Freelancing is a word that has built a deep value in the recent days. Freelancing has gone from being the general part time extra cash earning option to main stream replacement to regular 9-5 (or 10-6) jobs. More and more people jump from their jobs to freelancing to earn that extra income and be their own boss. While this is an option but the chances of landing a project is very low since there are a lot of freelancers already on the market. Thousands of people dive into Freelancing every month and hence the competition grows fierce. You either need to get the jobs from your contacts, advertisement or you can depend on freelancing websites that offer a stage for both service provider and service seeker. Some of them are Freelancer.com, oDesk.com, peopleperhour.com, elance.com, rentacoder.com and the list continues. But just signing up and bidding randomly at random projects will do you no good. What is required is a proper understanding of the bidding process and other things that could help you actually earn the project. Below I have noted some points that have helped me in freelancing business and could help you too.
- Bid Wise: While new to freelancing career what you would like most is to build a portfolio which would help you get more projects later on. So bid on the projects that you can complete and provide what client is looking for. Negative feedback at the very beginning, could hamper your impression as a service provider and that could hamper your bids a lot. Incomplete projects and negative feedback is what you would want to avoid the most.
- Be Specific to the Project: While bidding on a project be specific to that project. For example “I have 4 years experience and can do your job” doesn’t state much about your expertise and how you would handle the project. Go project specific, tell them what tools would be needed and how good you are that project. Let them know you them if you have done such projects before and any difficulties that you faced undertaking that project and how you solved it and that experience would help you solve this problem. Show them your portfolio.
- Lowest Bid is not always the Cheapest : While generally this statement would be false, but not anymore. You can find so many clients who fell for the lowest bid and even after paying the full money they are still too far from a completed project, which causes them to hire another freelancer and they end up paying more than what they had thought of. So do not bid so low that you won’t be able to do the job for that price. Because if there is now influential power (money in this case), you wouldn’t be willing to give that project more time. So bid low since you are starting new but do not affect your business. Bid a fair amount for which you can actually get the job done.
Lowest Bid is not always the Cheapest
Be project Specific
- Answer your Boss: You are a freelancer and you are your own boss, you might be wondering, but get one thing straight from the very first stage. Every client of yours is now your boss. While you only have to answer your one immediate boss in an office, you as a freelancer now have to answer all your clients and they are your boss for the time being. While undertaking a project communication between you and client is the key factor. If you do not show professionalism or make a long communication gap this will make a negative impact of yours to the client and you might loose not only this but future prospective projcets too. So work hard to deliver projects according to their needs and in timely and professional manner.
- No Money, No Work:In your career as a freelancer, you will find many clients that ask you to provide spec work before they accept your project or pay you. While not all might be looking to steal your work, there is still a chance. Do not work for free for any reason since the payment is not guaranteed in that case. Nearly all freelancing websites offer you Escrow payment methods where service seeker can deposit money for the project and release when the job is done. You can not withdraw the money before they release it so their money is safe. Therefore ask them to deposit a certain percentage of the project payment first and only then start working.
- Honesty is the best Policy: Honesty is what is the most important on winning a project. Do not bid anything just to earn a project. When you know a project would take you at least 7 days to complete bid at least a day more than that. Do not go over the top and bid 2 days just so that you can win a project which is approaching deadline. Because it is simply not possible and on doing so, you are either compromising quality or just making a bad impression to your client.
These are a few points that you can consider while bidding for a project. I can assure you that if you follow these instructions you will have a greater success rate. I hope you guys become a better freelancer. And do let in your points if you think I have missed out on some important points. Until then Happy Bidding !
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