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Add You - Steps for Successfully Using a Freelance Jobs Site
Many times small business owners need great ideas for publicity for the next few months. There are so many things happening in the news that a small business can use, I thought I would start writing articles to remind business owners to get out there. You have to go and stimulate publicity. You can not just hope some reporter will hear about you. You have to make them hear about you. You have to give them a reason to talk about you, AFTER they hear about you.If you need to know how to get publicity visit www.wrightplacetv.comIf you want some new great ideas, continue to read.Relationships: The Anna Nicole Situation, the Crazy Astronauts and even the Mayor of San Francisco, have relationship problems. If you are an expert in this area, this is a great time for you.Travel: Jet Blue has had major problems from the storm. There is a new company that will pack your bags for you for a very high price. Do you have a product or service that will make travel easier, the media wants to talk to you.Ecology: Anything Green, anything that helps the environment, anything that will change a person’s carbon foot print, even bamboo bed sheets are important to medi
Never Bid on a Project Which You Don’t Plan to Complete. If you do not have the plan on completing a project, you don’t have the skills to complete the project, or you have a booked schedule then you should never bid. Make sure you have the skills, experience, and time to complete any project you bid on.
Go the Extra Mile and Build a Professional Relationship. Your clients are the most important aspects to your business. If you go the extra mile to assist the client then you are doing something different than others. Be an honest and trustworthy service provider, make sure every transaction ends positive. Do the above and beyond for the client. Do not ever do so much that you feel uncomfortable or you are losing lots of money, but do enough that the service you provided is considered high quality and the client is happy with your service. If you are a master at what you do then you should not want any project to be tagged completed (hands off) until you are certain the project is completed perfectly.
Be Personal and Professional. You should always personalize your message when
Sales organizations that successfully achieve profitable revenue growth do so through a sales system encompassing sales focus, the integration of organizational and people competencies, a balanced sales effort between new customer acquisition and current customer penetration, and employee engagement.These organizations match sales resources to the best opportunities, often overlooking customary territorial boundaries or customer assignments and applying a “best in front” approach in the allocation of sales people to high value opportunities. They’ve adopted cross-functional team selling approaches – emphasizing collaboration to deliver value-adding solutions and hold sales/service teams accountable for improved customer-level results. In addition, they utilize their full organizational capabilities, and those of their external partners, to create an integrated product/service offering that enhances their customers’ business results, differentiate their value proposition from the competition, increase the average deal size, “win” the sale, and build durable customer relationships.While highly effective sales organizations emphasize new customer acquisition, they also
First, let’s define freelance job sites. These are websites which provide freelancers (i.e. web designers, system admins, programmers, artist, authors, etc.) a marketplace to buy and provide their services which can be completed from a remote location by a company or an individual. Live examples of these type of sites are RemoteGurus.com, GetAFreelancer.com, and Elance.com. The way it works is buyers post a project (or job) and providers bid on the project (or jobs). The buyer will communicate with the providers and award a bidder the project. The bidder will either accept or deny the project. The buyer and the provider are joined for further communication. The thing to know about freelance job sites is that it can be a very positive experience or it can be a very negative experience. What you will learn in this article is the best practices as a buyer or seller to get the most rewarding experience. Now that we know the definition of freelance job sites, let’s begin.
BUYERS
Never bite at the first bid. You should allow at least 24 hours to past before awarding a bid. Before awarding a bid you should communicate with the potential winning bidder. You should make sure you and the bidder have a clear understanding of the project.
Make Payment Terms Clear. You should make your payment terms clear to the potential winning bidder. I suggest only doing Escrow Payments. Escrow Payments are payments made via the freelance jobs site, but the payment is put on hold in what is a called an escrow account. Once the payment is in escrow the buyer only has the ability to transfer money to the provider and the provider only has the ability to cancel the payment. This gives both parties 50% control over the payment process without cheating one another. As a buyer you should only release payment to the provider when the project is completed in full. Never pay up front for any level of service. If a provider cannot provide you services without wanting money upfront then most likely they are not serious about doing business. Any true company, business, or provider knows that to be a service provider you must take chances. The way I see it any true service provider who can stand behind their work can afford to take chances because it is a bigger lost for the buyer to lose a great service provider. Escrow payments are the best option.
