Where to start?
There are 56 different topics listed on the
Elance Help – Providers web page, viewed over 586,000 times (at the time of writing). Analyzing the information, I found that 50% of all page views were on only within 6 Topics (see Figure 1 below). This was an indication of where to start looking for what I should know prior to starting my Elance service offerings, I could learn from the experience of existing Elance Providers.
Where to find useful information?
The most useful document to read is Elance’s “Provider Guide”, in which I learned how to keep an eye on projects I can bid on, while working no other projects. In other words, I organized my time and efforts while ensuring I didn’t miss opportunities. I now receive email notifications when projects I can bid on are posted on Elance, This is based on keywords I have selected. Next I searched the Web & within my network for further information on Elance, where to find tools & templates I could start from, learned from past & current Elance Providers through Forums * blogs, etc. The list below contains most interesting ones:
Blog:
Website:
How does it work & What are your responsibilities?
Another great place to visit is Elance’s Water Cooler, where Providers and Service Buyers can post & share comments & questions with peers, as well as provide suggestions to address issues that are not yet managed, resolved or monitored by Elance administration. Listed below are the most interesting ones, starting with the must reads (in bold) prior to paying or providing services on Elance:
Which template to start with?
Elance’s Sample Project Agreement and Statement of Work
Summary
I hope this has provided you helpful and sufficient information on whether to use Elance or not. From my experience on Elance and similar sites, especially for North-American freelancers, I believe Elance is in the top 5 freelancing sites. What do you think? Share your story on the challenges you faced when you started freelancing. Do you have any particular, good or bad, experience to share? Let me know either
by emailor via comments below this blog post!
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About Me
I am a Project Manager, PMP certified, with over 10 years of experience in web design & development projects, process improvements, data entry, quality assurance, and translation skills. I'm details-oriented, with strong inter-personal & analytic skills, reliable, and a great team player.I am offering my skills & experience to customers in need of resources to work with them on their project endeavours for activities such as:
- managing their website/portal design & development projects;
- data entry & processing tool like Adobe Acrobat, Excel or Word;
- research information on the web;
- perform quality assurance activities & tests;
- translate content from English to French and vice-versa.
I can speak and write in both languages (English & French) fluently, and able to communicate at all levels of hierarchy. I've built strong relationship with current and past customers, mostly because of my reliability and versatility. I am able to think outside of the box. I have also established strong relationships with key business partners over time, but always interesting in building new connections & partnerships. So if interested, contact me by
email.
