A French-English Interpreter’s Blueprint For Finding New Markets with Jeremy Gerin

A lot of interpreters are told to “network more” or “find a niche,” but nobody explains what that looks like on Tuesday morning when you need work on the calendar. We sit down with Jeremy Gerin, a French-English translator and interpreter based in Charleston, South Carolina, to get specific about how opportunity is actually built, especially when your career path has twists, restarts, and unexpected advantages.

Jeremy shares how a background in sales became the engine behind a thriving language services practice, from crafting a clear pitch to doing the unglamorous work of follow-up. We talk about how he landed recurring virtual court interpreting work across multiple states without ever stepping inside a courthouse, what he tracked, who he contacted, and why being easy to work with can matter as much as credentials. We also dig into cross-border realities: how different systems shape your options, why Canada’s bilingual requirements can support higher French interpreting rates, and how language access becomes a real budget line item in conferences and institutions.

We close with the questions every working interpreter is feeling: how to communicate value when cheaper providers undercut pricing, where AI may pressure the industry, and why preparation remains the most reliable competitive edge in conference interpreting. If you’re building a freelance interpreter business, exploring remote interpreting, or trying to grow from translation into interpreting, you’ll leave with a practical playbook you can use right away.

Subscribe for more real-world interpreter career stories, share this with a colleague who’s building their own practice, and leave a review so more language professionals can find the show. 

What’s one market or client type you want to pursue next?

Transcript

Why Careers Are Not Linear

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hello and welcome to another episode of Brand the Interpreter, where I share your stories about our profession. If you're a returning listener, thank you for joining me once again. And if this is your first time here, welcome. I'm so glad you found us. Today's conversation is a reminder that building a career in interpreting doesn't always follow a straight or predictable path. Sometimes, the experiences that appear unrelated to the profession become the very skills that help us create opportunities within it. In this episode, we explore how a background in sales helped one interpreter build a thriving virtual practice, including providing court interpreting services across several states without ever physically stepping inside a courthouse. We also talk about identifying new markets, communicating your value when competing with lower-priced providers, and why persistence, preparation, and the willingness to follow up can make all the difference when building a business of one. And for those interested in conference interpreting, you'll also hear an important reminder about the role preparation plays not only in strengthening performance, but in making what once seemed impossible feel entirely within reach. My guest today is Jeremy Guerin, a French-English translator and interpreter based in Charleston, South Carolina. Jeremy is an ATA certified translator and a certified member of Quebec's professional order of translators and interpreters. His work spans court and conference interpreting, certified translation, and international markets throughout the United States, Canada, France, and Switzerland. With a strong business mindset and a career he has intentionally built across borders, Jeremy brings an energetic and practical perspective to what it means to create your own opportunities in the language services profession. So, without further ado, please join me in welcoming Jeremy Guerin to Brett the Interpreter Jeremy, welcome to Brand the Interpreter. Thank you so much for being with us today.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Good morning. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Just out of curiosity, and well, I think I know, but the audience doesn't. Where are you connecting from today?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Charleston, South Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Charleston, South Carolina. Well, I'm happy to have you here today, Jeremy. Thank you so much for the opportunity to get to know you, Jeremy, the individual as well as the professional, a little bit more on this platform. And I'm looking forward to today's conversation. So let's begin by asking the famous question that Brandy Interpreter asked all guests, which has to do with take us back to a blast from the past and share with us uh where you grew up and what a fond childhood memory maybe it is that you have that you'd like to share with us.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Uh yeah, sure thing. Uh I'm from uh Greenwich, Connecticut. So it's in the suburbs of New York City. Some people know it, some haven't have never heard of it. And then I uh also um have family in France in NC,

Growing Up French In Connecticut

SPEAKER_00 4:27

in Haute-Seba. So that's in the Greater Geneva area in the French Alps. Uh so I'd go uh for a summer vacation there, but uh yeah, I grew up in in Greenwich, Connecticut, in a French American family.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

This is where you grew up in a bilingual uh and bicultural household and environment, I imagine. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

