As a business owner who outsources almost everything I have a somewhat unique perspective on what it takes to be the one who is chosen for a project.
Much of the time you only need be the least worst of the bunch. You simply need to be the one who bothers to reply, who responds to the initial bid details or even does what they said they were going to do in the first place.
Take this week for example.
I have a $30k project going live to deliver some online lectures. One guy who I’ve used for some small jobs expressed an interest. I replied and then nothing from him for 10 days. When he does reply he asks if he can use my notes for the presentations! I could just do that myself.
I have about $5k to spend on a website redesign and the company I invited to help sent me a form to fill in detailing my request and preferences. Nothing back for two days and then after asking for a reply I still heard nothing back.
I have about $10k to spend on software development. The company I invited told me it would be two weeks work and I could only hire the programmer in blocks of five work days. Strange how they came to the amount of two weeks since they haven’t seen the initial code or requirements yet. They then changed their minds and said five days, still not having seen the code.
All these people and companies are either stupid, lazy or making too much money so they don’t need mine. But it does go to show how easy it is to stand out in a crowd of apathy. While people complain there is a recession on it is still easy to shine.
Paul Browning