Archive for the "Searching tips" category

I’ve been holding back on you. There really is a secret to success on oDesk, your life, and anything else. Countless people have approached me and said, “I want to do what you’re doing. You seem to be having a ton of fun and making money at it.” So, I tell them about how freelance [...]

In my first post on going it alone, I mentioned that you don’t have to sever ties with oDesk right off, rather, a mixed strategy was best. Here’s some more tips and tricks along those lines. Funnel through oDesk. This has already worked for me. A client wanted to link up in Skype. The job [...]

There’s an urge I sometimes get. It’s the urge to go it alone, to quit using online brokers and keep their percentage for myself. It grips me when my schedule is full with lower paying projects or when other ‘free’ freelancers are bragging about large money on the open market. The lure of the open [...]

Unless you’re crazy-happy to have any sort of work at all, you’ve probably done a job that you absolutely hate. I’ve had a couple here and there. The work goes slow, and it makes it very hard to get motivated. Once you’re finally done with said project, you don’t really feel a sense of accomplishment–you [...]

It’s always a good idea to be the first one to apply for a job. Why? If you look like a good prospect and the buyer is watching their E-Mail, you will be the first one to be interviewed and also can be hired before any other applicants get theirs in. I’ve won a couple [...]

One of the things that I’ve noticed when talking to new freelancers is that they are afraid that they won’t “make the grade” on their first job. It’s a fear that I had when I first started out, but once you get that taste for blood, it’s all over. Previously, I and others have warned [...]

Not long ago, Sarah posted on the importance of specializing and you can read all about it here. She made some very good points, because the truth is you can make far more money as a specialist than as a generalist, on-line or 0ff-line. That’s because when you’re a generalist you’re working for people who [...]

When looking at doing a fixed-price job, there’s a lot of things to consider when using oDesk. First off, you’re not guaranteed to get paid for your work like you are with hourly pay. That’s a bummer. However, if you pick good jobs from good buyers, then you’re very likely to get paid so they [...]

You’re a freelancer. The other guy or gal is the buyer. Just like you can be a good or bad freelancer, the buyer can be good or bad. So what makes a good buyer? How can a buyer be “bad”? How can I tell if a buyer is good or bad? These questions and probably [...]

Today I want to talk about a few things, but I’m going to start with what James D. MacDonald calls “Yog’s Law.” Money flows toward the writer. As a freelancer you always have to remember this rule. We’re in this to make money and as soon as you forget that, bad things start to happen. [...]