Regular readers may know that I have already decided that I like being an independent contractor, but I decided to open the email anyway.  It was an automated invitation saying that person ‘x’ had invited me to join company ‘y.’   Maybe it was someone who was overloaded with work who had a little extra to throw my way.

I didn’t recognize the name, so I decided to do a little digging.  Research never hurt anyone, at least not really, unless you count Marie Curie but that was different.

A little research showed me that the person was new to oDesk and despite no feedback and lower test scores than I have was charging significantly more per hour for the same kind of work.  I could see how I could benefit them, but I was still looking to see how this would benefit me.  I did a bit more research (beyond oDesk this time) and was able to find out some more about this person.

What I discovered told me that while they had the entrepreneurial spirit they didn’t have much of a publicly available track record.  I found multiple mentions of the person but never found any mention of clients.

Now one thing that’s important to remember with Provider Companies is that the company manager is responsible for payroll and they do it outside of oDesk.  oDesk pays the company account rather than the contractor.  From my perspective this was a big downside.  I would be losing oDesk’s payment guarantee and payment mechanisms and turning the earnings from any work done through this company over to someone I didn’t know.

I still could not see anything that would benefit me from this arrangement.

Most of my work already comes from long term clients and buyer invitations.  I don’t need someone else to ‘head-hunt’ for me.

I’ve been burned in the past by buyers when I worked on sites that did not have oDesk’s payment guarantee so I tend to be very cautious when dealing with anything except hourly work.  So having to turn my payment guarantee over to the company for any work done through the company doesn’t sit well with me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that provider companies or a bad idea or that no one should ever become an affiliate contractor.  Now that non-exclusivity is here I think it can be an excellent way for a new provider to get themselves into the system before branching off on their own.

My concern was with whether this particular company and invitation was a good idea for me.

It wasn’t.

My biggest problem was and still is that this person who approached me was and is a complete stranger.  I have no idea who they are beyond what I looked up online.  They could be a wonderful person, they could be a terrible person.

I don’t know.

In a world where everything depends on reputation I have no reason at all to tie mine to the whims of a complete stranger.  It’s not good business.

If becoming an affiliate contractor is something you want to do then go ahead and do it.

However, I strongly recommend that you approach it with at least as much care as you would a fixed-price job; because that’s what it is.

Take a look at the company.  See what kind of feedback it has and how many hours its providers have logged.  If it doesn’t have any feedback and no one has logged any hours with the company then it’s unlikely that it will be able to benefit you.

Contract law requires two things:  A “meeting of the minds” and an “exchange of value.”  There’s a lot more to it and I’m not a lawyer, but those will do for the basics.

The first part means that both parties need to understand and agree to the contract.

The second part means that contacts can’t be one sided.  They don’t have to be “fair,” but both sides do need to receive something of value.

This invitation failed on both counts.

Still, who knows, sometime I may find myself doing work with a provider company.  I just know which one it won’t be.

Additional News

Since I originally wrote this post a few more things have come to light that I felt I should share.

First, when I didn’t respond to the invitation I received another from the same source.  I haven’t responded to that one either.

Second, I came across this post on the oDesk Community from someone else who received the same invitation I did.  They accepted the invitation and now they want to know how to get out of it because they cannot see a benefit to them either.

Most of the members have no hours and no feedback; one of the few members who does have work experience on oDesk accepted the invitation in error.   Personally I would advise that people stay clear of this company until it builds up some history on oDesk.

Recommendations

I don’t normally do this but I would like to make some specific recommendations for how oDesk should handle the Provider Company invitation process.

First, I think it would be a good idea to include a decline link as well as an accept link in the invitation.  That way if a provider is not interested in the position they can let the originator know.

Second, I think it would also help to include someting akin to the interview process.  That way if a provider receives an invitation to a provider company they aren’t familiar with they have a way to ask some questions and see if they’re a good fit.

More communication options are always going to help any situation.