What were some of those contrasts that maybe you saw from one side versus the other? And and maybe these came up more so maybe when you visited family abroad, you think?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah, well, I'm actually French from all sides.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Oh, yeah, but from the US, yeah. US based.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, yeah. Yep. My my mom's uh actually, I think we'll get into it, but uh my dad is French, uh, he's a master chef of France. Uh so my family had a famous French restaurant in Greenwich. My mom's dad was also a French chef, and they had a uh uh a hotel in Vermont called the Four Columns Inn. And my grandma was Quebec was of French origin. So if you go back in the four directions, you know, I'm like fully French, but my mom and I are American, my dad's American now, my uh little brother's also American.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Okay, wait a minute. So a dad that was a chef, what was that like growing up in terms of meals at home?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Right. Meals, great meals. Saturday was not for going out immediately to hang out with friends. Uh yeah, both Saturday and Sunday, barbecue on Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Wow, amazing.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

And the summers, you talk about the summers, the big family meals. Like you imagine these Italian families, stuff like that, Greek, the French are the same. Like we have so many relatives, and uh we live uh across from uh one of the most beautiful lakes um in France, Lake Enesy, which is known to be one of the purest lakes in Europe. And so yeah, it totally um vacation uh vibes over there.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

I bet, yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

And my dad would cook, but um, I do uh have a memory right now of my childhood. That's what you're gonna ask, right? Memory about um growing up in Greenwich. I do have this very old, I must have been like five, six, seven, and they didn't do it again. I don't know why, but throughout the years, um, with the Alliance Française, so there's an Alliance Française branch in Greenwich. That's the French Alliance, it's where people go to learn French and host French events and stuff like that. And uh, so needless to say, with the French restaurant, the French community, um, we would do events together all the time. Uh, like for example, raising the French flag at Greenwich Town Hall on Bastille Day was something we would do, or uh drive the dishavaux of the French beetle uh around town uh on Bastille Day. And anyway, on one Bastille Day, they organized uh around the track a waiters race, which is a very old tradition from Paris where waiters race while holding um uh their their platter, and like, yeah, yeah. And then by the end, I remember people they're everybody was drinking, having a good time, like celebrating Bastille Day. And by the end, the three, four guys who were at the end were cheating, they were holding on to the stem, onto the stem. So that's all the others they had shattered. Maybe that's why they don't do it anymore because it's probably shattered glass all over them.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Too messy.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah, that's a good memory.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

That's a great memory. That's great. I love it, and it's you know, community building, obviously, with many people from the community sharing.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

I have so many others too. I mean, really quick, there's there used to be before COVID this amazing Bastille Day again, uh bocce tournament, a Pitonque tournament, uh, where they would close off three or four streets in um Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn and have a huge French party, kind of like what's the Italian one, San Gennaro, I think. Um, and uh and there'd be a huge tournament where people would play bocce uh and uh such a good time. Fun times that I wouldn't have had that I wouldn't have had in France because it's just their independence day for everyone, right? And when I studied when I did my graduate school in Montreal, I also didn't find that. And I was really like, so I was like, wow, I was really lucky to be living this this type of thing, like where it's so extravagant and uh fun and fun, yeah, super fun, and meeting other French people and everything, other French Americans and other like students coming to study, French students, uh and yeah, like French American, French expatriate families. Like, I have a huge network. I know everybody, everybody knows each other. Um, not only the chefs, but also the uh the entrepreneurs, the expatriates, and all that um in the greater New York area.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Well, thank you for sharing those memories with us. Always, always great to hear the fun childhood memories of our guests here on the show.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

You set me up. I'm here to talk about translation.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

It will get there, we'll get there. This is the good stuff, too. Jeremy, speaking of your childhood, did you did you always desire to be an interpreter, or did you always know you had an interest, a knack for language? Share with us what that was like for you growing up in terms of schooling and and what you aspired to be.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Okay, languages, yes, because I was always bilingual in English and French, Parisian French, since I'm French. Uh, did I always want to be a translator or interpreter? No, I wanted to my dream was to do

Early Language Curiosity And Ambition

SPEAKER_00 10:32

yeah, international business. So at the core of it, my passion is my French culture. And so I remember I always, always used to just play my own game in my head of translating songs.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Whether it was rap or uh or not, um, I would always try to see if I could do it. So, in a sense, before I even knew it, I was already like training myself uh in um English to French translation, uh, because that's what I thought it was fun. So, and it is fun. So, but that that's the core of it. So, now I'm so happy with my career because I am doing international business. I work with companies and clients in four countries, mostly in uh US, Canada, France, and Switzerland, and uh and and more have agencies across the world, really. But it is that French at the core of it, my passion is my French culture, and that's also led me to a new passion in Quebec culture, which was New France before it was Quebec and uh and Canada.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

I'm always fascinated to hear the stories of how the profession crosses the path of the translator or the interpreter eventually. And so I I'm just curious to know if that was not the initial thought, which for many of us was not. When did when did the profession cross your path to the point where you recognized it a as a profession and two as an as a as a career path for you? When did that happen? Do you recall?

