Lesson # 14 7 Common But Critical Mistakes New Bidders Make … · 2015-12-17 · 7 Common But...

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Lesson # 14 7 Common But Critical Mistakes

New Bidders Make on Their Elance Bids and How You Can

Avoid Them By

Winton Churchill

Barefoot Consultants

http://www.BarefootConsultants.com

http://www.barefootconsultants.com/


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Foreword

Lessons 12 and 13 give you some insights into the mind and experience of a

successful Elance freelancer. But the perspective of just one person doesn’t cover the whole gamut of the ways you can be successful… just as there is no one single way to be successful in life, the same is true on Elance.

In preparing this course, I have interviewed hundreds of freelancers and Elance providers that I’ve come across in my 10+ years working on Elance and other networks.

In that time I have seen a few rules emerge regarding what it takes to be successful, and I have also seen almost every rule “broken” successfully…

What does that mean… Different things work under different circumstances!

But… I will say that there are certain common mistakes I see over and over again that rob would-be freelancers of their success. This lesson identifies those “mistakes” and give you some perspective and insight on how to avoid falling victim to them.


Mistake #1—Not Making your proposal readable and friendly

looking to your potential buyer

When you make a proposal, it is presented along with all the proposals from

other providers, usually in the order they are received.

Buyers (as are most all people when they are reading screens on the

Internet) are skimmers.

They skim down the page looking for things that interest them.


Too many providers that bid on jobs present a very un-friendly “wall of

copy” as in the example below:

Many buyers will skip over this or only read it briefly… and if your buyer doesn’t know what you have to say they will most likely not award you the

job.

When people read on the Internet they skim.

Important note: presenting your buyer with a giant blob of difficult to

read text will work against you in terms of the amount of business you

get.

Many freelancers are completely blind to this particular issue.

Take a look at the example below:

Wall of Copy

There are forums (Aka "message boards") for just about every market

imaginable. Look for discussions at these forums for ideas. Specifically, look for topics where there is a LOT of discussion (I.E. Numerous posted

messages and replies). Pay special attention for people who are complaining

about problems or limitations that you might be able to provide solutions for

in your small report. Drop by article banks such as GoArticles.com, Isnare.com and EzineArticles.com and look at articles related to your market

for brainstorming ideas. Pay special attention to the "most viewed" articles

as they are a good indicator of which topics are hot and which topics are not.


What do you notice?... a large amount of difficult to read stuff. Are you

excited to read through the whole block of text?

What if the copy were presented like this?

Better Copy Formatting

There are forums (Aka "message boards") for just about every market imaginable.

Look for discussions at these forums for ideas.

Specifically, look for topics where there is a LOT of discussion (I.E.

Numerous posted messages and replies).

Pay special attention for people who are complaining about problems or

limitations that you might be able to provide solutions for in your small

report.

Drop by article banks such as GoArticles.com, Isnare.com and

EzineArticles.com and look at articles related to your market for

brainstorming ideas.

Pay special attention to the "most viewed" articles as they are a good

indicator of which topics are hot and which topics are not.

Are you more likely to read it are you more likely to read all the way through

it? Yes!

This has been well studied in the marketing and advertising literature yet almost every day, most of us encounter walls of copy.

One of the most important things you can do on Elance is become a better communicator and if a buyer can't read your message proposal you're not

communicating very well.

Use lots of white space and bulleted lists where appropriate. Make your first sentence short and powerful. Have that first sentence be a

stand-alone paragraph.


Mistake #2--Not valuing your “rejected” bids as a prime opportunity to learn.

Most Elancer’s don’t realize that you learn more about being a successful bidder by the bids you lose than by the way bids you win.

Bidding is akin to riding a bicycle. It's a trial

and error process, you're going to make a few mistakes, you might even skin your

knee…

The good news is that on Elance, it's hard to hurt yourself professionally.

Other than an occasionally bruised ego, you

are not going to make big mistakes with long-term consequences.

You have to remember that people are hiring

you to do an assignment, not a permanent position. Usually, if somebody doesn't like the work you do after trying you

out on a small job, they simply won't do business with you again.

