
I've had a few surreal conversations with a couple of site visitors and leads the other day.
First was a representative of a law firm that handles all kinds of cases. Their office manager was tasked with a job to find a translator for their website because apparently they have some Russian-speaking clients.
The chat started with her sentiment that she used Google Translate and the quality was just awful. I offered my help and said that I'd love to have a look at her website and provide an estimate for my services.
She was stunned. She thought that translation should be free (these were her words). She decided that to leave the conversation.
30 minutes later I'm having another chat with my site's visitor. From what I could gather she's a financial administrator at some company. Her first (and only) question was: is this free?
And yesterday I was preparing an estimate for a video production company and after they received my estimate they said it was way over their budget (and their current budget is hardly enough to hire a newbie let a alone assemble an all-start team of experts).
So my question to you: do you guys think people (in general) are not aware that translation is a paid service? I mean, if I'm looking for a plumber, accountant, lawyer or architect I know that it costs money.
But it seems like the profession of a translator is not that visible and people simply don't know that it's actually a paid (and often rather expensive) service.
What can we do to change that? Feel free to share your thoughts below! ?