The following is a quote from someone who posted a job on Elance:
Anyone who calls me and doesn’t read this, who doesn’t visit the site first, and who doesn’t respond with specific ideas to small task I seek will be blocked from bidding on any future tasks… Meaning you cannot read/listen.
My name is Ken Walden, Founder of Marijuana Nationalization. My goal is to build the most advanced, interactive Cannabis directory. My site is framed using WordPress technologies. My current developer has skills and passion, but the pace of completion is not satisfying me. I need experts and I need them now.
I need experts in WordPress, PaidMembershipPro, WP Scraper, MemberFindMe, , Affiliations, RSS Feeds, WooCommerce, Forms, and most importantly a two step click that send and SMS text from the site as a member.
One more time DO NOT CALL or tell me you can do all this for $5000+
Wow. That’s all I can say. Not only am I appalled that the client is an asshole in his approach to be taken seriously, he also wants “WordPress experts” to build “the most advanced” directory in his niche for a budget between $100 and $250. With expectations and a budget like that, no wonder his current developer is in no rush to get it done. I feel bad for whoever actually winds up doing all that work and letting this person control them for basically nothing.
Last week, I decided to submit some proposals on Elance, a popular website for hiring freelance workers and for freelancers to find work. My intention was not to actually look for work on Elance but rather to see what type of success I would have when submitting proposals that included a price I actually set (a price that did not consider the client’s BS budget for the requirements). For each project, I would take some time to determine the price I would quote anyone who contacted me about a project with those requirements. In summary, I had NO success. I’m not going to lay out a bunch of data and specifics about each project. Instead, I want to share some interesting points and my overall opinion of finding work on Elance. For some more opinion on this subject, check out a post on medium.com about “the real cost of outsourcing work to the cheapest bidder” and Carrie Dils’s post, “What’s it Worth to You?“
My Proposals
When I submitted a proposal, I made a point to address the client and the project details that were included in the description. Most of my proposals included follow-up questions so I could better understand what the client was looking for. Also, most of the projects I submitted proposals for were from clients within the United States. I treated these proposals the same way I would if any random client were to contact me directly. Of the 12 proposals I submitted, I heard back on two.
The first project I heard back from the client regarding was an eCommerce website where the client wanted to accept orders for a handful of products. For this proposal, I asked five follow-up questions based on the project’s description. The client responded with nothing more than a link to a website they liked. This was pointless because I never even asked for it and because the questions I did ask were not answered in any way. I didn’t waste my time copying and pasting the questions into a second message. Learn how to communicate, person.
The second project I heard back on was what seemed to be a simple, straightforward project that added discounted rates for bulk orders (i.e. from distributors) to an existing eCommerce website. I asked a couple easy questions about how they would like to structure the different pricing options but their response was not a simple answer. All of the sudden, this simple project now included the need to install SSL, configure advanced pricing levels and create advanced shipping methods/rates. My initial proposal was for a project I expected to take no more than a day or two and then I had this thrown at me. I informed the client that these new, unmentioned requests would make the project much more complex and I would have to adjust my proposal accordingly. I never heard back after updating my quote and the job was awarded to someone cheaper.
My Thoughts
I don’t have a ton to rant about regarding my thoughts on this crapshoot. It is what I expected. There are certainly quality clients who want to hire professional freelancers but, in general, I think most of the people looking to hire on Elance (at least in the WordPress section) are just looking for the cheapest deal or simply window-shopping, so to speak. There are people who seem to want to control every aspect of the project, which crosses the line between hiring an employee and a contractor. Above all else, there are way too many people who just flat-out don’t give a shit about the value of the expertise a skilled freelancer offers. People want things but don’t want to pay for them (i.e. $5,000 in value for $250).
While Elance isn’t as big of a joke as Fiverr (read my opinion on why Fiverr sucks for freelancers), it’s still not the best way for skilled, talented freelancers to make a living, especially for those residing in the U.S. As with Fiverr, you are selling yourself short and working for less than your true value.
If you are someone who has found work on Elance (or any other freelancing website) before, please share your own opinions and experiences below. I’d love to hear about your success and/or headaches!
Good stuff Ren, thanks for resharing that on Twitter.
I often get frustrated about that type of clients, which occasionally leads to similar blog posts. Truth is that the vast number of similar job offers and the type of communication is a result of the other side, being the contractors.
