How to open a translation agency and make money from this business

Business relevance

If a little earlier translators were in use as an elite activity, as those who were needed somewhere up there, more in diplomatic circles and missions, now everything has changed.
And the services of a person ready to translate from texts to conversations are required everywhere. Despite the constantly changing economic and political situation in the country, foreigners come to us every day. Tourists, business partners, guests. Not all of them speak basic Russian. There are a lot of companies that are expanding beyond the borders of the domestic state, starting to cooperate with companies from other countries.

Yes, even in the work of companies focused on the Russian buyer, prospects for obtaining greater profits open up when collaborating with manufacturers from America, Europe, and Asian countries. And successful activities require people with skills and knowledge of languages.

Therefore, a translation agency is relevant and its relevance is growing every year.

The organization of a translation agency takes place in the format of a small business. This does not mean that there will not be standard business difficulties and the need to work hard and develop your business. But in terms of costs, this format is not comparable to the organization of holdings.

Investments in a translation agency are small by business standards.

A holy place is never empty. This phrase can be adapted to any existing business niche. But there really are a lot of offers in the field of translations. Healthy competition has a positive effect on services, but at the same time limits the opportunities for new players to enter the market, and also promises all the associated problems for a newcomer. That is why there are many examples of how companies, not having existed for even a year, begin to close.

A translation agency is a competitive business.

How translation agencies hire translators

So you go to the website of another translation agency and go to the “vacancies” section. And it probably says there that they can’t wait for new translators. So hurry up, download the test tasks, complete them, and send them to us along with your resume.

And you conscientiously carry out these test translations, send the application to the required address, and wait for a response. But still no answer. Not in a week, not in a month. You feel righteous anger. Like, if you didn’t like the translation, they could at least write it down so that people don’t wait in vain.

Here's what's really happening.

When your letter arrives at a translation agency, no one rushes to read your resume and check your test translation. Because people there have a lot of other more urgent work to do. They put your letter in the “Translators” folder.

Perhaps they have a database of translators “for later”, and they put your letter along with your resume there. The fact is that each translation agency has its own team of performers. And they do almost all the work with these forces.

Translation agency business calculation

Average indicators are taken as a basis. A freelance specialist is ready to do work of ordinary complexity at the rate of 7-8 dollars for 2000 characters. However, the price tag may change, so it is worth constantly monitoring the market. One employee is capable of translating 10-15 thousand characters per working day. If necessary, more, but on an ongoing basis it is better not to overload the employee with too many tasks. If the order is really large and has a tight deadline, it is better to inform the customer in advance about the possible loss of translation quality, rather than for him to discover this himself when receiving the work.

If the employee is in the office, the prices will be different. A translation professional will charge around $1,000 per month. Again, based on regional location, salaries may vary. And, if you yourself do not know the profession of a translator, then you should hire just such an employee, leaving yourself only with the management of processes.

Be prepared that at first, when there are few orders, a full-time employee with decent qualifications will not be able to pay for themselves. But it is he who will help you get new orders and find regular customers.

Editor and manager

The next employee will be the editor. In fact, playing the role of coordinator for your translators. The editor will be responsible for the timing of orders and the quality of the translator’s work. However, you need to communicate with the client. And this role is assigned to the manager. If it seems to you that managers are an extra link where there is an editor and translator, don’t rush. It is the manager who will accept and discuss the order . And what is most important is to select a translator for the customer, profiling based on the specifics of the order.

But if you are just opening, you will have to combine the powers of different employees. Because, for example, the salaries of editors are often higher than the translators themselves and you simply cannot bear such a large amount of expenses at once.

Financial part of the company's business plan

How much will you have to invest in the project?

The most expensive items in the development of a business plan for opening a translation agency are renting premises (which is why it is advisable to abandon the office at the initial stages), purchasing equipment and advertising. Expenses for translators' salaries should not exceed 40% of the agency's total income.

Total at the initial stage you will need (in thousands of rubles):

• agency registration – 50;
• purchase of equipment – ​​100;
• premises rental – 30;
• cosmetic repairs – 100;
• starting advertising campaign – 50;
• reserve – 20.

Only 350 thousand rubles.

