All is Fair in War or How to Motivate Employees for Efficient Work

Eventually the question of motivating employees appears in front of every employer. In this moment there emerge several questions, which requires clear answers: how to make employees work harder and more efficient? What kind of tricks have to be implemented in a company in order to receive better results from company activity? The experience of international freelance marketplace for linguists 2Polyglot will show how the company implemented competition between its departments.

Primary goals of the competition were:

·        To define the most efficient way of traffic attraction for short-time period;

·        Service promotion;

·        Renew employees’ energy in summer while everybody is dreaming about vacation and the sea;

·        Increase website traffic.

All employees were divided into three groups according to their positions:

·     SMM (2 persons);

·     SEO (5 persons);

·     PR (4 persons).

Unique links with UTM marks were created for each group. Therefore, it was possible to follow total amount of clicks in Google Analytics.

As for the term, this competition has lasted less than a month from July, the 7-th till August, the 3-rd.

Departments were supposed to use their “special” tools for attracting visitors to the site, but each team had its own tactics and used everything what was necessary.

 Social media team used usual ways of promotion: everyday posts of 2Polyglot public pages in such social networks as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Vkontakte, Pinterest, Tumbler, comments on similar pages and adding new friends. Of course, this all was accompanied with unique links with marks. As a result, significant flow of visitors every day on the site. Social media advertising did not count.

Employees of this department attracted new visitors due to posting articles, infographics and press-releases with the help of paid or free resources. Furthermore, there were also actively used social networks, as colleagues posted comments with links in different topic-related groups. In that moment paid advertising of the website has not been launched yet, that is why toolkit was limited for SEO specialists.

PR managers posted free articles on different portals on various topics with their unique link. But the thing is that many websites do not allow any kind of links in published articles and that was a pretty significant obstacle for this department. Sometimes PR cooperated with SMM specialists (i.e. asked them for sharing published articles in public pages and groups) and any misunderstanding was not recognized. Furthermore, during competition there was launched mass emails sending, which is under jurisdiction of PR-department) and it also gave some quantity of visits.

Trickeries are also fair…

It should also be mentioned that the competition was not ended without tricks from some participants. There were attempts  to use nonstandard methods in all teams including cunning ones. For example, one of employees was asked to compose press-release for SEO team, but he has added his own link to the text having decided to make a profit from the situation. SEO specialists did not recognize it and launched paid press-release mass sending. Therefore, they gave to competitors additional traffic due to own inattentiveness. This situation demonstrates the presence of passion in one big team where all participants work for one project. All is fair in war.

After conclusion every participant of teams put particular small sum of funds into the “bank”. Total amount of money was the price for the winners. No employee lost a lot, but the prime inspired winners for further success.

Consequences of the competition

At first, new website visitors. During the competition, the total amount of visitors increased almost triple. As a result, SMM team won, which had attracted more visitors than two other departments had together. It is necessary to add that such effect is objective and true for short time period.

At second, visitors attraction mechanism. As it was concluded, the most efficient tool had occurred to be sharing information via social media. Due to correct work of SMM results may exceed the expectations.

At third, participants’ impressions. It is possible to confirm that both sides of the competition winners and losers were satisfied. The event occurred to be interesting and inspired employees in lazy summer season.

Anyway, we realized that such events can be very useful for motivation to work harder and that leads to more successful project promotion, in this case this is 2Polyglot.

Freelance linguistic marketplace 2Polyglot: the history of creating

Andrew Prudko shares his personal experience of launching international online platform 2Polyglot, which is oriented on linguistic freelancers.

The idea of creating an international linguistic platform did not appeared without purpose. As it always happens, at first, it emerges some kind of issue requiring solution and then you realize that it would be great if it this solution was a little easier and more comfortable, but you are obliged to get along on existing ways. So as we had the need to translate the website of our marketing company to different languages. But, unfortunately, in our team there were no polyglots, so we thought, “Hm-m, what if to create our own, but digital one”?

Actually, that’s how it usually works: there is a common issue, which needs solving and if you manage to solve it, you will have a successful business.

We faced an issue, which was in the fact that we had to browse through different multipurpose freelance services in order to find a convenient translator. And that usually leads to time wasting. Therefore, we started our search for a specialized marketplace where we could find a freelancer, but we did not manage to get one. Most of them have plenty of specialists’ types such as designers, programmers and so on, though the necessary one was absent.

