Job Bidding, Yay or Nay?

If you own a small company and have hired a freelancer to complete a job for you, you may have found them on one of the job bidding sites.

If you are a small design company, writer or search engine marketing specialist you may have found work through one of these sites.

If you've never heard of them and want to know more information, read on and I’ll tell you my experience with them.

The job-bidding site is similar to EBay but in the reverse, instead of the prize going to the highest bidder, the job is usually awarded to the lowest bidder.

While the concept can be good for people who need professional services and don’t have the budget or know-how to do the job themselves, for the professional it can be costly and ultimately detrimental to your business to engage in bidding for jobs.

There are several factors for both parties to consider:

For the consumer:

Hidden fees
You may be paying for services that you don’t need to. Check the fine print in the terms of agreement before signing up and posting a job. Are they charging you a fee as well as the service provider? You can find a place to post your job for free (such as Craigslist), opt for one of those services instead.

Loss of funds
Some freelancers require the money up front for the work to be performed. You can end up unknowingly hiring someone that won’t complete your project on time and won’t refund your money. You don’t know who you are dealing with, as you aren’t allowed to contact the freelancers directly before committing to work with them. You should be able to run a Google search on the company before hiring them to make sure they aren’t going to rip you off.

False sense of security based on reviews
Many of these sites work on a review basis where the service provider will have many positive reviews that just aren’t real. When hiring a freelancer or service provider, have them give you solid contacts that you can speak to directly in order to find out if they are in fact trustworthy.

Fake portfolios
Since the portfolios only have images of design work, how can you be sure that they actually completed the work? Ask to see working examples of their portfolio that are live on the Internet and not just pictures.


For the Service Provider:

Bidding too low
Many offshore companies can complete the same work as the designer/writer/specialist at a fraction of the cost. In addition to the obvious reasons why they can, they aren’t subject to the same insurance and taxes we have in America, and as a result they can bid relatively low on a project. You’ll have to lower your price to an unrealistic figure that won’t cover your hourly rate in order to compete.

A Percentage of the Job
Often the bidding website will require you to pay a fee or they take a percentage of the job price. If you have bid on the job at a lower rate than you normally would to try and compete with other companies, you may now be losing money once the fee is deducted from your payment from the client. Some of the sites charge as much as 20%.

Paying per Bid
You may have to pay for each of the jobs you bid on. A few of the sites require that you purchase credits in order to bid on a job. We tried that approach, we purchased 5 credits for the lead ($25.00), spent time on a proposal and the client never responded to our phone calls or emails. Incidentally, 8 other companies such as ours bid on the exact same job, thus netting the bidding site $200.00.

In my opinion, it’s a risky thing – however, we have garnered a few great clients from it. As a small firm, we’ve done our share of bidding on freelancer sites and only been hired occasionally due to being underbid beyond what would be a fair rate for us to provide our services. How do we do it? When we have spare time (such as while waiting on hold for a client) we will peruse the bidding websites. We don’t underbid just to compete and we don’t pay for bogus leads.

Please feel free to comment and let me know if you have had a good or bad experience using these types of websites.

Joanne

Building Your Own Business Website

If you’ve just started your own business, you may not have the budget to hire a design firm and you might be considering building your website yourself. I do believe that each and every business should have a website. I don’t recommend that you build it yourself unless you have some sort of design sense and good command of your language, including grammar and spelling.

However, if you are limited by budget, it’s better to have something bare bones, rather than nothing at all. With today’s technology, most clients compare company’s pricing/offerings online before buying. You probably do it yourself before buying something. Perhaps you go online to see who is offering a better price before venturing out to the mall. It’s also helpful to do a Google search on the person’s name and company to find out what people are saying about that business before purchasing services or goods.

Some former colleagues of mine hired an advertising firm based on the portfolio (showing big name clients) that the agency brought into the meeting. After hiring the firm and giving them the deposit, a few weeks later they did a Google search on the company and came up with nothing. The agency was supposed to have been in business for over 10 years and designed for major companies, yet they were completely “off the map” on the Internet. Now if they had been a different type of business that would be acceptable, but an ad agency? I don’t think so. The lesson here is “DUE DILLIGENCE”!