You will have to spend monthly (in thousands of rubles):

• payment for telephone and Internet access – 25;
• various administrative expenses – 10;
• premises rental – 30;
• employee salary – 50;
• expenses for supporting advertising – 10;
• reserve – 10.

Total 135 thousand rubles.

Income and calculation of profit and profitability

The profit of a business is affected by the availability of orders and competent advertising. The means to increase the number of clients are aggressive marketing, active PR of the company, positive reviews and expansion of the line of services (including work with uncommon languages).

On average, a translation agency can bring in from 150,000 to 300,000 rubles per month. Consequently, even in the worst case scenario, the investment will pay off within six months. If successful, the business will begin to generate profits within 3 months. The profitability of translation services can reach from 10 to 50%.

If the project is designed correctly, this business can be an excellent way to invest money. To do this, it is enough to find 2-3 qualified translators and gradually expand the scope of services. The reputation earned over time will contribute to the influx of customers and successful fight against competitors.

Clients for a translation agency

The standard scheme for attracting customers is advertisements. You can start by posting notices and advertising in newspapers. But alas, now this will bring a small influx of orders. Because this type of advertising in the translation business niche can attract the attention of only an illegal construction worker. And you need real clients with good orders.

Therefore, one of the points of investment is occupied precisely by the cost of advertising in business directories and specialized magazines. In addition, you can try mailing, creating your own website, advertising on social networks. In any case, allocate at least $500 per month to advertising expenses in your business plan.

Be careful when it comes to advertising on the Internet. Nowadays there are many offers for free page design, but it is better to pay the extra money to professionals. Otherwise, you may scare off customers with an unsightly design. But it is precisely the first glance at your company through its presentation in advertising resources that will influence the further decision to work with you or not.

If the client can like your company, both at the stage of acquaintance and at the stage of fulfilling the order, then with a high degree of probability he will contact you again next time, and at the same time recommend you to his friends. And you can count on word of mouth marketing , which will automatically replenish your client base.

Who can open a translation agency and who shouldn't?

I once read an interview with one of the heads of a translation agency. And they asked him who can open their own office and who cannot. To which this manager replied that only a very experienced translator could open a viable translation agency. They say, otherwise he simply will not be able to evaluate the quality of the work of the translators he hires. And then the translation agency will not work well.

In reality, of course, this is not true. In my opinion, it will be more difficult for an experienced translator to build a normal translation company. Because experienced translators usually believe that only they can do everything right.

Therefore, they try to do as much work as possible on their own, avoiding the help of other translators. And this is no longer a business, but just freelancing. Business is when you only manage, and all the work is done by employees. Even if they translate worse than you. But this way the business is not limited to you, and you do not prevent it from developing.

As for hiring translators, even if you have 100 years of experience, this will not help you. Let's say you speak English. Okay, so you can evaluate the quality level of the English translator. What about other languages?

A translation agency usually works with a dozen languages ​​- European, CIS, oriental. Can you rate them all? Hardly. This is why your translation experience will definitely hinder you. But helping is not always the case.

But these are all just words. Still, most often it is translators who open their own translation agencies. I just wanted to warn you against the dangerous attitude “if you want to do it well, do it yourself.” This is what often ruins translation agencies.

And if we return to our question, almost anyone can open a translation agency. The main thing is that he has a good production deputy. That is, you may not understand the translation business yourself. The main thing is to hire someone who understands.

By the way, how much money do you need to have to open a translation agency?

Price for translation services

Pricing is always a difficult issue for an entrepreneur. On the one hand, there is a lot of competition in the translation niche; on the other hand, there are general price standards in the market that companies cannot change. After all, there are online exchanges for such services, where the order executor can earn money himself.

Now the average price of one page translated into a popular foreign language is about $12.

Lower prices using dumping as a company policy and a way to attract customers? Option. Some companies even use it, offering to translate the same amount of text, but three times cheaper. And such companies have regular clients. But real large clients who are ready to give constant large orders, most likely, simply will not consider offers from such companies.

It's all about quality. A low price implies a large amount of work in a short period of time. Otherwise, the business becomes unprofitable. From this it turns out that quality remains in the background, because it slows down the translation process. And large clients value quality.

Translation agency - what is it?