We have realized that a lot of people and companies, which need services of translation, actually face the same issue every day. We have made a research and received data turned out to be quite interesting. According to American research company “Common Sense Advisory”, a market of world linguistic services is dynamically emerging. Furthermore, in 2014 $73 billion was spent for translation services; 1.5 million professional translators exist on Earth; rate of translation specialists increase will be 42% till the end of 2020 and 15% will be the rate of translation market increase till the end of the same year.

From this moment, we have decided that freelance linguists deserve separate platform and their profiles should not be lost among plenty of accounts of IT-specialists. Then another quite difficult task appeared, which required creative approach – choosing the right brand name. As platform is linguistic and connected with languages, then our website had to show that it possessed foreign languages knowledge. So at once the word “polyglot” emerged by itself. But the thing is that obviously, such domain name was already taken. The decision could be only in adding one word more, which could make the project name too complicated or a digit instead of a word, i.e. “four” sounding similar to “for”. But the research showed that this digit had a doubtful reputation in China, because Chinese “four” sounds similar to “death” in Chinese. Furthermore, they even often replace fourth floor fascia in hotels with “3a” or simple “F”. This tetraphobia (phobia of the 4 digit) influenced all areas of Chinese life, so we decided to express our respect towards Chinese culture taking into account that the project is international and access to Chinese market is important to us. That is why we stopped at “2” digit having decided to turn “2” into a globe on our logo confirming we work in the entire world.

From this moment the official work on creating new platform for freelance translators, copywriters, language tutors and tour guides reached its origin. Step by step website was developed and on the 24-th of March in 2015 the platform was officially launched in two languages: English and Russian. It does not look like a real polyglot, right? Anyway, it was only the first day, so as it is said, to be continued.

Then we faced an issue of choosing a convenient electronic payment system and this topic can be another separate post, because of too many details. I will only say that in the end we have chosen PayPal as other different payment systems had conditions, which did not fit our interests, i.e. high rates of fees, absence of possibility to keep money on the system without sending to a bank account and so on.

Since we have launched 2Polyglot, we have created 4 versions.., excuse me, “F” versions of the service in English, Russian, French and Ukrainian. By the way, we did not hesitate to make much translation work on the site having used services of executors registered on it. So our users helped us to develop our marketplace and we proved the necessity of this project by our own example. More than 3 thousand linguistic freelancers have registered on the site with total traffic of 25,000 visits per month since March. And this is only for “3a” months after launch! I believe that qualified services of language area will soon be associated with our platform and all who need to find freelance work will come 2 Polyglot. 

2Polyglot Started the Cycle of Interviews with Celebrities

         

The outstanding PR campaign was created in a modern startup 2Polyglot, which is online platform for freelance linguists able to provide with such services as translation, language tutoring, copywriting, and tour guiding.

Internet service gathered professional linguists from various countries on one website and is assigned to defend interests of both Executors and Customers due to special feature called “Safe Purchase”, which gives a possibility to reserve Customer’s funds and lets refund them if an order has not been executed in time. That’s why all users can be totally sure they will not lose their money. The main project goals are satisfying customers by efficient, quick, professional work for adequate price and giving the possibility of receiving a part-time job on the Internet to freelancers.

The campaign sense consists of interviews with famous people about the foreign languages role in personal lives and careers of known people.

The first celebrity who was interviewed by journalists in frames of the  PR campaign in 2Polyglot became famous American singer Stereolizza (real name is Ekaterina Shalayeva). Actually, the author world known hit “X.Y.Z.” was born in Russia, but moved to Ukraine with parents and graduated from the Institute of International relations. Famous performer has been living in the USA in Los-Abgeles for abour 7 years, so she really knows the importance of the being at home in foreign languages in the career of a pop star. Stereolizza shared her experience and some tips about languages role specially for freelance marketplace 2Polyglot.

“When you learn some language, it stays passive. This point is significant enough to practice live communication. You may have a perfect knowledge of grammar, You may pass tests with an excellent grade, but when people start communicating for real, they get nervous and feel like that all this time they spent on learning languages became worthless. In fact, it’s not the true. All the knowledge you have been keeping will become useful at the right moment . All accumulated skills will appear in the need. Do not be afraid of real communication. You shouldn’t be scared of mistakes. Relax and  imagine that this language  is your native one.When I arrived in United States, I had some additional work for living, because in that time I was not a celebrity, that’s why I had to work hard… Well, I’ ve realized that a lot of Americans write incorrectly in grammar, they usually make many mistakes. I was frequently asked how to write different words in English. I want to say that in our country (Ukraine) a wonderful school exists, so no hang-ups about it”.

