Poll: What percentage of your work would you say has come out of referrals from colleagues?
Autor vlákna: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
PRACOVNÍK SERVERU
Sep 2, 2025

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "What percentage of your work would you say has come out of referrals from colleagues?".

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Iulia Parvu
Iulia Parvu  Identity Verified
Rumunsko
Local time: 17:29
Člen (2022)
angličtina -> rumunština
+ ...
Zero Sep 2, 2025

0% should be an option.

Zea_Mays
Paulo Roberto
Jennifer Levey
ipv
writeaway
Cecília Alves
Philip Lees
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugalsko
Local time: 15:29
Člen (2007)
angličtina -> portugalština
+ ...
I don't know Sep 2, 2025

I have never bothered to work out the percentage, but over the years I have been referred by at least two colleagues when they are unavailable, the word count does not suit them (I like large jobs, they don’t) or the subject matter does not match their specialities. Some direct clients have also recommended me...

Christine Andersen
Philip Lees
 
Lieven Malaise
Lieven Malaise  Identity Verified
Belgie
Local time: 16:29
Člen (2020)
francouzština -> nizozemština
+ ...
Probably close to zero Sep 2, 2025

I had a few former colleagues dating back to my inhouse period in the first half of the noughties and I had a habit of giving their names if a customer asked me if I didn't know some translators in other language pairs or in mine if I wasn't available. Perhaps they did the same, but I have no knowledge of it.

I do know, however, that more than 1 of my best customers have entered the building through project managers changing agencies.



[Bijgewerkt op 2025-09-02 0
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I had a few former colleagues dating back to my inhouse period in the first half of the noughties and I had a habit of giving their names if a customer asked me if I didn't know some translators in other language pairs or in mine if I wasn't available. Perhaps they did the same, but I have no knowledge of it.

I do know, however, that more than 1 of my best customers have entered the building through project managers changing agencies.



[Bijgewerkt op 2025-09-02 09:13 GMT]
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Bruno Veilleux
Bruno Veilleux  Identity Verified
Kanada
Local time: 10:29
angličtina -> francouzština
+ ...
Colleagues? Sep 2, 2025

I’ve also been recommended by PMs to other divisions of large agencies or to other agencies they had moved to, but since most agencies don’t allow us to speak to one another, I don’t really know any other translator well enough to recommend them, and vice versa.

 
Either zero or about eighty percent Sep 2, 2025

That's a difficult question. About 95% of my clients have come from referrals from other clients but if I trace them all the way back, I generally find a colleague. At the moment, however, no client I work with came directly from a colleague.

A colleague gives my name to a gallery, which passes it on to an artist or another museum or a series of other museums or galleries, so without the original colleague, I may never have had the museum or any other client I'm working for right no
... See more
That's a difficult question. About 95% of my clients have come from referrals from other clients but if I trace them all the way back, I generally find a colleague. At the moment, however, no client I work with came directly from a colleague.

A colleague gives my name to a gallery, which passes it on to an artist or another museum or a series of other museums or galleries, so without the original colleague, I may never have had the museum or any other client I'm working for right now.

When I worked with agencies, as far as I remember, all the ones in Italy came from referrals from colleagues. The others came from my website (only three, in about 1999-2003) or, again, from colleagues.

Simon
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Poll: What percentage of your work would you say has come out of referrals from colleagues?






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