Money.

I bet that got your attention; it gets mine.

We’ve talked about rates before, but what I want to discuss today is setting them.  One of the best tools for setting your rate on oDesk is the oConomy.  It lets you see just how much people in your field are getting paid so that you can see what the market can actually bear.

I’m a writer, so let’s look at the writing category:

This graph shows how provider’s hourly rates break down against the number of jobs.  I got this information from the very useful Rate Distributions by Job Category section of the oConomy.   If you haven’t looked at it already you really need to.

As you can see, while the majority of jobs cluster around the lower end of the pay scale, there are noticeable spikes that correspond to pay rates of $5.00/hr, $10.00/hr, $15.00/hr, $20.00/hr and $25.00/hr.  The numbers are skewed a little high because the graph shows billing rates, but the message is clear:  If you’re currently making $10.00/hr and want to increase your rate you may as well jump straight to $15.00/hr, or if you’re at $15.00/hr you should go to $20.00/hr without bothering with any of the intermediate rates.

However, also note that the vast majority of jobs pay $10.00/hr or less so you may want to take that into consideration too.

Further down they list breakdowns by sub-category so you can see that the average rate for technical writing is $12.75/hr while for blog and article writing it’s $8.03/hr.

While it’s not exactly writing, many writers may consider data entry– but be warned it has the lowest average pay of any sub-category, drawing just $3.13/hr.  I don’t know about you, but that rate’s enough to scare me off.

Before we go any further I want to throw out one more set of numbers.  This is a more general chart, showing the average hourly rate for job hires over the last year.  You can find this information on the Rate Statistics page of the oConomy.

If you look closely you’ll see that the majority of oDesk jobs come between $13.00/hr and $15.00/hr and that the rate has stayed pretty constant over the course of the last year.  It’s important to note that these numbers reflect the pay rates at which people were actually hired, not the rates they would like to be paid.

Now that we’ve got the numbers down we can talk about what triggered this post.

Most of you probably know there have been a lot of posts on the oDesk Community about wages lately.  I discussed one of those threads in a previous post here.  Well, the discussion hasn’t stopped, and the minimum wage adherents are out in full force.

Looking at the numbers I don’t see any reason why oDesk should implement a minimum wage.  The most common suggestion is $5.00/hr and the numbers clearly show that the average hourly rate on oDesk is over twice that amount.

In fact, according to the rate distribution chart there are only two sub-categories that average below $5.00/hr:  Personal Assistant at $4.88/hr and Data Entry at $3.13/hr.   Both are under Administrative Support and personally I would consder $4.88/hr close enough to $5.00/hr that it doesn’t matter.  So with the glaring exception of Data Entry, almost any average job on oDesk should be paying more than $5.00/hr.

Yes there will always be buyers who want the world for nothing, but the numbers clearly show that they aren’t getting it, and that $1.00/hr jobs are very much the exception not the rule.  Going back to writing for a moment; if you’re an average writer there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be making an average of at least $8.00/hr, especially since the average billing rate for working writers on oDesk is $9.53/hr.

Remember that number:  We’ll come back to it.

Now that we know the average, we have somewhere to base our rates.  If you want to charge significantly more than the going rate you need to be able to provide your buyer with a benefit for that additional cost.  If you cannot convince your buyer that you’re worth more than the average rate for your category you won’t get any jobs.

I tend to read peoples’ profiles as well as the threads they post in.   It’s often very interesting reading, especially when it’s someone complaining about the low wages on oDesk, because it tells me what kind of experience they have had on the site.

Here’s an example:  I checked the profile of one person who had been taking part in the discussion of low wages and discovered that they had only taken two relevant tests, with an average score around the 55th percentile, and was looking for $25.00/hr to start.  This was a writer with an error in the first sentence of their profile overview.

As it stands that person is not going to get work on oDesk.