Stereolizza also provided 2Polyglot with a positive and inspiring feedback, “I wish 2polyglot.com wide popularity! I’m sure this project is very important and will be in high demand. So it will  definitely have a successful future”.

 Linguistic platform for freelancers is preparing an interview with next celebrity who is Spanish singer Zhanna. She will also tell her story and share her personal experience about necessity of knowledge of foreign languages, which helped her in a career.          
Full interview with Stereolizza 

How to become a writer and boost your writing career

With the emerging Internet every second person may feel as a writer. People have blogs, write articles, communicate on forums and dream about fame and fans. But in fact, writer is the person who writes professionally and earn money on it as a basic occupation. And yes, the answer to the question about someone’s job “I’m a professional blogger” still sounds funny (that’s why I never say that). Even if such “writer” in teen age earns some cents on Google AdSense. Hm-m, it sounds like a perfect rhyme. Maybe, I’m a talented poet… The thing is that most of beginners in writing area suppose exactly in the same way. These experts write several articles about feeling lonely and believe that the world must definitely hear them. OMG, it seems like I’ve just described myself! Anyway, writing is a long way to go, but if you realize that, then let’s continue.

Have a practice

1.           The only one proof can be is only a real positive feedback from real experts. Another sign of really good writing skills is article sales in online content shops or various satisfied clients on at least one freelance marketplace. Of course, writing articles is not the same as writing a book is, but at least it will give a possibility to get required experience.
2.             You may laugh, but yes, start having your own blog. Make regular posts on topics you prefer and you are an expert in (either, at least, you suppose so or you grandma’ told you that). Some free blog websites even have online statistics and it will let you define, which articles are more successful and what kind of text style (not textile, humorist) readers like more.

Required basic skills

·     Deep knowledge of the topic including real practice and experience (two points above are not enough).

·         Ability to express ideas and thoughts in an interesting and understandable way.

·         Ability of finding “catchy” topics able to attract readers.

·         Personal style of writing.

·         Educated personality.

·         Correct writing (actually, this one has to be placed first in the list).

·         … not available (read further).

Stages of creating a book

Stage #1.0032: search of an interesting topic.

Alright, relax and stop biting your nails. If you’re still reading this post, then one way or another, you suit according to previous conditions, right? Oh, come on! Alright, I hope at least most of them. Anyway, it may sound weird, but actually writing has to be on the second place, if you want to build a writing career. But on the first place it has to be your… of course, not your girlfriend, silly! Your topic, your hobby or what you are going to write about. And even if there are thousands of similar books highlighting your topic, describe it in a brand-new way. Find your own style, which differs from others’ ones and start…

Stage #1.64: … gathering information.

It’s even hard to predict what actually takes more time: writing itself or gathering convenient information for future book. It includes huge amount of materials such as statistics, news (if applicable), surveys, researches, real life examples, quotes etc. This data will help to make strict structure (it’s even hard to pronounce it properly) of a book and you will always know what you should write about on every stage of creating a book.

Stage #2.00: writing.

The key concept in writing is your goal, the goal why you are writing this book. If you’re browsing the Internet with “What is the most popular writing style?” or “What to write about in order to become rich?”, then you’ve already failed even having not started writing. It’s the same as in real life. Do not copy anyone (it’s about content too, by the way). Be yourself in writing, because a book is the author’s reflection in the mirror. Difference of famous writers was their key to fame (and their weird habits count too).

Stage #3.99: sale.

When you chose a topic, made up an exact structure of a book, gathered all the necessary education and wrote a couple of chapters, then offer your piece (or even a masterpiece) for… no, not the audience, but for publishing houses or companies. On sites of some publishing houses you may find online applications. This is the stage when you will have to assure fat and serious men to publish your book It means you will have to prove why you book will be successful profitable. So here is one skill more you have to obtain: efficient seller or sales manager, if you wish (and now you may replace “not available” in the list of required skills with this one).

Note: never offer publishing houses your full copy of a book (I hope you understand why).

