I've been looking on elance for potential clients and I'm already getting kind of discouraged. Elance seems to be full of people looking for people who will work for dirt cheap rates. Should I give up and concentrate on other sites? What has been your experience with elance?

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DeAnna Troupe's VA Service
http://www.deannatroupe.com

Hi Deanna,

Elance has its pluses and its minuses. There is a pretty long thread that talks about Elance and other various sites here: eLance and various other Freelance Websites - Your Opinions Please

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Darlene Victoria Gonzalez
The Voice & Vision Behind Your Business

Deanna, these sites have their benefits short-term, but what are you doing to promote your business for the long-term? You'll get better chance of being paid what you're worth by having clients come to you, rather than you trying to find them on sites like elance. People there are shopping for the 'best price' and often quality gets overlooked.

Are you networking both online and offline in places where there are prospective clients? My post at http://vadirectory.net/blog/2006/01/...e-for-new-vas/ might help give you some ideas.

And in the meantime, perhaps taking on some temp work in your local area will give you opportunity to bring in some quick money, perhaps add to your skills, and get you out and amongst people with a view to networking and 'shopping' for clients. I spent the first 2 years of my business doing ad-hoc and temp work while I built my client base up on the side. It was worth the effort - I met lots of people (some of whom still contact me from time to time, 12 years later), learnt new skills and built my confidence in talking to people. All the best!

Hi Deanna,

I've been a paid member of Elance for the past two months, and I've gotten two long-term retainer clients (who are paying my full rates well above $4/hour ) and a short-term project (also at full rate) that will likely result in more work down the road.

I've found that the secret lies in being very selective about your bids. I subscribe to the Writing and Translation category, not Administration, so I suppose the results could be different, but I'll share what's worked for me anyways.

First, I've found that people who list very specific project details (ie. describing their industry, specific experience they're looking for) are generally willing to pay more for quality work. So make sure you're customizing each bid. Tell the buyer exactly why you're perfect for the project. If you have experience in their industry, even if it's personal experience, tell them! For example, I recently won a book editing project that had 35 other bidders. The book offered parenting advice, so in my bid, I mentioned that because I'm a parent, I can review the book from her target market's perspective and offer suggestions to improve the readability. The moral here: don't be afraid to get personal. People hire people that they like or that they feel will relate well and be excited about their work. Show your enthusiasm!

Also, you can usually tell from their wording if they're looking for cheap labor -some of them even come right out and say they want a cheap worker (which I find highly insulting!) I don't even waste my time bidding on these projects.

You should definitely differentiate your marketing efforts and not spend all your time on Elance, but you can still check in and browse through projects every few days or so. (That's what I do, anyway.) You'll have more time to write customized, compelling bids if you're only bidding on the projects you're most interested in and most qualified for.

Good luck!

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Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

Originally Posted by tamm7

Hi Deanna, I've been a paid member of Elance for the past two months, and I've gotten two long-term retainer clients (who are paying my full rates well above $4/hour ) and a short-term project (also at full rate) that will likely result in more work down the road. I've found that the secret lies in being very selective about your bids. I subscribe to the Writing and Translation category, not Administration, so I suppose the results could be different, but I'll share what's worked for me anyways. You should definitely differentiate your marketing efforts and not spend all your time on Elance, but you can still check in and browse through projects every few days or so. (That's what I do, anyway.) You'll have more time to write customized, compelling bids if you're only bidding on the projects you're most interested in and most qualified for. Good luck!

Tammi, you've demonstrated that you've found a way to make the system work for you - well done. That's great. So many can learn from your example and experience.

Thanks for the tips. I am using other means besides elance to find work. I just wanted to see what experiences other people were having.
Tamm7: I think I might look at some other categories as well.

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DeAnna Troupe's VA Service
http://www.deannatroupe.com

I will do my investigation with this company, later, but a prospective client told me he has hired VA previously thru an employment agency called Elance. He didn't tell me his experiences with them, but from how the interview went I don't think it went well. To tell the truth I haven't heard of them, but I will google the company later on today.

Have any heard or work for this company previously. Thank you.

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Phyllis L
UNIQUELY40, LLC
http://www.uniquely40.com

eLance.com is probably what they were referring to. It is a place people can post jobs and others bid on how much they will take as payment for completing the job. Depending on who your client selected, they could have a good or bad experience.

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Shauna Reed
Keystone Promise Virtual Assistance
Blog: Creative Writing Resource

That client probably went with the lowest bidder.

From what I've gathered by reviewing the elance.com site, you don't find "virtual assistants" there. You higher "freelancers", hence the name "elance." You don't build a relationship, per se, you higher someone to do a project.

I could be wrong, that's just my initial feeling.

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Robin A. Holstein
Robin's Desktop Virtual Administrative Services
My Blog

Elance is not an employment service. It is a place for people/businesses to find freelancer's or companies to do projects for them. They could be one-time projects or they could be on-going. It is the same as guru.com or findafreelancer.com, there are a lot of them out there.

The majority of the contractors are looking for cheap labor. There are a lot of businesses from other countries who bid very low, even below what our minimum wage would be in the States.

You can find good paying jobs through these sites you just have to be patient and not get frustrated with the bidding process. I have no patience so I don't bother. I had a subscription to guru and elance, I cancelled elance within the first month but I kept guru for a year until the subscription ran out. I got one job from it during that time, but I have to admit I didn't bother bidding on most of the jobs.

In the administrative sections, most of it seemed to be data entry or internet research gathering contacts from websites and building databases for them to use to SPAM people (just an educated guess there) or posting (spamming) ads on craigslist. There were some bookkeeping gigs, but they either had unreasonable requests (I need 3 years input into QuickBooks by Friday) or they were for types of businesses that I don't work with.

I think some of your success on these sites will depend on your niche.

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Rebecka Melson ~ Virtual Business Services