Why do people want to work for us?

April 9th, 2010 | 2 Comments

WHY DO PEOPLE THINK WE ARE A LARGE COMPANY?

From time to time we get an email job application or enquiry, from people looking for work, and who want to work for us. The reply we send them usually looks something like this (but in future, we will probably just send job seekers to this page you’re on now):

Dear job seeker

Thank you for contacting us. The contents of your CV and cover letter are good, but we have never yet offered anyone a job with us.

It’s just two of us, working from home as freelancers. And we’re
happy to continue working with just this little two-man staff.

You’re not the first to contact us looking for employment. We think
that perhaps just because we have some websites and blogs, and a bit of a portfolio, and a fairly good page rank on our main site, people
assume incorrectly that we’re a huge company. Far from it, and we’ve only been in business since February 2008, and started really slowly, before it took off a bit – it took nearly two years before we could call our income “okay.” Some months are still bad, but we struggle along. We started from scratch, are self-taught, and have no college certificates, degrees or diplomas for web design, SEO, photo editing or writing. What we do have is the will to work hard and make things work for ourselves. Having Tony applying for over 100 jobs and getting none was not a nice thing to go through. In fact had we not wasted time on that, we may be further down the line with our little business than we are now. We’re not saying there are absolutely no jobs out there for young people or for people with degrees – it’s just tough.

It was hard work but we learned all we know from the Internet, for free. In fact, we still learn something new everyday.

It’s something you can do too: work for yourself. It’s hard work at first, and often not just at first, but always, but if you put in enough effort, you will be rewarded.

Perhaps a place to start is here getting a website or blog: where do I start?, or here How to select a free WordPress theme or even this one has some info you could find useful WordPress blog set up and hosting service or you could think of designing your own website, advertising your services, like we did, and we are forever trying to find the time to improve our websites and blogs and the marketing of them – we don’t always have the time due to now being busy with work! If web design is the type of work you are interested in, you should manage to design your own site, and it certainly makes sense to have your own website if offering web design services, since potential clients will want to see that you can at least design your own site – plus it’s a place to display your portfolio as you get and complete more and more jobs.

If web design is not your line of business (and you can’t design your own self-hosted website), then consider getting a website designed (it can even be designed by us, lol), or, even for just the beginning, get yourself a free blog. Then advertise your products or services on your website and blog, and consider using Adsense on your site too, for monetization of your site while you work through those first few freelance jobs, or while struggling to get your first few clients – and write write write – always add lots of new content to your website or blog. We have four pages on our main site, summarising the over 20 services we offer. Lol, perhaps our website name 1pic4twenty (one pick for twenty services) no longer applies, as we now offer more than 20 different services!

Over the past two years, inbetween working, we have learnt an incredible amount, let’s rephrase that: A HUGE AMOUNT, all for free on the Internet. Included in this learning is realising that people can make money just from blogging and that people can make money writing online.

Just about anyone can work for themselves, IT’S EASY ENOUGH, BUT DOES TAKE EFFORT. For those who are not prepared to put in some hard work and long hours, they should rather work for a boss, and have weekends and evenings off.

oDesk is another place we get
quite a bit of work from – but here, too, effort needs to be put in -
spend time on your profile first, and write excellent and unique application letters when you do apply for work. We know of over 80 people that joined oDesk because of our link to it here and there on our sites, but, although we haven’t checked in a while, it seems not one has made much effort to get work there, or try and do too much with their profile there. Work does not just come to people who don’t do anything about it. You cannot just join a site and then do nothing and expect the work to pour in, and even when you do do soemthing about trying to get work online, the work you put in needs to be quality work – good profiles, quality job application letters, politeness, patience and perseverance. You also have to be prepared to work for only a very small amount of money while you grow your portfolio.

It’s tough. It’s called work. It’s reality.

See some of the jobs on oDesk by going through the oDesk site, or visiting a page on one of our sites (this one) Work At Home Jobs – Jobs and
click on the different kinds of job links on the page – these
freelance jobs are all available to apply for right now – but don’t be
in too much of a hurry – work on your profile first (I spent two
weeks working on my profile inbetween other work)(Terry).

We’ve given quite a few people advice, but not many people, actually next to no people do anything with this advice. That doesn’t make sense, of course, when so many people already have a computer and Internet connection, and yet struggle to find work, or moan that there is no work out there, and it saddens us – work is available on the Internet for all, a lot of it quite easy to do, but people obviously just don’t want to put in some effort, or stop putting in effort when they realise that decent amounts of money do not come in overnight.

Follow other links on our sites to more free advice.

Good luck, and if it works out okay for you, then always offer good
free advice to others too. Maybe there will be many people who don’t listen to your advice or do anything with it, but perhaps one or two will, and they can pay the free advice forward, and possibly make a little dent in the unemployment problems in South Africa – and anywhere else.

If you have a computer and Internet, and if you have the will to work, YOU CAN WORK.

If you have the will, but no computer or Internet because you cannot yet afford to buy what you need for working from home, make a plan. Use a cellphone to connect to the Internet, or go to an Internet cafe. Once you have earned enough, get yourself a computer and Internet connection. You can even sell your products or advertise your services at a flea market once a week or so, just to make a start. JUST MAKE A START. TAKE THAT FIRST STEP. Save up, buy yourself what you need to grow faster in your business, and start growing. Hard work, yes, but what you put in, you will more than get out, even if it takes time to get to that point. Don’t give up.

Ps, when browsing through our sites, you will see not all work ideas and tips are related to work online. There are many many work from home ideas you can use to make money from home, not involving the Internet at all.

Another point to this article is that if you want others to assume you run a large business, (as so many seem to assume we do) even if you don’t actually have a large business and may just be starting out as a freelancer, get yourself a website of blog! (and market that website or blog like crazy.) Getting one may just help turn your little business into something much larger.

Regards,

Terry and Tony