One trick to better your freelancing
And it’s not what you think it is
Hiring people.
Nothing has helped me more in the past year than to hire other people.
It’s especially valuable when hiring people asking for $50+ per hour. If you get to hire a bunch of people at that rate or higher, you start getting a sense of the kind of service people provide. You get to understand the quality, how they communicate at that rate and resolve issues.
Sometimes you also understand how people dare ask for that kind of money when you compare the service they provide. Recently, I paid $150 for a permaculture consultation, and I was quite disappointed by the service. They quoted a bigger quote right after, which pissed me off even more. I was quite specific in the guidance and knowledge I needed, and they completely underdelivered on that.
Anyway, it’s truly an amazing investment, whether it’s a good or bad experience. Sure, I’ve been frustrated more than once, but reflecting on those experiences has yielded a lot for me!
I’m developing a solitaire game on the domain I mentioned the other day (lejeudusolitaire.com), and I’m hiring a developer to help me. I’ll probably also hire a French content writer to write the copy under the game.
Let me get into the process so you can learn about it and apply that if you’re selling your services.
It will be pretty clear what to do and what not to do. I’m always surprised by the crap people pull and how it can be easy to differentiate yourself from others (especially when starting out).
Looking for people on Fiverr
I sent the following message to 16 people on Fiverr:
Hey there, can you do a lightweight solitaire game web based? If yes, how would you go about it at a very high-level? It’ll need to be responsive for mobile.
Of the 16 people, only 5 replied. Honestly, shocking. Looks like if you reply on Fiverr, you’re already top of the bucket. Cream of the cream.
Let’s see what those 5 people had in store.
One indicated he was unavailable by simply sending “Unavailable.” Really, dude?
One replied right away, “Sure, I can do it for $50.” We exchanged a few messages. After I sent the brief I finished during that time, he said he’d come back in 24 hours to give me a quote, even though he started by saying he’d do it for $50. Weird experience. Stand with your initial quote or don’t quote right away. I’m trashing, but I’ve made that mistake before.
Another one said, “Thanks for approaching, let me have a look,” and never got back to me.
Another one was honest by telling me he didn’t know how the logic worked but quoted $500. I wasn’t a fan of the conversation because he asked me to change a setting so he could message me on mobile which I thought was weird. On top of that, he has no reviews and didn’t provide any portfolio pieces. Hard to trust the guy.
The last one on Fiverr did pretty well and asked clarifying questions. For example, what I meant by a lightweight game. Then he had messages like “Great! I look forward to receiving the document with the various features. It will certainly help me get a clear picture of what you're looking for. Let me know if you need any further information or assistance.” This message and the last sentence make me feel like this person cares and will try to be as helpful as possible. In the end, when I sent the brief, he quoted $320.
So I got the following quotes so far on Fiverr: $50, $320 & $500.
The one at $320 would be my choice on based on his communication skills and mindset. I wanted to chat with more people so I also posted on Upwork.
Posting on Upwork
Here is the job I posted there:
I always add at least one question to my post (see at the bottom of the screenshot) because freelancers are required to reply to those questions to send a proposal. I always try to make them as low-effort as possible so it doesn’t take too long on the freelancer's part, and it helps me vet people.
Basically, people who reply truthfully to the questions go to the next stage.
If they don’t, I don’t hire them.
One of the questions is related to a PDF brief I included.
You’ll be surprised:
How many people ask me questions that are answered in the brief.
Reply something stupid or low effort that doesn’t answer the question.
Let’s look at some answers.
This guy could have done okay if he read the brief. I answered his questions in the brief.
This freelancer has 300k on the platform and replied the following:
She also sent a copy-pasted proposal.
Enough about my vetting questions; let’s see what kind of proposals we got.
Upwork proposals
I received 10 proposals in total:
2 sound like GPT.
3 are copy paste.
1 is a copy-paste with a tiny bit of personalization.
5 answered my questions with irrelevant answers or copy-pasted the same answer for both questions.
Out of the 10 proposals, I shortlisted 4:
They all replied properly to the questions.
2 of them look like they used GPT. I think they are agencies so they are going for volume.
One has one name on his profile and specifies a different name in his proposal. Plus the proposal has an obvious typo and doesn’t inspire confidence he can do the job. He also proposes a solution I don’t want to use. Easier for him probably but not what I want.
The last one stood out. Here is what he sent:
This type of proposal is what I recommend. It’s short and to the point. I replied.
So far, he’s sent me a demo of a solitaire game he developed. He told me he could develop it by the end of next week for $400-500, which fits my budget.
Yeah, small budget. I wouldn’t work with myself as a client 😅 If it wasn’t my money or I had a bigger budget, I’d probably go with the agency.
After talking with most of them, I got the following quotes: $500, $1000 and $2000-3000.
Recap
The freelancers that caught my attention did the following:
Aim to pitch a proposal with relevant information. Go through the documents and answer questions properly.
They have a short proposal. If it looks too long and like a copy-paste, I won’t read it. It would probably take the same amount of time to write a short proposal than to copy paste and personalize a template.
Have proper format. They capitalize sentences and programming languages or tools. They use periods. Very trivial stuff, but you’d be surprised.
Their mindset is about helping me and making sure they are helpful.
They ask clarifying questions to understand the scope and go through my document before quoting and giving me a timeline. I usually have to ask them, so I recommend people include those estimates once the scope is more or less clear.
What about you? What’s your experience with hiring contractors? Leave a comment below or reply to this email!
Quick question for you
3 juicy links of the week
A Redditor has a hard time getting to 10k per month with his video editing agency. He’s asking the agency subreddit for guidance. You’ll find some golden advice if you’re in the same situation in the comments!
Two and a half years of building products
The journey of a guy who went from school to a full-time job to making a few grand per month with his B2B products. I’m sure you’re like me, and you love a cool success story full of tribulations and perseverance.
How this Substack got 2000 subscribers
I really like the detailed breakdown in this post because it gives me a bunch of ideas of what I could do to grow this newsletter.
If you want more, here’s what I got for you
A 1-hour course to help you kickstart your independent life. It’ll show you how to get from 0 to $1000 on Upwork. Upwork is one of the easiest ways to get your first wins and earn your first $1000 online.
As always, a great insight. I have always been reluctant to get work done from somewhere else which has severely limited my bandwidth.
How do you decide what work you would want to be done from someone else versus you do it yourself?
So which person did you choose? :)