I spent my Sunday doing some poking around Elance and Guru and came out with some pretty damn useful tips for anyone trying to find gigs online. Tweet me your thoughts @DisruptiveDave. Thanks for reading and sharing! disruptivedave.com

1. Freelance Sales
How to Game Elance & Guru
@DisruptiveDave

2. A little creative exploration
goes a long way.
Before we get into it, THIS GUY did it first and
inspired me to try my own angle.
Dave Marcello
Freelance marketer
Startup co-founder
I don’t often head to freelance marketplaces
like Elance and Guru for gigs, but every now
and then I check in to see if there’s anything
worth chasing. After reading Daniel’s
experience hacking Elance, I decided to follow
suit and see if I could unearth any additional
tips and tricks to help me stand out and win
business with minimal effort.
Hope this helps you make more money and
enjoy the freedom we all desire as
solopreneurs.

3. First, I set up a fake buyer
profile

My goal is to learn about my competition and
the intricacies of the bidding process for both
sites.

Particularly from the point-of-view of a buyer.

I created a project to reflect an offer that I
would go after, as a freelancer.

I chose a fixed budget so I could test where
the average quote would fall.

I specifically called out the need for
experience, command of the English
language, and an individual, not an agency.

4. My posting

5. Observations

Elance’s price range options are much wider
than Guru’s ($1,000-$5,000 vs. $2,500$5,000, for this particular project).

Guru automatically sets the “skills required”
tags based on keywords used in your project
description. This can be a bad thing, though,
as tags were added for skills/descriptors
even when I specifically called out that I
didn’t want them.

Within the first 60 minutes of posting, I
received 11 bids on Elance and 2 on Guru.

6. Elance

Much more information was provided to new
job posters on Elance than on Guru.

The onboarding process is quite detailed,
and included elements like a “Talent Trends”
section, which shows average hourly rates
for various skill sets.

You are also presented with the screen on
the next page as soon as you submit your
job, which I imagine is a great place to be as
a freelancer.

8. Proposal review page
1. Avatar, name, country, hourly rate, skill category
2. Earnings, ratings, portfolio link
3. This example is a sponsored proposal, so it has the appropriate tag and
orange/camel border color around it
4. The proposal wording, about 5-6 sentences (followed by an option to expand
and read more)
5. Attachments (resumes, portfolio examples, etc.)

9. Drop-down menus for
organizing list view

10. Observations

The view defaults to “latest submit date”, with
sponsored proposals at the top regardless of
submit date. BUT, the sponsored proposals do
not remain pinned to the top of the list in ANY
other view option. And, oddly, that includes
when you hit “Submit Date (Latest)”. That’s
right, in the default “Submit Date (Latest)” view
when you first open your proposals page, the
sponsored proposals are up top, but not if you
hit the same button again. The fact that the
sponsored proposals do not stay pinned to the
top of the list in all views greatly reduces their
impact.

When you view proposals from lowest bid to
highest, the proposals with no price included
show up first.

11. Evaluating the bids

I set my project cost between $1,000 and
$5,000 and received 24 total proposals.

The average bid received was $1,947.

Over half of the bids were under that
number.

Five bids didn’t include a cost at all.

13. Guru

The only real onboarding I received is the
call-out on the next page, which references
both Premium bids (of which I received
none) and the Recommendation score,
which has major implications for freelancers
and job posters.

14. Onboarding messaging

15. Proposal review page
1. Avatar, name, portfolio link
2. The Guru Recommendation number, which we’ll discuss in a minute
3. Total amount of money earned through Guru
4. Star ratings
5. The proposal wording, about 4-5 sentences (followed by the option to expand
the quote)
6. Bid amount

16. Drop-down menu for
organizing list view

17. Observations

Guru organizes proposals according to
Recommendation number by default. From
what I understand, Premium proposals are
pinned to the top and remain there regardless
of view. The freelancers who had the most
amount of earnings and the highest star ratings
were the #1 and #2 bids (not surprising).
Interestingly, the #3 and #4 bids had no money
earned and no star ratings yet, but were both
ranked ahead of someone who had earned
some money (minimal) and had full star
ratings.

Proposals with no price quotes (referenced as
“placeholder” in the system) show up at the
very bottom of the lists in both “Estimated Cost
($$$-$)” and “Estimated Cost ($-$$$)”.

18. Evaluating the bids

I set my project cost between $2,500 and
$5,000 and received 16 total proposals.

The average bid received was below the
proposed minimum, at $2,445.

Five bids were under $2,500 and four were
right at it.

The top three Recommended freelancers all
submitted bids at or below the minimum
amount.