Know When and How to Renegotiate. Things are not always going to be cookie-cutter perfect, many times you will need to budge on your terms to meet the service provider terms. Legitimate service providers are commonly concerned with illegitimate buyers who will leave them holding the bill. Therefore, service providers sometimes have terms of their own, such terms sometimes include an upfront portion of money, just to be certain the buyer is serious about retaining their services. In cases such as this, I suggest not transferring any amount of money, I suggest sticking with a escrow payment, but in rare occasions when it is absolutely necessary you retain the service provider services and transferring money upfront is an absolute requirement, then I suggest not transferring any money until the service provider can satisfy you with a live demo (example) of the service which they will provide you (i.e. website demo) as well you should ask for any referrals who can verify their work and make sure you check their reviews/ratings on the freelance job site, if applicable. Whenever you renegotiate your terms make sure you get it in writing (email) and the terms benefits you as well as the service provider.
Be Professional and Courteous. You should reply and respond to every bid. A simple “thank you” would suffice. This let providers know you are serious about retaining service and that you have noticed their gesture. In communications always end with a warm departure. Pay Providers Timely When Project is Completed. Being honest and trustworthy will get you far on the web. You should always pay providers the agreed upon amount if they complete the project in full. Provide Feedback for Provider. Always leave feedback for providers who have completed projects for you. Give your honest opinion and make recommendations for other members who plan to use the provider services.
PROVIDERS
Understand the client needs. Understanding the client needs is extremely important and essential to potentially becoming a winning bidder. When bidding on a project you should express your interest while also explaining how you will complete the project. Have a project plan for any project you bid on. If you are unclear about anything concerning the project then you should contact the buyer via the freelance job site (private message board) and ask the buyer for further clarification.
Never Bid on a Project Which You Don’t Plan to Complete. If you do not have the plan on completing a project, you don’t have the skills to complete the project, or you have a booked schedule then you should never bid. Make sure you have the skills, experience, and time to complete any project you bid on.
Go the Extra Mile and Build a Professional Relationship. Your clients are the most important aspects to your business. If you go the extra mile to assist the client then you are doing something different than others. Be an honest and trustworthy service provider, make sure every transaction ends positive. Do the above and beyond for the client. Do not ever do so much that you feel uncomfortable or you are losing lots of money, but do enough that the service you provided is considered high quality and the client is happy with your service. If you are a master at what you do then you should not want any project to be tagged completed (hands off) until you are certain the project is completed perfectly.
Be Personal and Professional. You should always personalize your message when
Managing your network can be one of the most challenging aspects of networking. If you have the drive and put in the appropriate amount of time, it can be very rewarding both personally and professionally.Because it can be difficult to keep in touch with your network on a regular basis, you need to be creative and keep in front of your contacts. Some relationships will be easier to maintain than others.You need to figure out how much effort you want to put forth with certain people versus your entire network.Keep Good Notes About PeopleOne of the first things you need to do when you meet people is to take good notes after your conversations. On the back of a business card, write down important information about people’s careers and their personal lives.Information to remember could include job description, past employers, college attended, city of birth and birthday. The more you remember, the more you have to record about a person. This can help you stay in touch with an individual.After you take notes on a business card, you should immediately transfer this information into a contact management system such as Palm, Act or Goldmine.
BUYERS
Never bite at the first bid. You should allow at least 24 hours to past before awarding a bid. Before awarding a bid you should communicate with the potential winning bidder. You should make sure you and the bidder have a clear understanding of the project.
Make Payment Terms Clear. You should make your payment terms clear to the potential winning bidder. I suggest only doing Escrow Payments. Escrow Payments are payments made via the freelance jobs site, but the payment is put on hold in what is a called an escrow account. Once the payment is in escrow the buyer only has the ability to transfer money to the provider and the provider only has the ability to cancel the payment. This gives both parties 50% control over the payment process without cheating one another. As a buyer you should only release payment to the provider when the project is completed in full. Never pay up front for any level of service. If a provider cannot provide you services without wanting money upfront then most likely they are not serious about doing business. Any true company, business, or provider knows that to be a service provider you must take chances. The way I see it any true service provider who can stand behind their work can afford to take chances because it is a bigger lost for the buyer to lose a great service provider. Escrow payments are the best option.
