This is Day 31 of 31 Days to Start a Freelancing Business (or Make Yours a Better One). If you want to catch up, click here to read Day 1.

You’ve been working on your freelancing business for a month now. You have done your market research, put together a killer portfolio and website, and have a compelling menu of services for your prospects. You’ve also been putting yourself out there by networking and gaining exposure online.

Now you’re ready to compete with fellow freelancers for the jobs that are available “out there” in various freelancing marketplaces. These include freelance bidding sites, such as Elance, and freelancing job boards, like the ones in FreelanceSwitch, Problogger and others (more on that later).

If, at this point, you don’t have all the clients you want or need to accomplish your freelancing goals, then competing in these freelancing sites is definitely a good option.

Do you feel up to pitting yourself against other freelancers?

Tools for Bidding and Job Application

Unfortunately, when it comes to getting jobs, the best candidate doesn’t always win. It isn’t always the most talented who gets picked. As with other situations, it takes marketing savvy to position yourself in the best light and convince prospective clients that you’re the best service provider for them.

If you’ve been following along the tasks for the past 31 days, you’ll have all the tools you need to achieve this:

• an organized and effective portfolio of relevant work samples
• social proof of your excellent work, or testimonials from happy clients
• reasonable and fair rates
• a personal story that helps prospects know and like you
• an online presence, particularly a professional website, that showcases your professionalism

Guidelines for Competing in the Freelancing Marketplace

At this point, I’d like to share some insights I learned from interviewing Trish Lambert, a six-figure power Elancer. If you have a copy of my course, “How to Make Money on Elance,” you already understand what it takes to succeed in Elance and other freelancing marketplaces.

But for now, let me give you some basic guidelines:

1. Be committed. It takes time, energy and sometimes money (some sites charge a membership fee) to find quality freelancing jobs. If you’re not willing to pay, say $15 a month to find job leads, then forget about finding good clients here.
2. Be selective. Don’t waste your time competing with bottom feeders for low-paying assignments, or jobs you’d be miserable doing. Move on and keep looking. The gems are there.
3. Be persistent. You’ll win some, you’ll lose some. Don’t let a few disappointments stop you; your persistence will pay off.
4. Be flexible. You may not be able to charge your published rates on Elance, but the network you create by gaining clients on Elance is worth it.
5. Be savvy. You’re selling your services, so be unique and be bold with your offers (but make sure you deliver).

Where to Compete

There are numerous bidding sites and job boards online, so this is definitely a partial list.

1. Elance – The top freelance bidding site. According to Trish Lambert, Elance has the least number of bottom feeders compared to other bidding sites.

2. FreelanceSwitch – The biggest freelancing site’s job board. Free to join.

3. Problogger – Look here if you want to get paid blogging. While you’re there, make sure you read their tips for applying for a blogging job.

You know what? Just head over here for the monster list of freelancing job sites.

This concludes 31 Days to Start Your Freelancing Business (or Make Yours a Better One). I hope this series has helped you get your freelancing career started, or to kick it into high gear.

If you have any stories you’d like to share – both success stories as well as disappointments and failures – I’d love to hear them. Either post a comment below or send me an Email.

Lexi

photo credit: evelynishere

To win a job bid on Elance – or any other bidding site for that matter – you need to sell yourself.

In fact, to get a job over other applicants, you need to sell yourself.

The question is: do you?

Many freelancers are extremely uncomfortable with the idea of selling or marketing themselves and their services. I understand. To sell yourself, you have to commodify yourself to a certain extent – see yourself, your skills, your experiences as a product, with features that are worth a certain amount of money to other people.

It’s not easy to think of yourself as a chunk of pie on the store shelf (or whatever product you want to imagine yourself to be). But it is necessary.

You sell yourself on your professional website. You sell yourself on your Elance profile. You sell yourself on your bid. And on every single piece of communication you send to your prospective and existing clients.

So my conclusion is that every freelancer should have at least a basic understanding of copywriting. You don’t need a $1500 home study course. If you just want to master the basics, here’s a list of some free resources I recommend:

1. Copyblogger Copywriting 101 - Brian Clark is one of the most respected and most successful bloggers to date. He knows his stuff. Even if you just read Copyblogger every day, you’ll get enough copywriting and marketing education to boost your self-selling skills.

2. Copydaddy’s Salesletter Writing Training Series – If you’re into video, you’ll like Brian McElroy’s videos about how to write a sales letter. Check it out even if you’ll probably never have to write a sales letter.

3. Remarkable Communication – Sonia Simone is one of my favorite copywriters (I stalk her on Twitter, LOL). Read her blog to learn how to communicate better with your clients. And do sign up for all her free e-courses.

4. Ittybiz – One can hardly mention Sonia Simone without Naomi Dunford coming up, so my next recommendation is for you to read Naomi’s blog too. Ittybiz’s content is more general, covering all things small businesses should be concerned about (you DO know your freelancing gig is a small biz, don’t you? Or potentially a big biz). But in this particular post, she does actually talk about copywriting. Warning: Contains profanity (but she’s really funny, too). Oh and don’t leave without signing up for one of her free e-courses.

If you’d like to find out more about how to win bids for high-quality projects on Elance, check out “How to Make Money on Elance” by TheSavvyFreelancer.com.

