We at pohlmedia are dedicated to using Elance. We believe in the system and find most of our clientele through that route;  Which brings us to a good debate.

There are many out there that might disagree with the Elance route. You might feel it’s a waste of time.  If you are a designer and are getting started on your own make the first step.  Start your membership in Elance and set up your profile with your portfolio.

Make your first proposal and see what you find.

My focus is on what projects not to place your bid on. As you know you have to sift through the projects and place a bid on the right clients. Some clients out there want you to work for peanuts while others appreciate your hard work so start the process. Avoid projects that start like this:

Require 1 page web design….. The page will be used as a template to develop the remaining pages …….he navigation should include 6 links as follows: Buy The Book, Table of Contents, Testimonials, Business Plan, About The Author and Contact…………Main concern is a great, attractive……..Require at least 3 concepts/ ideas to choose from…….Looking forward to receiving bids from the most talented designers. Not looking for ‘cookie cutter’ type web solutions here but something that really stands on it’s own. Also require reasonably fast turnaround on the project and would like to consider a flash.

Ok, He needs a 1 page site, and he wants to copy the same design and develop the remaining pages. Well last time I checked most websites have the same design format across pages.
So we need 6 items to the navigational pages and let’s completely forget about the time you have to spend laying out the remainder of the pages. Because is a 1 page site the other 6 pages should not count. On top of this 3 concepts, which is what we offer usually, and fast turnaround. So only work on my project all week and make nothing for it because it is a 1 page site.

After reviewing the proposal I submitted my bid like a sucker and provided a $450 proposal amount. To which the buyer promptly decline my bid for reasons of…

Bid too High

Lesson learned. When reading the bid I had my doubts about the client. He wants your precious time for nothing and expects the your full dedication all week. The average amount of the bid is $150. Can’t compete with that in this economy.

So for other freelancers out there. Don’t waste your time with clients like that. This comes from someone that makes a living with Elance.

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 11:36 pm and is filed under Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.