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah, absolutely. And it did not start with any notion of interpreting, only translating from French to English and English to French. And what had happened was I went more with uh a business approach out of school. The French uh degree, I mean, it ended up saving me, but it was really more of a show of force. It was I did a double major

Leaving Sales For Translation School

SPEAKER_00 12:59

at a private college, I graduated with a 3.0, you know, and managed all these things. These were supposed to be science. I mean, I feel so bad for the kids graduating now. They have like AI making resumes and nobody's getting a job. It's crazy. But and it was crazy then because there was the financial collapse in 2009, and so I graduated in 2010. Uh, but anyway, um, I was my career was predominantly in sales, and I'm a great salesman. I'm sure you can tell. I mean, I can talk well, I express myself well, I have good vocabulary, and I think that those things uh really like how you can punch when you're really trying to make your point, but also listening to people and finding solutions, uh, all those things you know are uh are um like skills of mine, which makes for for for for which made me a great salesman, right? But despite that, I kept losing jobs, so it's not a very secure job. Entry-level sales representative is like a totally replaceable job. Then I was looking at it and I had I saw that the only way to progress on that track, which may or may not be true, but was to become a sales manager of a team of sales reps, and then eventually the sales director of the company, and I didn't want to do any of that. I uh definitely wanted to be more independent in how I was doing it, especially since I was the number one rep. I won't say all the time, but I was blasting through my quotas. I was, and this is the same thing at school, high performance. Um, I have to be modest here, but you know, I mean, you get it. So I'm basically overachieving, and then I'm seeing that there people are finding other reasons to uh you know send me packing. So it's like, okay, well, that's not good. I'm you know, in a I'm in a situation that it's not uh fair, it's not it's not diverse, it's not equitable, and it's not inclusive. Yeah, I guess if you want to say, I mean, I'm talking about ADD, but so generally, so I I thought it'd be best, and it is best that I work alone, that I uh be able to concentrate. Um and this job is perfect because I do work alone. Sometimes I have a booth mate. Uh, lucky for me, same as this. My one-on-one interactions are are 10 out of 10. I love it, and that's why I'm such a good salesman. One-on-one, I'm a 10 out of 10. Put me in an office situation for six months, they'll be waiting to just be like, he's too annoying, he makes too many jokes, you know, it's it's too much. Get him out, you know. And I would say something like, Well, why don't you give me an office, or why don't you let me work from home? So that's what I say about the um, you know, sort of uh, you know, really being uh more inclusive as to how everybody works, and that's developing. So the young recent the recent grads have that to look forward to. COVID really pushed that along, and so that's a beautiful thing. So anyway, so here I am, like, you know, the 10th job in five years, and I'm like, this is insane, this is crazy. Um, for my IQ, this is not right at all. Uh so I uh went to graduate school in uh Montreal and studied translation because I'd figured it out. I said, uh, here's what I'll do. I need something to sell, and I'll do the service too. I'll sell my translations, and I did, and I have, and that's the whole story.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, I was actually going to ask because you you did mention that you started your career as a translator, that was the focus, but eventually um you you tr you moved into the world of interpreting. And so I'm curious to know, and if you'd share with the audience, what changed your mind in terms of, you know, I'm going to also move into interpreting because as I'm sure you learned along the way, uh two uh there's similarities but different skills, and so how did one prepare you for the other? And what interested you to begin with? Uh once you had decided translation, but then said, well, maybe interpreting too.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah, it's a really good question. Um, so there were

