Archive for the 'SMB' Category

How to find clients in the ongoing financial crisis?

“Successful job seekers know that even in tough economic times, there are opportunities. You just have to dig a bit deeper.”
Roberta Chinsky Matuson, President of Northampton, Massachusetts based Human Resource Solutions.

The current financial storm has adversely affected the economies of almost all the countries across the world. Freelancing has emerged as a good option for many, who wish to play smart in current financial crisis.

The biggest challenge that you may face in freelancing is to find new clients at this hour. As this financial disquiet will take some more time to subside, you must have a well-devised strategy for attracting new clients and orders.

We have listed here some tips that can help you find clients even in today’s economic scenario:

Use social networking tools for marketing

How you choose to market yourself will directly impact how long it will take to find a new job.” — J.T. O’Donnell, a nationally syndicated workplace columnist.

In the existent recession, marketing has to be focused and cost effective. Web gives you adequate social networking tools to market your skill set effectively. social networking You can make a good professional profile on leading social networking websites like LinkedIn, Twitter etc, and collaborate with clients from all parts of the world. This might bring you in contact with a potential client, who may be in look out for a dedicated and competent freelancer like you.

Also, you can register yourself and create an effective portfolio on any online services marketplace like ours. You can get real-time access to projects matching your skill set and get started with making great profits.

Use Word-of-Mouth business strategy

“Customers set up a hierarchy of values, wants, and needs based on empirical data, opinions, word-of-mouth references, and previous experiences with products and services. They use that information to make purchasing decisions.” — Regis McKenna, a well-known marketing guru & Chairman of the Board of the Santa Clara University Center for Science, Technology and Society.

Clients value the feedback that freelancers receive for the quality-backed services they render. Ask the clients, who you have worked with, to post their testimonials and feedback for your work on different forums so that you gain word-of-mouth publicity (a powerful public relations weapon) and gain access to new clients and orders.

The feedback given by the clients that you have already worked with would serve as an index for gaining access to new business opportunities as the work done by you will be recognized by the employers themselves.

Add credibility of your portfolio

If you wish to attract new clients towards your portfolio, you must concentrate on adding credibility to your profile by supporting it with complete description of your skill sets. We would also advise you to prove your credentials to the business community. The best way you can do it is by taking Online Skill Tests and getting a certified seal on your profile.

This strategy can help you reposition yourself in the highly competitive job environment of current times. Further, you can also strengthen your portfolio by getting your credentials verified by an authenticated investigation agency (like Justifacts on LimeExchange). This will serve as a hallmark of trust on your profile and bring you in the front of the queue of bidders.

Stretch your professional limits and competences

Companies have resorted to cost cutting and are on a serious look out for freelancers with multidimensional creative and technical abilities. Pushing your limits can really act as effective ‘gap fillers’ and improve your portfolio. If you’re a freelancer, you need to have more flexibility as compared to full-time employees. Look out for roles that you can play outside your work preferences. money online

“New skills can come from a small part of your job that you most enjoy doing.” - Diane Morgan, Director of Career Services at London Business School.

For example if you are a content writer, you can opt for less-specialized role such as that of a proofreader or an editor. This way you can price your less-specialized role too which you can’t do as a full-time employee as it would fall into your kitty as a part of your overall service.

You may take some time to stretch your professional limits. However, this is not impossible and you should always attempt to learn something new every day to broaden your comfort zone.

Keep in touch with your clients

Always make an effort to remain at the forefront in the minds of clients you’ve worked with so that in future if there comes up an opportunity, it’s your name that certainly comes in the frame instantly. You can stay in touch with your clients and contacts through different means such as emails, calls, social networking tools etc.

business networking You can even post a blog on any theme and send it to your former and future business associates. This can be an effective way to reach out to your clients and keep them interested in your portfolio. You can impress your future clients by sending them updates and latest industry events pertaining to their business domain.

You can further attract your clients by giving them some value-added suggestions regarding their products & services and also recommending them some new features integrating which their business can flourish.

We hope that the above-mentioned practices will help you strengthen your profile as a freelancer and fetch you lucrative projects even in such rough times.

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How to best use LimeExchange: SMBs, SMEs get more business!

As we discussed in our previous blog about how Individual freelancers can ‘Best use LimeExchange’ to get more work opportunities by completing their profiles similarly, small medium businesses (SMBs)  & enterprises  (SMEs) can also reap the benefits by providing detailed profile at LimeExchange.

Profile Completeness, is a must for all service providers to acquire more freelance jobs and to become an established workforce at LimeExchange. After creating an account on LimeExchange, make sure that you have filled up all the required fields as given below:

1.General Information- Provide correct details such as Company Name, complete address, the country /countries your offices are located in and the contact details. By giving accurate details, you increase your chances of attracting more buyers from your own preferred location of work.  Do not forget to mention that you are a SMB or SME. SMB1

  • Profile type- If you are a SMB or SME, select for business type.  Fill in all the necessary details for e.g. in which year your organization was founded and the current number of employees working in your organization. Be upfront in giving all the information as this will help you build credibility among the buyers and other communities at LimeExchange.
  • Overview- Provide short, precise and complete details about your company, this will help buyer know you better. You can also give URL of your company’s website and also have SEO keywords listed to derive benefit of the traffic and your profile to highlight your company.
  • Educational background- Provide details on academic qualification (school/ University) of your top executive management as this will enhance company’s credibility in this cut-throat freelance market.
  • Skill set – Add your employees’ expertise, services and strengths. This will help you acquire best projects at LimeExchange, To see some examples, check out some profiles on LimeExchange who have already got hold of many good projects owing to variety of skill sets of its employees.
  • Work experience- Here you can mention  the work experience of your top- level management and experts, their clients and the number of years they have spent in a particular business domain.
  • Upload / link your certifications, the issuing “Institute” and the year in which it was attended/ awarded to your outstanding employee or a top-level executive. Sometimes a good certification can bring an impressive project in hand.

