Winning work on Elance… (Part 2!)

So, you’ve got your proposal down to a tee and your prices are nice and competitive. So what else can you do to improve your chances of getting work?

Well, there’s quite a few ways! First of all you want to sign up for a paid membership which start from $10 a month. Why? Well Elance uses what they call connects, and every time you submit a proposal it costs you one or more connects depending on the budget of the job. With the free account you get ten connects a month and once you’re out, you’re out. My current proposal win ratio is hovering around 10% so for every ten proposals I submit I get one job out of it. If I only had ten connects a month then 0-1 jobs isn’t going to make me a millionaire anytime soon!

So with the paid membership $10 a month gets you 25 connects and the ability to buy more for around $0.50 each. You also get priority in the search results, can list more skills and have the opportunity to use the public Q&A function. This one’s a biggie as it means you can ask the employer questions prior to submitting your proposal. This is invaluable if the employer has missed out some important details or you want to get a better idea of what they’re after. With the free membership you can’t do this, so have to submit a proposal before you can ask them things.

Another way to improve your chances of getting work is to advance up through the levels. Just like in the video games you start on level zero and work your way up by gaining points. The exact mechanics of the points system isn’t explained, but you get points for how many jobs you’ve done, how much money you’ve earned, your feedback score and how many tested skills you have.

When you’re setting up your profile you can state your skills from a comprehensive list; things like Flash, Photoshop, Creative Writing etc. When you add a skill you get the opportunity to take a test or you can self rate yourself. The more tested skills you have the more points you get. As I only really specialise in After Effects I decided to take some of the English language tests like grammar and spelling (Surprisingly I passed!) etc. Important for creating videos? Not really. Improved rating? Absolutely! Bear in mind that all the tests are pretty hard to be honest, but if you’re score isn’t up to scratch you can decide whether to display it or not.

On the subject of setting up your profile, if you’re bidding for a job and the employer is considering using you then it’s a fair bet that they’re going to look at your profile. Therefore, make sure you’ve taken the time post examples of your work, describe yourself and what you can do and keep it up to date!

As for getting high ratings the only advice I can offer is to provide the best possible work you can, be realistic with what and when you will achieve, respond to all employer messages promptly and be as open and honest as possible. Easy!

So there you go! That’s pretty much all the advice I can give you on securing work on Elance. As I said in the last post, I’m no expert, so I can’t guarantee you’ll get work from following my advice, but it seems to be working for me so you’ve got nothing to lose… apart from a few connects!

Go get ‘em tiger.

www.elance.com

www.stencilmedia.co.uk

Winning work on Elance…

So, you’ve read the last post, you’ve taken a look at Elance and you’re ready to start earning some money! Or you’re already on Elance and you want a bit of help winning more work. Well look no further!

First of all I’d like to point out that having only signed up to Elance a couple of months ago I’m far from an expert. However, in this short time I’ve quickly moved up the ranks so that I’m now 21st in the UK for Design and Multimedia providers out of a total of 2713. I’m also the number one provider in the UK that has been tested in After Effects. Therefore, I must be doing something right!

Most of the information I’m going to provide here is basic common sense and good customer service skills. You’d think it was easy, but seeing some of the proposals on Elance you quickly come to see that these skills are somewhat lacking. So this is your opportunity to stand out from the rest! You see I have the benefit of being both a provider and an employer on Elance, so I get to see the proposals that people are submitting.

So… I always start my proposal with “I’d love to get involved with your project and I’m confident I can provide a high quality of work at a competitive price”. It’s upbeat, it shows enthusiasm, that you have confidence and a real desire to work with them. Simple! I had one proposal for a job where all it said was ‘I can do this’ which really doesn’t inspire me! Also, if the person signs off their job posting with their name then use it! You’ll create a connection with the provider… “Hey John, I’d love to work on your project!”

I then go on to discuss previous work that I’ve done which may relate to the project. I always get things like this in early. The employer has a lot of proposals to read, so you want to get the important stuff out of the way early on. Things like other examples of work, costing and timescales can be left until the end. If they like you’re proposal then they’ll carry on reading. So at this point you want to assure the employer that you can do the work, you have experience of that type of work and that you can do the work well!

