Bidding on Elance: When in Doubt, Ask!

One big question that keeps coming up is how to bid on jobs with very little in the way of job description.

You see them all the time. You know, the ones like:

Need five articles on the life cycle of lice.

That's it. Nothing more. But inevitably, they attract bids.

Normally I say, "Don't waste your time." But sometimes that's hard. The allure is too great.

Perhaps you did your doctoral thesis on the life cycle of lice, or maybe your kids have brought lice into your house twenty times now and all your knowledge was learned with blood, sweat, tears and lots of cleaning supplies. You could do this contract in your sleep while juggling steak knives.

So do the current bidders have information that you don't? It's possible. They could have asked a pre-bid question and have a better idea of the scope of the project. But more likely, they are the wild bidders who bid on anything and everything in hopes of winning something.

I say, don't worry about either type. Concentrate on you.

Don't be afraid to ask the buyer for the answers you need in order to put together a winning proposal. If it takes five or six back and fourths with the buyer, all the better. You'll be in a better position to craft a proposal that gives them exactly what they want, you'll have already established a working relationship with the buyer before the contract is awarded, and you'll come across as very interested, knowledgeable and professional. That may just be enough to rocket you to the top of the list of choices.

But what is it exactly that you need to know in order to bid intelligently?

In the case of the above example, you would need to know the length of the articles, the target market (parents of school aged children versus the scientific community), the intended use (marketing articles to sell a new lice treatment - SEO articles to drive traffic to a site - informational articles to educate - humor articles, etc.), but these need-to-know nuggets translate to most types of projects.

If the job description doesn't spell out specifically what you are required to produce, ask. It's much better to ask than to write 500 words on lice only to find out that they expected 5000. And that's not the worst-case scenario. Imagine writing 5000 words only to find out that they expected 50 thousand.

Save yourself the potential negative feedback, remember as always that time is money, and when in doubt - ask.

image by Marco Bellucci