Switching From Translation To Interpreting

SPEAKER_00 17:53

a few things. Um, I kind of jumped into translation and I thought I'd learn um on the fly. And I I did do a lot of um of work on my English syntax grammar, really working at that to make sure I knew the mechanics. That's a huge part of translation is making sure that everything's written um perfectly. You're basically a writer, and in my uh graduate program, there were other students who had studied journalism and linguistics and English. And I was surprised by that. Uh but that's only because I didn't know I was naive about it. But um then they talked about uh finding your niche as a translator. I highly recommend uh Concordia University, it's a great school, University Concord, yeah. Uh and the Tadicto de G program is so good that they that they basically bumped McGill from even trying.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Wow, that was tradeology. I remember, I remember I mean your pronunciation is beautiful, obviously, compared to mine, but but I was like, wait, Jeremy, what are you are you saying tradeology? Like, what is that?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I think that's just the translation studies. Um then I also had a professor who mentioned interpreting and looked me straight in the eye as he's saying it because he knew. Uh, and I'd been called by other people like a pure bilingual, which not everyone is, especially not in Canada and Quebec. So I I was like, that's weird, like you know, okay, I'm I'm not in a dog uh show here, like or whatever, but it's a good compliment, it's good, you know. So they're always like, what's your A language, what's your B language? Well, you know, they're both, so they're both A. Um, okay, and then um yeah, so but I didn't think much of it, but these little things like were starting to um you know uh make sense. Um if I had done the master's degree in um Geneva or Paris, first of all, I think they were asking for three languages, which I don't have. And I might have misread, but that's something that changed, or they would accept it. And lucky for me, like English and French are one of the two languages they would have accepted. But it would have been a nightmare. I might not have been able to do it. I mean, those Europeans are so crazy. Well, we'll talk about that. It's so nitty gritty, so much nitty gritty, and America's all about show me what you got. Europe is all about do you check all the boxes? Uh so let me answer your question. I uh was I didn't think that simultaneous conference interpreting was something I'd be able to do. I thought you had to be a genius, and I didn't understand how it worked. I didn't think I could do it, but I did want to get into interpreting. Uh and uh through COVID, I'd gotten uh certification for translation through the ATA, and I was waiting to get OTIAC, the Order of Translators, interpreters, terminologists of Quebec. Um, but I just call it Order of Translators of Quebec. It's a bit quicker than or OTIAC, right? And that was a package with my uh master's degree, uh, which I still have, so I'm certified in two countries. Um uh I what I what I thought I could do, and what I can do and do now a lot is consecutive court interpreting. So I took the exam in New York and passed on my first try. Uh and ever since I've been a French court interpreter. First in New York, now I work in in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Washington, DC, and for the Department of Justice for federal immigration courts, all while also having started a career um In the field just from scratch, uh the day after I passed the New York test, I went to an agency I'd been talking about saying, I'm thinking I'm interested a little bit. He's like, but you have no experience. And I'm like, well, let's see what this. And so I called uh my mentor, Louis Cascan from Alpha Interpretation in Quebec. And I showed him, I said, I passed, let's let's try this out. Look at this. Because I think there was one 10-minute simultaneous portion of the court interpreter exam. You you know that, right? Yeah. So looking back, I think maybe that's the the the credence. That's what he gave a little credence to the test. Today, as we sit here, I have 150 days of conference, simultaneous conference experience. And I'm about to be certified by OTAC as a conference interpreter and try to go beyond uh with the uh AIC Association of International Conference Interpreters in Geneva and really try to so it's better there.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I'm glad you touched on those points because I do want to bring a couple of things that we have uh spoken about or touched on pre-recording, and then that you mentioned just now to our audience. And one of those things which I found fascinating is that you never physically have set foot, get this guys, in a courthouse, right? As a court interpreter for and you're a court interpreter for five states. So here's the question. Uh first of all, explain how that happened. And secondly, how did you build this purely virtual practice to the level of success that you have? And are there any advantages to this to this

Building A Multi-State Virtual Court Practice

SPEAKER_01 24:22

model that maybe other interpreters can use in order to apply themselves?

SPEAKER_00 24:29

It's a good question. Um basically, I think COVID had a big influence, and courts began to offer virtual appearances, and some invested uh not not you know too much, but maybe 10,000 or maybe I mean that's a good investment for the AV, the audio equipment, the TVs, the cameras, the microphones, which they already had, but um I've yet to see a courthouse with an interpreter booth in the back. I that probably doesn't exist. I don't doesn't exist. I'll fix up that's for conferences only. Um and um then you also would have to drive to the courthouse and get your mileage uh back, put it on your your invoice, your voucher, um what is it, 59 cents per mile, and uh and this and that. And at the time the rates were a bit lower, um and uh you know I was also in Vermont, so um finishing up grad school, um and so and I didn't have Vermont at that time. So I as a good salesman, what did I do? I did my research, I made a sales sheet, um, an Excel spreadsheet with all the districts, uh, found out that it's the court clerks who handle it, unless some uh districts have an interpreter coordinator. I was on LinkedIn, I looked up everybody, and I had a chat with everybody that I could get through. Uh the ladies at the Office of Language Access love me. That's the one in New York on Beaver Street in the financial district. Um, and basically, here's uh so it's it's really like getting out there and uh making a name for yourself, uh giving a classic pitch, something like uh my name's Jeremy Gerin and Gerin, and I'm a French interpreter. I just passed the exam. Uh so my vendor number is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Now they're like, oh wow, okay. And now he's in the system. And I say, um, yeah, you know, if you'd like me, I'd be interested in offering virtual uh um French interpretation for any upcoming hearings. Uh just shoot me an email. And um that really snowballed now. I have uh really a lot of recurring business in Portland, Maine, in uh Albany, New York, and Washington, DC, uh as well as only one district in DC, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:32