At the time of this writing there are approximately 50,000 new jobs every month on Elance. With that kind of volume, making a mistake and turning

off one buyer is not going to have much of a long-term effect on your

income!

In fact, one of the worst things that can happen to a new person, is that

they DO win the very first job they bid on.

First of all, they don't learn very much because they don't do the soul-

searching and troubleshooting to figure out what went wrong.

Second of all, when they win right away, it looks like it's going to be easy!

And while it's pretty simple, it's not easy. If

you’re going to work on project networks,

bidding is a simple skill you'll have to learn and master.

Most people starting on Elance BID BETWEEN

10 AND 20 JOBS before they win their first one!


So it's important for you to get in there and start bidding, start learning, and

start analyzing what you can do to make your bids more effective.

If you are having trouble bidding on the project networks, you may want to

consider buying a month’s worth of one-on-one coaching. We look at the

projects you are bidding on, the proposal you made, and your competition to help you design more effective proposals.

Once you have these templates you can use them over and over with slight

variations to be more successful in your bidding.

If you’d like to sign up for the coaching, follow this link:

http://www.barefootconsultants.com/public/Coaching_Can_Make_A_Difference_For_You_2.cfm

http://www.barefootconsultants.com/public/Coaching_Can_Make_A_Difference_For_You_2.cfm


Mistake #3--Thinking your profile has to be perfect before

you start bidding on jobs.

Many of us that came out of an academic or corporate environment are

particularly tuned into the idea of “being perfect” in our written

communication.

And clearly, the better job you do, the

more effective you can be, but …

Elance is a pretty informal place by comparison!

The dirty little secret is that once you get

going on job networks like Elance, and you build up a little bit of a reputation, most

people are not even going to look at your

profile in many cases.

Why?

When a buyer puts out a job for a

proofreading assignment, it is not uncommon to get 10 to 30 bids back. The buyer doesn’t have time to click

into each profile and carefully consider the relative merits of each bidder.

They make decisions en mass about the list of bidders.

Truth be told, what you say in your proposal

and your recommendation rating is far more

powerful than your profile. Once you have a

bit of a track record in the form of a 4 or 5 star rating on a few jobs, you will start to

get noticed.

Does that mean your profile isn’t important?

No…Your profile becomes more important as

you start to bid jobs that are bigger and go over longer-term periods of time.

Also, if you're doing work in a highly

specialized area, an area that requires a specific kind of education or background, a

detailed description of your experience in

you profile can really make a difference.


Mistake # 4--Not looking into the profile of your prospective buyer.

One of the most important things you can do to build your recommendation

rating is to do good work for people that give good recommendations.

When you are bidding a project, you can

look at the profile of the person that has

posted the project and learn quite a bit about the individual or company.

Their profile will tell you how many jobs

they've posted, you'll get a nice idea of what kind of jobs they do, you can review

their profile and get a better take on who

they are as a person or firm and what their

business needs might be.

Their profile will also tell you what the

people who work for them think about that

person as a buyer.… It's not just providers they get recommendation ratings!

One of the great things about most project

networks is that it's a two-way street. Buyers rate providers but providers also

rate buyers.

Most of us have had a nasty boss somewhere along the way that we would

have liked to warn others about, but didn’t

have the chance…

Here you can learn from other providers who the best (and worst) buyers

are to work with…

The other important thing that a buyer’s profile will tell you, is what other kind of work they do. That way, you’ll be able to approach them after your

first job with them and get additional business if you understand the type of

projects they post on Elance.


Mistake #5 -- Not understanding that every buying decision (i.e. proposal awarded to you) is part rational and part emotional.

Job and project networks can at times seem very impersonal… Almost like

you're working for a robot.

Many new providers fall into this trap of forgetting that, as

in life, all purchases have an emotional component to

them.

For example you might be surprised to learn that when I

was preparing this course and interviewed a number of

buyers, an unusually large number told me that they will

not hire a provider who doesn't post a picture in their profile.

You might be wondering why they want to see a picture if

buyers can see your recommendation rating, your past experience, your education, and your work history….why would they decline your bid over

something as simple as not having a photo the size of a postage stamp on

your profile?

