Category: Freelance resources

15 Apr

1 Comment

5 must have features for your home office

by

Share

To be a successful freelancer, the two most important things you need are talent and clients. To ensure you’re able to deliver your excellent talent to your exceptional clients, here are a few suggestions for your home office setup. Instead of a roundup of products, this is a guideline of what an effective home office needs. If you’ve got a “must-have” in your home office – let us know in the comments. I always love to see cool stuff from other freelancers.

Dedicated Workspace

A dedicated workspace is essential to whatever type of freelancing you are doing. Whether it’s a specific room in your house can be setup as a full office, or a corner of your bedroom to park your laptop, a dedicated workspace helps you focus so you can do your best work. If possible, create your space to minimize distractions. Continue Reading

Share

15 Apr

1 Comment

The easy way to establish your expertise using Quora

by

Share

While big brands have long sought to be recognized as thought leaders in particular business areas, it’s now just as important for your own personal brand. Quora provides the platform for you to show your expertise across multiple subject areas and get you noticed, not just by your CV, but by the quality of your writing and knowledge.

In this article, I’ll look at how Quora can help you to find the right opportunities and have the right opportunities find you.

What is Quora?

Quora is a real-time questions and answers service. Launched in June 2009, it soon found a core audience in the Silicon Valley tech industry. This proved pivotal in driving uptake, as questions, especially from journalists, were getting answered by the people uniquely positioned to answer them. It has managed to stay relevant and authoritative as it has grown, blossoming into a vibrant and energetic community.

Quora: there are questions on a variety of topics, here it’s ‘How to get started as a freelancer’.

Continue Reading

Share

06 Apr

0 Comments

Questions each freelancer should ask a potential client

by

Share

Freelancers face numerous potential problems when dealing with clients. A quick Internet search reveals horror stories of non-paying clients, personality conflicts and unreasonable demands. Forward-thinking freelancers can gauge the worthiness of potential projects and clients by asking the following critical questions in advance of signing an agreement.

Image by svilen001 on Stock.xchng

Long-Term Vision

  • What are your long-term goals? Knowing the long-term direction can help freelancers develop strategies and tactics that can be built upon to continue advancing a business toward its goals.
  • How do you see contract talent as a part of your long-term vision? This helps you set your expectations — and your calendar. You will be able to determine whether this has the potential to be a long-term project for your or if you will be seeking new work within the next few months.

Working with Freelancers

  • Have you worked with freelancers in the past? What was your experience? Companies that have never worked with freelancers and those with a negative prior experience often require that you spend more time and energy in building trust.
  • Have you ever completed projects of this scale in the past? If this is a client’s first go at an e-book, a social media marketing campaign or blog, you may need to anticipate some additional consulting hours to help your client understand the process. Continue Reading
Share

01 Apr

5 Comments

Effective Networking for Freelancers

by

Share

Effective networking is an excellent way to improve the quality and quantity of your freelance projects, but it can also be a great way to meet other freelancers and build a support network to ensure your freelance career continues to be a success.

The Secret to Successful Networking

The secret to effective networking is to listen.

Networking is your opportunity to learn more about the people in your sphere, either online or offline. Pay attention to what the person you’re talking to is saying and then offer suggestions — if you have something worth saying. The most successful networkers rarely talk about themselves. Instead of Continue Reading

Share

28 Feb

1 Comment

DoNanza Upgrades Search to Include Local Freelance Jobs

by

Share

DoNanza Upgrades Search!

Many of the best freelance jobs are just around the block from you. Still, many freelancers miss them while searching for lower-paying work from half a world away. With DoNanza’s new search upgrade, that won’t happen.

At DoNanza, we’re bolstering our search offering with local freelance jobs – those gems that often pay more and offer steadier work but don’t turn up in global searches. DoNanza has so far added nearly 50,000 extra local jobs to its search for the US, UK and Canada alone and we’re adding more countries and boards daily.

By “local,” we mean clients in your city, country, or region who aren’t looking just to pay bottom dollar. They want a freelancer who speaks their language, understands their environment and might be available for a meeting. They’ll often pay more for it.

At DoNanza, we’re working around the clock to become the only source you ever need for all things freelance.

Stay tuned (We’ll have some great new tools to announce soon…),

Team DoNanza

Share

12 Nov

12 Comments

Home Based Customer Service

by

Share

The earning opportunities that freelance jobs have offered to a lot of people in this tough time of recession are limitless. These freelancing options have provided us with the ability to cope with the situation despite the lack of job opportunities in our respective locations.

A good example is the people from India or people from the Philippines who have literally lived a night life for quite a long time because of their call center jobs. They are now left to sleep day and night, without any work to do, after the announcement of the global financial

crisis late last year. This is very unfortunate as these people are already equipped with skills and strengths to be able to perform excellently in a customer oriented setting— Filipinos are undoubtedly good in communicating in English while locals from India have their inclinations in technology. There is no question that these people are a good fit for customer service positions and that losing job such this is a major nosedive not just in their individual income, but in their country’s economy as a whole.  Good thing freelance bidding sites are here to rescue—these people can now continue with the kind of work that they enjoy doing.