This is that we've got yeah. No, I love how you're using previous experiences to to shape and form your approaches in in present day and and you know your strategy as well. And I think that it speaks volumes whenever we've spoken here on this podcast about ensuring that you're not as an individual, especially if you're doing freelance work, which we can all agree is basically a business of one, right? So you you have to strategize like a business that we bring in all our past experiences, that all of them can actually serve a great purpose in the work that we're doing and the approaches that that we're attempting to take rather than trying to isolate them or say, that doesn't apply here, right? Even if it's uh even if it's opening doors experience. Yeah, for sure. I want to get into uh because you you've mentioned uh uh becoming a a court interpreter and then you attempted something that uh gave you a very unique experience and lens. Um and so it it it's across borders, right? Being able to navigate the the bureaucracy across borders. You you attempted a you went through the application process of becoming a sworn translator, court interpreter in uh um translator interpreter in court

Bureaucracy Lessons From Cross-Border Work

SPEAKER_01 29:00

in France. In France. In France. And after 11 months, which uh you know, maybe yes, depending on uh the workload, maybe that's a normal wait time. But 11 months you were denied with an interesting uh, I guess, uh stamp of you know, whatever the the the reasoning behind it, which was uh no need. How did this experience shape your perspective on bureaucracy and your business strategy?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Uh don't do business in France. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. If you but it is well known, if you want to do business in France, you better there's an expression pense en mal empoint. You you really gotta just uh be ready to to feel to to take a little pain um while you go through it because um they don't move fast. You're right, 11 months is a long time. I'm saying everywhere, everywhere, because um our family home in France is on the uh Swiss border near Geneva, and uh uh developing business there has been so easy. Same as Quebec. It's like a breeze. Like, you know, they're they're used to it. You you you're supposed to be like doing business, not finding reasons why you shouldn't be doing business. Uh anyway, but okay, so here's what it is. So after grad school, I developed the business in France. I went to France for six months and uh wanted to develop the business there. I created a company uh called Amerigo, uh traduction etapital, translation and interpreting services. And um so uh so that I could get more agencies because I'd had translation agencies that I work predominantly with in the US and Canada. And uh, but I think it made more sense to have a sort of European uh company, um, because then you can like sign your emails with a European business number and kind of do your invoices in a European style stuff like that, um and uh and pay taxes there for the work that's that that's being done um uh via that that entity, yeah, as they say. So I uh had the as you know, as we discussed, the ATA seal for the US, for which I do certified translations for uh you know US Customs and Immigration Service. I'll translate FBI background checks often, and uh even um people's high school and undergrad um transcripts and degrees so that they can come to college or um their doctorate, for example, like in the US, the US uh mandates you to have uh ATA um compliant translation. Um in Quebec, I have OTAC. I really wanted a third translator seal so I could stamp approval um on any uh French and English translations in France, and at the same time swoop in with the uh interpreter, legal interpreter uh designation. Okay, so I do the application for the court interpreter and all that, and basically, yeah, they replied and they said no need, and um which is crazy, it's insane. Uh that if I mean we're all you have Americans listening to your show to your to this podcast. Imagine if you applied to be a French court interpreter, that you are certified by Washington, D.C. in New York, and that they go, oh, well, you know, no need. Uh, we already have enough English and French. Translators and interpreters both rejected for no reason. Just because uh supply and demand, like sort of, you know, they wanted to cap their roster of uh of translators and interpreters, but what they don't realize is the sheer amount of traffic on their directories for people looking for worn interpreters for their depositions and their private legal matters, as well as even conferences, just like high-level interpreters. You could use it for anything. You could say, Hey, I'm having a wedding in Nice, I need an interpreter, and you would that's where you'd kind of go in France. That's how it works. Or, like, hey, uh, I have an important meeting with um a potential buyer in Africa, um, you know, and I I'm I'm based in Miami. I want to, you know, so you would it doesn't matter, it's and it's all good publicity because here people are finding me constantly on the ATA website, on my own website and on their website. And um basically, I think in their minds, they were just saying that um it would only pertain to uh sort of British criminals uh skiing chamoni uh one you know winter, and that since they already had 10 or 20 other French interpreters in Hautevois, um Savoie, that they wouldn't need to have another, hence the rejection reason of no need. But clearly we know better, we know that that's anti-business, it's unfair to me. I worked hard to do that. I you also need three years of experience at the cours d'Appel level to reach the cours de cassation, which is the Supreme Court of France, and now they've just basically backed me up for two years, and um I need to now apply to Paris instead. And luckily for me, I already have a company, but I still need to domicile that company in Paris so that I have an address for my new application, which is going to take another another 11 months. That's what they say. They say bienvenue en France. Welcome to France.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Welcome to the wait.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Actually, no, you know what they say? They say vive la France, ironically. I said most recently, I was one time I was in a pharmacy in France. I showed up, I didn't have my health care card. Say, but you guys have known me since forever. I'm in your system. They said, No, I can't do it without this. I showed them the prescription, they go, it's been 31 days. This prescription is only valid for 30 days. I go, can you can you at least do something? And they're like, no, and I go so across the board, just raw, and I go, vive la France, and like the 20 people in line start dying laughing because it was so like genuine. I was really like trying to find solutions, being a puppy dog. These things happen to people in France all the time, and you can either take it, um, you know, take your pain, you know, and just there's nothing you can do, or you can blow up and have the other version where you're gonna have security like dragging you out. Um, yeah, and that's yeah, and you yeah, I think the French is probably the French have probably really learned how to like suppress their their rage with with bureaucracy, which is what you're asking about. So it's not too far-fetched.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Uh no, no. And I think, you know, like in everything that we do in our careers, there are there are pain points and you know lessons to be learned there, particularly as it applies to um our business.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

