Katarzyna Wieleńska:
The key to success is the quality of services provided
– I wanted to create, to work when I wanted to and to give work to others, both the translators who are part of my team and the suppliers who work with my company, confesses Katarzyna Wieleńska in an interview with Law Business Quality.
Where did you get the idea to open your own translation agency?
– For as long as I can remember, I have always written something. I was fascinated by words and their meaning, the possibility of playing with sentences, understatements, ambiguities. It was obvious that I was good at Polish. I started learning English as a very young person. But it was only through my love of The Cure's music and the lyrics written by Robert Smith that I felt really motivated to learn. Then came a fascination with the band Pearl Jam and the language of Eddie Vedder, combined with a love of the work of Halina Poświatowska, Sylvia Plath and Audre Lorde. By the beginning of high school, I had already made my poetry debut; by the time I graduated, I could boast of having won a competition for young poets, a radio show dedicated to my poetry and prose poetry, as well as publications in the American magazine Poetry. As far as my studies were concerned, the natural choice was English Philology, which, by the way, turned out to be a great disappointment. However, thanks to my writing skills combined with my fluent English, I translated marketing texts for a well-known American corporation at the age of 22. It was then that the idea of setting up my own translation agency was born, which gave me a practical way of combining my passion for writing, foreign languages and crossing borders with my passion for business and my love of freedom and independence.
How important is passion in your professional life? Was it your love of languages that sparked you to open your own company that offers translation services into more than 55 foreign languages?
– Even when I was still at university, I knew that I definitely wanted to work on my own, that fitting into the world of corporations and rigid rules was something I definitely did not want to do, because what mattered to me above all was freedom, independence, creating my own reality and acting on rules that I set, rather than a code of conduct written by someone “at the top”. Besides, I wanted to create, work when I want to and give work to others, both to the translators who are part of my team (now almost a thousand people from all over the world) and to the suppliers who work with my company.
Who are you targeting with your offer? Who are your customers? Are they private individuals or do you focus on large global corporations?
– The offer of Pogotowie Tłumaczeniowe® is addressed primarily to companies looking for a translation agency for permanent cooperation. Our clients fall into two categories: the first is Polish companies that are present or active on global markets, and we enable them to make their presence felt abroad by co-creating their marketing materials and the necessary documentation from a linguistic perspective. The second group includes global corporations with branches in Poland, but also operating in other markets. For strictly foreign companies not present on the market in Poland, we work under the Excellence Translations (now Multi Lang Lab) brand, being their main translation service provider.
What makes Pogotowie Tłumaczeniowe | Multi Lang Lab stand out from the competition?
– The quality of the service provided and the ability to build relationships proved to be key. My company had been operating for a very long time without a website, let alone a specific visual identity. However, that didn't really matter. What made us stand out from the competition was our flexible approach to clients, our friendly service, our ability to build lasting business relationships, our accessibility and availability - sometimes even in the late evenings or on days off - and the high quality of our service, all of which contributed to the fact that we very quickly started getting referral orders from foreign companies in Poland, whose employees started recommending us “upwards” to their parent companies or head office. This is when the Excellence Translations™ (Multi Lang Lab) brand was established, under which my company operates in foreign markets. On the Polish market we operate as Pogotowie Tłumaczeniowe®, in both cases offering high quality translations from every language and in every possible industry.
How profitable is an ongoing cooperation with a translation agency for a given company?
– Permanent cooperation with one translation agency means, above all, the possibility of placing orders for translations in many language combinations, which eliminates the need to contact, for example, 17 people if there are so many languages in which to translate an important text. Sometimes it is necessary to contact more than one person in order to find a translator who has the time to deal with an order and, most importantly, specialises in the industry in which the company operates. This is very important, as not everyone knows everything and a translator specialising in literary translations is unlikely to translate complicated instructions for an engine used in an oil extraction machine. A translation agency knows its translators very well, so it knows to whom to send the text for translation; moreover, it usually works with more than one translator of a given specialisation or language combination and knows the schedule and availability of that person. This is a huge time-saver from the client's point of view.