To begin with they’re charging almost three times the average rate for the category.  Remember, your average writing job bills at $9.53/hr which means the provider earns $8.57/hr.   Regardless of their background, without feedback and given their test scores they’re currently sitting squarely in the middle of the pack, if not a little below.

This isn’t an isolated case.

I’ve seen several people complaining about wages lately who have profiles that show no oDesk experience and a billing rate that’s two or three times the category average.  Unless you have an amazing profile and a fantastic portfolio that’s just not going to cut it.

You can work steadily for more than your category average on oDesk.  Nelson, Bill and I all do, and so do a number of others.  You just have to prove to the buyers that you’re worth it.

Buyers can and will pay you what you’re worth.

The catch is they’re going to base what you’re worth on what they see on oDesk and the oDesk marketplace, not your own opinion.

I recommend that every new provider start by setting their rate near the category average and then moving up in rate as they build hours and earn feedback.  Show the community what you’re worth.  Once you have good feedback and enough hours to build a real history you will find you can raise your rates.  Test scores matter less then too.

So next time you see one of those threads complaining about low rates on oDesk take a look at the oConomy.  What you see might surprise you.

Not one of us hasn’t had to make one or more changes to a project before a buyer would accept it.  It happens, sometimes it’s because the buyer was vague about what they wanted, sometimes it’s because they change their mind part way through, and sometimes it’s because they wanted something different from what I delivered.

As many of you know, I spend a fair amount of time on the oDesk Community boards, and one question I’ve seen come up more than once is whether or not you should charge the buyer for changes.  Some providers, especially new providers on their first job, are concerned that if they do not make the changes for free, the buyer will give them bad feedback and effectively blacklist them.

It’s a valid fear, especially when someone is just finding their feet and doesn’t feel confident about working within the oDesk system.

The problem is that except in one specific case, making changes for free simply devalues you as a provider.

You, your work, and your time are not free.

Being a professional means you work for money.  That means that when someone asks you to do more work you have every right to ask them to pay you more money.

The only exception to this is when they ask you to fix your own mistakes.

Nobody else should have to pay for your mistakes.

That’s the only time that you should be working for free.  The rest of the time you should be running the oDesk team and working on the clock.  Anything else sends the signal that neither you nor your work are worth money.

If your buyer decides that they really wanted something different, then you charge them for it.  You gave them what they paid for and you don’t owe them more work for free.

Let me tell you a story:  I was once asked to produce some articles for a client for at let’s say 800 words per hour.  I agreed to the rate and then they asked me to make the articles into presentations.  I said I’d do it but that I would like an increased time budget to do it.  They declined and said they would handle that themselves.

There’s nothing at all wrong with either side in that scenario.  As a provider I have every right to ask for more time in order to do more work, and the buyer has every right to say that they would rather not have me do it.  Buyers do have to consider their budgets.

The point here is that I had no hesitation about asking for more money (in the form of a bigger budget of hours at my standard hourly rate) in order to do more work.  Feature creep happens in all fields and the only way to handle it is to say yes you’ll do it, but more work takes longer and costs more.

Remember, part of being a professional means that you value your work.  If you regularly give it away then you are not valuing it.

Oddly enough, throughout my entire experience on oDesk, I’ve found that I’ve never once been short-changed or burned. Not even on the numerous fixed-price jobs I’ve done! There have been plenty of chances to claim that I didn’t complete the work, didn’t do it up to their standards, or what-have-you. They could have just let the job sit there and not paid me. Plenty of options for the buyer to choose not to pay me.

It appears that most of the buyers on oDesk are genuinely looking to pay someone a wage for their work, and they would rather form a long-term relationship with a provider than screw you out of a few bucks. To me, that’s awesome! However, I have seen a few odd things happen on oDesk which cause me concern. Just as a provider can create a new profile when a job goes bad and they get a bad rating, a buyer can do the same. The buyer isn’t throwing away much when they create a new profile, though. The potential for making money is their selling point.