You see what I mean though, like you know, because I'm American and honestly, everything's negotiable. So many times I've been able to charm people or just find something. And uh, you know, in France and I think in Europe overall, it's like the answer is always no. And that's just not how we, our society is, which is an Anglo-Saxon uh-based society, but with just more room to breathe than the British uh or French uh models. So, you know, you might talk about Spain's relaxed uh lifestyle with the late dinners and the siestas, but I'll guarantee you they're going through the same hoops and hurdles administratively that we're just so lucky to have just a much lesser burden, um, whether you're talking about the US uh or uh Canada or Quebec.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Very true. Yes, we are very fortunate.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

It lets your business breathe, doesn't it? Because it's as entrepreneurs, doesn't it give us more time to focus on uh calling people or not calling people, but like responding to people and uh and and finding new opportunities and thinking about how to develop other ones more and everything.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

It's so true. Yeah, that's very true. You still have built a successful practice, though, in the uh French Canadian market, which you've mentioned in the past uh pays the highest rates for French interpreting. So I'm curious if you could share with us what makes this market so lucrative and what's some insider knowledge that maybe you can share with interpreters that want to position themselves for success in this space.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Well, first and foremost, Canada is a bilingual country by law. Um Quebec is the only province

Why Canada Pays More For French

SPEAKER_00 39:04

that has French as its only official language. Every other province has English as its official language, except for one province which is bilingual, and it's directly east of Quebec and north of Maine, and that's New Brunswick, which is bilingual, um, because of the historic French uh the the yeah, the French pilgrims, how about that? But but there are laws, they're strict, stricter and stricter as EDI goes, and this is why I was excited too to get into the industry, because I was under the impression that court interpreters were being taken advantage of for being foreign. There was a big report that I read that Massachusetts was one of the first states to really give a big pay increase to interpreters. Um and that also kind of like, and that was within my trajectology research. Um, I think I wrote a paper on interpretation, and I said, Yeah, I'm sure of it. Like underpaid nanny, underpaid cooks, like there will come a time when uh these different professions, but interpreter is a high level. It's they say that simultaneous interpreting is one of the top three, top five most cognitively demanding tasks that you could do at all, which is why it only lasts, why you're only supposed to do simultaneous interpretation for 30 minutes at a time, no more. So when you have a full day, you have uh two or three boothmates in there uh uh doing it. Um Canada. Um it's it's it's really about again um accessibility. People have a right to um understand whatever's going on, and it goes beyond business, it's a societal um uh like not infrastructure, but it's it's it's a societal duty. It's like in the charter um of uh Canadian rights and human rights to be able to, you know, whether or not it applies to all the meetings, but Canadians have internalized this, and then also more recently in Quebec, you can possibly get fined for not doing French first. Um, but that's a whole rabbit hole. But because of this, you have a situation where uh more often than not, in a given conference or meeting, the person who needs the interpretation, person or people, it's like less than 10%, so it doesn't make business sense. A lot of the times I tried to explain this to the Alliance Française in Greenwich. I tried to explain to her that even if there was one person or 30 people in a thousand room, that it's EDI, it's respect, it's worth it, and they still haven't given me any contract. Uh, but um it's just not something that's going to ever happen with French or I don't know, possibly any language in the US. Meanwhile, in Canada, it's an important expense for a properly conducted conference. You need your deck, you need your AV and your microphones to be correctly set up. Um, you know, and whatever other logistics are part of a an annual event, for example, or or or maybe even a smaller monthly meeting with your plants in North Carolina, your headquarters, your head office is in uh Telban. So you have it's there's a multi uh country uh companies, but as soon as your company touches Quebec and Canada, be careful because there are laws, and beyond the laws, morally, you need to uh you know give give people the opportunity to speak in in one of the two official languages for your event. So it's a very um it's altruistic at this point, all while providing accessibility uh and equity.