Stage #4.00: sale online.

After publishing a book or even instead of it you may start selling you own book via the Internet. How to do that?

•             Create your own website

Advantage: all income will be yours, as most of publishers usually take 90% 0f book wholesale price (it’s sad, I know) and retail shops make the price twice higher (it’s unfair, I know). So an author gains about 5% of retail price in total (it’s iniquitous, I know).

Disadvantage: Creating a good website costs good money. Of course, you may learn making websites, but you also have to add one skill more to the list, but remember that education also costs something.

•             Create a free blog (again?) dedicated to your book or a community in social networks, previously having printed a book at home, and send it to customers via post.

Advantage: minimal expenses.

Disadvantage: do not forget to add one skill more: PR manager.

If you are a beginner and think about writing and selling your first book, then my advice will be to choose the “a” variant, despite you will have to share your money with those fat and serious men. At least if your book fails the only one who will be responsible for it is publishing house (and you, of course, but not in financial way). But if it succeeds you will get fame and reputation of a professional writer. So your next book will cost more and in case of self-publishing your PR campaign will be a way easier due to a famous name of the author. Yes, I’m talking about you and good luck with it!

Advantages of freelance work

       
  Nowadays freelance work becomes more and more popular. With growth of employment competition many young people make a choice to work as freelancers having registered on a freelance marketplace. It’s happening for purpose as distant work have a lot of privileges and advantages in comparison with standard office work we’re all used to. So now we will clarify all pros of the freelance.

   Nobody tells a freelancer what conditions to work in. It’s possible to drink smoothie in a café while thinking about a project, lay in the sun in some park or to be sitting at an ordinary desk, if it helps to focus right on customer’s order. In any moment, a free worker can make a pause and go to gym or even visit the nearest supermarket for sweeties. Such worker may have any kind of diet, even including the one, which requires eating every hour. There is no any limit upon location where it’s necessary to work. It means that a freelancer is not tied up with geographical frames. For example, nowadays many free workers work for The USA while living in Vietnam due to its law prices for products and services. That’s why average freelancer feels like a rich man in this small Asian country. And the opposite, it’s possible to live in some other dream country, it only depends on the income.

   Distant employment lets earn desiring amount of many. There are no limits for contract conditions and corporative relations do not influence paychecks. Everything depends on professional skills and assiduity in work. By the way, according to research of payment system “Payoneer”, an average check per hour for freelancers in the entire world is $21. In comparison with average salary of ordinary American worker of 23$ per hour. Taking into account that American salaries are quite high in comparison with most of countries.

  Distant workers are mostly satisfied or even like their job, because in fact, it was their conscious choice. They do not do freelance work due to lack of job positions in companies or because they have corresponding education in order to avoid disappointment their college degree to be useless. They choose distant job because of some important reasons such as raising a child, health issues, the need to stay with relatives or they make such choice because they want to be free and independent.

   Freelance totally eliminates a human factor. There are only a customer and executor. That’s it. There are no bootlicking, rumors and gossiping about colleagues’ personal lives. Office betraying and annoying boss are absent, because a freelancer is the boss oneself. Such worker is the PR manager, executive manager and many other positions too. Freelancers decide by themselves what to do, when to do, where to d0 and for what salary. They appreciate their own time and they let nobody waste it.

   Wide choice of various orders of different level is the doubtless advantage of the freelance work. Free workers can choose the most convenient order according to a deadline or a cost. They realize that their time means a lot to them and the more efforts they make, the more money they’ll get. They understand that the more qualifiedly an executed order will be, the more funds will appear in their pocket. Office work won’t give such options. There you may work very hard, but your fixed salary will stay the same despite of big volume or high quality of done work.

   Any ordinary office worker won’t be surprised of hearing about tough traffic jam, because this is a required attribute of the way to office. For example, according to the statistics, drivers waste 72 hours in traffic jam in Los Angeles and this is additional $1,500 for an average freelancer. It’s not that big, but how many companies are ready to pay you such amount of money for being stuck in traffic? Exactly, none of them. Furthermore, try to count money, which was spent on fuel, public transport etc.

   So wherever a freelancer is, it’s always possible to do work in Paris, Caribbean Islands or sitting on a biffy at home. Distant workers spend more time with relatives and enjoy their lives working for themselves, but not for somebody else who is actually more interested not to pay a worker at all, then to promote one. So pick a convenient marketplace and start making a profit online while sitting on your biffiesJ… or wherever you usually prefer sitting at home.