Previously, I’ve talked about my paranoid ideas regarding buyers not coughing up dough. You have to be wary, but you shouldn’t be too worried when working through oDesk. After the break, I’ll discuss some more techniques to spot shady buyers an protect yourself as well as the other providers on oDesk without threatening to break someone’s legs.

Not to say I won’t break your legs if you don’t pay

Because I might. I’m crazy like that. When a buyer rips off a provider, the buyer isn’t just shortchanging some poor sap that didn’t protect their work. They’re shortchanging oDesk as well, and much like you, oDesk doesn’t take kindly to people not delivering the money they promised. It drives away business. So, if you’re a good provider, they’re going to be on your side because you’re a cash-cow and make them look good. It’s more cost effective for them to eliminate a bunk buyer than to let an honest provider leave. In fact, I think it’d be good to post a “wall-of-shame” to show both providers and buyers who have been eliminated. That would let both sides of the fence know that examples are made of people who try to get something for nothing.

On a few occasions, I’ve seen buyers who have posted a job, hired someone, and then gone on to create another profile and post the job again. Did they get a bad rating? They rip off the last provider and want to do it again? Who knows. I’ve actually seen job postings under a new profile from someone I’ve done work for regularly, and his style of posting jobs is very formulated. He had a great rating on his other profile, so I’m not sure why he was creating another account. Different company? Who knows. However, if you see some job you’ve seen before on a new profile, you should take two looks at it before you accept. Just keep your guard up.

What about these buyers that specifically state that they will only pay you outside the oDesk system in their job postings? Avoid those. It’s not “the man” trying to keep you down when I say that. It’s always a bad idea to waste applications on buyers who are specifically looking to rip people off. Take it a step further: use the inappropriate listing marker any time you see something like that! We need to create a community which stomps out bad buyers, bad job posts, and bad providers for everyone’s sake.

So, let’s say that you’ve done some work for someone. If they were great to work with and paid, give them a great rating! Don’t forget the comment. Make sure you mention their name in the comment and put some thought into it. That will allow you to track the people you’ve worked with previously. It would be nice to see company names (or at least some sort of identifying marker) for buyers, but it’s currently not implemented. The closest thing providers have is the city and timezone of a buyer, but I’ve found plenty of buyers who misrepresent their location (another warning sign). If a buyer is bad to you, rip them on the rating and make sure to leave it in the comments. Be specific. Report them to oDesk. Do everything you can to make sure they don’t want to try ripping off another provider.

While I don’t condone you doing anything illegal to nail a buyer, there are options which are legal and illegal to make them aware that they should have paid you. One of the options is to threaten or carry out legal action. Usually, that will take care of it, but it’s only worth the effort for larger sums of money. Another is to start a negative marketing campaign against the buyer. If you have enough information (which isn’t much), you can ruin the SEO of their websites and their credibility through legal and gray methods to send their website to Google’s version of hell. If you’re a programmer, there’s options you can build into your software to make it go boom if they don’t pay you. There’s several paths you can take.

Providers are skilled people, and it would be wise for scammers to know that providers tend to stick together, probably know crazy people close to where you live, and have friends living in countries who can do nasty things to your business while being out of any jurisdiction. That goes for providers who are looking to pull a fast one as well. Crazy people–we’re everywhere.

Not that I condone illegal activity, mind you.

The best solution is to always contact oDesk to see what can be done about a buyer who is ripping you off. That’s why you pay oDesk that fee on every job. They’re better equipped to handle it, and they would like to keep you around. All you need to do is to keep records of communication, keep your nose clean, and go through the proper channels as soon as you know something is fishy.

