If you are a new Freelancer or Virtual Assistant trying to use eLance, Odesk, Get-A-Freelance, etc. to find clients…you know what I am talking about.
I have profiles on several of these sites and get their job listing through my email or RSS reader. For the last six months I have been bidding on at least 10 projects per day. You have to go through hundreds of listings to find ten projects that seem worth persuing. This alone can be time consuming. I personalized each bid outlining how my skills would be helpful to their particular needs. If they listed a website or name, I would research it before I placed my bid.
What happens then? Through a series of private messages with the Buyer, more details are discussed about the project and what is expected of you, the Provider. If you haven’t found out earlier, it now becomes clear that they want $500 of your time for pennies, your knowledge for FREE or they want you to SPAM for them.
I accepted work from one Buyer and I thought I was being careful. Most of the Freelance Job sites have a policy that all communication between Buyers and Providers would be through the job board website, at least until the project has been awarded.
The Buyer awarded me the project on the job boards private message system and sent his email address and instant messenger ID. A week later I became aware that he never notified the job board that I was awarded the project. So all the communication I had with him was considered against the job boards policy.
Was this intentional on his part? One of the reasons I accepted the project was because of the comments from others who had worked with him, so I don’t know. Either way, I let it happen and the end result: I worked three weeks for $4.00 an hour. A raise, I should feel lucky. Live and Learn!
This is why I chose not to bid on any projects on Elance or any other sites like it. There are much more effective ways to use our time and energy to get clients that will pay what a virtual assistant is worth. In fact I’d rather work for a couple of hours for free for a prospect so they can see how valuable I am to their business. This has always resulted in gaining paying clients at a much higher rate.