New system aimed primarily at matching newer sellers with buyers
So now it seems I have to wait two hours before I can bid for a job. This is extremely unfair. Not only do experienced creatives/designers have to compete with an unfair playing field, ie people offered to do a job for £10 when it is clearly worth £100, we are now not allowed to bid for jobs as soon as they appear on PPH. What kind of system is this?!
Awful. Unfair. Unprofessional. Discriminatory.
Regards
C. Howe
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Hourlies are pointless
I wouldn't buy an hourlie off myself let along someone I can't take to and build up a relationship with.
Oh and before anyone tells me you can chat with the Hourlie providers, you are right and I know that. But surely having a conversation with an Hourlie provider defeats the object of hourlies!!!
You might as well post a project!!
Hourlies are just a 'rich man's Fiverr' why bother with PPH when you can get the same anonymous solutions on Fiverr!!!
What's CATFISH? Is it PPH's re-life of DeskDonkie or whatever they changed it to?
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@Rob, Deskdonkie is now Supertasker :/ To which I still haven't received an invite but am sure am not missing out on much.
Cashfish in a new site a couple of freelancers on here are setting up, there's no commission just a monthly membership fee so anyone with regular clients can take them with them and get hired through there instead and not pay all the commission fees and get new clients as well. They are concentrating on 'hourlies' like Fiverr but without the commission and buyers can post jobs but at a set price, there's no bidding. There's a load of us going to give it a go, good on them for trying to give us an alternative.
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@ Paul, I'm sure we;ve had this convo before lol. I don't have private clients after I was ripped off, so all my work comes from this site and I make good money off my hourlies and have a lot of regular clients. If they hire me through there instead of here am paying a flat £10 a month rather than a load of commission so am better off, So that's my personal take on it,. Others have said different things and it was a freelancer off here who suggested the monthly membership fee.
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@Paul - I tend to agree, why would I pay someone a monthly fee to put my clients through that system? No benefit there.
As for DeskDonkie/Monkie/Tasker - As I have stated before PPH tried to get me to give them all the answers!! Prior to liftoff...ONly for them to disappear when I asked what their budget was!!!!
Fiverr/Catfish - Won't be wasting my money. I am only interested in projects where, building a relationship is as important as being an 'anonymous provider'
Anyway, 'catfish' is only served to cats!!! So sounds like a marketing man's wet dream.
My preference would be a full bidding site, where providers had to be vetted. Part of that vetting would be to ban anyone 'cutting and pasting' responses!!! Or are willing to work for less than $5 per hour....
Not sure how that would work, maybe make it UK/USA/Europe centric...if you don't have a land line here or an address you can't be a provider.
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@ Paujl, We all work differently, there is no reason to take private non PPH clients with you when you have a perfectly good working relationship with them now. that isn't what I meant, Just I am looking at it from the point of view that I have no non PPH clients, all my clients are through here and I pay a lot of commission and don't make anywhere near the amount of money I was making a year ago so to still be able to work for the same people but pay less commission will suit me fine :)
@ Rob Everyone is entitled to their opinion but if you are going to slag something off at least get their name right :P
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@Deb if you mean Cash Fish, then I apologise for getting the name wrong, I mis-read the name. Have they been banned by PPH Ninja's? (another marketing man's dream!!!)
My opinion remains the same regarding its name.
As for the actual business format, my opinion again remains the same if all they are looking to offer is their version of 'Hourlies'. I just don't get it!!
I have one Hourlie on here, and sold it once!! This is not the reason I don't like them, I am more than happy to 'stack it high and sell it cheap'
But I have won more work, from communicating with the potential customer then just advertising that 'I can achieve XY and X for £xxx'
When potential customers post projects, for example in my niche there is a lot of 'I want to be ranked number 1 in Google and my budget is £50' or 'I want 100 back links to my site for £50'
This is not possible...
1) The budgets are not high enough
2) The time scales sometimes are just ridiculous
3) SEO is an ongoing part of any business marketing budget
4) Buying 'back links' is illegal as far as Google is concerned.
So I have to spend time in educating potential customers. And I don't mean that condescendingly, some times they just don't know. And I have helped many people on PPH.
My New Years Resolution was not to bid on anything unless the brief/budget was within the realms of reality.
And this year I have spent less time chasing 'rubbish' and more time actually working and earning.
So in my mind the only way to achieve regular work, is to form relationships, work with client's helping them achieve the goals they have and or manage their expectations.
I spend more time now correcting the work of the '$5 wonders' on this site, then I do actually providing the service the client thought they wanted.
And this is where PPH used to be fantastic, being about to communicate easily with potential clients. But because of predominately providers from Asia, spamming the living daylights out of buyers, PPH took the view of stopping direct contact with buyers.
Then the invention of 'Hourlies' just turned the site into a 'rich man's Fiverr'
I am happy, so as with all opinions, I am more than happy to be wrong.
