main points of this business model.  As a freelancer translator for 15 years with a formal business background (MBA), I could not help but consider whether this knowledge would have helped me when I started and how much it is relevant now.  My conclusion is that while freelancing and startups are not identical situations, some of the basic concepts to which I was exposed would definitely apply to a startup and established freelance translator.

To begin with, I clearly see three important differences between technical startups and freelancing.  The first involves the environment in which the business begins. One of the definitions of a startup business provided us was an attempt to create a viable business model in an essentially uncertain world, i.e., to introduce a new product or service into the market.  By contrast, freelancing involves providing a known product or service in a relatively stable existing market, i.e. specific and complete business models already exist.  

Another important difference is the end goal of the activity.  Ultimately, the startup entrepreneur wants to succeed in creating a business that is sufficiently large and viable to sell for millions. By contrast, the more modest end goal of all freelancers is to make a living in the long term on their terms.  The money involved is in thousands, not millions. Granted, in the translation business, more and more successful freelance businesses are being bought in the recent of conglomeration.  Still, the vast majority of freelancers are in for the long term to make a living. Finally, new freelance translators, unlike a budding startup company, has nothing new to offer. Their service is superficially identical to that of countless others. The only changes in the service will be the product of outside technological change, such as machine translation, not any innovation they can bring.

That said, freelancers can learn from the lean startup model. First, in both, it is essential to focus on the customer, not on the product or service. This emphasis is vital both in the starting and later stages of the business. In the beginning, it is necessary to talk with companies and translation project managers to ascertain what they look for, i.e. the characteristics of a successful service provider. For example, in translation, on-time delivery and effective communication create the basis for a long-term customer.  As the business grows, these same customers can provide information regarding QA issues and other required services, i.e. areas to which the service provide can expand, such as transcreation or post-MT editing in the translation field today. Only after entrepreneurs understand their customers can they tailor their skills and knowledge to the market.

Proper scaling also applies to freelance businesses. Scaling applies to the speed of expansion of business activities.  The relevant key lesson from lean startup is that trial and error on a small scale is vital for long term success.  In other words, in the beginning, freelancers should focus on a single specialization within their repertoire of skills and knowledge. For example, translators should market one language pair in one direction in one specialization.  When translating or marketing errors occur, the lessons learned from this experience will significantly increase the efficiency in later stages. Not only that, a small controlled start will avoid burning customers for the later stages. Once the basic technical issues are clarified and resolved, it will be possible to expand to further niches (and higher income). Thus, while there is a tendency to throw out a wide net, a narrow focus in the beginning can better serve a new freelancer.

The third aspect is the need to be able to pivot, i.e. flexibility. Whether due to market changes or incorrect assumptions, some marketing ideas or potential niches do not produce results. After a certain point, it is pointless to invest more time and energy in them, at least for the meantime. A successful entrepreneur seeks another area in which the same set of skills and knowledge or an additional one will apply. For example, the knowledge of legal and financial accounting terminology is also a key in translating documents for international development marketing as I learned in a recent ATA webinar by Corinne Mckay. Since the business world is only relatively stable, the ability to pivot is relevant for the entire lifetime of a freelancing business. Change can be a curse or an opportunity. Flexibility is an important relative advantage of a successful freelancer.

I make no claim of being an expert of lean startup after a two-hour lecture/workshop.  Yet, I found many of its lessons relevant to both new and established freelancers, including but not limited to translators. The need to be customer focused by asking questions, walk before running and identify and react to changes applies to all businesses, freelancers, startups and even corporations. All entrepreneurs that start up a business can lean on these principles.

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Loaded Words

Some medicinal plants can be both helpful and harmful.  It is a only a matter of correct use.  Likewise, many words that are appropriate and acceptable in one context should be absolutely avoided on other contexts. In other words, they carry a linguistic load that adds an unwanted meaning to the sentence.

One example is the word exploit.  It is clear and socially acceptable that every mine owner wants to exploit the maximum from that mine.  However, should s/he want to exploit the coal miners, it might lead to a strike or bad publicity since the word exploit has become a synonym for abuse when it comes to people.  Instead, an effective manager should try to get the best results from his/her personnel.  The same would apply to collaboration.  Two businesses or people may collaborate, that is work together, to achieve a result, often a highly effective and applauded effort.  By contrast, collaboration in politics implies the stench of working with the enemy and preferring short-term over national interest as many individuals and companies did during World War II under the German occupation.  Political leaders would better choose bipartisan politics.

Similarly, if a person has discriminating taste in wine or food, s/he can detect class and quality, which is quite good.  Should the person discriminate in the matter of people, the matter could end up in a court of law as discrimination in employment is illegal.  It would be better to have a good eye for people.  Likewise, every attorney knows and writes that a given relief does not prejudice any other relief available according to the contract and by law.  This means that just because I kick you out of the apartment for not paying rent does not stop me from demanding damages.  By contrast, an apartment owner that refuses to rent to non-whites shows prejudice, which again may have him/her in court again.

On a less criminal level, lawyers and prostitutes, quite a funny combination, have clients.  Most other businesses have customers precisely to maintain a good reputation.  Who would want to be associated with those professions, even if most people use either or both during their lifetime.  For those people who are careful buyers, If you buy something cheap at a swap meet or 5 & 10 shop, this is okay because expectations of quality are low in any case.  However, if you say that a product is cheap, this refers not only to the price but also to the lack of quality, which is not exactly a complement on your shopping skills.  By contrast, there is nothing wrong with buying inexpensive goods.  Persians and Scots would only admire you.

So, watch out when using these words.  You may end up saying something you did not mean and getting a bad name or worse.  A word to the wise is sufficient.