As we enter our fifth year, Keylingo has remained very busy and sustained a very respectable growth trajectory despite the financial crisis.  We are thankful to win more deals than we lose, but it is the losses that reveal cracks in our operation and thus, opportunities to learn.  Recently we lost a couple of deals and as I examined what went wrong, it was clear to me that our business suffered from taking certain fundamental practices for granted.  In light of this I decided to revisit some of the basic principles behind our success and that sharing this information might be beneficial to others.

Asking the right questions and uncovering what is most important to a prospect are basic tenets in earning new clients.  However, when a business is so busy churning out proposals it can be easy, at least in our case, to forget that each project is different and to really differentiate requires digging a little deeper into each opportunity and addressing the prospect’s hot buttons.

To that end, I’ve made a list of questions as a reminder and sort of a checklist to use in interactions with both prospects and new projects for existing clients.  I’ve seen similar lists like this out there and I am sure I could have included more and/or other questions.  For us, I wanted to keep it to 10 questions and focus on what we saw as the critical points to cover.  Take what you can from it and if it does nothing else but remind you to get back to basics, in whatever form that may take for your business, I’ve accomplished my objective.

BACK TO BASICS QUESTIONS FOR PREPARING WINNING TRANSLATION SERVICES SALES PROPOSALS

When quoting your next translation project, ask these questions to ensure a more accurate proposal, avoid multiple communications, and best position your company to win.

1. What is the “source” language of the text? (i.e. the language the text is currently written in)
2. What is/are the “target” language(s)? (i.e. the language(s) the prospect/client wants the text translated into)
3. Are there any variations within the target language(s)? (e.g. Canadian French, Simplified Chinese, Mexican Spanish, etc.)
4. What is/are the length of the document(s) in pages or words?
5. What is the subject matter of the text? (technical, marketing, finance, medical, legal, etc.)
6. Who is the intended audience/what is the purpose of the translation? (e.g. internal vs. external use, to be filed in a court of law, to be published., etc.)
7. What is the necessary level of translation? (i.e. draft, reviewed, proofread)
8. What is the format of the source document? (e.g. Word, Excel, PPT, PDF, Quark, etc.)
9. What is the desired format of the translation(s)? (e.g. Word, Excel, PPT, PDF, Quark, etc.)
10. When is the deadline for delivery of the translation(s)?

Keylingo is a Multilingual Information Management (MIM) company helping businesses of all sizes increase global revenue. Founded in 2004 and based in Atlanta, GA, Keylingo has contractual, single source and long lasting relationships with some of the world’s largest and most respected companies. Each year, Keylingo manages thousands of translation projects encompassing millions of words in every major business language, subject matter, and industry.