Know When and How to Renegotiate. Things are not always going to be cookie-cutter perfect, many times you will need to budge on your terms to meet the service provider terms. Legitimate service providers are commonly concerned with illegitimate buyers who will leave them holding the bill. Therefore, service providers sometimes have terms of their own, such terms sometimes include an upfront portion of money, just to be certain the buyer is serious about retaining their services. In cases such as this, I suggest not transferring any amount of money, I suggest sticking with a escrow payment, but in rare occasions when it is absolutely necessary you retain the service provider services and transferring money upfront is an absolute requirement, then I suggest not transferring any money until the service provider can satisfy you with a live demo (example) of the service which they will provide you (i.e. website demo) as well you should ask for any referrals who can verify their work and make sure you check their reviews/ratings on the freelance job site, if applicable. Whenever you renegotiate your terms make sure you get it in writing (email) and the terms benefits you as well as the service provider.
Be Professional and Courteous. You should reply and respond to every bid. A simple “thank you” would suffice. This let providers know you are serious about retaining service and that you have noticed their gesture. In communications always end with a warm departure. Pay Providers Timely When Project is Completed. Being honest and trustworthy will get you far on the web. You should always pay providers the agreed upon amount if they complete the project in full. Provide Feedback for Provider. Always leave feedback for providers who have completed projects for you. Give your honest opinion and make recommendations for other members who plan to use the provider services.
PROVIDERS
Understand the client needs. Understanding the client needs is extremely important and essential to potentially becoming a winning bidder. When bidding on a project you should express your interest while also explaining how you will complete the project. Have a project plan for any project you bid on. If you are unclear about anything concerning the project then you should contact the buyer via the freelance job site (private message board) and ask the buyer for further clarification.
Never Bid on a Project Which You Don’t Plan to Complete. If you do not have the plan on completing a project, you don’t have the skills to complete the project, or you have a booked schedule then you should never bid. Make sure you have the skills, experience, and time to complete any project you bid on.
Go the Extra Mile and Build a Professional Relationship. Your clients are the most important aspects to your business. If you go the extra mile to assist the client then you are doing something different than others. Be an honest and trustworthy service provider, make sure every transaction ends positive. Do the above and beyond for the client. Do not ever do so much that you feel uncomfortable or you are losing lots of money, but do enough that the service you provided is considered high quality and the client is happy with your service. If you are a master at what you do then you should not want any project to be tagged completed (hands off) until you are certain the project is completed perfectly.
Be Personal and Professional. You should always personalize your message when
Ask any of your sales managers to define sales strategy and you might get a myriad of responses. Some right, some wrong and many just vague. Ask them to define operational effectiveness and you will tend to get more accurate answers depending on the level of the manager.Strategy is the what – direction of the organization. Organizational effectiveness is the how – how you are getting there. The problem is that if your strategy is unclear, vague or downright wrong it doesn’t matter in the long term how effective you are as an organization – sooner or later you will fail due to any number of outside forces:- competition - the economy - technology - consumer changes in attitudes - the global market place - an aging populationThink of it as a matrix; Draw a four quadrant box. Along the top put Strategy down the left side put operational effectiveness. Therefore;The lower left hand box is low operational effectiveness and a vague or no strategy. The upper left hand box is high operational effectiveness but poor or no strategy. The lower right hand box is low operational effectiveness but clear and focused strategy.
Know When and How to Renegotiate. Things are not always going to be cookie-cutter perfect, many times you will need to budge on your terms to meet the service provider terms. Legitimate service providers are commonly concerned with illegitimate buyers who will leave them holding the bill. Therefore, service providers sometimes have terms of their own, such terms sometimes include an upfront portion of money, just to be certain the buyer is serious about retaining their services. In cases such as this, I suggest not transferring any amount of money, I suggest sticking with a escrow payment, but in rare occasions when it is absolutely necessary you retain the service provider services and transferring money upfront is an absolute requirement, then I suggest not transferring any money until the service provider can satisfy you with a live demo (example) of the service which they will provide you (i.e. website demo) as well you should ask for any referrals who can verify their work and make sure you check their reviews/ratings on the freelance job site, if applicable. Whenever you renegotiate your terms make sure you get it in writing (email) and the terms benefits you as well as the service provider.
