LIRE LA VERSION FRANCAISE
If you spend as much time on the internet as we do, you'll love this little-known shortcut from scrolling up and down a webpage: SPACEBAR. That's right, simple. But before you scroll down further, you may want to know how to scroll up: SHIFT+SPACEBAR. Hopefully, this will save you from mousehand fatigue! Try it on PDF's as well...
Having trouble reading this? Join more than 50 million people who have had their vision restored by undergoing state-of-the-art laser eye surgery. Contact New Vision to find out how you can spend the rest of your life without glasses or contact lenses.
MPI CAFE
March 18
Villeneuve-Loubet
Focus on saving energy during meetings and events for professionals. Find out more...
JCI CHAPTER MEETING
March 19
La Trinité
The Pays Niçois local JCI chapter will be holding its monthly meeting at the Imprimerie Crouzet printing facility. Come and see how a printshop works. Find out more...
REUNION SFT PACA
March 21
Cannet-des-Maures
SFT members are invited to attend the PACA delegation's quarterly meeting. Find out more...
DEV'COM
March 24
Sophia Antipolis
This annual event is open to professionals looking to improve their direct marketing and sales campaigns. Sign up...
JOHN'S BIRTHDAY
March 24
St Blaise
Mark it dude!
5th INTERNATIONAL MONACO AND THE MEDITERRANEAN SYMPOSIUM
March 26-28
Monaco
Professionals and researchers from Mediterranean countries gather to discuss the history and future of water management. Details...
WORDFAST TRAINING - L1
April 20 & 21
Nice
Learn how to set up and use the general features of Wordfast and manage your translation memories and glossaries. Sign up...
Great photos from Florida, Washington DC, and more...
Dear Reader,
Busy as usual, your issue of ExTra! is finally here! So what's new at Apex?
First off, John is serving as the 2009 president of the Pays Niçois chapter of the Junior Chamber International and is busy with weekly meetings and major projects for the community. Anaïs has been teaching more and more French classes to foreigners as well as civilization and culture classes at the IPAG business school and the Alliance Française in Nice. As for Louis, he recently started school in January and is overwhelmed with homework every night.
John and Louis had a great time in Florida. Find the link on our website to relive the magic! John recently returned from Washington DC where he ran a Wordfast training and incidentally took part in history by attending Barack Obama's inauguration. Two million people, crazy! Check out a satellite photo here.
And now time for us to wish you a happy new year! We hope that the economic
crisis presents new opportunities for you and that you manage to make the most of them. We're trying our best and things seem to be on the up and up.
We've got a busy year ahead of us, with trips lined up to Budapest, Switzerland, Paris, the United States, Angoulême, and Tunisia. As always, we hope that our paths will cross and have an opportunity to spend time together enjoying the finer things in life.
Yours in Saint Blaise,
Anaïs et John Di Rico, Apex Traduction
Marketing yourself as a translator
I recently attended an informal gathering of translators while I was in Paris running a Wordfast course. I met a lot of lovely people and would like to thank Margaret in particular for organizing the event. One thing that really struck me was the number of translators there who had questions about how to market 
themselves to clients. Someone even suggested that I start offering marketing training! Instead of training, we'd like to give our colleagues some advice.
The most important thing you can do is do a good job. If you provide a client with quality work that client will come back to you again and again. They'll also tell other people about you. If you're aiming for speed or to be a low cost leader, you set yourself up for short-term gains and long-term failure. One thing that we've done to better meet our clients needs is to offer different service levels: our team translation service requires more time, offers more added value, and is more expensive. Our standard service requires less time and is thus less expensive. This allows our clients to choose the service that best fits their needs depending on the target audience, deadlines, etc.
The next most important thing you should do is get out of your house and meet people! Meet people in the industry you work. If you're a financial translator, then go to banking seminars and conferences. Join investor associations. Join other professional associations to network with people. With nearly 250 clients I would
say we have met more than 200 of them face-to-face. Most people need to know who you are, shake your hand, and feel comfortable with you before they're going to trust you with their translations. Once you've gained their trust, refer back to the first tip: provide quality translations.
Just do it. I'm sure you have a million ideas of how to win new business. We all have ideas, what most of us fail to do is to translate these ideas into action. Don't count on things being perfect, they never are. Just take your idea, set a goal, and run with it; otherwise you never get anywhere.
Get involved in your community and be the change!
For those of you who followed the U.S. election season, one thing you should have picked up on was President Obama's theme of "change". His landslide victory is proof that Americans were in dire need of change. Not only Americans, but the French as well (cf. President Sarkozy's theme of "rupture").
Unfortunately, most people expect change to come from above, from the powers that be. What we fail to realize is that we as individuals or groups of individuals can be a force for change. All you have to do is stop talking about problems and start looking for ways to fix them. Now we're not advocating that you go out and try to negotiate a peace settelment between Israel and the Palestinians (we're already working on that). What we are advocating is that you evaluate your sphere of influence and see how you can effect positive change.
Look at the problems in your city or your neighborhood. Once you've identified the problems, figure out how to best fix them and get to work! If you're afraid to go it on your own, rest assured, others have probably noticed the same problems and are either already working on solutions or are ready to join you.
You can also join one of many associations that have similar goals. For the past three years, John has been actively involved in the community as a member of the Junior Chamber International, an association that provides development opportunites that empower young people to create positive change.
Find out how you can make a difference, get involved, and be the change!
Apex Traduction in a nutshell:
- Owned and operated by a team of Franco-American translators
- Specializing in finance, marketing, tourism, and website translations
- Accredited training center - professional development for translators
- A network of independent, qualified translators headquartered just outside of Nice, France
About us - Contact - Subscribe - Unsubscribe
In compliance with French law (Loi Informatique et Libertés du 6 janvier 1978), you have the right to access and/or modify your personal data. No information you give us will be passed on to third parties. If you wish to exercise these rights, please write to us or email us. We apologize in advance if we have bothered you with our newsletter.