Top Contractors
The life of the freelancer isn’t for everyone. It takes a special personality to give up the security of a steady paycheck for the luxury of being your own boss. Sometimes the process isn’t voluntary. With the amount of corporate layoffs and downsizings over the past years, more and more people have found themselves needing to bring in that extra income.
What often happens is that people give freelancing a try first. They take on a few jobs, get the feel for it, and then decide if it’s a fit. The thing is, many blossom in this environment. The following three stories illustrate such success.
Julie Babikin
Julie was laid off from her job with a financial services company and left with no way to pay her mortgage. She lived 45 minutes from the city, was exhausted from commuting, and no one in her local area was hiring graphic designers of her level. “You’re overqualified,” they kept telling her.
Julie began investigating where other designers who’d been laid off were working and discovered the cloud. Elance looked like the most reputable of the sites, and she dug in. Within a year she was not only making more money than when she worked for a traditional company, but she worked from home and had the luxury of setting her own schedule and only choosing projects that she wanted.
Julie’s best advice for budding freelancers is:
• The best clients clearly spell out their project needs.
• Don’t bid on just any job; pick those you really want to do. Your passion will come out this way.
• Don’t underbid, or clients (good ones) will wonder why you don’t value yourself.
• The best clients to work for are those that pick you for your portfolio or proposal, not your price.
• A great proposal involves a plan of action.
• After you’ve placed your bid but before the prospective client has awarded the job, ask them a question by resubmitting your proposal.
• Play on their style. If they’re edgier, you can be bolder in your bid or use humor.
Julie turned her unexpected and negative experience—being laid off—into a positive outcome by tapping into the virtual work world. It didn’t happen overnight, but by working smart and hard, she turned her world around for the better. You can find Julie on Elance as animatorjb or Julie B.
Khrystyne Robillard-Smith
Khrystyne was laid off from her job while seven months pregnant. Her husband suggested she try Elance as a way to supplement their income until she was able to look for full-time work again. However, once Khrystyne discovered the online work world it didn’t take her long to realize the potential here was far greater than she’d ever find in the brick-and-mortar world.
On Elance, Khrystyne is the number one individual designer out of more than 100,000. How on earth did she achieve this staggering success? In her own words:
“In the beginning my selection process was to bid on anything I thought I could do for a price I could live with. At one point I tried bidding on all jobs that ended soonest, most of which turned out to be stale and never got awarded. So I learned you gotta get ’em when they’re fresh.
I bought additional Connects so that I could bid more volume as well. The result was that I would sometimes end up doing work I wasn’t crazy about for what ended up being way too low a price.
It took me about a year and a half to really look at the site and analyze it to improve this scenario. I spent time looking into the clients’ profiles and feedback, as well as my competition—especially those I continually lost projects to. Were they beating me on price? On experience? Whose portfolios seemed as qualified as mine? What made others better?
I also started researching standard projects like logos. How much were they selling for on the site? And what types of things was the client looking for at those price points? It was a lot of tedious, hard work, but patterns started to emerge, and that information led me to make more informed decisions on what projects I’d bid on in the future.
Once I unlocked those key points and how they applied to me, doors started opening. There’s a lot of room working in the cloud, I just needed to find the right spot for me.”
Khrystyne’s advice for newcomers is:
• Have passion for what you do. Clients can tell when you’re genuine.
• Don’t undersell yourself.
• Take the time to thoughtfully fill out your profile and portfolio.
• Be tenacious. It takes time and effort to build your brand.
• Don’t do any spec work or contests. Working for free devalues the site and the industry as a whole.
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TOP TIPS |
If a client asks you to lower your price, tell them no, politely. You are lowering your value and that of the services you provide. An alternative is to agree to the lower price, but to have them take something away from the project requirements, too.
Khrystyne didn’t sit idly by and hope for good luck. She proactively studied the site and learned how she could best fit in with the services she wanted to provide. In the end, it worked out better than even she expected. You can find Khrystyne on Elance as Khrystyne R, and at her website, www.713creative.com.
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TOP TIPS |
Don’t be scared or intimidated to submit your first proposal. Every contractor has done it. It’s like jumping into a cool lake, after the initial plunge you warm up and swim like you’ve been there your entire life.
Ron Zvagelsky
Ron began his freelancing career as a Wordpress expert just after graduating from college. Broke and still living at home, Ron knew he needed to make a change, but finding a job proved difficult in these hard economic times.
He discovered Elance and within a year became successful enough to get his own place and fully support himself. He has now done more than 400 jobs on Elance over the course of four years and has more work than he can handle.
Ron’s best practices include:
• When you bid on a project and don’t win it, check in to see who did win and how they differed from you.
• The best clients know what they want and communicate their needs clearly.
• If the project’s price range is under your budget, throw out a feeler question to see if they’ll go up in price.
• As you get more work and establish yourself, assess each project as to whether it was worth your time or not. This will help you set your prices.
• Ask questions in the bidding process to get the communication going—even if you know the answers.
• Follow up with your client after the work is done to make sure they’re happy. You never know where the next referral will come from.
• The most important thing you need to do is create the relationship with the client.
• Keep going; keep putting out proposals. Don’t take rejection personally.
Ron’s persistence and focus on connecting with the client have led him to receive astounding referrals. It’s all about the relationship, which includes delivering on the goods until the client is happy. You can find Ron on Elance as rzvagelsky, and on his website at www.presshive.com.
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CYBER SNAGS |
Remember, clients are busy, too. “I’ll give you more work just as soon as I get it” should be taken as polite, but not as a guarantee. Keep moving. Keep bidding.