Another factor to take into consideration is your email. If you’re doing business under widgets789@hotmail.com, your clients aren’t going to have the same confidence they would have in you if you were to have yourname@yourbusiness.com.

If you can't hire a professional and want to venture out on your own, find a web host that has a site builder. Put up your logo, business address and contact information at the very least. Your host should also provide you with email services to use with your domain name.

If you decide that you want to forge ahead with building the site on your own, take into consideration the following:

1. Don’t use “cutesy” animated gifs that you found on the Internet. (It will give off the impression that you are unprofessional.)
2. Don’t use graphics for text that you created in Photoshop or Paintshop. (It isn’t readable by the crawlers and it slows down your page load time.)
3. Don’t use a tiled wallpaper background. (It’s so “1998”)
4. Make sure that if you use colors, that your text is readable. (High contrast)
5. If you do use images, make sure that you have sized them for web browsing so that the client isn’t waiting for your images to load. (Will depend on the image type and file format)

Above all, when building your own business website, DO make sure to have your content checked for spelling errors, and DO use the free trials before committing to buying. Our sister company has a flash site builder you can try out at CompleteBizWebsites.com, just click on the green “test drive now!” button. But of course...I’d rather you called me if you need a website ;)

Joanne

To Phone or Not to Phone?

That appears to be the question...

I learned another valuable business lesson yesterday regarding doing business with others on their terms and not mine.

I don’t know about you, but I hate annoying sales calls in the middle of my productive day. Nothing irks me more than interrupting a creative session to answer a call from someone who wants to sell me something. I’m usually not in the right frame of mind and if I’m on a deadline, they will most likely get the following response from me, “I’m sorry, I’m just not interested at this time…”. If they had sent me an email, they may have gotten a different response.

With former backgrounds in sales, Michelle and I both decided when we started our own business to be more on the “soft sell” side. We discussed the risks of not pushing for the sale and decided that the benefit of being the type of company that we wanted to be outweighed those risks. We thought people who were interested would buy and we wouldn’t have to be the annoying pushy salesperson that we were forced to be at our other positions in past years.

It appears that may have been a big mistake on our part…

Yesterday we were on-site meeting with one of our current clients. During our visit, the client mentioned that someone she had referred us to said that we hadn’t contacted him. We were stunned. Michelle had met with the client, sent a proposal and followed up twice with email. It turns out that the potential client doesn’t really read his emails. We "ass"umed that he was too busy and that he just wasn't interested at the time. We were wrong. The client perceived us as not contacting him and in turn hired another designer.

Ooops!

Our policy was to send a proposal via email and to follow up with a phone call after the client showed interest in pursing a business relationship by sending a reciprocal email or by calling us (as we requested in the email).

Our business model has failed us. How many other potential clients have we lost due to our assumption that people don’t want to be annoyed with phone calls? Where we thought we were helping our potential clients, we were actually hurting our bottom line. Our thinking was that our potential clients could read and respond to our emails or proposals at a time that was convenient for them, rather than interrupt their busy workday with our sales pitch.

Another item to take into consideration is our industry. Most designers and programmers prefer to communicate via email and live chat. Many of us have instant messaging and emails sent to our phones, whereas most likely our clients don’t. Even though the Internet is an essential part of our business, it may not be to our clients.

I am curious though, do you prefer to have email or phone calls when it comes to sales? I’m going to create a poll to find out your answers. Please take the time to weigh in (over on the right hand side of this blog post near the top).

Moving forward, we’re changing our business model and we’ll be spending more time on the phone and less time emailing prospective clients.

Joanne

Everything I Know, I Learned Waiting Tables

OK, maybe the title of this post is a bit oversimplified, but it’s true that many of the skills necessary in the business world can be learned while waiting tables. I worked in restaurants through high school and college, and here are some valuable lessons I learned.

Different people require different treatment

You may think that all people eating at a restaurant require identical treatment. Not so! A family on their way to a movie needs to quickly order, eat, and get out. Regular customers may relish chatting with their waitress and want to talk about their dogs. A couple on a date will want to linger and have their basic dining needs met, but basically just want to otherwise be left alone.