One issue I run across in writing is that I work extremely fast. I can come up with ideas for creative projects very quickly, and I type quickly. Therefore, working hourly has a inherent drawback for me. To make an effective income, I have to raise my rates to compensate for my speed. I can turn that into a major advantage for the buyer. They pay more per hour and get the product quicker, and you can capitalize on your speed by marketing it as a valuable part of your skillset. If you can work quicker, their opinion is that they payed about the same they would pay a slower provider, yet they received the product now instead of later. In those cases, they are usually more than willing to pay higher rates still for the speed factor. You make more money in less time, and the customer is happy!

I have a few other tips which are actually useful. These are methods that have worked for me with consistent effect.

When working for an hourly rate, you can easily find yourself in a plateau where you are stuck working for less than you should be. When people see that you’re asking for $50 an hour, yet you’ve only done jobs for $12 an hour, they seem to think it’s a bit fishy. To start making decent rates, you need to step your payment up slowly in increments. If you’ve only done jobs for $12, then try bumping your average rate up to $15. Get a job or two under your belt for $15 and then go up to $20. The higher you go, though, the more jobs you have to complete at that rate and your previous rate before people will accept that you are worth the money. Also, if there is an easier job with a tighter budget, you look like a better candidate if you’re dropping your rates from $20 to $15 for them.

Another tactic I’ve found very useful is to negotiate fixed-priced jobs by hourly payment. With previous clients, I’ve told them my hourly rate, but they said that they couldn’t afford it. With someone working at a normal pace, they probably couldn’t afford it. However, I will offer a fixed-price quote on short hourly jobs. For example, for a five page document with an average of 500 words per page, I’ll calculate it as $0.10 per word. So, that’s 2500 words for a total payment of $250. Then, I’ll tell them that I’ll work at $50/hr+oDesk fee while they limit the hours per week to 5. That way, I’ve had job experience at $50/hr, I’m guaranteed payment, and the buyer knows exactly what he or she is paying for the job. It’s security for everyone involved.

Just doubling your rate on your profile won’t give you anything. A buyer won’t consider you to be worth the money unless you have proven job experience and a good rating tied to it. Go the extra mile to make sure that the client is happy with the work so that you’ll have a great rating. If you ever need quick money, you can swoop in on projects below your average rate and appear to be the best candidate for the job. Since the buyer sees you working for $30 an hour consistantly, they’re “getting a bargain” by having you work at $25. All the while, you’re raking in cash hand-over-fist.

Those are just a couple ways to keep your rates going higher and higher. They have worked for me quite well. You just have to put in some elbow grease to climb the ladder.

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 road pulls at me when there doesn’t seem to be anything worth bidding on or when the job postings haven’t changed since the last time I checked. Or when (usually on a forum) oDesk/elance/rentacoder comes up and gets a round of mocking comments, “They rip you off.”; “You can’t make any real money there.”

The naysayers are right and they are wrong.

Why they are right.

They are right because there is a glass ceiling at oDesk. You can see this in the budgets that get posted and the job descriptions buyers write. How often does the phrase ‘easy job’ come up? Too often. You know, and I know that good writing takes time and effort. It isn’t easy and not everyone can do it. But most buyers don’t see it that way. They seem to think that they could do it themselves, but, like any menial work, they would just as soon pay a pittance and have someone else do it. This keeps budgets low.

Another obvious fact is that many buyers come to oDesk because they have heard that outsourcing writing tasks to offshore providers is a cheap and easy way to get production. They come to the party expecting extreme discounts and, while they might leave disappointed, they retain their unrealistic expectations. Serious buyers, experienced with writers, probably avoid oDesk and other brokered sites simply because they assume (and are partly correct) the talent isn’t available. They know what writing costs and suspect fraud and poor results with online contractors. So the naysayers are right to some degree.

Why they are wrong.

They are wrong because they misunderstand what oDesk does for writers and programmers. oDesk acts as an agent for us. That’s what the 10% is for. By handling bids, collecting and distributing money, and facilitating communication, oDesk earns their fee. The nightmare of invoicing and hounding clients is largely avoided for we oDeskers. oDesk doesn’t rip me off at all. They provide me a useful service and a place to compete for work.

