Helping a Friend Get Started on oDesk/Elance

[potentialeight]

The closest person I'll ever have to a daughter is fairly skilled both musically and in the realm of drawing shit. She's the most reliable teenage girl I have ever seen in my life, and she's been working very hard to get better at shit in both the music and drawing shit departments. (A lot of this probably comes from busting her ass to get out of a shitty, trailer park type clusterfuck situation.) She's also learning to build WordPress themes by putting a lot of time into CSS, PHP and so on, though I'm not sure that's something she's comfortable enough with to do for pay.

So at this point I've encouraged her to set up accounts on oDesk and Elance to try to get work using the talents she has worked hard at. Unfortunately, I have no clue how either of those sites work, and I don't know if there are any better ways for her to get work and build up her portfolio on these types of things.

Any tips for making the most out of those two sites and/or any better places for her to look to try to use her talents in some productive way?

 

[mpbiz]

So you help this poor trailer park girl by taking nudes of her and posting them on wickedfire?

You should be ashamed.

 

[potentialeight]

So you help this poor trailer park girl by taking nudes of her and posting them on wickedfire?

You should be ashamed.

I have no shame, though I do wish I could take pictures that looked half as good as those. Three or four days ago, she was on a Skype call with a guy over some project she's working on. He was like, "Hey can I see your tits?" and she replied with, "Hey will you shave your nasty neckbeard and take a shower?"

On the trailer park note, she's estranged from her family mostly because she doesn't fit in with the trailer park trash crowd. It's weird how she's been effectively outcast for trying to be a decent human being and make something of herself. It's a lot like when Bill Cosby was talking about black kids who wanted to be successful being accused of "acting white."

 

[golan]

This won't end well.


.

 

[DonegalDanny]

Elance and Odesk have a reputation for being fairly shitty for finding freelance work, they seem fairly saturated with our Indian friends willing to do tasks for very low rates.

OP I would suggest checking out people for hire which is slightly more upmarket. I would also get her on reddit and check out all the freelance, for hire, and entrepreneurial subreddits, I have done business through them many times.

She may also have some luck with fiver but of course $5 tasks, ain't nobody got time for that!

 

[harrymouni]

i'd take a job in McDonalds in North Carolina any day over competing with Indians on oDesk for non-programming jobs.

 

[potentialeight]

Elance and Odesk have a reputation for being fairly shitty for finding freelance work, they seem fairly saturated with our Indian friends willing to do tasks for very low rates.

OP I would suggest checking out people for hire which is slightly more upmarket. I would also get her on reddit and check out all the freelance, for hire, and entrepreneurial subreddits, I have done business through them many times.

She may also have some luck with fiver but of course $5 tasks, ain't nobody got time for that!

She knows that she shouldn't expect to make any serious money off of those sites and that I just threw them out there as possibilities to get some amount of paid work (even at shitty rates) just to get some experience and build a portfolio. I didn't suggest Fiverr though since it always seems like a clusterfuck on there (not that oDesk and Elance are any better).

i'd take a job in McDonalds in North Carolina any day over competing with Indians on oDesk for non-programming jobs.

Yeah I hear you. She works a regular job and is just pretty much going balls-out doing whatever she can to improve and get experience at the things she wants to do.

So you help this poor trailer park girl by taking nudes of her and posting them on wickedfire?

You should be ashamed.

And to clarify since I'm not sure I made this explicit, those aren't pictures of her in the OP.

 

[AngryFiver]

Elance and Odesk have a reputation for being fairly shitty for finding freelance work, they seem fairly saturated with our Indian friends willing to do tasks for very low rates.

OP I would suggest checking out people for hire which is slightly more upmarket. I would also get her on reddit and check out all the freelance, for hire, and entrepreneurial subreddits, I have done business through them many times.

She may also have some luck with fiver but of course $5 tasks, ain't nobody got time for that!

No kidding. Odesk is a bunch of cheap company owners/affiliates looking for cheap labor from annoying little Indian fucks living in tents.

 

[LBorbit]

The thoughts on eLance and oDesk in this thread are pretty typical, but misplaced.

Granted, I have no idea how someone with her talents would fare on eLance, but when I was copywriting I was able to pull a pretty significant living off there alone.

A few tips;

-Go the extra mile on the profile. Have a professional photo. Write a really solid profile. Give her an interesting title that helps her to stand out. Do some of the dumb tests they offer to bulk things up. Some parts might seem trivial - do it anyway. Lots of the clients on there actually care about that shit.

-Put together a top notch portfolio. Link directly to portfolio items when bidding on jobs.

-Do a handful of low-dollar jobs for reviews.

When bidding on jobs:

-Only bid on higher end jobs. Less competition. Better clients. Higher pay.

