FREELANCERS do you even value your clients?

Flacko said:

Have contracts ready for all freelance work. Protects both parties.

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This was one of the reasons I posted this thread months back

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guide-how-to-buy-specifics-bob.1045552/

People often aren't specific enough when hiring / buying.

You want a 5k word article in 6 days, then tell them it has to be delivered in 5 and to your satisfaction.

We see it here in the Shitlist section where a buyer wants to Shitlist someone who promises a 7 day TAT and we are on day 11 already.
Just because I am not friends on FB, Skype etc with you, we still know you are not dead in a ditch, as you're actively online and just not addressing the issues on here.


Regarding freelancers and also some sellers, they take on more work than they can handle and instead of being honest & upfront about this, they fob you off with stories of their dead cat, dead granny, internet issues etc etc etc. If they were honest, you'd consider giving them a second chance, but constant B/S doesn't wash with me.

Had a writer I was reviewing send me over 5 pieces from her portfolio 2 months back, they were amazing articles. I hired her for 6 articles of 3k words each. Each article was rubbish, so I told her they needed correcting. Again the work re-sent was poor. I told her I wasn't paying for these as it was obvious she had outsourced them to someone else or her samples were not her own work.
So not only was the quality crap, she had missed deadline date by several days, then the revised ones took almost another week. Stupid thing was she was online most days bidding for other jobs as a writer.

Would I hire her again? Not a chance.
Would I recommend her again? Not a chance.

maybe the rules need to change for this forum with writters providers.

if the work not done within the set time , there ban, and full refund exspected.

A lot of freelancers have not been tested on their skills and ability to deliver on deadlines. That's what the colleges and universities train you to learn. Discipline to deliver plus acquired theory on some skill which you will eventually have to apply working at some place. I believe that a lot of freelancers are self taught and have not yet set the standard of their discipline.

Some are overshooting the estimates and believe that they can overdeliver, but when they get the task, sudden realisation comes that neither freelancer, nor the buyer will be satisfied. Then they try to learn new stuff for a couple days, then they realise it's not that fast and start feeling guilt. That leads to a lack of responsiveness. OP is right on that, really.

I have done some work. Always trying to be professional and stay personal and informal. I have had some work that i misunderstood the statement in the job opening. At this point best you can do is not to waste the time and immediately tell the employer that you misunderstood and that they look for another freelancer. Or if they have the guidelines and time to afford training you for an extended contract, so you would work for them in the future on a short notice. That is good for both of you long term.

Personal experience is that as a freelancer myself, i really hate these immoral spammers who take the jobs and trash the market wasting everyone's time. I can't sign up for stuff like upwork due to some self proclaimed professionals with bought certificates and medals or some fake nonsense. But that's my problem, everyone wants to live comfortably, that is fair.

it looks like a very hard all roud situation .

onlywin said:

I've been in the online game for 10 years now and time and time again I've hired developers, designers, writers etc that at some point during a project start to ignore all forms of communication, or promise deadlines but fail to deliver.

Now don't get me wrong, I've hired many who have delivered on time and had very good communication.

I know everyone has a life but if I hire you for a project I expect the deadline to be met and you to fulfil your promises. It's really not much to ask.

Ignoring messages, emails, phone calls etc is just a cowards way in saying "I'm too shit of a freelancer to tackle the work you've given me".

THIS IS 2018, I can see you online on Facebook Messenger, I can see you read my email, I can see you are online on Skype and have read my message.

I know all these forms of communication also get sent to your phone immediately, and in this day and age you've probably seen it before I've even closed the browser tab.

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So my question is to freelancers who do work for clients, are you fucking stupid? why ignore communication or make promises that you can't deliver?

I know damn well if I have to meet a deadline for my biz I'll cut off any distractions and STAY UP ALL DAMN NIGHT to get it done, so why can't you?

Bit of a rant but hey, was wondering why these sorts of time wasters exist

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Here's the thing you need to understand w.r.t. freelancers. The goods ones are tied up already because demand is huge and supply is low. For you to get a really good one you need either pure luck or a system to weed out the inept/scammer ones along with offering well above marker rates. Paying high doesn't guarantee you anything if you can't do the weeding out.

Majinn said:

Personal experience is that as a freelancer myself, i really hate these immoral spammers who take the jobs and trash the market wasting everyone's time. I can't sign up for stuff like upwork due to some self proclaimed professionals with bought certificates and medals or some fake nonsense. But that's my problem, everyone wants to live comfortably, that is fair.

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I just want to point out that you have the right mindset for success. It is the few that when hit with an external issue realize that it's their responsibility to deal with/bypass it and that just lamenting about it doesn't mean shit.

