Hi Everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I also found on the web a video interview with the owner and CEO of the very well known freelance website called RentACoder.com. Let me tell you, Ian Ippolito is one of the nicest persons I have ever met. Even though I don’t know him in person, I have had several email communications with him and he is always very attentive to whatever I have to say.

In Fact, after proposing to him my idea, he was the one who authorized me to make the videos and take screenshots of RentACoder.com when I was creating the RACsuccess package:

http://www.racsuccess.com/successpackage.php

Which is a set of videos on how to take the most of RentACoder.com. Anyways, for those who want to meet Ian Ippolito, here on the following link you can find a video interview:

http://insidedigitalmedia.com/engaging-webmaster-services-in-the-spot-market/

Sincerely,

Luis Lazo
Owner and creator of RACsuccess.com

While browsing on the web, we encountered a very interesting interview with the CEO of oDesk.com. It talks about why people are looking for outsourcing to hire talent for their work and its relationship with the economy, it talks about how oDesk.com works. To view the interview, click the following link:

oDesk Visitors from Near and Far

It seems that companies are more inclined nowadays to hire freelancers to do projects for them. There are many reasons why this is so. One of the main reasons is that it gives them the flexibility of getting someone to work for them and get their project done for them without they having to pay for an office or for office supplies.

Another reason is because businesses lately are more inclined towards endeavors that are more project-based.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/01/14/freelance.nation/index.html

If you have ever struggled in coming up with effective proposals when biding on freelance jobs, worry not anymore!

Introducing to you… the revolutionary tool that automatically generates proposals for you:

RACsuccess proposal writer!

Get more of the attention of buyers when you bid on their projects, ease your writing task, and win more bids!

Everything is easy as entering values into some fields in a 1-2-3 step-by-step wizard like interface.

Read more here:

http://www.racsuccess.com/proposalwriter.html

One time I was working for a buyer on a kind of big project. After I got the project done, he rewarded me with a $500.00 bonus payment other than what he was paying me for doing his project. I believe that one thing that influenced this buyer to give me the bonus payment was that I was able to win his trust. Not only did I worked hard on his project and he knew it but I also won his attention, his trust.

There are so many ways to win buyer’s trust when you are a freelancer. That time I applied those techniques and I managed to win his trust and thus win a little bit of his wallet.

I value a lot buyer relationships because they ensure that you get repeating work from them. They will come to you whenever they need something done. This is where your success as a freelancer comes, when buyers start coming to you instead of you going to them. So if you know how to win buyer’s/employer’s trust, you have a lot of technical skills and you have the willingness to work hard on projects, I can see you earning some big bucks from many clients!

Becoming a responsible freelancer is not really an easy thing to do. You not only have to worry about how you market yourself but you also have to worry about getting the job done. However, it is for sure that getting jobs is the most difficult part for any freelancer, not doing them but doing the work many times also represents a challenge for freelancers.

I know, I have been there too, those times when you think there is so much that needs to be done that you don’t really know where to start. Being a freelancer for over 5 years already has made me capable of understanding that there are times when we just don’t know where to start or we DON’T really feel like starting when work seems too overwhelming but I want to share with you a good trick that has helped me along the way.

Whenever I feel that work is too much or I don’t really know where to start or don’t feel like starting, I simply START work on the project! That’s right, the best solution for this type of situation is simply to just do the work.

If you don’t start, you will not do the work, you will not end up meeting the deadline for your project. On the other hand, when you start work, even when you don’t feel like doing it, you will find out that after 10 or 15 minutes of starting work, you will find yourself enjoying work and feeling unstoppable at the same time. Well, hope this little advice helps you.

It is interesting how freelancing has become part of our lives. Sometime ago, freelancing was simply a private one way communication between an employer and a freelance worker. Today is so much part of our daily lives that is been PUBLICLY looked as a way to earn some extra money and even as a part time/full time job!

Freelancing has definitely transcended to an important position in the employment area. Elance.com seems to have taken a very prominent role specially in the media, in the news. Like this interview on “Good Morning America”. I invite you to have a look at it:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/JobClub/story?id=7673517&page=1

Now you have the opportunity to try our mentoring service for free as a non-subscribed member. Get one free advice for any specific concern that you may have related to freelancing or to how to take the most of a specific freelance website. Click here to learn more…

I just wanted to talk to you about a hot topic in the world of freelancing. We all know already that there is nothing more important to get projects as a freelancer than the proposal that you write on the projects on wish you bid on.

Many freelancers don’t know the great importance of the first comment (cover letters as they call them on oDesk.com) you ever write to a buyer or business owner but in fact, the proposal you write on projects has a lot to do if you end up getting that project or not.

I just wanted to write this blog posting to show some examples of proposals which you have probably seen that freelancers have written on real projects. It is important to highlight that the following are examples of INEFFECTIVE proposals because of many reasons:

1. “Dear sir, I can do this job”

2. “Dear sir, after reviewing your requirements, I am confident that I can help you on this project. We are a team of 7 programmers with vast experience in PHP, VB .Net, and Java and we have created lots of projects for other clients around the world. Trust us, we are the right candidates for this project.”

3. “Greetings, after reviewing your requirements, I am confident that I can help you out. Is it possible we can have a phone conversation to discuss your project?”

4. “Sir, interesting project, I believe I can help you out with this. However, I don’t think I can dedicate that much to this project, I can probably dedicate some hours to it though.”

5. “Dear Sir, you have provided a very detailed description of your project. I believe that this project should be developed in PHP and MySQL. I have created tons of websites for other clients in php and mysql, have a look at the following samples:

http://www.exampleone.com
http://www.exampletwo.com
http://www.examplethree.com

Doing this project for you will not be a problem for us. Have confidence that we can help you out.

Kind regards,

XXXX name”

As you can see on the above examples, these are really inefective proposals, don’t ask us why. We have been there, we know what works and what doesn’t.

These are proposals that tend to be considered bad or simply average proposals which are not effective as to the point as to put yourself on buyer’s mind as the first person that they would select for their project.

Being a freelancer and working in the online medium definitely carries some risk. There is no safety net to fall back to in case the contracts stop pouring in and relationships you have spent a long time building can be gone in a blink of an eye.

The current economical situation is definitely not helping in this respect. It simply seems that there are fewer projects out there and that those tend to offer a much lower pay. Appearances can be deceiving though, because in every crisis there