Post: #426

I received this message today via pm and wanted to reply here. Keeping the sender anonymous.

Quote:Can I just ask what to say when applying for a job? Ive been sending out bids like crazy but still havent got any of my bids accepted?

Man, that is a ton to explain in a private message.You could try making a post in the elance thread for some pointers or do some research online - I bet there are some good article resources on the topic. You could also trying buying some books about marketing on Elance, or about marketing in other channels.

I will say this. As an entrepreneur, you have to realize that every step in building your business is going to be excruciating. Everything will be new, and you'll never get through it if you stop and ask someone else for an instant answer for every step (especially with such a broad question as what should I say in a bid).

You've got to be hungry for the information and willing to do the research. That means scouring the web, reading books in the field, watching Youtube videos, whatever. And all of that will also require separating the hype from the BS and avoiding too many marketing pitches. This isn't just true now but will be true at every step forward in making it as a freelancer.

I will go over bidding a lot in my book (I could almost write a small book on this one topic alone), but I only just started putting energy into fleshing it out and it will be a while yet. I may throw up a page on my currently silent blog offering coaching services - that's something you could think about as helping people formulate bidding strategies will be one of the ways I can help a student.

Meanwhile, I'd start digging around the web to find out what other successful freelancers are doing.

Cheers
BB

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #427

By the way, Guys, a quick note on messaging people about jobs.

I made a couple posts recently about possibly hiring someone, and I got some great responses. But I also saw some other things that really gave me pause, and it's something I've seen when I brought work to the forum (as well as other places online) before.

For one, people posting in the thread, sometimes with just couple words saying they were interested, and waiting for me to get in touch. Other guys contacting me with a short note that they would like some work and nothing else.

Now, I don't really care about this shit and would usually just ignore it and move on. I don't want to sound like a self-righteous prick since I'm the guy hiring.

But since I am offering guidance on making this grind work, I figure in this case it's okay to offer a bit of constructive advice .

If someone throws a flag out there saying they're looking for some help and inviting interested parties to get in touch, show them you're serious and get in touch with them. Don't half-ass it and wait for them to come to you. Hit them up, have samples prepared, and make a case for yourself.

That's how it's done, Boys. This isn't even Business 101; it could be considered Being Employed 101. And not to be a dick, but that kind of half-commitment reeks to me as coming from someone who's not all that interested in finding work, let alone becoming self-employed at some point.

Another thing is I've gotten some emails from guys with obvious mispellings and no attempt at punctuation. Sorry to harp on you guys, and I know we're a casual group, but we're talking about writing work here. You don't need to be an award-winning writer, but you do need to have decent writing skills, and it should show at its finest both in your samples and your initial contacts with prospective clients.

Maybe you're just being lazy - I half expect that's the case - but hitting up a source of possible writing work (any kind of work, but especially writing work) is not the time to be lazy about spelling and grammar.

When I see guys do stuff like this, and then have them ask why they're not landing more jobs, well...

If you want people to take you seriously, act serious. That's how business works.

I hope no hard feelings form this post. Just trying to keep it real here. Game on.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #428

Sup folks. It's been a while since I've visited these threads. I even posted in this or the other one way back when. Just got back from Thailand a month ago and I'm going full steam ahead into the Freelance Writing biz. I've been into it for a month now since I've been back. Full time, or nearly.

No money yet, just some clips at a few places online, some experimenting with Elance, getting signed on to two blogs to make content for free, and learning about the freelance writing business through the Writers Den. mentioned by BB. I want to specialize in Technical Writing, but we'll see what happens. I'm interested in copywriting as well. Any advice is appreciated. I'd love to see what other people are up to and where everyone is at. I've got big dreams, big goals, and I'm in a fantastic position to make them happen as fast as possible.

My primary goal is to make enough money from online clients to come back to Thailand to live semi-permanently in May. My ultimate goals are: (1) I want to be making $50 an hour by May 1st, and (2) $100 an hour by the next November 2014. Let me know how realistic these goals are. I'm 100% serious about this.

Edit: Just saw my other post made in this thread earlier this year. I decided to not start my biz until I got back to the States at the end of October. I've done a lot of research, brainstorming, and some writing during that time, but this is the first month that I've been actively soliciting for jobs and creating fresh content. Online and off.