Meddie said:

So yeah, without being racist make sure which part of the world you pick a developer. I am still working like a slave until my eyes bleed and this bastard was not working week-ends, lol

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You are not being racist you're not calling out a race you are calling out a region and the quality of work that comes out of that region, you make a valid point. There are good and bad people from the region you are referring to, sadly lots more bad than good because standards are so bloody low people think they can get away with delivering anything. (I'm assuming which country but I'm 99.999999% positive I'm right) There seems to be a mentality of "I'll give as little as I possibly can" with zero feeling bad about it or guilty in any way or worried about what the client might think. I feel bad for the genuine providers in that region because I know that myself and others disregard proposals from that part of the world for this very reason.

I'm certainly not trying to inflame anyone with my comments it's just what I have experienced time and time again, fool me once shame on you, fool me 87 times shame on me. In all fairness I have said this time and time again I like the tenacity of the region but with one 6th of the population there is going to be a lot of competition and people trying to eek out an existence in as easy a way as possible, so I half understand. I don't agree with or like it but I do understand it a bit.

onlywin said:

Freelancer.com is a sess pool for talentless, time wasting, useless, bottom of the barrel, trash.

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lol say what you really feel

Well, the seller from BHW which I am talking about said was from the UK, also from the country with sir dear sir I just found an excellent dev which works professional, finally.

Every forest has dry trees, but this doesn't mean all are rubbish, you need to be lucky enough to find the 5%

Fuck me, if I was from tier3 countries and work on IM I was sleeping in front of the PC as the conversion of money are two way more then tier2 countries. It`s like double trouble, and they mess about because of the lack of experience, professionalism and also definitely skills.

Learn boys,I know you read this :d

MisterF said:

Would I hire her again? Not a chance.
Would I recommend her again? Not a chance.

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Even the freelance sites which ask for proof of ID don't really do much to prevent people running multiple accounts. Had two job listings under my own and a JV's account. The same person interviewed for both under different names. The ones who are taking the piss trying to get a payday before you catch on don't give a shit about reviews and recommendations.

I've had someone run a script to move the mouse or whatever and try and bill me for 40 hours when next to nothing has been done. Articles copied verbatim and when I called them out on it they claimed they were the original writer. The articles were from two major UK newspapers by different authors of the opposite gender.

Everyone has funny VA stories. Fathers dying twice in 3 months because they forgot they already used that line and whatever else.

On topic though it's 100% on the hiring practice. I've met folk who's approach to freelancers is 'hire fast and fire faster'. If you go by the numbers and don't pay the ones who piss about eventually you'll stumble onto someone decent. Or go the opposite way, extend the process and give them a chance to build some trust with you if it's a longer-term role.

I will try to be as short as possible this time:
Freelancers will start valuing the clients once they start doing the same.

If you pay for something to be done/finished, does not mean you are a God.
And as you said, it is 2018, which means it is the same year for you too - different ways of checking whether some freelancer is good for your request, whether he is able to do something at a certain speed, etc...

And if you ask me, I will never ever hire a freelancer to do something when I know I can either find a company/offline contractor that will do exactly the same thing I expect from a freelancer but 2 times cheaper.

Meddie said:

Let me tell you a story: I was looking for a web designer medium level let`s say to make a 1-page template for a wp

He almost crying on the chat, please help me I need money blah blah.

In my mind was ok...maybe he delivers quickly and nice. I ask him TAT; he said five days. After four days I ask him what news he got for me, he shows me a basic shit and was Friday at that time.

I told him four days of working, you need money, and you don`t even do a necessary thing?

HIS ANSWER: SIR DEAR SIR, NOW IT`S TO LATE I AM NOT WORKING ON the weekend.


Moral of the story: So yeah, without being racist make sure which part of the world you pick a developer. I am still working like a slave until my eyes bleed and this bastard was not working week-ends, lol

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For design, please use 99designs.com You'll get 20-30 variety of designs from different designer.
99designs really save my time and my money.

For code, programming etc, I prefer programmer from Ukraine, or Russia, bit expensive though, but higher quality result. I use upwork.com for that.
Also before you start hiring programmer from upwork, please please please look at their rating first, how many project they already work, hours, client reviews etc

But still when it comes to hiring a freelance, there are many freelance will try to "milking" us as much as possible.

I suspect the problems described are at least country or region dependent.
Personally I have bad stories with indian, pakistani and african freelancers. I stay away from them.
Also I never pay a dime before the work is completed. Like in regular 9-5 job.

I-marketer said:

Also I never pay a dime before the work is completed. Like in regular 9-5 job.

