Start a Rewarding Elance Business

When you go to the Elance website, you will see thousands of projects. Most jobs are in IT and programming, design and multimedia, writing and translation, but there are plenty of opportunities in specialized fields like legal, engineering, and manufacturing. You can even set up your business as a web researcher or virtual assistant and start earning money this month or even this week. Here is a quick guide to follow.

Decide your market

As with any business, you need to figure out what service you are going to offer. You don’t want to be too specialist or too generalist. If you were thinking of setting up a marketing service, you may want to specialize in public relations or expand your activities to include marketing strategy and search engine marketing. Similarly, if you want to set up a virtual office business, you need to decide if this includes data entry, transcriptions, or research.

build your profile

Even before talking to a potential supplier, I always check their profile. Your username is important as all potential customers will see it. Unless you really want to specialize in a single area, use a generic business until you have a clearer understanding of the market. Calling yourself something like “white transcription services” could limit your opportunities. If you’re setting up a business, you’ll want to opt for a small business membership or an individual membership.

You should complete the profile as much as possible with examples of qualifications, courses, experience, and projects. You can get away with empty sections if you’re buying services, but not if you’re providing. If you are entering a new sector, you should provide some work samples. Take screenshots of examples of your work. If you don’t have software that can do this, you can download Jing from Techsmith for free. Add images to Word documents and convert them to PDF files. You can then upload the documents to your portfolio. Look at the profiles of some of the best people in your section that you are competing with. When you start, you won’t have any feedback scores, so you need to include some written references like pdfs or links.

Only the first 100 words appear on the front page, so summarize your strengths first, and then add more information in later paragraphs, as this will be displayed when the user clicks for more information. In general, your profile should look professional, current and dynamic. Use the most professional foreground image you can. Christmas photos with family or friends seem too casual.

add a tagline

Adding a tagline to your profile is another opportunity to promote the benefits of your services. Keep it short.

Complete Elance Skills Tests

One of the areas I always check is whether the bidder has taken any of Elance’s skill tests. I instantly ignore all the people who have ‘self-assessed’ themselves. This will only work against you, as no customer will take note of a self-assessment. It amazes me how many people seem to think this works. Take Elance tests. Depending on your scores you can include them in your profile or not. You are always more likely to follow a person or company with high test scores, as it shows credibility and skills.

add keywords

Complete the keywords section of your profile. This is important because buyers will search for suppliers by typing keywords into the search bar. Think of the words that the client will use when searching for your services and use them. If you use words that are too generic like ‘Designer’, the results will show thousands of contractors. It’s good to include a variety of keywords that reflect the services you offer, including some niche keywords that a more experienced buyer might use. This will also reduce the number of providers that appear in the results.

review buyers

Review buyers before bidding. Depending on your area, there may be hundreds of projects to bid on in a day. Elance is an international marketplace and many of your buyers may be looking for lower-paying contractors with whom you will find it impossible to compete. If you are initially going to accept a low payment contract, always check that the buyer has a verified payment method. Look for the green circle with a dollar sign next to the buyer’s username. Check the buyer’s profile. Do they give feedback? Have many projects been cancelled? As long as you are happy with the buyers profile, be ready to bid.

Offer for many projects

The more projects you bid, the better your chances of winning a contract, but if you take the time to produce a high-quality bid, you can reduce the number of bids you have to make, the higher the quality of your bid, and fewer bids. Will have to do. do to win a contract. You need to buy Connects to bid. These are $0.50 and based on your membership you get a few free connections a month. You must be prepared to bid more initially to win contracts. Don’t get hung up on how much Connect you use in the first few months, it’s a very small investment to make.

I would avoid very low-priced projects, even when launching your business, unless the project is very transparent and you are sure you can complete the job quickly. However, lower-priced projects are worth bidding on if you think you can build a long-term relationship with the buyer. I’ve used a few contractors for years and am much less cost conscious once I know the vendor can deliver the job well. In fact, I’d rather pay more and use a reputable provider than start over. How much you should bid is a very ‘grey’ area. I am always suspicious of anyone whose bid is too low as it makes me question if they are capable of doing the job, so try to present your price in a competitively attractive way, but not on the bottom. While this might mean you’re working at a lower hourly rate initially, it can increase your rate over time.

winning proposals

Your proposal is the most important step to win a bid:

1. I’ve reviewed many proposals over the years and immediately discarded 50% because the proposal is generic and unrelated to the abstract. It’s not enough to just tell the buyer why they should hire you or how good you are. You must tell them why and how your services will address their specific problem or need. This shows me that they have spent time reading the offer. In the past, I’ve received so many generic offers that I’ve instructed bidders to include the last word of my abstract in the first line of their proposal so I can immediately see who took the time to read the abstract. Not so many bidders!
2. I want to see evidence that relates specifically to the offer, even if it is just a sample of how the work will be carried out.
3. Make it easy for the buyer to hire you. Don’t just attach sample documents that the buyer has to download and open each one. This process is so slow. Instead, edit relevant samples in a buyer document and highlight why it’s relevant to your brief. Remember to name the attachment so it is easy for the buyer to follow. For example: T_Nuttall_sample. Do not refer the buyer to your portfolio. As a buyer I find this so annoying and others must too. You want to make it easy for the buyer to select you.
4. Be concise. I promise you that when it comes to proposals ‘less is definitely more’. Spend your time writing relevant proposals that can be read quickly. A buyer will contact you for more information if you are interested.
5. Make an offer quickly because the offers are displayed in order of time. A buyer is more likely to look at the first 10 offers carefully, but if there is a great response, it can take too long to go through each one. You can also place a ‘sponsored’ offer, which means that your offer stays at the top of the list. While you should aim to earn around 25% of your bids, a 5% rate is more likely initially. Keep submitting great proposals that are targeted to buyers’ needs and you’ll start getting great customers.

The most difficult job is to win the client; getting repeat business is much easier.

ask for feedback

Solicit customer feedback personally so you know how important it is to you. Use your repeat business quotes and rates on any new proposals. Although this information is available on your profile, a Buyer may not have seen it. As a Buyer, I have sometimes felt compelled to give a supplier a higher rate than I genuinely thought their work justified. Consequently, I give priority to vendors who have a high repeat business rate, as I believe this is the best indicator of a good vendor. You only give repeat work to people who have done great work for you and who you enjoy working with.

be contactable

Be contactable. You cannot provide your email details, but it must still be readily available. Check regularly for messages and offer to be available to chat on Skype. As a buyer, I like to speak directly with the person I’m going to be working with, and while Skype contact can be very annoying, it’s still a great tool for working with teams remotely. Building a relationship with the Buyer is just as important in the virtual world as it is in other places. Once you win a contract, focus on building the relationship while providing excellent service and your business will thrive.