Getting your first client without bidding

If you have spent time on bidding sites you have been trained by them: write fast, price low, apply to everything. It works, in the sense that it produces work. It also produces a rate you cannot raise.

Your profile is doing the work you are not there for

A client reads your profile when you are asleep. It is the only part of your business that is always working, and most people fill it in once in ten minutes.

• A headline that names what you do and who for. Not "Virtual Assistant".
• A short piece of writing that sounds like a person.
• Skills you can actually be asked about, with an honest rating.

Verified beats cheap

An ID check is a small piece of admin that changes what a client is deciding. Without it they are deciding whether to take a risk on a stranger. With it they are deciding whether you are right for the job. Those are different conversations and only one of them is about price.

Reply like somebody who is busy

Answer within a day, in your own words, about their actual job. Three sentences that show you read the post beat three paragraphs that could have been sent to anybody.

Say no sometimes

The fastest way to raise your rate is to be visibly unavailable at your old one. That is uncomfortable and it is also true.

Everything above is free here, and always will be: create a profile.