Uh Oh, We Messed Up This Elance Bid
Learning along the way.
Freelance writing requires much dedication, skill, and the ability sometimes to think fairly quickly. These are the main reasons why it is important not to mess up when you are placing a bid for a job on Elance. It happens many times and there are thousands of people who have messed up a bid at one point or another. If this happens to you the best thing you can do is laugh about it and move on.
Learning the top three mistakes that freelancers make when placing bids and keeping them in mind when you see a project that you wish to take on will help you in getting awarded the project.
The Top Three Mistakes
The first bidding mistake that freelancers commit on Elance is not reading the conditions for submitting a proposal thoroughly. For example, if a buyer is requesting a certain fee for a project and they wish for that project to be completed in a certain amount of time, this is going to be clearly stated in their job post. If a provider states in their proposal that they can complete the job in a timeframe that is longer than what is requested or the price is somewhat higher than what is requested then the buyer may move on to other proposals without reading yours completely.
Perhaps one of the most common bidding mistakes that providers are making on Elance is not searching through the projects thoroughly enough to make sure that they are locating the ones that they have the capability of doing. Taking on a project that you know nothing about can prove to be disastrous in terms of landing other projects if you have done so poorly that the client leaves you a negative review. There are only so many “connects” that are allowed each month included in the price of a provider’s service fee. Therefore wasting these on projects that you cannot complete may end up costing you more money if you need to purchase more connects.
The last of the top three mistakes that many freelancers commit when they are placing a bid for a project on the Elance website are providing too many or too few samples. We live in a world where unfortunately there are many people who are only out looking to get something for free. Though these people will eventually fail, we do not need to make ourselves a part of the process by providing numerous samples. A serious buyer will only ask for one or two samples and even in this case it is important to state in your proposal that the samples are just that and that they are copyrighted elsewhere. When a buyer asked for five samples then you can be pretty sure that this buyer is looking to take the samples and do with them what they will with no intention of awarding the project to anyone. This can be fairly costly mistake for you just as not providing any samples at all can be. If the buyer requests one or two samples and if you really wish to get the job then you should provide those samples.