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I don't really look for relationships on PPH, but I have established good ones with some of the clients on here that come back for repeat work. Usually I seek good working relationships with clients privately outside of PPH using effective marketing, using both my website and blog to demonstrate my copywriting/writing skills. I'm often emailed too by clients that have either found me on Twitter or FB, or via my website or blog.
Gill
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@ Rob, a year or so ago I would probably have agreed with you but I can no longer compete in the no set budget cattle market where I am continuously being outbid. I charge way less than many others and have become reliant on hourlies to keep the pennies rolling in. I sold 4 today, yet got outbid for 7 jobs.
I am trying to only go for jobs with set budgets but some of these are so piss poor it's ridiculous. I am repeatedly being selected to bid on jobs I don;t have the skills for, today's beauty was 4000 words on Piezo actuator platform for robot vibration cancellation and following one no set budget job I went for the bloke won't leave me alone trying to persuade me to write 500 words for £1 "but it will come good Deb if you climb aboard now".
I have done this for 7 years and have never felt so jaded as I do now. Maybe I should spread myself out more and take jobs I can't do and wing it, but I have too many scruples to do that. Everyone has their own freelancing story, I myself am prepared to give a site a chance that only allows buyers to post jobs at a set rate that is vetted and deemed to be acceptable, and that gives me the chance to make more money off my hourlies than I am now. I will certainly not miss getting up in the morning to a stack of emails that belong in my spam folder for what use they are either. I am glad you are having a successful career on here, I really am, but for me personally it isn't working any more.
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I like the hourlies in concept and I disagree with people that don't like them. I think NOT having to bid makes more sense and I can still be in conversation with the person. That said, I am following CashFish on Twitter. Maybe it's a temp name, cause is sucks. But I like the concept. I'm in.
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@Deb
I would not say I am having a successful career on here!!
As I said I rarely bud for anything, but I do post a lot of clarification questions my thoughts are:
1) if the poster can be bothered to answer, then potentially they are serious - and have a budget
2) I rarely can bid for anything without more information!! If the poster get pissed off with this sort of clarification questions, then they are not serious and therefore missing out on my expertise :)
3) If they want expertise then they have to pay for it.
4) When I am feeling mischievous I will ask if the budget can be increased as an 'expert is never that cheap!!' or 'because I can earn more in McDonalds' :)
As for Hourlies - when I check some of my competitors, I cannot believe what they are willing to do for £20!!! Therefore they:
1) Only provide automated reports ...ie software has generated them - This is a cheat and exactly what you get on Fiverr.
2) They are happy to work for £5 per hour.
3) They are happy to work on a fixed price, then when they actually look at what the customer wants/needs they are happy to provide the service for £1 per hour, as the work is greater than expected!!
4) But I suspect what actually happens is the 'Hourlie' is provided without informing the customer that they actually also need X,Y and Z - which is completely unacceptable!! As they are conning the customer into thinking their website is now wonderful...!!
5) The reason I know this is because I have a couple of clients who have gone through the process and realised they have been conned....more than once!!!
6) Selling link building Hourlies - This is my opinion breaks Google's T&Cs so I wouldn't offer something like this. And (within my field of expertise SEO/Etc) with this sort of service offered, blindly without knowing what has been completed before, could actually get the client's website in greater trouble, rather than improving ranking positions (what the selling point of the hourlie is!!! )
When I get some time I might upload some more Hourlies with some nice images and writing etc...unlike the one Hourlie I have up at the moment. And see if I do actually get some work from them!!
Anyway, best get on thinking about what else I can rant about :)
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@ Rob, tbh I haven't looked at many hourlies posted by others tbh. Mine are as basic as they come and only once have I had to refund one as what they were asking way exceeded the parameters of what I was offering.
Luckily, I am in the position, having done this for so long, that there are few subjects now that I have to spend much time researching. I am just a writer, I have a flair for words and turn out good articles very quickly. I am selling myself short with my hourlies but I can complete them quickly and they keep the pennies rolling in. 2 of my hourles are currently suspended as I sold more than I could deal with.
I too post a lot of clarification questions and rarely get a reply so walk away. There is a nothing worse than an evocative title then scrolling down and there is one line of scant instructions which could mean anything. This tends to happen the most when working with middle men. I could name and shame but am too much of a lady :)
I am constantly being invited to, or selected to, bid on SEO projects which is not one of areas of expertise, maybe I should pass them onto you? :)
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Lol...ladies I like :)
Seriously, I have been picked or selected for mostly stuff in my field of experitse, which is amazing considering what some people are saying.
Although yesterday I was picked to bid for a 'seamstress job'!!
Pass them all on to me, I either put the punter right, or get another job :) The trouble with SEO there are too many 'rip off merchants'
It is like the Wild West!
What's your URL as I need some writing...as one day soon I may actually get my website back up and running....very much a case of Cobblers shoes :)
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Like I say my expertise in SEO amounts to very little but even I know that I can't write 10 articles that will get them onto the first page of Google for £20 :/ That's what the guy wanted who bought my hourlie. Which consists of 4 articles btw but he asked if I could throw in an extra 6 for the "purpose of a good working relationship in the future". I won't hold my breathe as that will probably be around the same time as I win the Nigerian lottery; again!