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Jeremy, this podcast is has always been about being able to not just share our own personal journeys as professional interpreters or translators with an audience that is very much involved in the language access, language services profession. And and we always try to share tools that are going to support individuals. That are either starting mid-career or, you know, just are wanting to do something new. And so being that you come from that business mindset with business strategies and applying them, not just stating them, but you actually apply them to your approaches. How do you communicate your value to clients? Especially when you're competing with lower priced interpreters. How do you communicate value? And you should have a little

Communicating Value Against Cheaper Providers

SPEAKER_01 45:02

bit uh talked about that earlier when it came to like bringing in the mindset of the salesperson. Um, but how do you want to do that?

SPEAKER_00 45:09

That's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Yeah, how have you evolved over how have you evolved?

SPEAKER_00 45:14

So here's the thing. So uh yourself, you're the product ultimately, even though it sounds weird, but or you're the one providing the service. So lesson one, maybe not lesson one, but lesson one of sales is that as they say, there is no product, there is no service. Because all the products and services are ultimately pretty similar, unless you have a product that's innovative and really breaks the mold. Um, don't they mention the wonder bra in this case? How about the Concorde? How about the Concorde too? More French related. Um, so the Concord could fly faster than every other plane, right? Uh, but anyway, so knowing that you have to make the difference, you have to be someone that people want to work with. You have to pick the right words, even if it's I think it's 7%, they say in studies of the word selection, when you really emphasize what you can do, uh, listening clearly, being concise clearly. I feel like I'm giving my 10 tips for a successful business.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Hey, we'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Um, yeah, don't don't don't drag on in your emails. Yeah, you want to be clean with that because ain't nobody got time.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Um, but I think that um uh calling's a big thing, rejection is a big thing. You'll call people sometimes. You get the gatekeeper and she doesn't want to hear anything about it. Why don't you email us? Okay, we'll you know you meet a what and they're like info, and you're like, really? But it but that's fine. Info is fine. I mean, but I'm not gonna bet on the day that somebody goes to their spam and types in French as a keyword into their own um Gmail uh account. That's probably unlikely. But you also have to know to ask for a vendor manager. Um, that's important because you are a vendor. Uh, a lot of people don't know about that one. And if you do say it, then you're really on the inside, you're like, uh like, oh wow, okay, yeah, yeah. And then just yeah, if you find somebody who you can who you're getting along with, you know, like you and me. Stop kidding. There's some people like you don't get along with, just don't don't push it, just like let them um like end the call, you know, without ruining the relation. It's not worth blowing up. You could just as easily press mute on your phone and you know, say what you want and like cut off the call and just you know, you're not gonna ruin it for one bad call, one one day, well, not one day, because there have been tons of times where I've had somebody say, We're not looking for new uh English interpreters, and like six months down the line, they don't work there anymore. And then like they are, they actually had been the whole time. Um, you know, now I lost six months, but that's okay. And then not only that, they also have an urgent need for an interpreter in New York next week. I'm like, oh wow, okay, so this is like all coming together. Then like use your advantages, but I don't shy away from really putting all my credentials right there. So my cover letter talks about everything I've done in a succinct way, in a chronological way. Then I also mention a few key accounts, always a good idea in any business. And then I think what makes the difference is uh yeah, following up uh is is always good when you follow up because there is a ton of competition, there's tons of competition, and there's AI coming in too. But in my opinion, it's not, I think it might actually grow the industry. So so that's about it for that. But in I think it more interestingly here with the AI, I have a thought on this is that I don't want to get my whole secret sauce of sale by to everybody. Next thing you know, everybody's yeah, they're stealing Jeremy's they'll be copying what Jeremy does and having hundreds of clients. Um, yeah, I think that with AI tools, uh people more and more people every day are trying their hand at translation. Reading the result and being like,

