NEVER Bid Low on Freelance Projects!

An aspect which has anguished me to no end for a long time now, is to do with the low bids which are placed on freelance projects, particularly by newbie freelancers.

Remember - and just ingrain this in your mind somewhere...

You DO NOT compete on price, you compete on value...

Therefore, even if you are a complete novice as far as freelance sites like Elance, oDesk, Freelancer, etc. are  concerned, it does not in anyway mean that you should resort to bottom feeding. Rather, you MUST compete on the (presumably) UNIQUE value which you are able to offer to clients.

• Maybe you are blessed with a unique skill set of your own
• Maybe you are uniquely placed to deliver on the said project within a time frame that others would find very hard to match up to
• Maybe you have years and years of experience behind you

It can be any number of these factors...

What matters is that you realize the importance of bidding realistically - and indeed the fact that you are NOT on any of the said freelance sites merely to win projects at any cost, but rather to make a living. 

And this living CANNOT be made at bargain basement prices, when costs of things around us continue to zoom upwards at a scorching pace. If I look at the prices of everyday items around me here in India, they have simply skyrocketed within a relatively short span of time. The price of petrol (or gasoline as Americans refer to it) has more than doubled in India over what it used to sell at, just a few years ago. Ditto with housing prices; metros like Delhi and Mumbai have some of the highest real estate prices in the world and there is seemingly no abetment in their prices, round the corner anytime soon.

In such a scenario, to bid unrealistically low and then try and win projects on freelance sites is nothing short of a SIN in my opinion.

These are thoughts which I had shared in a video on my freelance YouTube channel, which you can see below:

I sincerely hope that in the times to come, freelancers on these freelance sites will gradually realize their folly and bid realistically. That is when the entire freelancing experience will be a much more positive one for the entire freelance community.

Otherwise, we will only languish in this entire spectrum, feeding on crumbs which will not do good to any of us...

That is NOT what we want, do we?!

Why Do American Freelancers Bid SO Less On Freelance Sites?

As a freelancer from India, working on freelance sites like Elance for a considerably long period of time now, I really can't help but wonder as to why on Earth do American freelancers in particular charge so low rates for the work that they deliver on these sites?

I mean working long hours, researching and then developing content...these are all activities or processes that take up so much time. Then to be paid what I can only refer to as absolute peanuts is something which is simply beyond my ability to fathom.

This is particularly true in light of what is presumably a very high cost of living in the US. As a freelancer from India, where each Dollar gets me about 50 units of local currency (the Indian Rupee), sometimes these projects seem fairly OK for a person in my part of the world, but the same project certainly DOES NOT seem OK for an American to be working on at the same rate, or worse, at a much lower rate!

These are some thoughts which I shared in a recent video I posted to my YouTube channel that you can see below:

My primary point of contention is that when these American freelancers charge so less, freelancers in my part of the world are compelled to charge even low rates!

Further, what is the sense in charging so less when prices around the world are only going one way, which is up?? In fact, I can say with complete assertion that this whole belief that India is very inexpensive on all fronts is very wrong. For instance, the same car makes and models end up costing twice as much in India as they do in the US. Real estate is another sector where prices are much, much higher in India than in the US.

Also, another important factor that a lot of people out there seem to forget completely has to do with lifestyle choices which we individually make in our respective lives. Yes, there are many people in my country who live on $100, $200, or maybe $300 a month, but that is either a choice which they have consciously made for themselves or because of a variety of factors, like lack of education in particular, or the absence of opportunities, they are compelled to live and "manage" in so less...that is something I am neither willing or able to do.

I hope that someday a sense of reality creeps in wherein people realize that it really does not make any sense at all for American freelancers (in particular) as well as other freelancers from the "Western" world to be working at so low rates.