Tips to get the best of both worlds.

The trick to flying solo is marketing yourself and your abilities. But you don’t have to go completely on your own to do this. You can have your oDesk cake and eat it too.

If you are of a mind to get off brokered sites, you don’t have to cut all your ties, all at once. Here’s how to test the waters and ease into the transition.

• Link your marketing to your oDesk profile. I do this with a .name (that’s ‘dot’ name) identity. If you go to my .name identity (www.william.morrison.name) you’ll be taken to my oDesk profile where you can read about me and hire me if you like.
• Get a .name to use in your signature. You can get your own .name to use for three months free. And you can link it to wherever you want on the internet. Go to: FreeYourID and check it out. You can re-direct your name to oDesk or, after you start getting a bit more independent, re-direct to your own domain name. This also works for email: william@morrison.name sends you to one of my email accounts.
• Use a signature file. This is the little add-on that appears beneath the last line of emails you send out. Take a look. If you use Yahoo or Hotmail for email, they are happy to add their own material at the bottom. They know it’s valuable real estate; you should own it yourself. This is an excellent place to put your .name link. Right now, of the free email hosts I use, only gmail (at Google) doesn’t add an ad to my emails.
• Post your resume on Monster.com and anywhere else that will take it. Again, you can link to your profile at oDesk and let them broker the job for you.
• Contact old clients and almost clients. People you have worked well with in the past are a great source of new work. Remind them who you are and let them know you are free to take on new projects. Don’t forget the clients you interviewed with but who didn’t hire you. They may have other work you can do for them.

I’ll cut this short and save some more tips for part two… stay tuned.

FACT: Over 40 percent of the world population will be offered a cheese log some time during their life, and sixty percent of those will refuse. There is a reason why so many refuse to bloody their hands with revolutionary cheddar.

FACT: When the revolution comes, those who do not receive Gouda into their lives will be the first to go. Are you prepared to force your children to choose between life and stuffy art-gallery parties?

You heard it here first, folks, on The oDesk Insider! I’ll bet Dave and Bill’s bottom dollars that CNN will pick the story up any day now, and I also bet someone will try to take credit for my work. You see, I didn’t spend all those days and nights camped out in a vat of whey to not be recognized for my work. Therefore, I need to protect my investment of time by making a record of it.

As a freelancer, I also have to protect my work from buyers who want to rip me off. What can you do to keep them from stealing your program/graphic/time? Fellow revolutionaries, listen closely because knowledge is the best weapon against the Canadian cheese industry.

For Programmers

Imagine you just spent a hundred hours working on a prototype for a buyer. Now imagine that you were dumb enough to send them the source code before you got paid. Even worse, the prototype is good enough for the buyer, and you sent them the binary! Those are classic mistakes made by trusting (read: new) programmers. You can’t afford to give away your work when the buyer can turn around and send that source code off to someone else to be finished for less than they would pay you. The buyer might even say that your code is “not up to their standards” and that they would never use it, but you have absolutely no reason to trust the buyer unless you have established a long-term relationship with him or her. Even so, it’s still good business to protect your work.

If the program is a web app, you simply don’t release the code. Just let the buyer see and sample the application while it’s on your server. If the buyer asks you to send him or her the code, politely (and firmly) refuse. Explain to the buyer that releasing the code before payment is simply bad business. You can also try having them send you some of the money upfront to see the code–at least you won’t be totally burned. If you’re sure you’ll dig a hole for yourself by not releasing the code, then your best option is to obfuscate the code so that it’s difficult to read.

If it’s an offline application, it becomes a little more difficult. One option you have is to build in a crippleware feature which makes the binary useless after a certain amount of days. If you choose to go that route, explain to the buyer that the limitation exists in the prototype, but you will remove it once the transaction is completed.

Aside from that, come up with creative solutions to make your program/code worthless to them unless they pay you for your work.