Ryan mentioned that WordPress is a terrible skill to offer on Elance (or the respective marketplaces). I’ve signed jobs successfully there – one of them led to a project that brought a total of $100K worth of work and there were a bunch of consulting gigs or small plugins at $90/hr. While I try to avoid them as a whole, it helps with networking, portfolio, testimonials and others, so the added benefit with the right clients is often a plus.
I’ve been on the other side of the fence, posting jobs for tons of stuff – WordPress, content marketing, inbound marketing, PR, sales, mathematics, and more. Other than WP and marketing, the amount of people bidding for anything else is incredibly low – close to zero applications at times. Every single WordPress job offer posted by me is oversaturated with applications from bots and Indian agencies providing generic WordPress services.
Even if you ask for a WordPress plugin developer or VVV puphpet scripts for WordPress, you’ll get a generic application with 30 WordPress websites running Avada and a few more ThemeForest templates. It’s just how it goes – the shotgun approach.
Regardless of the end results, there are hundreds of thousands of people confident in their WordPress skills, charging nickles for all sorts of projects, and bundling a number of plugins plus a premium theme (often pirated) at the end. Some clients can’t figure that out even months afterwards, before they get hacked or something else happens with their website.
A few years ago I posted some jobs for skills that I didn’t know from the inside out, such as marketing or sales. I hired some folks who messed up big time, one of them was fired since she claimed that she has many years of massive marketing experience and ended up commenting on posts from my behalf (using my name and details) asking “So WordPress can run multilingual websites? I didn’t know that!” and posting stock photos without the right credentials.
That was a nightmare and I didn’t know better. As a customer, I was looking for a type of service that I didn’t know in details, and I was burned at the end by people who claimed to be super proficient with tons of experience. Now we sell high-end WordPress solutions and one of our Sales applicants claimed that it’s crucial to start bidding on WordPress projects on Elance and Upwork and focus entirely on selling there as the “holy grail”, which is more beyond ridiculous.
As long as those people keep selling services and claim that they are experts, clients won’t know the real cost. There are very few marketplaces like Codeable that only work with capable contractors and charge higher rates. The majority of the other marketplaces such as Elance, Freelancer, Upwork, Guru etc. get hundreds (or thousands) of new profiles signed up daily offering WordPress services.
The lack of an instrument for validating WordPress skills is a major issue here. Everyone can claim that he/she is an expert, and there is no way to validate that in practice. There is no certification program, no expectation of community work/involvement, and most clients prevent portfolios due to NDAs or code submissions in GitHub/Bitbucket.
The low entry means that everyone sells WordPress services now, and those numbers massively grow on a daily basis. That’s naturally altering the client expectations, and since most customers are small or starting businesses, they often can’t see the difference between a simple ThemeForest-based website and a money-maker.
Hey, Mario! Thanks for sharing.
I totally agree that these marketplaces are in serious need of some type of validation – something required of contractors to verify that they know what they’re doing, at least to some extent. Your story about the “marketer” is a perfect example of how hiring someone who claims to be more knowledgeable than they really are can hurt you and your business. To quickly share a story of my own: not too long ago, I hired someone on Elance because I was swamped and needed an extra hand to make some progress on a plugin I was developing for a client. A day later, I found the person I hired had posted exactly what I hired them to do on a support forum. It wasn’t really that I cared they had to ask about it but some sensitive information was captured in a screenshot they shared on the thread.
While I don’t know much for services aside from WordPress (and web development in general), it is very true that the WordPress areas on these sites are indeed flooded. It’s definitely possible to land a quality gig like you were able to do but, for the most part, it’s people looking for an entire website for $200. With the oversaturated market of WordPress contractors, many of whom are willing and able to do work at that price level (quality notwithstanding), it makes these marketplaces difficult for many developers. Again, it boils down to the perception of WordPress services in terms of value, which is largely based on the “free” environment so many users have grown accustomed to.
Hello Ren,
My previous post was purely to state the fact that I appreciated your post. It had NOTHING to do with being self serving let alone “trying to make sales” simply because the name of my email & website has the keyword: “Cheap.” [insert grimace here- and I’m not talking about the McDonalds purple character.]
If someone takes the time out of their lives to respond to something you say in a positive way- don’t waste their time and their words. Best of luck in all that you do.