Most likely, if you ask the first person you meet what a translation agency is, he will say that it is a company that employs many translators for a huge number of languages.
In fact, this is not entirely true, because the range of services of some companies has long gone beyond the scope of document translation. A translation agency is a service company that provides assistance in language translations, as well as other related issues regarding the preparation of documents for abroad.

Today, the vast majority of translation and document legalization agencies provide comprehensive support for our compatriots and foreigners who wish to travel abroad with Ukrainian documents. For example, to ensure fast and safe preparation of documents to any country in the world, the Jur Klee Translation Agency has several departments:

• Client department.
• Department for work with corporate clients.
• Courier department.
• The translators themselves, without whom the bureau itself would not exist.
• Also, a translation agency, like any other company, cannot do without accounting, marketing (advertising) and other integral components of modern business.

Translation from unpopular languages

The income of an entrepreneur in the translation industry is approximately 40 percent of the income of your translator. And for a beginner who has not yet received regular orders, this can be fatal. Because the costs are constant, and the profit does not cover them . Therefore, you should immediately think about translations not only from the most popular languages. Exotics can bring additional income. Plus, among a large number of competitors, you will gain an advantage.

Focus directly on translations, for example from Japanese and Chinese. They are not as popular in the camp of translation orders as English, but they also occur and are even gradually gaining popularity.

In addition, you can set a price higher than the standard price for translations from such languages. But don't be fooled. This practice will only be a favorable addition to business development and acquiring the reputation of a diversified company. And your reputation, in turn, will bring new orders in the future, when the client, knowing that you can take this work, will not waste time searching for new companies, but will contact you directly. So to speak, investing in future income.

Moreover, such transfers are often urgent. That is, the client can be billed at a double or triple rate - for urgency and for complexity. However, remember that failure in such an order can immediately lead to the loss of the client forever. Therefore, do not be lazy to use your company’s resources to the maximum for decent pay.

How popular are translation agencies?

This seemingly unclaimed area is quite popular at the moment and will remain so until Google and Yandex take their translators to a fundamentally new level, when they learn to put words into coherent sentences. Now this seems like a distant future, and until this happens, translation agencies remain necessary for many people at least a few times in their lives.

These projects provide a wide range of services: written and oral translations, translations of documents and legal papers, simultaneous translations, notarized translations, apostille translations, scientific and technical translations... Translation services may be needed at any time - during negotiations, when doing business with foreign countries, when drawing up contracts, when working with technical instructions in another language, even during a banal trip abroad.

In addition, this business implies the presence of regular customers, which means a constant stable income. On average, a translation agency processes about 150 orders per month, with page volumes ranging from one to five hundred. It’s not just private clients who ask for translation – a huge number of companies, from local to international, regularly resort to the help of translation agencies.

According to statistics in this area, the total market for translation and related services is about 3 trillion. Rub

Additional services of a translation agency

Oral translation. This type of translation happens:

• Synchronous . Executes without delay. This type is used mainly at conferences for large audiences. Naturally, the cost of such work is high. They can pay about $80 per hour. According to the standard, two people are hired at once, because in this type of translation a very large load falls on a person and he will not be able to work efficiently for a long time. Since the work is expensive, but at the same time quite rare, there is no point in keeping such people on staff. But it is recommended to have it on remote contact.
• Consecutive translation . When phrases are translated gradually. The average price for the service is $30 per hour and is comparable to the price for the services of a guide-translator.
• Apostille . This service is a notarization of translated documents. That is, if the paper was issued abroad and translated here, then an apostille is required to confirm its legality. The print translation service costs around twenty dollars, and the price will vary for the whole document.
• Proofreading of the translated document by a native speaker. Also gaining popularity, although still rare. The price is not much different from the cost of a regular translation service.

In addition to the above services, an entrepreneur can use many others. Translation of abstracts, annotations or works not directly related to translation, such as some printing services, layout, layouts and even photocopies in the office. These types of services will help a novice entrepreneur in as many ways as possible to achieve net profit. And for a growing company to attract additional clients.

You can find another 1000 best business models in the sections: Business ideas or Franchise

What types of translations are most in demand?

