People Per Hour & other freelance websites

[BigFatWhooo]

Hi, I'm having some issues at work and have decided to hand my notice in. I can't afford not to work (who can?) so have been thinking about freelancing for a while. I've been aware of People Per Hour for a while, but am not really sure where to start with it. Are there any other freelance sites I should look at and get myself on?

Does anyone have any tips?

What do you do? Some sites are better than others for certain lines of work. For example Behance is better for designers, other sites have a spread of different types of work.

Bark is a site I use and I've just started using weliketowork. Some sites are worlwide and I've found the competition from developing world sellers is very hot on price.

PPH is good but you may have to bid A LOT to get jobs and build a reputation. However I have found that once clients start to use you they tend to end up staying.

Another way of getting clients is social media, linked in and facebook and twitter, you may have more contacts that can help through your present job than you think!

I do well on PPH but as the previous poster said I hardly bid for work any more as I work with the same clients repeatedly. Clients must find PPH hard too - there are some really good freelancers on there, but a lot of timewasters and people who really aren't up to it. A couple of clients I work with have had their fingers burned in the past by trying to use a very cheap foreign worker and got rubbish in return. I think a lot of them find a couple of people they're happy working with and stick with them. I certainly have a pretty good working relationshpi with my clients now as they know i'm reliable.

I;ve never really got into Bark or Fiver - they seem to have more timewasters than other sites too. TimeEtc is supposed to be great too.

The only thing with freelancing sites is that it is underpaid compared to direct clients and you pay fees. You are competing with lots of people who are willing to work for very little. But like the poster above, I have also done well out of PPH. I earn several thousand each year with them which is a good bonus on top of my usual client work.

I have dipped my toe in the water on PPH and found it quite good. For me, setting up several 'hourlie' jobs was the way to go - eg a package of services that you offer for a fixed price. You can then add on extra costs as agreed with the client.

Have never got anything through bidding - some people must be there 24/7 and bid as soon as a job goes up!