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lol and when you suggest a payment structure like this they act as though you just ask them for their first born. If someone is genuine and going to deliver they should have no problems completing a task and then getting compensated for it, not the other way around. I have had a similar experience with freelancers and VA's from those countries too.

It all comes down to hiring the right people. I worked with a lot of freelancers and have mixed results.

I usually stay away from those who beg for works, telling you how poor they are and how they have a family to feed.

But honestly, I think it is unfair to classify a couple of countries/ religions as having a bad working ethic, there are time wasters everywhere, you just have to learn and move on.

onlywin said:

So my question is to freelancers who do work for clients, are you fucking stupid?

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No.
But you are looking a bit confused.

As a freelancer, I see unresponsive clients all the time. If I see them not answering fast enough - I don't do biz with them.
You should do the same with freelancers.

If, on another hand, you have responsive freelancer during an interview, and he/she gets unresponsive later on - fire him/her, and get a new one. Easy as that.

I've been working as a team leader for a few years now, I know the struggle, but the problem is in you -> you should take time to get to know someone you're working with.

At the end: If you're not capable of doing it - hire HR guy (but invest some time to pick a good one, or you won't be happy).

I freelanced a lot in the past. I built some great shit. Mainly clients ran out of money. They missed payment deadlines, etc.

I also published a paperback book on hiring over 300 freelancers on Upwork, and the lessons from that.

So I've seen both sides.

Paying more helps, but it's certainly not the only cause.

Going to blow my own horn here for one time, and one time only.

Back then: https://mobile.twitter.com/bweikle/status/726047552957648896

Now I just need to sort out some shit, get back my attitude, and adjust my mindset after that.


I will fuck off soon, so no need for feedback.

Isn't there any rating system on the platform you are getting freelancers from?

onlywin said:

I know damn well if I have to meet a deadline for my biz I'll cut off any distractions and STAY UP ALL DAMN NIGHT to get it done, so why can't you?

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That's the reason why you're doing the 'hiring' and they're the ones looking for a job.

True, if you not able to communicate properly or work then don't bid or ask for any work from anyone.
It happens to me sometimes i was away and suddenly some plan made where i have to go without any excuse so i always prefer to tell my clients that is it possible if i complete the task tomorrow and he understand that too because i never made any excuse in a month if i need a leave now from work so there will be any emergency and they help me too. If i am unable to work on weekdays i complete them on weekends because if I work well i'll get more work from clients and reference too.
In starting i hate and upset why MOD make a rule that only Jr. VIp's can bid on HAF and WTB but slowly i got to know that so many scams going on. I checked Shitlist, so many buyers frustrated because of freelancers who commit that work would be done on my time and it never be. Now those who are genuine service provider or buyer converted them on Jr. VIP. But it stop so many other people who came here to scam people and want to waste other members time.

So OP before paying anyone just be sure he is Jr. VIP or not and what about his reputation in market. If that person is genuine then no issues to pay them and get your work on time. Which saves your time too and you feel relax.

onlywin said:

I've been in the online game for 10 years now and time and time again I've hired developers, designers, writers etc that at some point during a project start to ignore all forms of communication, or promise deadlines but fail to deliver.

Now don't get me wrong, I've hired many who have delivered on time and had very good communication.

I know everyone has a life but if I hire you for a project I expect the deadline to be met and you to fulfil your promises. It's really not much to ask.

Ignoring messages, emails, phone calls etc is just a cowards way in saying "I'm too shit of a freelancer to tackle the work you've given me".

THIS IS 2018, I can see you online on Facebook Messenger, I can see you read my email, I can see you are online on Skype and have read my message.

I know all these forms of communication also get sent to your phone immediately, and in this day and age you've probably seen it before I've even closed the browser tab.

----

So my question is to freelancers who do work for clients, are you fucking stupid? why ignore communication or make promises that you can't deliver?

I know damn well if I have to meet a deadline for my biz I'll cut off any distractions and STAY UP ALL DAMN NIGHT to get it done, so why can't you?

Bit of a rant but hey, was wondering why these sorts of time wasters exist

Click to expand...

I'm sorry about your experience dude... I can totally understand.

People are just too lazy nowadays... They're just doing it for the quick little buck, no passion, no work ethic, no care for customer satisfaction and business longevity.

I had very bad experiences with graphic designers especially.
One time I got a logo delivered 4 weeks late which wasn't even what I asked for and the dude stopped responding my messages and calls.

Another one said I was a nerve breaker because what I've asked was to complicated and I shouldn't complain about his result lol
I ended up not paying and making it myself