If you are a part of this good sum of population who have lost their jobs in a snap or if you are someone gifted with the ability to talk things over, then this guide is for you. Read on.

Defining Home Based Customer Service

It is always easy to confuse this position with that of a Virtual Assistant or that of a Telemarketer because of the general nature of the job. Therefore, if your aim is to land a CSR or CCR job, then make sure to identify the differences that it has with that of the two aforementioned positions. Below are the IT IS and IT IS NOT’S of a Customer Service Representative freelance job;

WHAT A HOME BASED CUSTOMER SERVICE JOB IS NOT;

  • Very sales oriented
  • Pay is performance based
  • Outbound calls
  • Focus is on sales quota
  • Responsibilities: Calling out prospects (outbound), follow ups and documentation



WHAT A HOME BASED CUSTOMER SERVICE JOB IS NOT;

  • Absolutely no sales involved
  • Pay is on an hourly basis
  • Focus is on KPIs such as customer satisfaction and AHT (Average Handling Time)
  • Responsibilities: Taking in calls  (inbound) and documentation



This is a relatively short list to describe a home based Customer Service position. There’s a lot more to learn in order for you to enjoy the privilege of working home based while you are also able to do the things that you are good at. You just have to do your homework— by this we mean you conduct a self-initiated research that will help you exhaust all options available for you in the industry. You may opt to utilize the ‘search engine’ feature of www.donanza.com to help you find freelance jobs in this category. Alternatively, you can also visit the following links;

http://www.filcancommunications.biz/career.php

http://www.bsgclearing.com/riskmanagement/voicelogthirdpartyverification

http://www.convergys.com

http://www.plantronics.com/north_america/en_US/careers/index.jhtml

http://www.teletech.com/en-US/careers

http://www.overflowusa.com/jobs.html

Happy Freelancing!

Share

05 Nov

5 Comments

FREE Freelance Job Resources

by

Share

free

It is an understatement to describe the internet useful. In fact, it will be difficult to describe the internet through a single word— no word is enough to capture the very sense of the web and everything it can offer. It has literally revolutionized the way we live from all aspects possible— from the way we do our shopping up to the way we work towards a more rewarding career. This fact holds very true to us freelancers— and the more it would after you read this article.

As a freelancer, you are generally all accustomed of doing everything on your own— logging in your hours, scheduling tasks, handling your finances and even looking for softwares that will make your freelance job easier. If you are new to freelancing, however, and you feel a need to use a resource to make your work a complete breeze; be cautious so as to not fall on baits offered by freelance tool providers which abound the web. Here is the deal: You need not spend even a dime on a freelance job resource just to be more productive. Below are eight of the most recommended tools that will help you with your freelance job.

Google – Google is a BIG word in the internet business. This is for the fact that it has pioneered a lot of applications which made the internet business as productive as ever. Google is similar to a one-stop shop from which you can get any of your needs from the personally owning a blog up to the twisted and complicated world of project management. In fact, you can even start and manage an online business through it— totally free.

Creative CommonsShowcasing masterpieces of photographers and graphic designers have never been this easy and free! This page is run by a non-profit organization who advocates themselves to protecting a freelancer’s work by licensing them and sharing it with others.

You Send It - Now, bulk emails will no longer take up much space in your inbox and that of your client’s. You Send It allow you to be able to send a file of size up to 2GB to your client’s email. From there, they will  just have to download the file directly into their computers.

ProtolizeThis is a haven for web designers and developers who wish to collaborate and to rank the web tools they use according to efficiency.

Free Contracts for FreelancerA freelancer will need to protect himself in one way or another. And, what is the best way to do it? – Through a contract or an agreement. Not good with such documents? No need to worry as it doesn’t really matter what your freelance job is, Free Contracts for Freelancers is here to the rescue. Find free templates, tips and how to’s to be able to draft an agreement that is fair and ‘impressive’ to your client.

Fax Zero - Need to send the signed agreement over to your client? A freelance job agreement will not be much secured without you and your client’s signature. Fax Zero is a free internet fax service always available to keep paper fax transactions.

Freelance SwitchFreelance jobs are all over the web. Such demand increased the number of freelancers from around the globe. Fortunately, there is enough work to keep them occupied and earning. However, these same productive people are the same people who needs support groups in order to keep their sanity despite their inevitable isolation from their closest society. Freelance Switch is one site that they trust to build them connections with fellow freelancers and supply them with their daily dose of informative, useful and inspiring blogs.

ZohoA value provider turned into a provider company? Free project management portal which is useful to almost any freelance jobs is what Zoho does. Sign up for a free account with them to start reaping benefits. As your company blooms, then that may be the time to consider upgrades.

Now, what do you think? Isn’t the internet very generous to even consider giving freelancers all these resources free of charge?

Happy Freelancing!

Share