Before opening a translation agency, you should clearly understand which direction will become a priority. After all, this type of activity includes a fairly wide range of services:

• technical translations – used in the translation of specialized documentation;
• scientific translation – work with foreign research, analyses, achievements in a certain field;
• legal translation – used for contracts, agreements with foreign counterparties;
• oral translation – simultaneous translation of spoken language or recording of audio materials in a foreign language.

Translation agency services may also include:

• Apostille is an international standardized form for filling out information about the legality of a document for presentation in countries that recognize this form of legalization;
• editing – checking already translated documents or letters written by a native speaker;
• performing work in academic disciplines - helping schoolchildren and students with tests, translating essays, coursework into or from a foreign language.

Reputation, profit

Pricing is a sensitive issue. It was already mentioned above about fierce competition. But you can determine a standard price. One page of text translated into popular languages ​​costs approximately $12. Lowering the price will increase demand. But reputable clients may be afraid of this. If you reduce the price for work, you will not be able to develop your business, as there will not be enough money. Your income as a businessman should be approximately 40% of the translator's income.

Translations from less common languages ​​– Japanese or Chinese – will become more profitable. The amount of such an order will be about $25 per page. But they are not in great demand. Therefore, you should not count on them. The most popular translations are from English or German. But translations from rare languages ​​will simply add to both experience and profit.

Frequently asked questions about opening your own translation agency

In conclusion, let's look at what mistakes people most often make when setting up their own translation agency. We have already talked about renting an office, hiring employees and buying furniture. Let's now move on to other questions.

Do I need to register a legal entity?

If you are going to work with direct customers, then you will still have to register a company. Because direct customers prefer to pay into a bank account. Only a company can open a current account.

But you don't have to open an LLC. In most cases, a regular IP will be sufficient. And even if this is also “undignified,” it is reasonable. Individual entrepreneurs have fewer problems with accounting, taxes, and receiving money. It makes sense to open an LLC only if you have several founders.

But having several founders is already one big mistake. I'll tell you more about this some other time. Just trust me - the translation business is not designed to generate dividends.

As for the taxation regime, you need to look at how you work. If you take into account all expenses officially, then it is better to take the simplified tax system with a tax of 15% on income minus expenses. That is, if you officially write off the costs of translators and notaries, and you still have a small part of your income left.

And if your expenses go “black”, then it is better to take the simplified tax system of 6% from the entire turnover. That is, if your translators do not sit in your office and are not registered as individual entrepreneurs, your expenses are not taken into account. It's more profitable to pay 6%.

Do we require prepayment from customers?

In most cases, you can do without prepayment. All the same, this does not affect anything. In 99.9% of cases, the customer calmly pays after the order is completed. There are almost never any problems.

But if you insist on prepayment, you risk losing the customer. Not because he won't believe you and won't want to pay it forward. It’s just that translations are usually needed very urgently. And it takes time to complete documents, applications and other things.

Especially if the customer’s company is large, and everything must be officially carried out through the accounting department. Then the payment process will take a week or even more. And all deadlines for translation will already expire. Therefore, it will be easier for the customer to contact another translation agency.

Do you need a cash register?

In general, it is necessary. If you work with personal documents, then they bring you money in cash, and you need to somehow officially account for it. But at the moment, you can simply issue receipts for accepting money.

In general, I’ll tell you a secret, paying for personal documents at a translation agency is almost always “black cash”. That is, they do not report for it in any way, and they do not pay taxes on them. A translation agency is too small a business for the tax authorities to be very interested in it.

Therefore, you can safely work without a cash register, no one will arrest you (pah-pah).

Where to look for customers?

This is my favorite question. Because there is simply no answer here. You need to search everywhere - through paid advertising, guerrilla marketing, on the Internet, on the streets, through direct sales...

4.5 thousand dollars - and your translation business!

• Education
• Wikileaks
• Sakhalin-2
• Interview
• Quality

L. N. Porokhovnik, Translation Agency "Norma-TM"

How much money do you need to spend to organize a translation agency? What is the profitability of such an enterprise? How much do translators earn? Who can act as the organizer of this business? Why is there an opinion that there are no strong brands in the translation market?

