I discovered a new, mostly untapped source of leads.

4 replies
I posted a job on Elance.com earlier today, and as I'm reading through proposals now, I come to one where the proposal is literally marketing to me about one of his other services whilst he is bidding on my job.

Even though it is a writing product he is marketing to me (press releases) in the second half of his bid proposal, it is still nearly 100% unrelated to the job I posted.

Of course, I won't be hiring him for the job (because he gave me a copy/paste response - I never hire these), or for the press releases (never used them before).

But I thought it was interesting nonetheless, that he used his proposal for my one job to advertise a different service of his to me, and even linked his website where I can buy it in the proposal. I've used Elance many times in the past and never really seen someone so blatantly push a different writing service of theirs in their proposal for my job posting.

It got me thinking - surely he has had some success with this approach, or he wouldn't still be doing it (his account has a long work history).

So perhaps a few Warriors want to try this out as well? (Not that I know whether or not this is allowed by Elance terms and conditions).
#discovered #leads #source #untapped
  • Profile picture of the author TeamBringIt
    Originally Posted by Curtis2011 View Post

    I posted a job on Elance.com earlier today, and as I'm reading through proposals now, I come to one where the proposal is literally marketing to me about one of his other services whilst he is bidding on my job.

    Even though it is a writing product he is marketing to me (press releases) in the second half of his bid proposal, it is still nearly 100% unrelated to the job I posted.

    Of course, I won't be hiring him for the job (because he gave me a copy/paste response - I never hire these), or for the press releases (never used them before).

    But I thought it was interesting nonetheless, that he used his proposal for my one job to advertise a different service of his to me, and even linked his website where I can buy it in the proposal. I've used Elance many times in the past and never really seen someone so blatantly push a different writing service of theirs in their proposal for my job posting.

    It got me thinking - surely he has had some success with this approach, or he wouldn't still be doing it (his account has a long work history).

    So perhaps a few Warriors want to try this out as well? (Not that I know whether or not this is allowed by Elance terms and conditions).
    If it is 100%, un-related then you know it doesn't help much.
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  • Profile picture of the author kaymehelp
    the proposal need to be related to the job otherwise its useless
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    • Profile picture of the author jvm127
      Originally Posted by kaymehelp View Post

      the proposal need to be related to the job otherwise its useless
      It may be useless if it was completely unrelated but it would make a lot of sense to combine two services that were at least somewhat compatible. You could even tie it together to look like part of the proposal. For instance, if you were bidding on a web design job you could also tie in a pitch about providing SEO and/or PPC services to market that site. I like the idea.
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