Post: #429

(10-09-2013 09:38 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  But I also have gotten clients from:

Guru.com
Problogger job board
Freelance Writing Den
Warrior Forum Sig
Warrior Forum WSO
My Website
Craigslist
Warm Emailing
Cold Emailing
LinkedIn
Offline Marketing forums
Probably more I'm forgetting.

Do you have any tips RE: ProBlogger and/or LinkedIn?

I do quite OK on elance and odesk but I've never been able to make the LinkedIn thing work and I've published quite a few articles there. What's your strategy for that site?

Also, what offline marketing forums do you post on?

Post: #430

(11-29-2014 03:02 AM)WalkingMan Wrote:  Sup folks. It's been a while since I've visited these threads. I even posted in this or the other one way back when. Just got back from Thailand a month ago and I'm going full steam ahead into the Freelance Writing biz. I've been into it for a month now since I've been back. Full time, or nearly.

No money yet, just some clips at a few places online, some experimenting with Elance, getting signed on to two blogs to make content for free, and learning about the freelance writing business through the Writers Den. mentioned by BB. I want to specialize in Technical Writing, but we'll see what happens. I'm interested in copywriting as well. Any advice is appreciated. I'd love to see what other people are up to and where everyone is at. I've got big dreams, big goals, and I'm in a fantastic position to make them happen as fast as possible.

My primary goal is to make enough money from online clients to come back to Thailand to live semi-permanently in May. My ultimate goals are: (1) I want to be making $50 an hour by May 1st, and (2) $100 an hour by the next November 2014. Let me know how realistic these goals are. I'm 100% serious about this.

Edit: Just saw my other post made in this thread earlier this year. I decided to not start my biz until I got back to the States at the end of October. I've done a lot of research, brainstorming, and some writing during that time, but this is the first month that I've been actively soliciting for jobs and creating fresh content. Online and off.

Awesome. Great to hear you're still out there, Man - I sent you a pm a little while back to see what you were up to.

I think those goals are very doable. Are you getting any bites yet?

(11-30-2014 01:43 AM)Andy_B Wrote:  

(10-09-2013 09:38 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  But I also have gotten clients from:

Guru.com
Problogger job board
Freelance Writing Den
Warrior Forum Sig
Warrior Forum WSO
My Website
Craigslist
Warm Emailing
Cold Emailing
LinkedIn
Offline Marketing forums
Probably more I'm forgetting.

Do you have any tips RE: ProBlogger and/or LinkedIn?

I do quite OK on elance and odesk but I've never been able to make the LinkedIn thing work and I've published quite a few articles there. What's your strategy for that site?

Also, what offline marketing forums do you post on?

For LinkedIn, it has been a while since I've used the site, but my strategy would be to sign up for the same groups as marketing managers and Public Realtions professionals and then send them a quick email to ask if they hire freelancers. I don't know if LinkedIn still allows this, but it used to be that you could email people if you were in the same group.

I believe you can also pay for the privelige of sending out messages to people you don't know. I don't think you get a ton of messages to send, but I've read the conversion rate is pretty good because you have to pay for them (so most people don't).

I've never published articles on LinkedIn. If you were going to go the article route, I'd think of it more as a place to connect with blog owners and putting guest posts on their sites, but LinkedIn marketing isn't my specialty. You could pick up a current book on the subject and see what others are doing.

I don't remember the name of the offline marketing forum I used to post on, and I'm not sure if it's still going. The Warrior Forum has an offline marketing subforum, though, and that would be a good place to post with a link in your sig to a writing offer.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #431

By the way, I'm on the lookout for testimonials, as I'm finally throwing together a coaching service to help writers get their start.

Some of the guys who've run with this information have sent me PMs or posted in the thread, but if anyone else has gotten some results, a private message to hear about it would be very much appreciated. If you don't want me to use your real identity, I can just refer to your forum name, so no biggie.

I may also contact another one or two of you for details of how you're doing.

Cheers

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #432

I got an pm from a member and thought it could be of use to other people, so I'm posting it here. Details edited out, but he's welcome to continue the conversation here as well.

Quote:Hey BB, just wanted to pick your brain and also thank you for the wealth of information you've dropped, its been invaluable.

After going through all the information I decided to start out with a blog in my area of expertise which is photography. I've put together a WordPress blog which you can see here (snip).