Permanent cooperation with one translation agency also ensures that our documents are always handled by one translator or a team of translators assigned to a given client and project. As a result, knowledge and experience are exchanged; the client knows the translator's work and the translator is perfectly familiar with the client company's area of operation, vocabulary and terminology used in the company, product names, definitions, the entire area of operation of the given company or institution. This preserves the consistency of the translated texts and significantly shortens the translation deadlines, as it eliminates the need for the translator to check the concepts and for the client to verify and correct the translated texts.
The translation agency also offers a number of related services, such as DTP typesetting of translated material, editing and proofreading of texts written by the client or an external database of client documents, which is very helpful if a file is lost somewhere, whether in its original or translated version.
By working with proven partners from a variety of B2B service industries (a proven office supplies supplier, a law firm, a tax consultancy company, a management information-focused accountancy firm, a PR agency, an insurance broker, an actuary, a venture capital fund, an accountancy firm, etc.), Pogotowie Tłumaczeniowe® acts a bit like a concierge for business, enabling business relationships to be established with experienced and reliable companies. This brings peace of mind and comfort to the client's business, allowing them to concentrate fully on their own work and important tasks.
How do you create your company's brand?
– As I said before, I have only recently, already quite a mature company with an extensive client base, created two company brands. From my experience, I know that personal relationships with clients, flexibility in service and partnership-based cooperation are very important. Because for our clients we are partners, not service providers. Apart from creating two websites dedicated to Pogotowie Tłumaczeniowe® and Excellence Translations™, I have never implemented any branding strategy for my company - everything happens on its own, without my involvement. The brand and its image built itself, so to speak. We are simply good, and thus worth recommending by clients, which for me is the greatest accolade and a source of joy and satisfaction.
Principles that guide you in business?
– For me, partnerships are very important, both with my clients and with translators and suppliers. It is extremely important to realise and know that we are important to each other, as we complement each other's services and offer solutions that are essential to our partners and clients. This requires trust, which is built up over many years in projects completed together.
Do truth and acting fairly, in harmony with each other pay off in business today?
– If we have this conviction, if it is important to us to work in harmony with each other, then this is how it will be. And it will pay off, because if we treat our clients as our partners, they will reciprocate, making the collaboration a win-win, with long-term benefits for both parties. Working in harmony with ourselves means being able to let go of what makes us uncomfortable, what doesn't quite fit with our values and business ethics. If we let go of clients and partners with whom working together does not meet the standards that are important to us, if we let go without feeling lacking, without feeling that we have to work with anyone who wants to work with us, we will very quickly build a group of clients who are driven by values that are close to what is important to us. And that will always be a source of benefit for each party.
An effective way to relax? How do you recharge your batteries?
– Doing what I enjoy doing. Without too much emotional baggage, without over-analysing, everything I do makes me happy, which is why I am rarely tired. Outsiders would probably say that I work all the time, but I don't associate work with being a burden, a compulsion, something that has to be done to deserve time off and relaxation. As a result, I don't need to recharge my batteries in order to have the strength to keep going or struggle, because that's not how I approach tasks or life in general. For me, work is a pleasure and just as much an activity as travelling, reading, listening to music, hiking in the woods - it is all intertwined in my daily life, which I do not divide into professional and private spheres.
The definition of happiness according to Katarzyna Wieleńska.
– As Benjamin Franklin said: “Happiness depends more on the inner disposition of the mind than on external circumstances”. For me, happiness is knowing that I am the source of all experiences in my life, that I am responsible for creating my reality. It's a feeling that gives incredible freedom - that from now on I don't have to do anything, that I can only wish. Then happiness takes the form of a journey rather than a destination. When we are happy on principle, life becomes simple because we stop greedily chasing the next thing or experience that is meant to briefly fill some gap and emotional hunger in us or provide a short-term adrenaline rush. With inner freedom and awareness, I know that the choice of how to react to a situation in the moment, what to assign meaning to and what to forget about, is mine alone. And this gives a huge shift in perspective and attitude towards life.
Interviewee: Ilona Adamska
fot. Sebastian Małachowski
Source: https://magazynlbq.pl/katarzyna-wielenska-kluczem-do-sukcesu-jest-jakosc-swiadczonych-uslug/