How to find a good client in freelance marketplace?

 I’m a working as a freelancer in odesk.com and elance.com. It is a great experience to work with a good client. I want to give you some tips here that help freelancer to find a good client in a freelance marketplace.

If any freelancer follows the tips that I described below it help them a lot to find a good client. I hope keeping these things in your mind will give you better experience.

1. Verified Payment Method:

The first and one of the most important things is to check if the client has a verified payment method. This will ensure his payments in hourly contracts, and increase surety in fixed price contracts.

If the client is new and doesn’t have a verified payment method, you may ask politely about what he is thinking to get his payment method verified. I have found some clients who are actually under process of getting his payment method verified.

2. The Country he lives in:

I found this a vital point for choosing a client. Choosing a client from a HIGHER ECONOMY country may be good for a lot of contractors. 

3. Rating/ Feedback he received: 

It’s always better to work with someone who already has experience working with other contractors and has received good (4 and above) feedback and ratings. This makes things easier.

4. Rating/ Feedback he gave:

I know most people don’t consider this. But for me, this is one of the most important things to consider when I choose a client.

You’ll find a lot of clients who often provides bad rating/ feedback to the contractors and often criticizes them. When you read both comments of client and contractor, you’ll see that the work was completed successfully without any problem and there was everything alright. But then also, client gave low rating just because he doesn’t want to praise his team member. I think this is a BOSS type attitude, rather than a TEAM LEADER attitude. And I ignore these types of clients mostly. They will often try to keep you in mental pressure and take advantage of your work without proper valuation.

5. Fees he pays to contractors:

This is another vital point I consider. When you try to apply for a new job, and see client’s previous records, you’ll see how much he pays to contractors. Some clients are there who pays $30 for a $300 job. I try to avoid them.

Exception:

Finally, there is always exception. There are clients who are good but had some bad experiences with some bad contractors. You’ll understand that from their comments in feedback. I think they will respect you more than the new comers, since they know the pain of the bad contractors. So, if you are a good contractor, they’ll do everything to ensure you are happy with them.

How to get lots of contract easily in freelance market?

A lot of newbies’ asked me that they complete their profile 100%. But not getting any job. They become so frustrated.

So I want to give some helpful tips for freelancer who are not getting job.

Day by day competitions are increasing rapidly in freelance market place. So it is hard for newbie to get a job. But following tips will be helpful to get job in marketplace.

1. Have patience and what you need to have is constant moving apply for jobs if you are fit for the job. Don’t get frustrated if you see no response from any of your applied jobs, you need to have your moral high and constant moving. (In freelancing this is must thing that a newbie must have.)

2. Try to reduce your hourly rate (as you are newbie) as you should give a reason to your employer to hire you and in case of newbie this is possible having your rate a bit low. Try to make a good relation first.
In addition, bidding with a lower rate does not always help.

3. Hide the scores that are below average and retake them and try to improve them. Try to pass couple of more tests with good average.

4. Try to write custom cover letter to every job you apply. This is most important thing which 80% contractors do not care for. Write in cover letter exactly that what your employer wants to see in. DO NOT copy and paste one sample cover letter to every job.

5. Don’t ever show you are needy of money and you need a job, never beg for the job. Always try to give your expertise that what you can do actually for your employer. Show your employer your skills, your experiences and most important what you can do for him/her.

Considering Freelancing?

You’ve probably heard your freelancer acquaintances boasting about lives of luxury, plenty of time off, the freedom to work when inspiration strikes and not before, no control-freak bosses, and dream projects of their choosing. Then again, other freelancers
may have told you about working all night to meet deadlines, stressing between projects, missing regular social contact, and chasing clients who resist paying their bills.
The experience of freelancing, for most people, lies somewhere between these scenarios. You’ll enjoy the chance to chill out in front of the TV during the day if you feel the need, yet you may have the occasional scare when you realize you don’t know how you’ll afford to eat next week. You will love the excitement of creating your own destiny; at the same time, there’ll be moments when you wish someone else could make the right decisions for you!
So, before you decide to trade in your day job, you need to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the solo worker life, as well as understand the all-important range of skills and attributes of the successful freelancer.