For Graphic Artists

If you’re a graphic artist, you’re a prime target for getting ripped off. The buyer will almost always want to see different drafts of the piece, so you have to give them something. However, you do not have to give them a full-sized, high resolution copy. To make the work you’ve done evident, make sure to put a BIG water-seal on any graphic you design and send to the buyer. The seal should contain information that proves that the work is yours (such as your full name). Also, make the resolution/quality of the graphic lower than the finished product. If you don’t, they can easily steal the graphic and claim they paid you for it. They could even claim that you stole it from them! What proof do you have? Not a whole lot.

Just make sure that you explain to the buyer why the quality is lower. I’m sure they can figure out the part about the seal.

For Writers and Others

You’re, for the most part, S.O.L. unless you can employ one of the above methods. I said “for the most part” because you can always take your product and send it to yourself first-class (if you’re in the U.S.) or register it with some public entity which can verify that the work is yours. It’s not cost-effective to do that for small projects (refer to the S.O.L. statement), but if you’re ghostwriting a novel for someone, all of the work that you do is still your intellectual property and under your copyright until they fork over the bling to buy it. Some buyers will tell you otherwise, but it’s either a lie or they are misinformed. If you wanted, you could take that work (assuming it’s all your unique writing) and publish it. Completely legal. It only becomes illegal to publish that work under your name (or any name, for that matter) if you sell that novel and its rights to a buyer for a price. The same goes for technical manuals and so forth. They don’t pay? You don’t have to play.

It’s always in your best interest to protect your work no matter the relationship with the buyer. The easiest way to spot a sucker is to look for the freelancer who is willing to hand over their work before payment when the buyer is out of a .45mm’s range.

Inertia is your enemy

Remember when you first started out? How hard it was to get into the groove? Well, you are in a new groove now. And it’s time to push yourself a little.

One of the hard and harsh mathematical truths of freelancing is that we have a finite number of hours to sell. If you aren’t getting top dollar for your time you’ve got a lower paying job than you ought to have. But, having regular work is a comfort. It’s nice to relax into the routine and let inertia just carry us along.

The way to see inertia as your enemy is to recall the last plateau you were on. Before you climbed up to the plateau you are on now. You wouldn’t conceive of sliding back to the ‘before’ and you won’t want to go back to where you are now– once you make the next little climb.

Consider this

You’ve already demonstrated you can do the work and do the work successfully. Buyers should have little doubt that if they hire you, you will get the job done. The income bottleneck isn’t with the buyers, it’s with you.

Here’s some info to wise you up. From the 2008 Writer’s Market:

• e-mail copywriting: $73 (these figures are all hourly averages)
• Web page writing: $83
• Technical writing: $84
• Online editing: $58
• Web page design: $90
• Ghostwriting: $70
• Rewriting: $63

That’s per-hour averages. That’s what writers are getting paid to do what you do. There are plenty more categories I didn’t list. I couldn’t read through my tears.

So, the excuse that you aren’t worth it is bull-dooky. You are worth it.

How I know you are underbidding

This is a marketplace. Buyers are looking for the best deal they can get and providers are (supposed to be) looking for the highest price they can get. If you aren’t getting rejected for a large percentage of the jobs you bid on– jobs you are fit for– you are pricing yourself too low.

Buyers should always have the option of choosing a provider based on price. You don’t want to be that provider. You should be getting passed up for most of the jobs you apply for. In order to get the creamy jobs, you have to let many lower-priced jobs pass you by.

If you aren’t getting turned down enough, you are too cheap. Seriously. Buyers are competing for your time. You owe it to yourself to let the auction play out. If you were selling volume, or could just manufacture more, then you could make a living just cranking out more product. But you know this isn’t the case. As soon as you start one job, you are unable to take on the next one. And if the next one paid half-again as much as the one you were stuck with?

