There's a conversation happening before you even open your mouth.

Before the scouting call.

Before the proposal.

Before the first e-mail exchange where you talk about the project, the timeline, the complexity of the terminology.

The moment a potential client sees your rate, they draw a conclusion.

Not about your price.

About you.

And here's the uncomfortable part: they're usually right.

A low rate doesn't just signal low cost. It signals low stakes.

It tells the client that you're not sure your work merits a higher number.

That you've positioned yourself in a market where competition on price is the primary dynamic.

That you're available - broadly, quickly, without friction.

It tells them, in other words, that you're a commodity.

This is not a moral judgement.

It's a market signal.

And the market is listening.

I want to be precise about what I mean here, because this is not an argument for simply charging more.

Charging more without repositioning is just wishful thinking.

You can't slap a premium price on a commodity offer and just expect the market to comply.

Clients aren't fooled - and frankly, neither are you.

What I'm describing is something different.

Your rate is the visible expression of your positioning.

And your positioning is the visible expression of your identity - of how you understand what you actually do, for whom and why it matters.

If you believe you're a language converter - someone who takes text in one language and produces equivalent text in another - then a per-word rate is entirely logical.

It prices the unit of output.

It's honest.

But if you believe you're a specialist whose domain knowledge produces outcomes that generalist tools and generalist translators cannot replicate - then a per-word rate is a lie.

It prices the wrong thing entirely.

The rate is just where the contradiction becomes visible.

Here's a question I ask translators who come to me frustrated by their rates:

When did you last turn down a project because it wasn't the right fit?

The answer tells me almost everything.

Translators who command premium rates turn work down regularly.

Not because they're arrogant.

Because selectivity is itself a signal. It says: I have standards.

I work within a defined domain. I'm not available to everyone for everything.

That friction - the slight difficulty of hiring you - is a feature, not a bug.

It communicates that your work has a particular value in a particular context and that context isn't everywhere.

Compare that to the translator who says yes to everything, competes on turnaround and apologises when a client pushes back on price.

Same skills, possibly.

Entirely different market position.

The rate conversation is really an identity conversation.

And identity is harder to change than pricing. You can update your website footer this afternoon.

You cannot update - in an afternoon - the ingrained belief that your work is worth significantly more than the market has been paying you.

That belief takes time. It takes evidence - clients who paid more, work that carried real consequences, expertise that proved itself under pressure.

But it all starts with a diagnosis.

With looking honestly at your current rate and asking: what does this number say about how I see myself?

If the answer is uncomfortable, good.

Discomfort is data.

The translators I most admire in this industry reached a point where they stopped competing and started selecting.

They stopped asking "will this client accept my rate?" and started asking "is this client a good fit for my practice?"

That inversion - from supplicant to selector - is the real mindset shift.

The rate follows.

It always does.

Your rate is a confession.

The question is whether it's confessing the right thing.

If you're ready to stop confessing the wrong thing, start with this question: what is the one thing I know better than most other translators?

The answer is your positioning.

Everything else - including your rate - stems from there.

for the last week of April 2026

This week's podcast episode

Episode #115 with guest Seth Goldstein: Search, AI, and the New Rules of Getting Found by Direct Clients

If you've ever typed a question into Google lately and noticed the answer sitting right there at the top - no need to click anything - you've already felt it.

Search is shifting faster than most businesses can track, and in this week's episode of How to Find More Direct Clients, I sit down with Seth Goldstein - digital marketing specialist and former journalist - to make sense of it.

The journalism background matters: Seth spent years being trained to find the story, cut the noise and write for an audience that owes you nothing, and those instincts translate directly into what works in digital marketing today.

We dive deep into what's actually happening with Google, Bing and AI search right now, the biggest shift in digital marketing that never makes headlines, and - in the Final Five - the worst investment Seth has ever made. That last answer is worth the listen alone.

Upcoming online training Tuesday 26th May 17h CET

First of a triology of webinars on clinical trials, linguistic validation and cognitive debriefing. Understand the drug development pipeline and map out exactly who hires LV specialists, from sponsors to CROs to trial sites, so that you can reach them with confidence. Learn the regulatory standards that build immediate client trust.

To your online success,

Jason Willis-Lee

Founder, The Entrepreneurial Translator
First Time Author of How to Find More Direct Clients​

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