You can open a translation company without initial capital. There is a story about this on the RuNet (on the website www.bizzon.info). The office worker was tired of “working for his uncle,” especially since the boss appeared at work infrequently. Our hero remembered that he was a good translator and sent out an advertisement by email. Spam brought clients, whom he, having gained the impudence, began to take to someone else's office. I cashed the money through friends' companies. Then, “getting back on his feet,” he officially registered the company and hired employees, although he continued to do without an office and worked from home. But if you do not use someone else’s territory and accounts, then the costs of starting a business cannot be avoided. And before registering a company, you need to decide on an office (whether to rent premises or not) and staffing.

Virtual or real office?

Since the translation business operates without fixed assets, the issue of an office must be decided at the very beginning of organizing the business: renting real estate will be included in the costs of the new company. So, an office of 30 sq. m on Tverskaya will cost $600 per month, the exact same area on Shchelkovskaya will cost $150. Translation agency owners believe that they cannot do without an office. The director of the oldest translation office, Mikhail AGIBALOV, says that “only impostors” work at home. Manager Natalya PETROVA is convinced that it is impossible to get large clients without having an office, and “the age of those who save on rent and work from home is usually short-lived.”

Let's decide on the staff

An important question: how to work with key personnel - translators - on a full-time or freelance basis? Experts do not have a consensus on this matter. According to Natalia Petrova, if the volume of orders exceeds 1000 pages per month, a full-time translator is highly desirable. At the same time, no translation agency can do without freelancers. When the volumes are large and the deadlines are tight (one person can translate no more than seven pages of text per day), it is necessary to hire outside specialists.

Mikhail Agibalov believes that it is better to work with translators on a freelance basis. And the staff must include account managers (at least two), a courier (for document delivery) and an editor. Typically, a translator's work is edited. The translation agency thus strives to improve the quality of work. The editor must not only speak the language, but also be familiar with the field of knowledge in question.

Let's calculate the starting capital

We will consider the option of not a virtual company without an office and registration, but an absolutely legal, registered small enterprise with a staff of three to five people.

• Registration of an enterprise (as a rule, translation firms are registered as individual entrepreneurs) will cost 2.5-3 thousand rubles.

• To rent an office (for starters, you can rent a room of 15 sq. m. on the outskirts of the capital) a month will cost about 15 thousand rubles or 500 dollars, if the cost of one square meter is 350 dollars a year, at the dollar exchange rate of 29 rubles.

• Mobile phone—the cost of communication services is $200 per month, plus the cost of the device—about $200. Office equipment (computer, fax, printer) - from one thousand to three thousand dollars. Internet – 30 dollars a month.

• Translation companies usually advertise on the Internet. “Depending on your ambitions and location, advertising on Yandex costs from $500 to $1,500. You can try advertising in other systems - Rambler, Aport, Google. I started with the Yellow Pages, spam and fax mailings. I sent out faxes at night via automatic communication,” recalls head Vladimir GALECHAN.

Rates

On average, a written translation of one page of text (1800 characters) from/to English, German, French costs from 8 to 20 dollars. The cost of translations from rare and exotic languages ​​can reach 20-30 dollars per page.

• Consecutive interpreting costs an average of 1,000 rubles. at one o'clock. “Here everything depends on the level of the audience. If these are, for example, bankers, then the price will be at least $100 per hour. For companies with smaller budgets, it’s three times lower,” says director Marat BAIMANOV. For regular clients, eight hours of translation will cost 8 thousand rubles. Translation from rare languages ​​is 50% more expensive.

• The cost of simultaneous translation depends on the availability of special equipment. If the customer has his own equipment, an hour of translation will cost about $100; if the equipment is provided by a translation company, it will cost $200. The cost of simultaneous translation is also determined by the volume of work: if an interpreter is needed for two to three hours, an hour of work costs $200; if for a longer period, the rate is usually reduced to $100 per hour.

Salary - approximately half of the tariff

Since the translation agency receives surplus value exclusively from the intellectual labor of its employees, salary costs will be the highest. Translators usually earn half (or a little more) of the established tariff. Thus, written translation is paid at 4-8 dollars per page. A synchronized artist can earn about $300 for three hours of work. But in general, a translator’s salary rarely exceeds a thousand dollars a month.

Translation agencies also employ client managers and editors. Their remuneration is about 10% of the tariff or from $700 per month if they are salaried.