Similarly, business clients need to be treated in a way that works for them. Some people like to be updated daily on their projects, while others only want to talk to you if they have a specific issue that requires immediate attention. Different modes of communication work better for different people, some prefer to communicate by email only, while others want to hear your voice on the phone. Use what works best.

Multi-tasking will take you far

Scooping rock hard ice cream, making salads, and calculating a bill while telling the busboy who wants decaf and who wants regular coffee, all while rebuffing the romantic overtures of the pastry chef is great training for multitasking. That same ability to focus on multiple projects while still keeping an eye on the big picture translates to the business world. Just don’t take it too far and try to eat, check email, and apply mascara while driving on the freeway. Yikes!

Being nice will also take you far

Diners will take it in stride if their meal is taking a little longer than usual as long as you check in with them and let them know. Don’t blame it on the kitchen, don’t be rushed and flustered. Just apologize with a smile and let them know when their damn food will be ready. Give them free dessert if it takes too long.

The same goes in business. If a project goes awry, keep the client updated, apologize profusely, and throw in some kind of freebie or discount. This will foster all kinds of goodwill.

The “Little Guy” can make or break you

When I waited tables, I always over tipped my busboys extravagantly and spoke to them with respect. Why? Because they would always drop whatever they were doing to help me. They knew I appreciated extra help and would tip them well. As a result, my customers received impeccable service and that would be reflected in MY tip. Other servers didn’t “get it”, and would curtly bark orders to the busboys, or tip them $2 for a whole night’s work. Guess whose tables got cleared last?

By the same token, do not ever think it is OK to be rude, curt, or unappreciative to your assistant, or someone who answers the phone at a client’s offices. Not only is that sort of behavior a way of spreading negativity, it may turn out that the receptionist you snarled at is the wife of the potential client you’re trying to woo. It’s called Karma!

Michelle

What is Your Company Message?

When you’re out networking and you are asked, “What do you do?”, do you know how to answer that question?

Have you practiced your marketing message so that you can effectively convey why your business is different from the others’ and why a consumer should choose you?

If not, you should work on it today.

Think about it.

How many times have you been asked what it is your company does? Are you ready with a smart and interesting story on your company or its services?

In order to attract business, you should start working on your marketing story today.

1. Who are you and what do you do?
2. What sets you apart from the others?
3. What value added services do you provide?
4. Why do you do what you do?
5. How can your product produce change for your potential client?
6. Do you know who your target is and what motivates them to buy?
7. Are you attracting clients and customers with your message?

Write down the answers to the questions above and begin crafting your marketing message. Make sure that you say it loud and clear so that you’ll stand out in a crowd. Give your potential clients confidence in your abilities and quantify it with back up. Do bring up how you helped a fledgling corporation with small changes and how you can apply those types of solutions to your customers' current needs.

Joanne

Winner of the Starbucks Card Drawing!

Our faithful blog reader and survey taker, Darlene Zamagni of San Jose, CA has won the Starbucks gift card from our drawing yesterday. Darlene regularly participates in taking our online surveys. We appreciate your input Darlene and hope you'll continue to read the Small Business Tips blog.

Complete Business Systems Team

2007 Recap

We're still out of the office for the holidays, but I felt compelled to post something on the last day of this glorious year.

Here's a list of our best articles for the year:

How to Get Traffic to Your Website for Free
Writing the Perfect Ad
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) Explained
Google Vs. Wikipedia
Top 7 SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Small Business Holiday Survival Guide
Branding...It's Not Just for Cows!
Make Sure to Take Time Off
What is Hosting?
TV and Radio Advertising
Help with Analytics
What is Web 2.0?
Learning Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Link Popularity
Business Branding
New Business Website
Starting Your Small Business
Domain Name
Web CMS
Website Keywords
Website Analytics
Writing a Winning Press Release
Promoting Your Small Business Affordably

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones and I hope 2008 brings you happiness, health and success in all you do!

Joanne