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A MESSAGE TO ALL DISHONEST BUYERS; We are not pushovers who you can get to produce a months worth of work, refuse to pay us THEN have the audacity to publish said work even though it is still the intellectual property of the writer. You may think the buck stops with PPH; WRONG. The British police take fraud very seriously as does the Internet Police ACTION FRAUD.
I am very aware that this underhand business practice is very much in the minority and absolutely no offence is intended towards all those decent buyers out there but this is the third case of this type I have heard of within a week and it is not acceptable on a reputable site, or on any other level, and leaves a disgusting taste in your mouth. The fact is has happened to a close personal friend has brought home the magnitude of the effect this can have on somebody trying to make an honest living.
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That's what we both thought initially until she said "I'm sorry, all the work you have provided this month is substandard and I not paying you". Yet he has found over half of it published online by running it through Copyscape. Not a pleasant situation and another reason why I refuse to do this kind of work any more. As I mentioned previously I have been ripped off myself, but not to this magnitude.
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That's what we both thought initially until she said "I'm sorry, all the work you have provided this month is substandard and I not paying you". Yet he has found over half of it published online by running it through Copyscape. Not a pleasant situation and another reason why I refuse to do this kind of work any more. As I mentioned previously I have been ripped off myself, but not to this magnitude.
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@Rob
I personally get 99% of my work from my Hourlies and not necessarily 1 hours work: it provides a gateway to much larger projects with agreed timescales and costs as an 'hourlie' is not correctly literal. Bidding is just a waste of time on here now because unless I drop my rate from £19ph to 19pph it is pointless. Not to mention the debacle that is the 'skill matching' where the correct daily match to my skillset has been reduced to basically zero and replaced with pointless email after pointless email for Seamstresses to Legal aid! - I know this because a job search shows many daily results in my category.
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I am interested in talking to any writers who have had dealings with Catherine McCabe aka Ghost of M
She has sent out a blanket refusal to pay any of her (30) writers for several weeks work, I have already complied a file for the Internet Police ACTION FRAUD unit and am interested to here from anyone else who has any issues. You may contact me at contentforyou@aol.com
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Slight change to the usual type of discussion, but does anyone know EXACTLY how the proposal system works. I think I might have mentioned before that I am fairly new to this site, so still trying to find my feet. Some of you, given your experiences to date, may be wondering what the point is, but I would like to know anyway. I have tried searching on the helpdesk, but can't seem to find anything that answers my questions, and I don't think I'm going to bother contacting helpdesk, because their responses are usually pretty basic and difficult to understand.
If I see a job that I wish to bid on, where everything seems straightforward, the only problem being that I'm not entirely sure exactly how long the project will take to complete, but have a rough idea, how does one proceed to fill in the proposal form? If it's a fixed job, it seems like your supposed to enter the total the project will cost, but if I only have a rough idea, how am I supposed to fill the box in? Can I just put a rough amount in, and if the buyer wishes to ask me some questions, can they do this without having to accept the proposal? Can all these sort of little issues be resolved in the workstream? Does anyone know of the relevant links on the help site, that answer these sorts of issues?
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Hi Malcolm.
If you make a fixed-cost proposal it's exactly that - an offer to do the work for that price. It's your skill and judgement that determines what that price should be. You can't put in a rough idea.
I've been caught out several times by projects being more complex than they seemed. I just suck it up.
You can ask questions via the clarification board, but often there won't be a response.
I have been known to make proposals with inflated budgets, telling the buyer that it's deliberately high and will be reduced subject to more information from the buyer. In those cases I generally ask the buyer not to accept the proposal without further discussion.
You need to be absolutely clear what you are offering and the specific cost.
You may get it wrong. We all do. We hopefully learn from our mistakes.
Sitting on the fence hoping to get things perfect helps no-one.
Try and bid on projects where the buyer has a good history and a reasonable budget. The ones that squeeze budgets are very difficult to work with and far more demanding than people with good budgets.
Don't do freebies as part of the project selection or the project itself. Don't believe there will be follow-up work from the buyer at a better rate. If either of these things are mentioned prior to acceptance, run.
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@ Malcolm,
Right at the bottom of the proposal page you will see 'clarification board.' Click on ask a question and this, in theory, will get the buyer to clarify anything you are unsure of. In my experience if they don't bother to respond they are not worth bothering with.
As far as fixed price jobs go you have to determine whether it is worthwhile you doing it for that price. On the 'willing to spend' jobs which have no set price within the remit you can bid up to 20% less than that figure to make your bid competitive. You only really need to worry about how long a job will take if it is priced per hour.
Hope this helps :)
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Good point Paul. There are plenty of sharks out there who will contact you after the bid, say you are wonderful and they really want to work with you BUT they simply can't afford your expertise at this time. However, if you join them now and work for buttons you can be involved with the greatest thing since cut bread and will be greatly rewarded in the future.....GUARANTEED :/
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