-Write your cover letter (or at least a portion) specific to each job. That alone separates your app from 90% of entries.

-Give them a phone number in your cover letter. No one does that and I found it helped a lot.

-Target long term jobs but I also found that one-off jobs turn into long term work more often then you'd think.

Yes, 90% of the jobs on those freelance sites are shitty. Yes, you'll be competing against indians bidding one tenth of what you'd be willing to work for.

But the people that award the jobs to those guys aren't the type of clients you would want anyway. Just be choosy with the jobs you apply to. You should be able to spot the jobs that are more likely to favor an American doing higher quality work.

Just do the little things to stand out. 90% of these people are copying and pasting the same cover letter to every job and have shitty profiles. With a few reviews its not hard to stand out.

 

[potentialeight]

The thoughts on eLance and oDesk in this thread are pretty typical, but misplaced.

Granted, I have no idea how someone with her talents would fare on eLance, but when I was copywriting I was able to pull a pretty significant living off there alone.

A few tips;

-Go the extra mile on the profile. Have a professional photo. Write a really solid profile. Give her an interesting title that helps her to stand out. Do some of the dumb tests they offer to bulk things up. Some parts might seem trivial - do it anyway. Lots of the clients on there actually care about that shit.

-Put together a top notch portfolio. Link directly to portfolio items when bidding on jobs.

-Do a handful of low-dollar jobs for reviews.

When bidding on jobs:

-Only bid on higher end jobs. Less competition. Better clients. Higher pay.

-Write your cover letter (or at least a portion) specific to each job. That alone separates your app from 90% of entries.

-Give them a phone number in your cover letter. No one does that and I found it helped a lot.

-Target long term jobs but I also found that one-off jobs turn into long term work more often then you'd think.

Yes, 90% of the jobs on those freelance sites are shitty. Yes, you'll be competing against indians bidding one tenth of what you'd be willing to work for.

But the people that award the jobs to those guys aren't the type of clients you would want anyway. Just be choosy with the jobs you apply to. You should be able to spot the jobs that are more likely to favor an American doing higher quality work.

Just do the little things to stand out. 90% of these people are copying and pasting the same cover letter to every job and have shitty profiles. With a few reviews its not hard to stand out.

I'd never been on either of those sites before I sat down with her to look at some of the jobs she was posting to, and the bold is definitely true. It seemed so blatantly obvious that it was ridiculous.

I appreciate the advice. I'm having to stress to her the importance of having a good presentation because she's young and hasn't quite figured out how much appearances matter (which seems either ironic or obvious considering she's female, I can't figure out which).

 

[boatBurner]

So, this is a sales question.

I have used E-lance for about 2 years now, and while they are both populated with overseas competition, my experience with E-lance has been positive.

I wrote a freelancer's guide for getting clients last year that looks at some stats between different lead sources, and E-lance performed well.

For context, I first started using E-lance as a freelancer in the U.S., trading my time for money and learning. Now I'm building a business, and continue to use E-lance.

Freelancer Stats for 2013:

• Hourly Rate: $50
• Bids Per Month: ~10
• Close Rate: ~60%
• Avg. Project Life: ~6 Weeks
• Avg. Project Type: WordPress Themes & Plugins

Business Owner Stats for 2014:

• Hourly Rate: $105
• Bids Per Month: ~5
• Close Rate: ~80%
• Avg. Project Life: ~10 Weeks
• Avg. Project Type: Laravel & WordPress

I'll share some anecdotal evidence, debunk a few myths and then explain how I would do it if I were your friend, niece or whatever.

1. E-lance clients are bad.

False. Online marketplaces aren't popular because they're the retard corner of B2B (although that's a hilarious thought). They're a tool, and the practical use of the tool is up to the user. More often than not, bad clients are a product of bad communication or inexperience on the provider's part. Two things that should be important when considering a lead source:

1. Quality of the lead
2. Sustainability of the source

• Bad Lead - A person or company with wild expectations, poor communication skills, and payment issues.
• Bad Source - Unreliable leads that are infrequent, don't really want to buy, or are confused about what they are paying for.

E-lance clients are good and bad. Sometimes they're inherently good and sometimes they're inherently bad. Oftentimes the relationship can be decided by the provider's ability to drive it. Like most relationships. And that's a common theme I've noticed. For that reason, I label E-lance leads as mostly good, and the source itself as top tier.

2. Competition against overseas workers is too strong.

Disagree. I have no reason to believe that overseas competition is hurting U.S.-based freelancers on E-lance in this industry. I come into 80-man strong bidding wars on projects that have been listed for over a week and still find myself surprised to be winning the business, especially at my $105 price tag. But it happens 80% of the time.

