This is great advise and, like I said, perfect timing. Thanks Wendi. Good luck as you get started, and just watch out for clients not payment verified, they are more common than you might think! Oh, I would ask for referrals sure. However, once you have a handle on the kind of content a client needs, you can offer them article pitches they probably had not even considered until now making you invaluable to their business. Lol, I did this a lot too when I got on there, and it was also because I was a bit scared to provide or offer other ideas.
But once you get over that just do it! Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Skip to content. Looking for Writing Jobs on oDesk or Elance? Mistake 2: Picking the wrong clients Not all clients are created equal, and you want to keep an eye out for red flags, particularly on outsourcing sites.
Check for these signs of a solid prospect: Is the client payment verified? Mistake 3: Not asking enough questions Communication is key in any relationship — and even more so in a business relationship where you may never meet your clients.
What mistakes have you made on outsourcing sites? Filed Under: Blogging. September 30, at am. Ann T says:. October 5, at pm. August 7, at am. Yolanda says:. March 10, at am.
Christine says:. January 8, at pm. Lise Cartwright says:. David Russell says:. August 28, at pm. Lise says:. August 31, at pm. September 2, at pm. Samantha says:.
March 8, at am. Vinod says:. April 26, at pm. April 27, at pm. April 29, at am. April 29, at pm. Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
Odesk Reviews. Editor's Review Odesk and Elance are my favorites of all freelance websites. Featured In:. A project is outlined, a bid is placed, a project is complete, job done. This goes against my general recommendations, which are to put in the work early in a relationship to build trust, develop a longer-term plan and work together collaboratively long-term.
They have a fire of ambition, strive to exercise creative flexibility and create professional freedom. I feel that freelancer platforms are not calibrated to deal with the growing service provider looking to build a platform in a space and benefit from long-term relationships. So my advice is to use freelancer exchanges as a stepping stone , a thoroughfare. As soon as you can, build your own voice, demand your own attention and own your own future.
Or have you recently outgrown platforms like this? Looking forward to hearing from you. Interesting post. I sit in 2 camps currently. I use peopleperhour. I get a lot of enquiries and have made a lot of long term clients where I have been able to effectively upsell to so from this end it has created a stream of people who come to me, rather than me spending a large amount of time on bidding for projects.
However I do agree with you in some respects because I use this site primarily to plug gaps in other projects and for the more faceless, corporate projects. The majority of my work comes from my specialism in working for music industry professionals — something which is almost impossible to demonstrate effectively on a site such as elance.
So although I agree getting into bidding wars and sending numerous pitches may be counter productive, I still think there is a place for these sites, if used correctly. Hey Allison, thanks for commenting. Yeah you hit the right points here.
I have been trying to work with PeoplePerHour for a while now, but I am at the position now of letting this go. So you have inspired me, and helped me to refine my view on the use of Freelancer Exchanges in my strategy going forward. I maintain complete profiles on Elance and Upwork now, one in the same, really and link out to my personal website from them. This has led to thousands in income.
I no longer apply for any jobs on exchanges, but they do have value in least offering another way for clients to find you.
Using them as a signpost is actually fairly useful albeit against the general terms of use for most platforms! When a client contacts you directly it opens the door for building a relationship the right way…. Elance has updated its fee structure which is highly argued upon. But that also means the elimination of extremely low paying jobs and improvement of job structure.
One of the many perks of joining Elance is that it allows you to verify and secure payments. Payment is guaranteed by using Escrow. Another upside of this website is that all the accounts are verified here.
Unlike on Freelancer, not everyone can make an account here. Your credentials need to be verified and then you are on the list to apply or post for jobs. Freelancer on the other side has a fixed model that allows the freelancer to choose whichever way they want to go. The only downside to this model is that a large amount of low-worth job contracts are also being added to the list of job searches.
0コメント