20. Viewing proposals as a buyer
and what freelancers can
learn from this

It was downright frightening how similarly
vanilla nearly every single proposal was, on
both sites.

Though my buyer profile wasn’t set up the way
it should have been (I mistakenly left out key
personal information that freelancers could
have used in proposals), there was a strong
lack of personalization in 100% of the
proposals.

Out of 40 total pitches, only 3 directly
mentioned wording I used in my project
description — and even those only glossed over
the “word of mouth” part.

Not one freelancer addressed me by my
username, while several used the “Dear
Sir/Madam” cringe-worthy moniker.

21. (cont.)

Most pitches read like resumes, simply
listing qualifications and previous work, with
no attempt to connect to the specific tasks
and goals outlined in the project description.

Several freelancers referenced skill sets that
had nothing to do with the specific job
offered.

Most freelancers use their headshots for
avatars, while a few used logos and a
couple didn’t have one at all.

Names ranged from personal first/last
names to agency names to a few descriptors
(e.g. “Social Media Savvy”).

22. Some tricks and tips I’ll be
using based on this exercise

Assuming many projects receive more
proposals than mine did, especially if they are
promoted or from reputable buyers, sifting
through dozens of bids can be time consuming
and tiring. Obviously, demonstrating a proven
record on these sites is a major bonus (high
buyer feedback, good star ratings, lots of
money earned, etc.), you can’t necessarily
control that from Day One. I’d like to
concentrate on what you can control.

I’m going to make a bet here that personal
names and faces get more attention than logos
and agency names. Put yourself out there.
One trick I’m experimenting with is adding a
short qualifier / skill descriptor to my name,
since that’s one of the first things (if not, the
first) that a buyer sees.

23. Adding “Creative Marketer” to
my name

24. (cont.)

As Daniel pointed out, not one proposal came
with a video, never mind a personalized one.
Why the hell not?! That’s a fantastic way to
stand out, show you are committed to the
project, and connect on a personal level in a
process that can seem a bit robotic. I love that.

Of extreme importance, only the first few
sentences of your pitch actually show up in the
proposal list, and with so many to review, it’s
safe to assume that’s all a buyer will see. You
need to hook them right off the bat. Mention
their name, call out something specific in the
description, bring the video to their attention —
just do it quickly.

25. (cont.)

Daniel advises you do some research and I
wholeheartedly agree. One of the best ways
to do this is to look at the buyer’s history,
particularly their feedback for other
freelancers. Any patterns of things they liked
or disliked? Use that in your pitch.

If the buyer is from the U.S., it could be
worth calling out that you are too, and
English speaking as a first language.

26. (cont.)

Daniel’s take is to not include a quoted price in your
pitch because the client “will sort you by price and
be less likely to consider you”. I need to test that
theory, though it certainly makes sense at first.
Elance is a better site to offer no initial bid, where
on Guru it could easily bite you in your ass since it’ll
put you at the bottom of the list when organized by
price (high or low).

Sponsored / Promoted proposals aren’t always a
sure thing. On Elance, they typically cost double
the amount of “Connects” as a regular proposal
submission, and only three Sponsored proposals
are allowed per job. But, as previously mentioned,
they don’t remain at the top of the list in any other
view the buyer may choose. On Guru, the
Promoted proposals cost more (6 bids vs. 1 for the
standard proposal), but remain pinned to the top of
the page at all times.

27. (cont.)

On both sites, as a freelancer, you can see
how many other sellers have made
proposals and if all the sponsored /
promoted spots are filled yet. On Guru, you
can also see what the Recommended
rankings currently are for anyone who has
bid on the project. All these factors should
help you decide whether you should pitch
that particular project and if it’s worth a
sponsored / promoted proposal.

28. Viewing other applicants on
Guru

29. (cont.)

Because response speed is important in
pitching new jobs, I’ve set up email alerts.
For Elance, here’s how I did it. Go to Find
Work and Search Jobs. Be as specific as
you can, as the search function isn’t the
best. In the example below, I used
“marketing strategy” as my search term,
then chose U.S. based jobs, in the Sales &
Marketing category. You can get as specific
as you like, including fixed vs. hourly rate
and even featured posts or payment-verified
buyers. I then set up a recipe in IFTTT by
using the RSS feed from my search page
(click the RSS button on Elance) to email me
when new jobs are posted.

30. My job alert

31. I’m sure there’s plenty more I
missed.
Dave Marcello
Freelance marketer
Startup co-founder
I’d love your input, feedback, and
enhancements. Head on over to Medium,
where you can comment directly in my original
post. And hitting the “Recommend” button is
always appreciated.
Be well,
Dave