Profitability

Experts estimate the profitability of translation agencies in different ways - from 20-30%, traditional for many types of business, to 50% and even higher (up to 100%). But they all agree that 50% profitability is a very good level, it is ensured by large volumes of work and low capital investments. For comparison: the profitability of a security company, a small bakery or an average hairdressing salon does not exceed 20%.

Who can organize a translation agency?

Vladimir Galechan is convinced that only a highly qualified translator can become the organizer of a translation agency, “otherwise he will not be able to find good specialists or distinguish a good translator from a layman.” Vladimir Galechan himself knows seven languages, but his company specializes only in three European ones and only in written translation.

Marat Baimanov says that all businessmen, including owners of translation companies, have certain common features, thanks to which, in fact, they are not employees, but create jobs themselves - independence, initiative, and the desire to earn money.

Natalya Petrova considers her business to be creative and is sure that its organizer must be a creative person. “For example, we took part in the translation of the encyclopedia for the 1000th anniversary of Kazan into English. It didn't bring much profit, but we worked on this project with great pleasure. It was very interesting!”

Mikhail Agibalov focuses on the quality of education of the future head of the agency (real translators, in his opinion, are produced by MSLU, Moscow Military Humanitarian University, Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University), “plus a minimum of entrepreneurial abilities.”

Are there any brands in the translation services market?

According to Mikhail Agibalov, the concept of “brand” is generally inapplicable to translation agencies, since most of them are small enterprises: “As practice shows, those who are trying to grow soon begin to split into more compact and mobile units. Suffice it to recall the “efficiency” of the All-Union Translation Center, where the minimum order execution time was 45 days.” It is more appropriate, he believes, to talk about the brand of universities that train translation professionals. “The famous “In-Yaz” (now MSLU) is really a brand” and there are only a few of them in this area, although translators are now only trained in vocational schools.”

Natalya Petrova considers it a brand: the company is fifteen years old, and in the translation services market even two years is considered age.

Lev Porokhovnik also supports her. In his opinion, there are strong brands - these are “Glagol”, “Neotek”, “Norma-TM”, “Alpha and Omega”, the same VTSP (Vsesoyuzny. “I don’t know why there is an opinion that there are no brands in the translation market, - he says. “Maybe they think so because every average person knows Danone or Baltika, but does not know a single translation agency? But this is not a criterion! The criterion should be specialists from this field.”

1. Latest trends.

Recently, translators are increasingly needed not only from English, but also from German, Spanish, and Italian.

• Customers prefer to contact a translation agency rather than private translators (this is more reliable).

• According to NAP, the share of freelancers and Western agencies in the Russian translation services market is decreasing, while the share of domestic translation agencies is slowly but steadily increasing.

2. The number of full-time employees is determined by the number of languages ​​and the volume of orders. So, if a company specializes in written translations of technical texts from/into English, then with a workload of 200 pages per month, one translator is sufficient.

3. The National Association of Translation Companies (NAT) includes about three hundred companies throughout Russia and a little more than a hundred in Moscow. But many translation firms are fly-by-night. Their short lifespan is not due to the use of any illegal schemes, but rather reflects an inability to withstand competition.

Where to begin?

You need to start with registering a legal entity. You can collect the documents yourself or contact specialists. There is no need for licenses. Next you need to take care of the room. There are no high requirements for him. At the very beginning, you can get by with an office with dimensions of 10 sq.m. The main thing is that there is a telephone in the room. To begin with, you can get by with one communication line.

To get started you will need equipment. Need to purchase:

• several computers;
• Printer;
• Fax;
• copy machine.

You will need to connect to the Internet. It is important to select the right personnel. Choosing a good translator is difficult. If the entrepreneur himself is trained as a translator, this will simplify the situation. Good staff can help you choose a recruitment agency.

You can use the services of workers from other companies or hire your own staff. Freelance employees only need to pay for orders, which will save money. Work will be performed on flexible schedules. You don't have to set up workplaces for them. It is believed that “freelancers” are professional translators who complete their work exactly on time.

But there are also disadvantages. Such specialists work not only with you, but also with other orders. It may turn out that when you need his help, he will be busy with other work. You can use the services of several such workers, creating a base for yourself. But it takes time. Don't forget about the grinding-in moment. This will take several months. In addition, it is difficult to control the work of an incoming employee and predict its result.