Getting Started with Bid Sites

There is a bid site for nearly any kind of service you can perform from home.  You can find a bid site for:

  • Clerical work--virtual assistants who do data entry or other clerical services
  • Sales, particularly inside sales (phone sales) but even outside sales positions are available
  • Social media marketing gurus
  • Web Designers
  • Programmers
  • Freelance Writers
  • Legal Services
  • Photographers
  • Graphic Designers

If you can do any of these things well, you can potentially make a living on bid sites.  The thing is, you can't just wake up one morning and decide that you can do these things.  You need to have some sort of history with them, and chances are you're going to need a way to demonstrate that history.  Graphic designers and freelance writers, for example, have portfolio pieces that they send to potential customers and clients.  A sales rep might just have a good track record.

Many of the bid sites, such as www.Elance.com and www.getafreelancer.com, are completely free to join.  You'll soon find, however, that the edge comes when you suck it up and pay the fee.  You either can't see all the jobs or can't bid on all the jobs without the fee, and you often don't have enough bids to make the law of averages work in your favor without the paid account--particularly when you're just starting out.  

You need to be willing to charge pretty low prices, starting out.  I know someone who will never succeed on bid sites because he's not willing to "pay his dues."  The first e-book I ever did for a client was $30 for the whole shebang.  Now I charge $800 or more on an e-book, because now I have the kind of professional reputation that allows me to charge those sorts of fees.  The most valuable part of bid sites is not only that you don't have to waste a lot of time cold calling and finding work, but also that you get the professional feedback that will let you build your reputation and demonstrate, perhaps to other clients off-the-sites later down the line, that you have what it takes to get the job done.  Therefore, reputation management is key.

Your portfolio pieces don't necessarily have to be things you've sold to others professionally, either.  You can also use "spec" pieces, which means that you put them together specifically to show what you can do.  Spec pieces are just as useful.  It's also important to upload those to your profile--and it goes without saying that you need a good profile, preferably one with a picture.  Eventually, as you build your reputation, you'll be invited to bid on projects without you seeking them out.  This won't happen if you don't have a good profile.  

At this stage it's also a good idea to write down every job you've ever held in every industry.  You'd be surprised how this can help you--I'll cover that in the next post, which explains how to write a winning bid.  

Will you get rich this way?  Well, in my first 9 months  I made $25,000/year.  Enough to live on, enough to be better than the $10/hour job I was working before I quit to go work from home. Not enough to make me compete with the screaming gurus who promise that they can help you make $25,000/month.  Just a good, solid living that I intend to improve in my second year of business.  Go in with the right expectations and you'll likely be satisfied.

Yes, Elance and other bid sites do take their cut--it's a business expense that you can write off on your taxes.  Yes, there are people on bid sites who are complete and total jerks about what they want to pay.  You have the right and responsibility to just click on past their posting.  There's plenty of good work to go around.

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