Bidding for Freelance Projects
The IT market has now a days become a very clear. The Customers
know what they want. Gone are the days when bigger companies were trying hard to
find a good provider and when no one else is found, they resorted to giving
projects to smaller companies, (who have ruined the projects lot of times).
Now the market has become focused. Big Customers know the
minimum size of the company to whom they give the work for and are putting
stringent guidelines on the security and HR fronts. So that end has become
mature enough.
Turning to the smaller customers, these are the ones who give
projects to smaller providers. Good projects which are typically worth about 400 - 500
US Dollars and not a big money for these customers. The providers usually
come from countries where the dollar is a valued commodity. These are the ones
which are given out at Freelance programming sites for capable people who do not
have resources otherwise. This market and
small projects can be easily found if one is willing to provide a dedicated pool
of resources and with reasonable amount of quality.
The current scenario in the market provides a lot of opportunities
through the web. There are at least 2-3 big sites like rentacoder, elance etc
carrying a large inventory of projects. One need not run to every customer's
office in the city to convince them with lots of marketing tactics. Using these
freelance websites along with a
reasonable amount of English communication skills (both written and oral) will
be more than enough to convince a customer about one's ability to do a project.
Bidding for Freelance Projects:
Well, having covered some intro about this in our earlier Freelance
programming article, this article discusses some basic aspects of how to convincingly bid
for projects. As we had been buyers on some of the freelance sites, we know and
had some
basic expectations of how a freelance developer will get evaluated.
- The Profile in the Freelance programming Sites should be very clear and
good. The skill sets should be included only if one is really good at.
Writing all the technologies in the world never means that we can win
projects.
- There should be a niche area for the provider. Both in technology and
domain wise. Quoting good examples of the previous work in the Freelance
programming areas or some others will convince the buyer easily.
- The bids should never be very very cheap. It has to be a reasonable
amount, worth paying for the work. Of course it can be adjusted in reference
with market rates. It should also be at a very high levels as the buyer will
never care to look at the bid, if it is high.
- Asking for any clarifications will prove the depth of understanding of the
provider. But too many questions may scare away the buyer. Buyer will be
happy to answer informed questions which are directed to him after the
provider understands the requirements properly.
- It is better to be prompt with the replies. Making the buyer wait for
longer times will have a possibility of losing the bid.
- Being honest is one of the most important things. The buyer or seller do
not see each other. This sometimes is an advantages but at times may prove
to be a big problem with communications. So being honest and prompt
communication is very important.
- Every time during the discussion Provider should follow the basic etiquettes
of email exchanges. Avoiding spelling and grammatical mistakes increases the
confidence on the Provider.
- If the provider has a good past rating, showing it as a reference to the
buyer will be a great plus.
It's all some basic aspects of buying and selling, made online.
But this medium of freelance development offers tremendous opportunities for a
lot of technically capable people.