You absolutely cannot be afraid of not working. When you are between projects, you get to work for yourself. Improve your skills, work on that e-book, or try out some other ideas you’ve had (more in my next blog post on ideas for finding higher-paying work).

The buyer you want is the buyer that can afford you. Be the Porsche. Let the Escort buyers keep walking. Even though your rate is high for oDesk, it is still dirt cheap compared to industry averages. You can save buyers money while still making a better wage.

Raising your rate with established clients

You have them, I have them– bread and butter clients. They started out with a small project and the relationship has kept going. They like your work and they keep giving you more. Unfortunately, although they provide steady work, your rates have moved past what they were when you first started dating. Time to raise your rate.

Steel yourself for a ‘no’. Remember, although you risk losing a client (and maybe a client you like) you just can’t continue selling your time and talents for cheap. Don’t bluff. Get ready for, “Sorry, I can’t afford that.”

The way to do it is politely and professionally. Remind them of past work and how well things went. Let them know ahead of time that you are raising your hourly rates. “Starting next month, my rate is increasing to X dollars an hour.”

Complete current work at your existing rate, but be firm. This isn’t personal, it’s business. If they can’t afford you at the new rate, they can’t afford you. No hard feelings– great working with you, keep me in mind for future projects.

One of three things will happen.

1. They won’t complain and your higher rate will go into effect. Sweet.
2. They will moan and gripe and maybe fire you for awhile… and then, a week or a month later, you will get an email asking if you are available. Still sweet.
3. You won’t hear from them again. Not sweet, but we are all grown-ups here, right?

So, bottom line. Gird your loins, put on your professional businessperson attitude and raise your rates. Quit being an amateur, playing at writing. Get serious. Get paid.

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time you know that not getting paid can be a real concern for freelancers. Getting paid late isn’t much better.

One thing I like about oDesk is their payment guarantee. If you put the hours in and log them properly through their system they guarantee you’ll get paid. Unfortunately not every freelance job is done hourly or through oDesk for that matter. Even some sites that guarantee payment don’t guarantee that you’ll get it at a specific time. Consider Getafreelancer; they only guarantee that it will be processed sometime during a specified two-day period.  And because they take their share from the provider’s account not the buyer’s it’s a site where you can use alternate payment methods.

We’ve already discussed PayPal and the problems that can come from relying on non-guaranteed methods of payment.

So, now that we know the problem, what can we do about it?

Diversify

I know, I can hear you all saying “but Dave, last time you told us to specialize and today you’re telling us to diversify?  What gives?”

Trust me, it’s not a contradiction.  You can still diversify if you specialize, and in fact I recommend it.  When I’m saying diversify I mean you shouldn’t rely solely on a single client.  My brother’s an engineer and the one thing I know about engineering is that if everything relies on a single component, that’s the one that’s going to break.  So what you want to do is get a number of jobs, all with guaranteed payments.  That way if payment on one is delayed you have the others to fall back on.

You’ll relieve a lot of stress right there.

Know what you can do, and what you can’t

If there’s a delay or problem with getting paid you need to know what your options are:  whether it’s contacting the site, or the buyer, you should know the options and use them.  But once you’re done, you’re done.  Stop worrying about the things you can’t do and move on.

You won’t get the money any quicker by worrying about it.  Things don’t work that way.  Accept that you’ve done what you can and move on to the next task.  Sitting and worrying won’t earn you any money, and working will make the time pass faster.

Get Active

The late great Warren Zevon recorded a song called “Hit Somebody,” and while I can’t say that violence is the best solution to stress, physical activity is a good one.  Get up, move around, go for a walk or a run.  Do something physical and it will help anchor you in the here and now.  Worry and stress are future-related, you’re thinking about what will or might happen, not what is happening.

Get a stress ball.  Pick up one of those wonderful little squeezable balls or other toys and keep it on your desk.  They really do help.

All these ideas have one thing in common.  You have to accept the stress, deal with it and move on.  As a freelancer you don’t have time to obsess over stress.