I've had two clients pick me up in guru.com and one was a disaster because they expected me to stay low cost forever. I originally charged him a discounted rate because I was new to the biz and didn't feel right charging full rate. After 6 months I decided to raise my rates. Not to market value but to a higher amount to cover my additional costs. I was doing 10 times the work for him and it was clear I was not inexperienced.

My second and current client also found me on guru but we did not carry out our transaction through guru. We did it outside of guru. We have a great relationship now and in the time since I started he's increased the workload by 10 fold. He's very happy with me and does not squabble over prices like the last guy did.

I did find it hard to compete in places like guru and e-lance because of the international markets mostly. Like said above, with such a low rate expected over there its hard to make a cheapskate understand the "value" in our services. Most, certainly not all, of the RFPs on those sites are unfortunately just looking for the lowest bidder. I've also had several people tell me that they passed on me because of price.