Be Professional and Courteous. You should reply and respond to every bid. A simple “thank you” would suffice. This let providers know you are serious about retaining service and that you have noticed their gesture. In communications always end with a warm departure. Pay Providers Timely When Project is Completed. Being honest and trustworthy will get you far on the web. You should always pay providers the agreed upon amount if they complete the project in full. Provide Feedback for Provider. Always leave feedback for providers who have completed projects for you. Give your honest opinion and make recommendations for other members who plan to use the provider services.
PROVIDERS
Understand the client needs. Understanding the client needs is extremely important and essential to potentially becoming a winning bidder. When bidding on a project you should express your interest while also explaining how you will complete the project. Have a project plan for any project you bid on. If you are unclear about anything concerning the project then you should contact the buyer via the freelance job site (private message board) and ask the buyer for further clarification.
Never Bid on a Project Which You Don’t Plan to Complete. If you do not have the plan on completing a project, you don’t have the skills to complete the project, or you have a booked schedule then you should never bid. Make sure you have the skills, experience, and time to complete any project you bid on.
Go the Extra Mile and Build a Professional Relationship. Your clients are the most important aspects to your business. If you go the extra mile to assist the client then you are doing something different than others. Be an honest and trustworthy service provider, make sure every transaction ends positive. Do the above and beyond for the client. Do not ever do so much that you feel uncomfortable or you are losing lots of money, but do enough that the service you provided is considered high quality and the client is happy with your service. If you are a master at what you do then you should not want any project to be tagged completed (hands off) until you are certain the project is completed perfectly.
Be Personal and Professional. You should always personalize your message when
In direct sales party plan businesses the difference between having a show and having a great show is how you coach your hostess. Coaching your hostess is simply letting her know what she needs to do to get what she wants from having the party. The great thing about your hostess getting what she wants is you get what you want: sales, bookings, and recruits.1. Find out what products your hostess wants from having the show. With that information you know what she needs to have in sales and bookings to get those items. Now you have a base to work from.2. Talk to your hostess about how many people she needs to invite. Explain to her that half the people she invites will say yes and half to three quarters of those will actually come. If she needs 10 to 15 buying guests to get what she wants she will need to invite 40 people.3. Explain to your hostess how getting bookings is to her advantage and therefore she needs to invite a variety of people. If she invites only people from work she's not going to get many bookings. The guest who is thinking about booking is looking around the room and everyone she knows, so she thinks, is there. Bookings happen when
Be Professional and Courteous. You should reply and respond to every bid. A simple “thank you” would suffice. This let providers know you are serious about retaining service and that you have noticed their gesture. In communications always end with a warm departure. Pay Providers Timely When Project is Completed. Being honest and trustworthy will get you far on the web. You should always pay providers the agreed upon amount if they complete the project in full. Provide Feedback for Provider. Always leave feedback for providers who have completed projects for you. Give your honest opinion and make recommendations for other members who plan to use the provider services.
PROVIDERS
Understand the client needs. Understanding the client needs is extremely important and essential to potentially becoming a winning bidder. When bidding on a project you should express your interest while also explaining how you will complete the project. Have a project plan for any project you bid on. If you are unclear about anything concerning the project then you should contact the buyer via the freelance job site (private message board) and ask the buyer for further clarification.
Never Bid on a Project Which You Don’t Plan to Complete. If you do not have the plan on completing a project, you don’t have the skills to complete the project, or you have a booked schedule then you should never bid. Make sure you have the skills, experience, and time to complete any project you bid on.
Go the Extra Mile and Build a Professional Relationship. Your clients are the most important aspects to your business. If you go the extra mile to assist the client then you are doing something different than others. Be an honest and trustworthy service provider, make sure every transaction ends positive. Do the above and beyond for the client. Do not ever do so much that you feel uncomfortable or you are losing lots of money, but do enough that the service you provided is considered high quality and the client is happy with your service. If you are a master at what you do then you should not want any project to be tagged completed (hands off) until you are certain the project is completed perfectly.