Like this:


and NOT like this:

Well, the buyers I talked to said that they just don't want to do business with somebody they can't look in the eye... Sounds old-fashioned, I know,

but that's right out of the mouths of a surprisingly large number of buyers.

Your Credibility

Another aspect of the emotional decision-making process is that buyers like

to see credentials and tested skills.


Again they may never look at your profile but the fact that you have those

credentials shows up in some of the proposal review reports that buyers are

looking at when they make their decision.

You can really use this to your advantage because most people on

Elance don't take a lot of skills tests and most people don't do the certification.

Just by doing those extra steps, you will put yourself head and

shoulders above many of the other providers bidding on a job.

Your proposal summary and your profile information will both show your accomplishments

in these areas.

So to help improve your chances of winning new jobs, it's important that you pay attention to

emotional factors like your photograph and

credibility factors like your certifications and

tested skills.


Mistake#6 -- Not using a large quantity of bids to ensure

success.

In better economic times, somebody might go on three or four job

interviews and be offered a job.

A new person starting out on these job networks may bid between 10 and 20 jobs on average before they

get their first job. To the new person on Elance that

sounds like a lot…

But if you develop some of the efficient ways that we

teach you to respond to the those assignments, you

can make very quick work of your response. And the

amount of time that it takes to bid those 10 to 20 jobs goes down pretty quickly.

As you gain more experience, your closing ratio will

most likely go down significantly, meaning that you will bid fewer jobs before getting hired. And while you might average 15 job

bids for every 1 you get in your first month, you might very quickly get

down to 1 out of 5 jobs won over time.

Why is that?

You're getting smarter about the kind of jobs that you can win, you're

getting better at writing proposals, you're getting better at communicating with buyers, and you're building your recommendation rating which makes it

easier for buyers to trust that you'll do good work for them.

Life is different on the project networks, there's a huge transaction volume of assignments going through the system and buyers are not necessarily

very articulate about exactly what they want. They fall into the category of,

"I don't know what I want but I'll know when I see it."

It's not uncommon to see a proposal for a simple assignment that's only one

or two sentences long and will not have enough detail for you to bid the job

intelligently.

Jobs are canceled, jobs can be postponed, jobs can change in scope and

morph into different job postings… That's why it's really important that you

play the numbers.


Mistake #7—Not Understanding What Helps Buyers Buy

Buyers are people…and ALL people have an emotional or relationship

component to the decisions they make

to buy services from you.

When you first bid a job, you might be

one of 5, 10, 20 or more bidders. You

are a line item entry on the buyers

proposal page…and, yes there may be differences in your price, your

recommendation ratings and your

proposal… but many contractors look

the same.

This is the really important point:

If you contact the buyer and ask an intelligent question that reflects your

knowledge of the subject matter, your

insight into the project and/or your

commitment to meet the buyer’s needs… you move up in that buyers

mind in terms of personal trust.

You are no longer a line item…you are a living breathing person.

Please don’t underestimate this step!

In fact, if you are able to schedule a pre-bid telephone call with the

buyer, that’s even better… and it is a much more personal connection than

just swapping type in the message board.


This Week’s Assignment

1. Go onto Elance and hire somebody to do a small job for you.

Something like proofreading or editing.

2. Review the proposals and notice which proposals you like and why

(write that down… critical information when you start bidding later)

3. Award your job and notice how your provider responds to you.

Again, make notes about your likes and dislikes. Incorporate those

into you bidding strategies.

4. Bid 10 jobs and make a list of the things you learn.

Congratulations!

Now, get going… start bidding… don’t think about it… just do it!

See you in 7 days!...

Best Wishes For Your Barefoot Lifestyle,

Winton Churchill Winton Churchill

Publisher, Barefoot Consultants, Inc.

Next week in Lesson 15, we’ll take a look at another successful network bidder and uncover the key strategies they used to get started on Elance.

See you next week!

Lesson # 14 7 Common But Critical Mistakes New Bidders Make … · 2015-12-17 · 7 Common But...

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