I've yet to promote the blog at all and I only have one post so far, because I'm uncertain when the best time to start promoting is. It seems to me that I'd want to have a few good posts up before I start attempting to bring readers in. I'm curious what your opinion is on the right approach to get this going strong from the get go.

My aim is to build a strong portfolio and gain all the skills necessary to promote myself a few months from now as a successful blogger, writer, and social media manager.

I'd love to know what you thinks. Thanks again man.

I hope you don't mind if I post this in the Elance thread so other people can see my answers as well. I'll edit out your website and name.

As for your questions, start reading a blog called BoostBlogTraffic.com.

He advocates not writing blog articles until you've got an optin form to collect emails and traffic already coming, but don't worry about that because you're also building your site as a portfolio of your writing. More importantly, I want you to study the style of his headlines, the layout and flow of his articles, the writing, etc.

CopyBlogger is a must in this regard as well, and another good marketing blog to follow is SocialTriggers.com, especially if you're looking to learn social media.

Pick up a book on content marketing called The New Rules of Marketing, and then look up an online guide called "The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing." I can't advise anything specific in social marketing at the moment, but start with everything mentioned and follow the breadcrumbs.

For that last item, follow the steps he gives for setting up a content marketing plan for your own site. But again, this is site is a portfolio for you as much as anything else, so don't beat yourself up if you find that it doesn't live up to the suggestions completely, or if some aspects of what he advises don't apply. You can always improve it or even start an additional site later on - the important thing is doing SOMETHING! And you are, so good on you.

If you've got a plan for bringing in readers, you don't need a ton of content up yet, but if you have no optin form, you should probably wait until you have at least 5 articles and/or at least work on getting a "hire me" page up to offer your writing (see my site for an example). Someone may very well hire you to write something and give you a chance to get on-the-job experience if they like your style, even though it may not be where it needs to be, but if they don't know you're available, that won't happen, right?

Throw up a page and let them know.

If you have no plan for getting traffic, and even if you do, start reading some books and blogs, starting with the ones I mentioned, and begin educating yourself.

Cheers,
BB

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #433

Spotted a job on Elance to write promotions for "women's empowerment."

What the hell y'all waiting for?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #434

(01-12-2015 03:34 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  Spotted a job on Elance to write promotions for "women's empowerment."

What the hell y'all waiting for?

Did you bid for it? You could try to slip under the radar by planting red pill knowledge here and there.

Post: #435

I am now the working as the content curator for one of the major feminist rags on the internet.

Lindy West is my supervisor. It's my dream gig.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #436

(01-13-2015 09:56 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  I am now the working as the content curator for one of the major feminist rags on the internet.

Lindy West is my supervisor. It's my dream gig.

That is awesome.

By the way, I just started making bids on elance.

I want to get a basic format down so I can copy/paste and just change a few words. I would be able to bid a lot more. You are right, starting out is a bitch.

I'm also trying to get over the feeling like I am whoring myself out.

Post: #437

^ Well, you don't necessarily have to whore yourself out to get started. I kind of advise against it, actually, because it can ruin your writing, positioning, and work ethic.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #438

I finally got off my armchair on the writing business thing. Re-read this entire thread and got to work. It only took me a day to slap up a quick website and create profiles on all of the big sites.

Probably just beginner's luck but I got work from my very first bid. The lady that hired me was a bit nervous about my complete lack of feedback but eventually got me to write content for a new website she is making. It's only for a measly $30 but it's a start - I'm pretty stoked!

Damn, now I'm annoyed at my lack of action last year. It took me literally 10 minutes of browsing through jobs and making a bid to get the ball rolling. Sometimes you just have to make a small start somewhere.

Post: #439

(01-16-2015 08:39 AM)dreambig Wrote:  It only took me a day to slap up a quick website and create profiles on all of the big sites.

Probably just beginner's luck but I got work from my very first bid. The lady that hired me was a bit nervous about my complete lack of feedback but eventually got me to write content for a new website she is making. It's only for a measly $30 but it's a start - I'm pretty stoked!

Damn, now I'm annoyed at my lack of action last year. It took me literally 10 minutes of browsing through jobs and making a bid to get the ball rolling. Sometimes you just have to make a small start somewhere.

Awesome how shit happens when you take action, isn't it?

Good on you for digging in and getting it done.

(01-16-2015 08:39 AM)dreambig Wrote:  I finally got off my armchair on the writing business thing. Re-read this entire thread and got to work.