AI Pressure And Where Trust Wins

SPEAKER_00 49:44

holy, holy crap, this is this is garbage. What am I gonna do with this? So then, and then this goes back to the 80s when the um computer-assisted translation tools first came out. Apologies, it's about translation, not interpretation, but I think it's relevant. Um I I do have a thought on interpretation too. But basically, at that point, the machines came out where you would uh have like desktop software for the first time to do translation, but interpreters were wise to it because they kept the same rate. So if it's 20 cents per word, now they're saying, no, no, it's been translated, and then you go, well, great, but you know, whose fault is that? Yours or mine? And so it's more important than ever to have a trusted translator to double check, to read over, proofread, do the research, make sure it's right. What if you're translating something that doesn't need to be translated? Um, and then it goes in it goes into court, it gets rejected because it has anomalies, it has hallucinations, you know, just not making any sense like when it's supposed to. But anyway, in terms of uh interpreters, I've heard humanoid voices, and personally, I can't stand to hear them for more than the length of a chat GPT response. That's it, you know. Like, if somebody had to listen to that for a whole day, it's just not worth it. At that point, they could have interpreters if they want to avoid mistakes, they could transcribe, translate in real time, and then the translate the interpreter could choose to interpret with training wheels or not, or keep it just as a backup. I think that's the new like trend. I don't think anybody's talking about that, but that's the way it's going for interpreters, maybe doing that because while it's cheating a little bit, you know, it's not an exam. The whole point is to is to um transmit the message uh most properly. And I'm having a last thought here. I loved interpretation because grammar goes out the window. Translation, interpretation, what's the big difference? No writing as an interpreter. Your main job is to transmit the message as faithfully as possible, not run into a tradutore, tradutore situation.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

That's so true. Natural conversation, yes, natural conversation, Jeremy. What's one aspect uh for our last question in today's episode? What's one aspect of being a professional interpreter that nobody talks about, but that everyone should know before entering the field?

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Yeah, um as a conference interpreter, your best shield, your best weapon is preparation. So that's what I learned when um I had thought originally that uh simultaneous conference interpreting was impossible. Yet what I didn't know is that you actually get the presentation beforehand and they

Preparation As The Competitive Advantage

SPEAKER_00 53:04

provide you what they're gonna talk about. There's an agenda, who will be speaking, speakers, bios, the links to their website. So you have all this time to prepare. Well, not all this time, yeah, but uh you have uh a few days to prepare. As a conference interpreter, it's so important. If you just try to go in and wing it, that's a recipe for disaster. So uh I think there's the preparation and there's uh uh in a conference simultaneous setting with a partner, partner can be a big help because you both are working on your prep work before. You're making a lexicon of words that like you don't know or you have trouble um remembering. Uh, there's different software that you can use that remembers the words that you don't remember, that you, you know, and then you can get rid of them once you remember them, but a lot of interpreters don't because those words come up pretty often.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

So interesting. Jeremy, well, it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you, especially when it comes to business strategy in either interpreting or translation. And I think that we've learned a lot about your specific strategies that are very applicable to anyone that is interested in breaking into a specific niche and being able to expand their markets that they're working in and have a starting point at the very least. So I would like to welcome our audience to connect with you in any way possible. So, where can our listeners find out more about you and the work that you do?

SPEAKER_00 54:41

Uh, LinkedIn. Uh, Jeremy Jorin, Jeremy Guerin. Uh, also on my business page, frqca.com, uh, which stands for France, Quebec, Canada, Africa. Uh, we're a French translation agency that's vertical on French, uh, offering um French translation,

Where To Find Jeremy Online

SPEAKER_00 55:06

uh, subtitling, interpretation, and uh any French needs involving translation and interpreting.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

I'll make sure to include those links in our episode notes. And in the meantime, thank you so very much for the opportunity to have you here and brand the interpreter, Jeremy.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

My pleasure. Thank you, Maria.