Consulting for language service providers and freelance translators
Many translation businesses are run by excellent translators. That's the problem.
Being good at the work doesn't set your rates, collect your invoices, or fix the handoff that breaks every third project. I've spent about 25 years on the operational side of this industry — including building a multilingual language services company and selling it. Now I help owners and freelancers fix the business sitting underneath the work.
- ~25 years in localization
- Founded and sold a multilingual LSP
- Localization Program Manager, Intel
- M.A. Linguistics
- Contributing author, The Guide to Translation & Localization
What I work on
Four places the business usually breaks.
If you've said any of the sentences on the left, the work on the right is where we'd start.
"Every project is a custom project. Nothing we do twice gets any faster."
Process and throughput
Mapping the workflow you actually have, setting up CAT and TM so leverage shows up in the margin, putting QA where it catches real errors instead of everywhere, and building the intake, handoff, and vendor-onboarding templates you keep meaning to write. Success is the second identical project taking a third less time.
"I'm good at this. I'm just not getting the work I'm good at."
Craft and positioning
Choosing a specialization the market pays a premium for, building the QA discipline regulated clients require before they'll route you anything serious, getting fluent enough in your tools that they stop costing you hours, and presenting all of it so the right work finds you.
"I'm busier than I've ever been and my bank balance disagrees."
Pricing and cash flow
What to charge and how to structure it — minimums, rush, match-rate schedules, what to stop discounting. Then the unglamorous half: payment terms you can actually enforce, an invoicing rhythm, and a way to chase late payers that doesn't require you to become a different person.
"My books are a shoebox and every April is a crisis."
Books, taxes, and structure
Entity choice, a bookkeeping habit that takes twenty minutes a week, quarterly estimates that stop surprising you, and clean records of the things freelancers routinely fail to track. I'm not your accountant — I make you the kind of client an accountant can actually help.
None of this is language-specific. Margin, TM leverage, vendor quality, rate structures, and late-paying clients behave the same way whether you run one pair or forty. I've managed programs across a long list of languages I don't speak a word of — the principles held every time.
Who this is for
Two kinds of people, one shared problem.
Any language pair, any combination of them.
Small and boutique LSPs
Multi-language shops, roughly under $5M in revenue, where the owner is still the salesperson, the escalation path, and the person who fixes the file at 11pm.
- You've outgrown the way you started but haven't replaced it
- Margin is thinner than it should be and you're not sure where it goes
- Vendor quality varies by pair and you can't see why
- You want to hire, or you want to stop needing to
Freelance translators
Established or still building, in whatever pair you work. The linguistic side is not the part you need help with.
- Your rates haven't moved in years and you don't know what to ask
- Agency onboarding, invoicing, and taxes eat your unbillable hours
- You want to move into higher-paying specialized content
- You're a great translator and a reluctant business owner
How it works
Three ways to work together.
Diagnostic
One 90-minute call and a written summary: what's broken, what to fix first, and what to deliberately ignore for now. Plenty of people stop here and go do it themselves. That's a fine outcome.
90-day engagement
Working sessions every two weeks. We fix things in order of what's costing you most, and you keep every template, policy, and document we build along the way.
On call
A standing line for owners who mostly need a second opinion before a decision — a pricing change, a hire, a contract, a client you're not sure you want.
Rates depend on scope. Ask, and I'll tell you plainly.
Free live webinar
The money side, in one hour.
Financial Literacy for Freelance Translators & Interpreters
A free, one-hour live session on the money side of freelancing — rate-setting, irregular income, taxes, deductions, and retirement — in plain language, with a working framework you can use before your next invoice.
Register once and Zoom sends your join link, plus a reminder before we start.
What we'll cover
- Rate-setting that works — your true floor, taxes and downtime factored in
- Budgeting for irregular income — a cash buffer and the "pay yourself a salary" method
- Self-employment taxes, demystified — what it costs, quarterly dates, no surprises
- Expense tracking & deductions — what most language pros miss
- Retirement for the self-employed — SEP-IRA, Solo 401(k), and Roth, in plain terms
- Q&A and action planning — one concrete step before the week is out
About
I'm Aaron Alder.
I've been in this industry for about 25 years — as a translator, as a Localization Program Manager at Intel, and as the founder of a multilingual language services company that I ran and then sold. Most of my working life has been spent coordinating languages I don't personally speak, which turns out to be a useful thing to be good at.
I still take translation work, so I don't lose track of what the job actually feels like from the inside: the tools, the turnaround times, the query logs, the client who pays in ninety days when the contract said thirty.
Along the way I've taught translation technology at the university level, contributed to The Guide to Translation & Localization, presented at ATA, and worked on terminology interchange standards with people considerably smarter than me. Before all of it, I was a Korean linguist in the U.S. Army.
Most of what I'll tell you is something I got wrong first and had to fix with my own money on the line.
Get started
Start with one call.
Tell me what's not working. If I can help, I'll say how. If I can't, I'll say that too, and point you at someone who can.
I read everything that comes through and reply within one business day.
Your details go to my inbox and nowhere else. No list, no newsletter, no sharing.