And that, my friend, is how you start a business!

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #440

Thanks BB. You are truly an inspiration to all of us!

Stayed up writing till past 3am last night. Want to make sure I get good feedback on this first gig.

I'll keep you all updated on how things progress.

Post: #441

Got two more projects since the last post, so that's 3 jobs in 5 days!

One is for the trashiest of trash celebrity websites. Just rewriting the horrible articles a Pakistani guy "wrote". Honestly, most of it barely qualifies as English.

The other gig looks more promising. It's for a new online magazine along the lines of Vice, but less political. The guy behind it produced a famous British TV show that I used to love as a teenager. He seems a bit of a nutcase and I'm sure he is/was a cokehead, but it could be a really cool project if my test article works out. Quite amazing to already be in contact with this kind of semi-famous guy!

My rates are still low, but I'm just trying to get some positive feedback onto my profile. Once I have some 5 star ratings, I am going for the better jobs and raising my rates.

Post: #442

Don't be afraid to ask for that feedback, dreambig!

And try to keep your cheap starter jobs, if you're going that route, small. Like one article per job, for instance.

Might be common sense to you already, but you want to avoid locking yourself into anything significant just for that feedback.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #443

^^ Yeah I have definitely learned that lesson the hard way haha. What sounded like an easy rewrite turned into a lot of work! Pretty foolish of me to commit to the workload actually. The guy seemed happy with the work though.

Another thing that has cropped up is that, so far, people have wanted to work away from Elance (I assume to save some money) which is also annoying in terms of feedback. From now on, I think I should make it conditional on first doing a small job on there for feedback purposes.

Question: Do you recommend showing "total earnings so far" on your profile? It seems like a DLV for someone like me who has just started out, although I can see how it might be the opposite for someone like you with $10,000s of earned projects.

Post: #444

(01-20-2015 10:10 AM)dreambig Wrote:  ^^ Yeah I have definitely learned that lesson the hard way haha. What sounded like an easy rewrite turned into a lot of work! Pretty foolish of me to commit to the workload actually. The guy seemed happy with the work though.

Another thing that has cropped up is that, so far, people have wanted to work away from Elance (I assume to save some money) which is also annoying in terms of feedback. From now on, I think I should make it conditional on first doing a small job on there for feedback purposes.

Question: Do you recommend showing "total earnings so far" on your profile? It seems like a DLV for someone like me who has just started out, although I can see how it might be the opposite for someone like you with $10,000s of earned projects.

I wouldn't sweat leaving Elance, Bud. You're the one who actually makes more money that way - unless they're also talking you down - Elance takes 8%!

Be careful they don't rip you off though. Get payment up front until you establish a working history. The elance escrow system often makes it worth the dough.

Total earnings - yeah, that can be a double-edged sword. If you're new and haven't made much in the last 12 months, probably a good idea to keep it concealed. Even for more experienced guys like me, the vast majority of work ends up wandering off-site, so the numbers always look lower than they are.

It boggles my mind how much money actually changes in hands through Elance connections, given that the numbers for official on-site commerce are pretty damn high already.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #445

Id advise any freleancer to move away from elance and all those crappy freelancer sites alltogether.

Its ok to build up a portfolio and for the occasional diamond in the rough project but you shouldnt rely on it for the majority of your income.

Once you move away from those shitty sites the quality of your clients will increase dramatically. You wont have to worry about getting cheated out of your money or not getting any feedback and you will get much higher rates right off the bat. Alot of the clients on those sites are simply very unprofessional.

Also I wouldnt take on rewrite or editing jobs on elance ever. It usually means some hack delivered piss poor quality and they want you to fix the mess.

With that said I know guys who make a decent living off those sites. But theyre still leaving a lot of money on the table and selling themselves short. Not even to mention the headache you get from dealing with all those low quality clients.

Post: #446

I agree with woot on moving away from eLance, and definitely on at least expanding your marketing to include other channels, but you can pull a good deal of money there.

For example, I just picked up a $600 web content job last night off eLance. Not the most, but the needs of the job are not extensive, and I've pulled plenty of clients off there for over $50 - 100 a blog article, $100 an hour, etc.

I also see a very good chance I'll manage an upsell on some higher-paid services with this particular client.

I've done my own share of badmouthing the platform, but I think it gets a bad rap - it has become pretty cliche to dog on it, actually. There are definitely a lot of low-end jobs you have to filter out. But over time, you learn how to filter them out, and they just become the background noise.

