Jake’s Life

Once a week, if I’m not working on too many things, I’ll post ads on Craigslist or look at a few freelance job directories to see what I can’t pick up. Right now one of my clients, who is still paying me, has not sent me anything in over a month, and she is insisting on getting everything together before she sends anything else to me. My major site that I started last month is almost done, so I’m looking for some things to keep busy with.

Today I was e-mailing back and forth with someone who wanted a mouth watering burger but only wanted to pay for mystery meat. After letting her know what she would be getting for the amount I was asking for (which, as Sandro always tells me, “If they want to pay X, then tell them to go pay for it, but you get what you pay for”), she pulled out the, “Well, I was quoted X by someone else.”

I’m shocked, dismayed, and quite hurt, ma’am.

I decided to pay a visit to CL and see who else was posting on there. I found a few and decided to run my own little secret shopper experiment.

Now, I don’t feel I’m in a position to criticize others’ freelance habits, because I know that I’m not perfect, but here are a few things I found that stood out:

• One of the e-mails I received from one person was from one address, and a short while later from another address. This is probably because the person is using either a smartphone which has multiple accounts routed to it, or Outlook with multiple mail boxes. If I were a serious candidate for business, what address do I send them mail at that I would know without a doubt is going to be checked?
• “Sent from my T-Mobile Blackberry smartphone.” I love my Blackberry, and I would never leave home without it, but my e-mail signature reflects what account I’m using (Ex.: “Jacob [Last Name], [Phone], [URL]).
• The above person you could tell was using a Blackberry. After two paragraphs of describing what I need, I got a short reply asking if I use PayPal as my billing system.

It’s good to be able to see what others out there are doing, and how I can improve my practices to stand out from them. I don’t feel very bad for e-mailing them under the guise of a web customer, because it’s a standard business practice and I am positive others have done so to me.