Okay, so what do I do to make it work for me?


Well, I'm going to repost these points from my original post on the topic, because they're still relevant to me, and will be even more important for a newcomer:

• Create a well-written profile.
• Include a high-quality headshot.
• Play to your locale (city, state, country).
• Create an on-site portfolio and link to any offsite portfolios, blogs, and social networks you use frequently
• When bidding, don't use generic copy. Address the prospect personally, references project requirements, and ask questions
• When bidding, quote them the first time. It doesn't have to be precise, but ballpark the time and price. Give them something to work with.
• Provide contact details to include instant messaging, e-mail, and phone. Invite them to schedule a time to talk

Expect an average 7-10 days turnaround for response time on bids. I've moved away from mentioning price, and instead promise a formal proposal following an initial phone call, and try to get a commitment for a good time to talk.

For a newcomer, I'd especially recommend the following:

• Pursue listings from Clients with at least 1 star (indicating they've setup payment processing).
• Don't pursue listings that have project briefs that seem hastily-written or read like a third-grader put it together.
• Don't worry about completing the shitty E-lance skill tests.
• Build out a solid proposal template to use that allows you to accurately scope the project and looks professional.

In sum, lots of basic advice but solid starting points for a newcomer looking for clients. E-lance is just another market, it's up to the user to determine the kind of return they get from it. On a final note, E-lance is very accessible. Almost too accessible. I'd also warn a newcomer not to take on projects that are too far out of their abilities, otherwise that can turn into a really stressful situation.

Anyway, good luck.

 

[potentialeight]

...

I really appreciate the advice here and the link to your other thread. I've been having to get onto her ass about when it comes to making sure you're presenting yourself in a way that doesn't look like just another random jackass who doesn't have his shit together, but she's picking it up pretty quickly. She's young and a little stubborn and is only starting to figure out that how you present and carry yourself can often be just as important to the quality of your work in the sense that having a shitty presentation isn't going to get anyone to want to find out if you can do the job.

Again, thank you.

 

[mpbiz]

Was just kidding. I already know where you got those pics from. Good luck to your friend and good on you for helping her out.

 

[potentialeight]

Here's a string cover of "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" by Panic! at the Disco she did with her keyboard hooked up to a computer or however you do it. I don't really have a sense for music, so feel free to tell me if it sucks.

Link: I Write Sins-string cover Uploaded by yourmomlol at Your Listen

 

[shindig]

I registered on elance, made a bid, then got hired by the company directly and never looked back.

They were looking for someone local and I was the only person that responded that was from the US, let alone same city. lol

We use elance at work every now and then for custom 3d models and have hired a chinese programmer for $500 for a specific task.

 

[Montye]

I stumbled on this post and want to mention that I first got started online via Elance. I read about it in Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Workweek and was shocked how big the freelancing market was at the time (now it's a few hundred million dollars larger)

I looked around and found a pocket that was not being fulfilled. Clients who were NOT looking for cheap outsourcing work and rather they were looking to pay high prices for quality work. It took me a while to figure that out but when I did, I made over $100,000 on Elance in my first year and had about 30 clients total.

I wrote a guide on exactly how to do the same that is still being downloaded and used today. Let me know if there is interest and i'll post the link which you guys can download for free.

 

[SirKonstantine]

On the trailer park note, she's estranged from her family mostly because she doesn't fit in with the trailer park trash crowd. It's weird how she's been effectively outcast for trying to be a decent human being and make something of herself. It's a lot like when Bill Cosby was talking about black kids who wanted to be successful being accused of "acting white."

That's a good thing dude. She now has motivation to *never* be like them. I wish her best of luck.

 

[Shack]

https://studio.envato.com/

 

[-joe-]

Here's a string cover of "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" by Panic! at the Disco she did with her keyboard hooked up to a computer or however you do it. I don't really have a sense for music, so feel free to tell me if it sucks.

Link: I Write Sins-string cover Uploaded by yourmomlol at Your Listen

It's good, but as far as I can tell (haven't downloaded and loaded into audacity to look at the waveforms, but sound identical when played bit by bit one after the other) she didn't play this. See this:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfvF8u-7OW8[/ame]

EDIT: Confirmed, played side by side syncing up as best I could, definitely a direct rip.

 

[potentialeight]

That's a good thing dude. She now has motivation to *never* be like them. I wish her best of luck.

Yeah I know, and I regularly remind her of that when she has problems with her family. I don't know if it's because she's a girl or what, but sometimes she still feels like she needs to talk to them just because they're family. The problem is that 99% of the time it turns into a clusterfuck with them asking to borrow money from her or some other bullshit drama.

I'll give her credit though because she's coming around in a major way and figuring out that she doesn't have some obligation to include them in her life.