So there you have it. Build your copywriting skills, implement something new, and do let me know how it goes. Post a comment below. Thank you!

Disclaimer: I am a complete Elance failure; I’ve never won a bid on Elance. So I picked up these nuggets of wisdom from six-figure Elancer, Trish Lamber. Click here to learn more about my interview with Trish.

photo credit: Cosmic Kitty

Products have them. Home TV shopping is filled with them. Online sales pages swear by them. Freelancers need them too.

I’m talking about testimonials or feedback from your happy clients.

If you’re not systematically collecting testimonials from your clients, then you should. Testimonials give prospects a quick reference and social proof of your worth as a freelancer.

You can use testimonials in various places:

- Your professional website: Place the best testimonials on the sidebar so they’re visible on every page. In addition, create a dedicated “Testimonials” or “Feedback” page. Here’s mine.

- In your online profiles, such as on Elance, LinkedIn, etc.

- On job bids or proposals. A good place to put one or two testimonials is at the bottom of your proposal.

- Brochures and other printed marketing materials for your freelancing business. You can even include a one-line excerpt in your business card and letterhead (Note: I don’t use business cards or letterheads, so I’m not sure if this would be considered tacky. But it’s an idea worth considering)

To give your testimonials more credibility, make sure to include as much detail as your clients will allow you, such as full names, location, URL and/or Email address, and photograph. Of course, make sure you have your client’s permission to use these details before you publish them.

Also, the more detailed the testimonial itself, the better. Some people provide their clients an outline or guide questions to make sure they get specific and useful testimonials. I don’t do this myself. I prefer to let my clients’ personalities shine through. And besides, I want their feedback to be as genuine as possible.

You can read more tips for getting and leveraging glowing client testimonials here.

How do YOU collect and use client testimonials? Do share by posting a comment below. Thank you!

PS: If you’ve been bidding on Elance but don’t have any feedback yet, six-figure Elancer Trish Lambert has awesome advice about how you can get feedback – even if you haven’t won any bids yet! Click here to learn more.

Image by LDRBRS via Flickr

If you’re new to freelancing, you may feel so desperate for clients that you’d almost work for anybody.

But today’s post is all about having to be picky with your clients.

Yes, it may be hard to swallow, but you shouldn’t work with anybody who’s willing to hire you. It may seem counter-intuitive but trust me, you don’t want to attract just anybody.

One of the first things a newbie freelancer should do is figure out who your ideal client is. Is your ideal client male or female? How old is he/she? What industry is he/she in? Does he/she have children? Married? Annual income? Hobbies? Social media user?

I can imagine you thinking, “Are you kidding me?” But, no, I’m serious. You need to create a profile of your target client. Even give him/her a name. It could be based on a person you know, or a composite of several people. Make your target client so concrete in your mind that you can imagine him/her sitting beside you, having a latte (or tea, or whatever it is he/she drinks – yes, what’s his/her favorite beverage?).

You don’t have to go out and conduct a complicated and expensive market research to “create” your target client’s profile. Use your imagination.

But you do have to do some amount of research to find out what your target clients look for in terms of outsourcing work (I’m switching to plural “clients” now because the “he/she” is driving me nuts). What skills are they looking for? Where do they look for freelancers? How much do they usually pay? Who decides about hiring freelancers?

Now take what you know (or think you know) about your ideal clients to go out and find them. Use it to screen potential clients.

By working with your ideal clients:

• you are likely to get paid the rates you believe are fair
• they’re more likely to be happy with your work (and spread the word to others who are like them)
• you’ll stand out from your competition and be seen as the perfect fit for them

Choosing clients is an important aspect of succeeding in getting freelance work from bidding sites, such as Elance. You increase your chances of winning the bid if you pick projects posted by somebody who is close to your ideal client. Why? Because you know them so well – you have coffee with them, remember? So when you submit your bid, create a proposal, send an Email… with every piece of communication you send them, you’ll bond better. They’ll like you and hire you. Yes, even if you’re not the lowest bidder.

Forget about possible clients who just don’t fit your ideal client or aren’t even close; just don’t waste your time with them.

Choosing clients is like choosing a spouse. If you pick the right person, it’s like heaven on earth. But if you pick the wrong person, it’s hell.

How do you choose your clients? Do share by posting a comment below. Thank you!

photo credit: NightRPStar

Elance has got to be the largest online marketplace for freelancers and “buyers,” with service providers earning over $200 million to date.

When I started freelancing, I signed up for Elance and tried to find clients there, too. But I was a big Elance failure. I won zero bids. I made zero dollars.

So I soon gave up Elance and looked for clients in other places. I never looked back, and now I don’t have to.

But 93,000 services providers on Elance can’t all be wrong. Check out these providers I found and their Elance earnings in the last six months (names were changed but earnings weren’t):

Lisa, Copywriter: $23,674

Lorrie, Article Writer: $11,619

Christa, Graphic Designer: $9,575

Claire, Web Designer: $11,515

Becky, Virtual Assistant: $10,008

Not bad, I say! So there are people making money on Elance. Are you one of them? Please post a comment below and let us know – do you Elance? Why or why not?

photo credit: rochelle, et. al.

PS: If you’d like to learn how to get good projects through Elance, check out “How to Make Money on Elance,” an interview of Trish Lambert, Elance premier provider who has earned six figures on Elance alone.