2. Company info- It includes all important information regarding your company, its infrastructure, about your employee strength, number of offices and its branches. If you have dedicated QA labs, mobile testing labs or other specialized services, clearly mention in infrastructure section as this will prompt buyers looking for such service stations outside their country to land up on your profile and award you the projects.

3. Portfolio – Create an effective portfolio to get maximum projects to work on LimeExchange. If you have designers/ software developers or any other professional in your organization, you can provide links of your past successful assignments or upload any non-executable file up to 10 MB. The file may contain an image, audio or video. Also, upload writing samples of writers/ bloggers with their portfolios and get awarded with more projects.

3. Connections- connect with your old trusted network with which you have worked in the past, build Company’s network to obtain better projects.

4. Limestand- If you are a company which provides graphic design category professionals, upload their work samples for e.g. Design, Illustration, Print Design, 3D Modeling/CAD, Blog Theme Design, etc. design logos, banners and creative using our Limestand feature.  The community votes for the best and enhance your chances of getting great work opportunities at LimeExchange.

We encourage, all our providers to work actively on completing their profile to get more number of project(s). And continue reading our blogs as there is lot more to come in our next blog on “How to best use LimeExchange- Notifications”

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How to Best use LimeExchange - For Individual Freelancers #1

Online Profile? Why do I need to have a profile on online services marketplace? Why is it important?  Tell me more…

Online Credibility, Online Profile, Profile completeness

Well…Your Profile is your online resume, it is your credibility online. The first thing which a buyer would look at is your profile and in this glance you need to generate interest in the Buyer’s mind, who is looking at outsourcing work. Buyer needs to know at a glance about you and develop trust online. Unless he feels comfortable with what he sees, he would not reach out and spend time for evaluating your proposal.

You might ask now, so what do I do?

Well…Your Profile should have

- Concise and precise details on Summary/About section, Education, Relevant Work Experience, which help establish your background.

- It should consist of your images, photographs, videos, which you can showcase as your online presence and help establish authenticity.

- It should contain a complete list of all your skill sets corresponding to  your expertise/specialized area of work (say Flash, Adobe in Graphic design; Joomla, Drupal, Perl PHP, Java in Web Development; dotNet, VB, VC++ in software development; Online Blogging, Ghost writing, English to Russian, Chinese in Writing & Translation and much more), which you possess.

- And against the common understanding of literal nomenclature of ‘General Information’, precise and valid information about your existence & authenticity.  Valid address, and details, which a buyer can search and find out easily and establish a verifiable online presence.

This and many such small things would go a long way in leaving a lasting impression on the Buyer’s mind and establish credibility and trust.

At LimeExchange, you get up to 10 MB of free space on your profile to upload as much as information as you feel would help provide the right testimonial to the buyer.

Read on to find information on ‘How to use the tools available @ LimeExchange for your profile‘?

So why feel shy in detailing your profile? Use it in the best possible manner! 

Do let us know your comments on this blog post and we will try and provide more and more information in days to follow.

P.S.  Yet again more resources to provide more information on this subject.  Interested …then Read on

- Some best practices to know about creating and maintaining your online profile

- Why is it important for earning online?

- An old yet informative List of 100 sites requiring a detailed online profile for getting jobs on the web.

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LimeExchange partners with ExpertRating to offer Online Skill Tests

Online Skill Tests, Skill VerificationWant more business, earning opportunities from LimeExchange?

Want more credibility for your LimeExchange profile?

Want to establish your expertise for your skillset?

Want to award projects to certified experts?

ExpertRating SolutionsLimeExchange answers these questions, with the launch of Online Skill Tests, in association with ExpertRating. ExpertRating is a trusted name in pre-employment testing and training services and has long been a leader in Online Certification and Employment Testing, offering over 200 widely accepted online certifications.

LimeExchange in partnership with ExpertRating now brings an array of online skill tests for users; providing an affordable and efficient way to prove skill expertise online and to get a Certified LimeExchange profile from Expert Rating Solutions.

LimeExchange introduces an extensive range of technical skills and proficiency tests for providers in all categories ranging from technical skills, software programming, web programming, designing, technical writing, blogging to even accounting and language proficiency.

As part of our Online Skill Test Launch, LimeExchange is happy to offer the first test FREE to all users, in any of their chosen categoryThis offer is valid till end of December 2008.

Online Skill Tests, Skill VerificationWhy should you take skill test(s)?

•         To exhibit your skill proficiency to the world
•         To add credibility to your profile
•         To increase your ranking and rating on LimeExchange
All of this and more to get more and more business opportunities from LimeExchange.

Let’s get started …. Or how it works?

View categories and choose test syllabus - More than 100 tests available across various categories. You can select from variety of tests in a particular category, read the test syllabus and get prepared for the test.

Take a test – After going through the test syllabus, if you feel confident enough to take the test just go for it at your own convenience. All our LimeExchange users can take one Technical Test of their choice for free along with free LimeExchange English Proficiency Test.

Check score – After completing the test you can view your scores. On passing the test, your scores can be viewed on your profile. You can also retake the test after 24 hours, if needed.

Promote profile - Your Profile immediately reflects your scores obtained which gets a preference on search results for the tests you have taken and helps you increase your business. You also have an option to hide your test scores by marking them as Private.

We recommend all our users to take all the tests related to their area of expertise and prove your skills to the world.  Leave your feedback and comments for us to improve further.

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