Famous writers’ weird habits

Famous people often seem weird when it’s about their personal life. They may let themselves do things ordinary public can’t even imagine. So when some writers were finding themselves in art images created by their own mind, they may have had troubles with coming back to the reality. Everybody needs some energizer for any work to do, especially in writing or copywriting on a freelance marketplace, and representatives of art professions are not the exclusions. But the thing is that some writers’ ways of renewing inspiration sometimes may surprise a lot.

• George Gordon Byron and Oscar Wilde

Historically in the nineteenth century writers were mostly recusants and did not accept common behavior styles. That’s why sometimes their deeds were turning into opened ignoring common rules of ethic, fashion and traditions. George Gordon Byron and Oscar Wilde (who, by the way, was charged with homosexual relationship) were really extraordinary persons and were known for their original statements, style of cloth and public activity.

•      Immanuel Kant

Famous German philosophe Immanuel Kant was placed tough requirements upon his lifestyle. He had never been married and was totally against to married people in his environment. Being a supporter of such marital approach, once Kant even fired his servant when he got to know the servant had married secretly.

•  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet and philosopher, wise and educated, able to speak several languages… except native German. He hated garlic smell, dogs and people, wearing glasses. When Goethe was a director of the theatre in Weimar, once he asked to fire a duke, when some dog accidentally appeared in the theatre. He also had a phobia of draughts, that’s why he always worked in closed accommodation. But irony interfered and the author of “Faust” died because of cold.        

• Honoré de Balzac

Great French writer and founder of realism in European literature Honoré de Balzac always had not enough time for writing during a day. That’s why he worked at nights trying to become wealthy, so it leaded to aggravation. While being inspired he drank a lot of cups of coffee and changed ordinary lifestyle of his close people. Furthermore, such habit caused the situation, when one of his literary secretaries got crazy having not beard such a tough rhythm of life.

•              Edgar Allan Poe

Famous American writer and poet, one of the originators of detective literature Edgar Allan Poe created many his pieces under influence of alcohol and opium. So it’s not surprise why he had a phobia of being buried alive, acoustic and visual hallucinations. Sometimes these hallucinations were included in his pieces.

•                   Théophile Gautier

Literary critic and famous French writer Théophile Gautier was also known for criticism upon bourgeois reality. He was a supporter of romanticism and ignored all norms and traditions of bourgeois fashion in that time. He preferred romantic velvet jacket and shoes from gold leather. He also liked to carry opened umbrella in any weather.

•                 Friedrich Schiller

German poet and philosopher was inspired by… putrid apples. It’s said, his desk was full of such attributes. He also used many red curtains in his office and often submerged his kegs into ice water while writing in order to renew his energy and inspiration.

•                Charles Dickens

English writer Charles Dickens was literally a mine of various weird habits. Of then was hallucinations, so as he could talk to heroes of his pieces. But when they began to annoy him, Dickens was threatening them with absence of any other reference about them further in his pieces. Author of “Oliver Twist” was also noticed to spend a lot of time in morgues. He called it “Disgusting attractiveness”. And the last, but not the least, a doctor recommended Charles a special diet including the need to drink 0.5 liter of sparkling wine every day at 3 p.m. because of his overtiredness.

•                 Mark Twain

The real Mark Twain’s name is Samuel Clemens. His pseudonym was taken from river navigation. But this is only beginning. Twain’s coevals were astonished by quantity of tobacco the writer used to smoke – about 40 cigars per day. By the way, probably most of you heard the phrase, "Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know, because I’ve done it thousands of times". Guess, whose one is that? Mark Twain adored cats and they were almost everywhere in his house.

• Guy de Maupassant 

French writer Guy de Maupassant hated the Eiffel Tower despite he lived in Paris. He stated that the tower makes the capital ugly. Anyway, he preferred having lunch exactly in the restaurant of the Eiffel Tower explaining it by the fact that it was the only place where the tower could not be seen… 

            As we see, genius people may have a lot of different weird habits, but at least they may do it because of their uniqueness, talent and real necessity for the humanity. What if to start doing something weird? Perhaps, everyone can become famous too in such way. So dear writers and copywriters, what weird habits do you have?