Any opinions about Alex Eames\' tranmail agency list ?

On 2002-01-02 07:20, rtriaca wrote:

and therefore I consider it a bad business practice. I have heard success stories by several users, and that only encourages people to continue buying this list.



Let\'s suppose there are 100 email addresses in this list; you send your CV in good faith to all of them and wait. Soon, you start to get answers from, let\'s say, 10 agencies (and that\'s a lot). You get some job and go happily by. Was it worth to annoy the other 90 agencies? Assuming some are used to it and simply erase your CV or save it for future reference (let\'s say a generous 30), there are still 60 angry people at being sent a 50-Kb email (because I\'m sure you sent your CV as a nice .doc, didn\'t you?). What if thousands of people sent their 50-Kb resumes that same day? (it\'s feasible, since translation is a worldwide business). Your name is on the line here.



We always hear the success stories because no one is ever going say they don\'t hire you because of your bad marketing policies. Think what you would do if one day you find your mailbox, filled with unsolicited applications (perhaps of translators of languages you even don\'t work with). And that\'s assuming such email address is for submiting applications in the first place. What if it\'s the one used for customer support, and we have just flooded it? (some servers start bouncing or even delete mail that doesn\'t fit). Really smooth advertising



My advise? Do your own research. It takes time, but it\'s not that terrible. Go to a good agency listing, search one by one and *make sure* they are asking for resumes. If they are, then go ahead and send that nice .doc resume to the correct address. If they are not having any vacancies at the moment, just note down their name and check a few months later.



At least for me, my name is worth all that labour...



Good luck,

Rossana





Even though I respect your valued opinion I have to disagree firmly. I bought Alex\'s Tranmail product and it has paid itself within 48 hours.

Alex explicitly states not to send out \"100\" mails at once, and any individual with a little foresight won\'t for a plain and single reason. Even if you get only 50 responses within say 24 hours (and that\'s a low estimate, out of 100 contacted agencies 84!!!!! requested my CV), you will not be able to respond within a reasonable time. The window of opportunity is very small in our business and PM\'s tend to brand you as a \"late-responder\" rather eagerly.



Further Alex states (and that is common sense I think too) To keep the first contact short in the manner of politely asking if they would be interested in receiving your CV. Many people, me included, don\'t even open unsolicited file atachments anymore. I am one of these \"success stories\" Alex has quoted in Tranmail and it worked perfect for me. So instead of sitting behind my PC doing time consuming agency research for nill, I am sitting behind my PC doing paid translations, which one is better?



I see it this way. If these agencies would be retailers of what have you apples? Don\'t you think they would be interested what\'s on the market? You as translator are the product they sell, their very existence unless they have inhouse staff. Further, most established, larger agencies have professional web-sites; forthwith pop servers that can handle high volumes of emails. Hell even my personal mailbox with AT&T takes 50MB, not to talk about my web-server.



I understand your point, and to a certain extend I agree with you. But should we not utilize marketing tools to sell our product out of pitty for the poor people being molested with our offerings?



As for Alex Eames. The information the man provides gave a boost to my career and I am very thankful for that. Tranmail is an excellent product and in my opinion a \"must\" for every Freelance Translator. After all we get paid for translating, and not for doing \"agency-research\"

[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-01-12 16:24 ] ▲ Collapse