Be Personal and Professional. You should always personalize your message when
There are many ways to market your website and text ads on related websites offer you a great way to get targeted traffic at minimal cost.Here we will look at the advantages of text ads over other forms of advertising.Text AdsA text ad has the advantage of being cheap – You can generally get one for between $10 – 40 per month and get on sites with 50, 100,000 monthly visitors or more.What is it?A text ad is normally a short line on your product or service that links back to your site and it is common for text ads to get higher click through rates than banners.Hot LeadsIf you pick the right site and target correctly for minimal outlay you can get a great traffic flow and gain a quality link back to your site as a bonus, to increase your link count.Buying Text AdsYou can buy text ads through brokers or you can find sites advertising directly - If you go direct you can save up to 50% on the cost (this is normal split between broker and site ) so by going direct you can save this cost.In terms of quality traffic to price paid, text ads offer excellent value for money.What are the alternatives?Well you c
Never Bid on a Project Which You Don’t Plan to Complete. If you do not have the plan on completing a project, you don’t have the skills to complete the project, or you have a booked schedule then you should never bid. Make sure you have the skills, experience, and time to complete any project you bid on.
Go the Extra Mile and Build a Professional Relationship. Your clients are the most important aspects to your business. If you go the extra mile to assist the client then you are doing something different than others. Be an honest and trustworthy service provider, make sure every transaction ends positive. Do the above and beyond for the client. Do not ever do so much that you feel uncomfortable or you are losing lots of money, but do enough that the service you provided is considered high quality and the client is happy with your service. If you are a master at what you do then you should not want any project to be tagged completed (hands off) until you are certain the project is completed perfectly.
Be Personal and Professional. You should always personalize your message when bidding on a project. Address the buyer by their name or username. Talk about the project details and provide details of your background and experience. You should never send a generic templated message to bid on projects. I suggest always bidding on projects with “Please check the private message board”, then in the PMB you should be personal and professional. Always conduct business with a professional attitude, even when buyers act irate or non-courteous.
Accept the Buyer Payment Terms But Know Your Worth. You should never have payment terms which are outside of the scope of the freelance job site or the buyer terms. You should always be willing to do escrow payments or on-site transfers. The fact is this is a buyers market and you as a service provider are just trying to retain clients. The best way to show clients you are confident in your work and serious about doing business is to accept the payment terms which the buyer suggests. You can even ask the buyer to add the full amount or partial of the money into escrow until the job is completed. Additionally, you should know your worth and bid an amount which you feel is reasonable, fair, and comfortable. Most of the time you must not only evaluate your skill level, but you need to evaluate your feedback and rating, to know your worth online. Your feedback and rating plays an important role in the amount you bid. Sometimes you must low ball your rate to get the job. If you have no feedback or low feedback, then you should be working for feedback and ratings, not concerned with the money (yet), the money will come in time, but you need to build yourself up first. I am definitely not suggesting you cheat yourself or bid an extremely low amount which you are not comfortable with. Only bid what you are comfortable with (or the absolute minimum you are willing to accept), otherwise it may lead to you doing a poor job or having less interest in the project. Take into account the number of hours you will spend on the project as well as the number of hours you are willing to provide for debugging or troubleshooting after the project is completed.
Leave a Buyers Rating and Request a Providers Rating. Ratings are commonly important for being rewarded a project. Buyers typically turn to the feedback of others who have used your services in the past. This is an effective way for buyers to evaluate you and aid in making a final decision. You should always leave honest feedback of buyers and request that the buyer leave a feedback rating for you as well. If you completed a project then I would suggest giving the buyer at least 72 hours after successfully completing the project to leave any feedback rating. After the 72 hours have passed I would follow up with the buyer and make sure all is well. If all is well, then you should request the buyer to leave you a feedback rating on the freelance job site. If you have successfully completed the project and followed the steps above then most likely the buyer will leave you positive feedback with an excellent rating.
The steps above will surely make your experience with finding talented professionals and finding freelance jobs a much more rewarding experience. In time you will have a keen sense of who can be trusted and who is not serious about doing business. Also, you will have a new network of contacts that can expand your business by providing you services or providing you referrals.
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