So, you want to start a business III
The most common services sold through these boards relate to computers. There are a million website developers/designers, several million computer coders. Most internet board tech freelancers miss the boat completely. A typical profile will be “I write code in the following ninety-three coding languages and using the following seventy-one tech platforms.” This is followed by a couple of laundry lists.
The laundry list profile appeals to technology experts. Unfortunately, the IT sections of most companies have very small budgets. It’s the businesspeople who own the real checkbooks. In the late 1990s J.P. Morgan spent half a billion dollars a year on custom programming. They looked for specialists in business processes such as selling, buying, back-office automation, and so forth. Their only reaction to an online laundry list profile will be to say, “Next.”
Business types (with bigger checkbooks) respond well to “I can help automate your customer service functions, your inventory management functions, and your sales compensation easily, quickly, professionally and at low cost.”
Online Freelancing Boards
The online freelancing business is huge, and every board has similar problems. First, some get obsessed with preventing you from bypassing them to contract directly with the client off the platform. Many use secret algorithms to rank the million to forty million freelancers on their boards. The likelihood that their algorithms include your concerns is close to zero.
Most have no clue about your service. Last year I tried to hire someone for an engineering task through the biggest platform. The Talent Specialist promised to invite only the best fits. Her first recommendation was for a flower arranger.
Run-of-the-mill freelancers can never contact customer service. And the largest one lists three skill levels: Entry-level, Intermediate and Expert. They define Expert as anyone charging at least $18 an hour. I don’t get out of bed in the morning for $18 an hour.
There are tens of millions of freelancers globally who are members of these sites. If you live in a first-world country, you can’t compete on price with third-world providers. You can successfully compete on quality and service. The subject of online freelancing is too big for this post.
Finally, to attract buyers, all of the boards use the same approach: Get world-class experts at a budget price. Most of the jobs posted are for Nobel Prize winners at pennies per day. The buyers believe the hype. When they find out you can’t guarantee them a best-selling novel for $50, they feel cheated.
Technology
Whether selling products, services or both, you need a web presence. You can sell through multi-store sites, such as Shopify, Amazon, Ebay and others. It’s not a bad thing, you should just look at your competition on the site before signing up.
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