Getting work on oDesk/Elance/Freelancer?

Trying to underbid the "Indian sweat shops" as you put it is a great strategy for going broke quickly.

Steve

Yeah, I figured THAT much out...

People that are hiring on oDesk and elance are generally hiring based on price. The cost of living is so much lower in those countries that they are able to price their services at levels that you would not do because you live in an area with a higher cost of living. It will be a hard sell to convince people to hire you if you costs are 50% or 100% more than your competition.

just tried to go on iwriter.com and got:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Better for you to just cold contact local corporations or companies or growing businesses near you, particularly those with newly launched products that urgently need people with your skills, knowledge and expertise in specialized relevant subject areas and industries. Offer your services as a telecommuting homebased subcontractor.

Much better if you contact corporations, companies or businesses with affiliate programs. That way, you can tell them that you're also interested in signing up as their affiliate, so you can possibly earn additional income on top of your telecommuting homebased subcontractor wages. This'd most likely show them that you're actually interested in driving more traffic and generating more sales for them.

Also, have you tried Constant-Content.Com[/URL]?

You will have a pretty hard time undercutting the market if you live in a developed country...

There are people on there who charge REALLY low prices because for them it provides an adequate living...

I would suggest positioning yourself as Quality over Quantity and charge a more premium rate, this is especially relevant if you're a writer which I'm assuming you are.

I have been a full-time freelance writer for 8 years now and started from scratch. It will take time, but eventually you will find some good clients.

I am always looking for writers to join my team. I use Freelancer and have noticed a lot of "India" bids coming in. I skip right past them and look for the native writers. If someone wants a good writer, they will hire a native English speaker. Just keep posting your bids and make sure you send samples along with your bids. Eventually, someone will hire you. I usually just go through Google and type in "Freelance writing companies" and then email them asking if they need any writers.
Stay motivated!
~Melanie

Since you can't compete with them based on price, why don't you outsource them for your work?

If you can't beat them join them! Form a group of writers that includes "cheap" writers and sell your services as an agency. You can check the quality of each article before being sent out to clients.

Yeah. As someone said before, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Simple as that. Agencies charge much more, and your clients will know that already. Get in contact with a group of cheap writers, form an agency, create a website and upload samples of work, and then while appyling to jobs on Odesk, Elance etc. tell them that you are experts in your field and blah blah. Plus show them the samples on your site. And hopefully, they will be impressed and hire you!

I suggest you have a look at TextBroker. If you become a 5 star writer you can make some decent money there..

Getting writing jobs on the classic freelance sites is pretty hard. Although I know of some people that do get some big writing jobs there once in a while..

It's all about how you market yourself there..

Nick

If you are newbie in that site, the best strategy is underbid and give best support for your costumer and don't forget to ask positive feedback. You need to build reputation first, that is the most important think for me. Newbie without reputation will kicked by another freelancer.

Okay, so it sounds like there are a few strategies here:
- Provide samples and a profile that shows I can deliver quality.
- Bid low to get reputation, and then jack up the price
- Once I get the hang of it -- or in case it doesn't work out -- form an agency with other writers and use my skills for quality control while letting the cheap guys do the writing.

Does that sound about right?

Scrambler: I do have some experience, yeah, and long-term I'm definitely planning to do that.

I work at odesk and elance, try creating a professional and nice profile which can attract client, you can also try creating a simple portfolio for your self to prove them you can do the job.

Odesk has lots of 3rd world workers willing to work cheaply, and it means opportunity for savvy tech entrepreneurs. My suggestion is to focus your time learning the ins and outs of this stuff here at the WF and get the job done at odesk.

Hello,

If you have proper skills then you easily build your career with oDesk. it is not so hard, though the competition at oDesk is very tight.

You can follow the instruction to build up your carrer at oDesk. Though the Article written for Bangladesh but Wish this post can help you too to be success at oDesk.

Thanking you

I've actually found it easier to go for the higher paying gigs because most workers are so desperate they are fighting tooth and nail for scraps, while the jobs they feel unqualified for are the jobs above the $1,000 to $10,000 mark.

This is exactly what I did to land a $5000 gig from Elance with ZERO cred from the platform (meaning I had not done any jobs in the past).

Go for the BIG Jobs.

I did an entire course on this with the Rockstars.

PM if you want more help privately.

Regards,

Los

Offer quality wrtiting, not the boring crap you get from such writers and writers in genral... On the other hand,... However, ... There is...

Except for price, you can beat them on quality, fast response, turn around time.

I used to be on odesk a few years ago, made some decent income but didn't like to work for someone else
at some point.

But USP (standing out/being unique) and intelligence are really the keys there which makes outbidding
those third world countries pretty easy since all they do is send out as many copy/paste applications as possible even for jobs they don't have any skills in.

You need to put a lot of work in initially if you don't have any reviews and you really have to spend a good amount of time writing your applications.

Be absolutely honest, tell them you don't have any reviews yet... you understand that this makes them suspicious since they can simply choose somebody who has a proven track record but that's where you go over the top in your application like telling them very useful information about the job they want to have done... giving them results in advance.

You demonstrate that you can help them by showing them samples of your work not trying to convince them like all the others but you rather start building a relationship by asking them what exactly needs to be done and going into detail of what you think is the best way to get the job done...

explaining them why you're different and really just being intelligent about it and offering to work for free for the first hour... going over the top to get the first good testimonials.. and then it becomes easier and easier from there.