Beyond the "noise," there are more mid-range jobs than high-end, but there are high-end jobs there as well - the main problem for many newcomers, is that they don't have the experience or skills for those high-end clients, but that applies everywhere.

This applies to me as well; the higher-end competition there is considerable, which provides another testament to the value that can be found. Dig around as an employer and you can find people with $100 an up per hour listed right on their profiles and plenty of work history. Others you can clearly see have made millions of dollars, in some cases even per year. Maybe most of the latter are teams, but still...

I've forged relationships there that have led to jobs with huge corporations that everyone would know here by name, some of which I worked with for years, and they still send me referrals.

Actually, I'm currently co-founding a company with a guy I met there over seven years ago. He manages the major paid media for one of THE biggest, most used websites on the web, and our other co-founder works for the professional league of one of America's most loved sports.

Based on the caliber of the guys I'm working with and the things they're doing for their current employers, I'd say we've at least got a shot, and if what we're working on goes big, my Elance start may lead to me owning part of a significant company - it's important to mention I met this dude in my first month or so working on the site.

Just in case someone is wondering, the startup is not tied together by flimsy promises, either - we just got done with all the legal bullshit, so my stake in the matter is protected.

Of course, a startup's success is never given, and neither is success on Elance or anywhere else. But it is a place to start.

One thing I've said since the beginning of this thread is avoid Elance if you can afford to (i.e. you have a steady income you can depend on already), and instead work on building a real presence online that you can leverage for good jobs that may trickle in a bit more slowly Or at the very least, don't make it your main focus if you don't have to.

In fact, the forum member who took that advice closer to heart than anyone else who emailed me, as well as the advice to focus mostly on building the skill of copywriting, has done better than anyone else I've talked to. He had a full-time job already, so he could afford to.

But one thing I've noticed about the Freelance Den and other places that blast on Elance is that the majority of members aren't making money "yet." At least with Elance you can step out of the gate swinging and make a livable income right away if that's what you need. I'll give it that.

Nearly every guy who has come to me for advice and given eLance as shot has at least gotten some paid work, and you can't say that for every person who has thrown up a writer site, sent out warm emails, and networked on LinkedIn (though these methods certainly pay if you do them right).

In fact, it's pretty badass that you can launch a biz on Elance without even having a website. That's a pretty fast fucking way to build a business, and if I suddenly had everything taken away from me, including my online assets, I'm confident I could create a psuedonym and whip an income together there within a week.

That is a solid confidence to be standing on for what is considered such a shaky marketplace.

I believe it does have a place in an established freelancer's bag of marketing strategies. It's worth a look from time to time to see if something high-quality catches your eye to bid on, for instance.

One thing's for sure - it should NOT be your ONLY strategy.

It's good for getting that ball rolling, but at the end of the day, every business needs "multiple streams of income," as they say.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #447

Another note regarding the problem with people sending hacked up work to be edited.

You just have to state in your bid that the proposed amount only stands after you've verified the quality of the copy. That's what I always say.

I edited an ebook for $1000 a couple months ago, so there's good work for editors on there too.

Then the client hired me to write a couple sales pages and still sends me the odd task from time to time.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #448

Solid advice once again BB, it's unfortunately been my only source of income for the past 11 months (in addition to some bootcamps here and there) but I've still made over $33000 which is good for a frugal guy like myself .

However I think I do need to expand into other avenues as Woot suggested above.

Edit: Oops the only source of income is a lie, I also have 2 private clients and use Odesk.

Post: #449

^ Good thing you cleared that up up - Odesk was about to send the lawyers out.

What other marketing ideas are you thinking about taking a swing at?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #450

I'm developing my ebook/book right now, I've researched that my target market is around 50 million to 100 million, which is crazy.

Here's what I'm looking at for the moment:

For my book/ebook:
Devise new brand name
New domain and website
Sell ebook and physical book on amazon/lulu/affiliate program (also through any affiliate marketers that can access that target market mentioned above)/ through mailing lists
Create follow up book

For my writing:

Basically follow Woof's steps by creating a portfolio website and emailing marketing agencies within the UK

My other avenue is following Louie's advice. I've got a business plan ready for that but I need some good salesman who are willing to work on commission.

A lot of work whilst not getting paid at the moment!