Again, I meant no offense and only said anything in case you ever wondered why I removed it. I never accused you of trying to build a link and I thanked you for commenting. The reason I removed the link is because I don’t like seeing providers make “cheap” a cornerstone of their marketing. Targeting customers who are in the market for the cheapest possible services will probably lead to more headache than benefit but you’re free to do what you wish. I’ve gone over this type of thing multiple times in other posts and I just don’t feel it’s a good way to operate so I removed your link.
I’m really not sure how I wasted your time if you weren’t adding the comment for the purpose of creating a link back to your site. After all, I approved your comment because I wanted to keep it and I appreciated you taking the time to write it. My only reservation was sending readers to a website where “cheap” is the #1 service.
Thank you for taking the time to write this article, Ren. My CoFounding partner has had a lot of success with Elance, accompanied by a lot of headache, in the past. With our new venture, {name removed}, we are looking to return to Elance. It is my first time working with Elance and as he is seasoned I’ve picked his brain and created a basic outline of do’s and don’ts / positives and negatives when looking for jobs and clients. I’m looking to give Elance 3 months or so according to his outlined guidance- we’ll see how it goes.
Thanks for commenting, Mackenzie.
I mean no disrespect but I removed the name of and link to your website because I don’t support offering/selling WordPress services under a sole marketing strategy of “cheap.”
Good luck with the work on Elance.
Six months late to the party, but just wanted to say…. If you wan’t to make money on Elance, don’t do wordpress development. It’s a saturated market, and if you want to get paid for it, it’s not going to happen on Elance.
I’ve just started last week but have managed to average out at about $65 an hour by sticking to a few things.
1. Don’t bid less than $75 on anything. Even if you think it’s a five minute job. It will always take longer. ALWAYS.
2. Look for jobs with low bids that seem complicated. Spend some time reading over the requirements – You may not be able to do it yet, but if you’re a quick learner you can probably figure it out and learn some (apparently) marketable skills.
3. Taking a look through a clients history of jobs is a good indicator. If every job they’ve created went to someone for what you would consider a ridiculous rate, chances are, they’re going to keep going down that path.
Anywho, that being said – it’s been slower this week, but I refuse to take on jobs for pennies and I write customized proposals for everything – only after I thoroughly investigate the client and the requirements.
Good luck out there.
Hey, Ryan. I’m glad to hear you’ve been able to make something on Elance. I completely agree that anyone attempting to make real money (American money, at least) on Elance has virtually no chance because the amount of work that would be required to make that money would probably exceed that time in a day. You also make a great point about looking at a client’s history to gauge their spending pattern. Elance has become a go-to spot for relatively cheap services so checking on a client’s hiring history is a great idea.
Thanks for sharing!
Hey Ren,
Unfortunately, you’re right.
In the freelance contracting world, you get EXACTLY what you pay for. You can’t expect talent at $10/hr, just doesn’t work that way.
However, I will say that for a lot of contractors living in third world countries, $150 an hour renders them non competitive.
Hey, Avinash. It is truly amazing how some people seem to think they will get the same results from a “WordPress expert” charging $5 an hour and someone charging $100 an hour. Even quality workers from countries like India charge more than $5 an hour. Honestly, as an American, I would feel slimy paying someone less than what is legally required to pay an employee here in the U.S.
The globalization of labor, in this sense, does seem to tip the scales in favor of third world workers. When someone can hire for $5 an hour, why would they want to pay $100 an hour or higher? $5 an hour in the U.S. is unacceptable even by the federal government’s standards (the current federal minimum wage here is still $7.35 an hour). The simple fact is that workers in the U.S. and other nations with a higher cost of living cannot compete with workers from nations with low costs of living. When the two types of workers are thrown into the same pool (Elance), first world freelancers will face an automatic disadvantage. This will always be the case until a global currency is adopted or international currencies are all equal in value.
Hey Ren,
Spot on again.
However, I will say tis much: I WOULD NEVER HIRE SOMEONE WHO METERS OUT AT $5.
Communication, timelines, quality of code…pretty much everything is a nightmare.
I’ve got a couple of projects out on Elance and I’m having the worst time ever trying to get the applicants to understand…English.
Also, I can appreciate the inverted situation where you reject certain projects as a freelancer. It just isn’t worth the square dancing and scope creep!