So as discussed you want to explain prices and timescales at the end of the proposal. I always over estimate the time for delivery as I never know how many jobs I’ll have on at the time if I get awarded the job. However, I address this in my proposal by saying something like “I have stated one week for delivery as I have a few jobs on at the moment. However, if you have a specific timescale in mind then please let me know and I’ll be happy to move a few things around to meet your deadline.” Also include any caveats to your price. For example “The price I have stated includes up to $100 of stock footage. If more is required then this will be charged extra, but if we can get away with using less then I’ll drop my fee accordingly.” This makes things clear from the start, avoids any issues further down the line and shows that you’re open and honest.

As for the price you charge, that’s a dark art in itself! I’ve seen providers go for the cheapest proposal and I’ve also seen them go for the most expensive. It all depends on the quality level the employer is willing to accept against the budget they have available. And you’ll never know that unless they state it in their posting or if you ask them… which I wouldn’t recommend! If you’re new to Elance then you might want to do a few jobs as cheap as possible to build up a rating. Having no work history on Elance can put an employer off so you might have to take a hit early on. After that it’s really up to you what you charge. If you have a fixed rate that you want to stick to then so be it… but you might not always get the job.

Take a look at what everyone else is charging. Do a bit of research. If provider A has proposed $200 then take a look at their portfolio. Evaluate your work against theirs. If you can honestly say that you have the better portfolio then propose the same price or higher. If you think they have a more impressive portfolio then you might have to go cheaper. Bear in mind that you can always reduce your proposal amount to remain competitive but try not to do this too much as if you drop to $100 after initially stating $300 then it may come across as you attempting to overcharge the client by $200 initially! So remember that you don’t always have to be the cheapest to win the bid.

If you know you can do the job better than everyone else for whatever reason, why not do a mockup for the client to prove it to them! If it’s a well paid job then i see nothing wrong with putting a bit of effort in and this will also be appreciated by the client. If you still don’t get the job then don’t worry about it; move on to the next one, no harm done!

And that’s about it really! I then sign off my proposal with “if you have any questions then please do not hesitate to ask”… I think it’s common courtesy, but also makes you feel more approachable.

I’ll cover a few more hints and tips in the next post about using sponsored proposals, improving your rating, managing your connect, behaviours while working, using the Q&A board, the benefits of membership etc but this is rapidly turning into an extremely long post so that’ll do for now!

If you have any questions then please do not hesiatate to ask!

www.elance.com

www.stencilmedia.co.uk

Turn your passion into an income…

Ever wanted to go work for yourself? Looking for a way to use your skills to earn additional income? Want to start your own business but would like to test the waters first? Well then, websites such as Elance could be right up your street!

Stencil Media have recently been doing quite a bit of work through Elance, an online outsourcing platform for freelancers and to be honest, it’s going very well!

How does it work? Well it’s quite simple really! Employers log on to Elance and post their job. It could be a report they need writing, video production or some new business cards designing. They include details like budget, timescale and examples of what they are looking for and then providers can submit a proposal.

So, as a provider, you can search through different job types and see what’s available. When you find one you like you submit a short proposal saying how much you will charge, how long it will take, why they should choose you and links to any examples that may be of interest to the client.

It’s free to sign up although there are paid for memberships available that mean you get a few more perks, and to be honest the competition is pretty fierce! However, there’s also a lot of money to be made… Elance pay out nearly $2 million a week in payments!

It’s not just design work either. Everything from customer service, accountancy, research, admin and management consultancy means there’s a whole host of jobs that could earn you an additional income. And seeing as it’s free what have you got to lose by checking it out… www.elance.com

Next week I’ll be posting a guide to securing work on Elance… I wouldn’t say I was an authority on the subject but as I’m ranked in the top 1% of design and multimedia providers in the UK, after only a month or two, I must be doing something right! Watch this space…

www.stencilmedia.co.uk