Firstly, why not? It’s free to sign up and create your profile, the whole process takes no time at all and after a quick validation, you will be online and visible to a range of local businesses looking for freelancers like you.
Need more? No problem, here’s the pitch:
elements.biz was created to solve two identified problems in the business<>freelancer world: the Confidence problem and the Efficiency problem. Both of these can be viewed from many perspectives (client, freelancer or sector, for example) and both have been repeatedly validated by our research and operational experience.
From a Freelancer perspective, Confidence problems relate to practical or personal questions like “how will I find clients?” “will I get paid?”, “how much should I charge?” or “can I do this alone?”. Efficiency problems come from time and money questions like “how do I decrease prospection and increase working time?”, “can I fill my time?”, “how many platforms can I afford to be on?”, “how do I manage my administration?” and many more.
The elements.biz response to these problems is based around six resources: Tools, Advice, Prospection, Protection, Administration and, most importantly, Community.
Probably the most valuable Tool that we have created is our brief management tool. Designed to be super-simple from a client point of view, it allows freelancers to clearly see what is asked of them and offers a range of optional features such as time tracking, document sharing, messaging and third party collaboration that may or may not be relevant depending on the person or project.
The briefs tool can be used as much or as little as freelancers like – everyone has their own way of working after all, but at some stage, everyone needs a little Advice too. Knowing what to charge or how to pitch/position yourself on a platfrom can be tricky. Getting to know a client sometimes requires an introduction and managing questions around billing, deadlines or technical subjects can be dauting. The elements.biz platform is full of tips but there are real humans waiting to support all of our freelancers, whatever their concerns. Most importantly, there are a huge range of other freelancers out there to help with technical questions, or to help you to manage aspects of your work that are beyond your interest or ability.
Even if you are a sales freelancer, you don’t want to be spending your time on Prospection (finding clients), for yourself for which you can’t be paid, when you could be finding clients for your clients, for which you can be paid. Finding and having those first conversations with potential customers is consistently rated as one of the most time-consuming and demoralising activities of a freelancer. It is a distraction from their core area of expertise (for which they get paid), and a task that elements.biz is built to take off your desk. When we are not talking to local freelancers, we are talking to local businesses – introducing them to our platform and matching their needs with the freelancer skills that you make available.
Protection might seem unnecessary at first but it is never always plain sailing in the freelance world and difficulties do arise. The best form of protection is prevention in the form of a solid brief (see above). Freelancers and client businesses are also made aware of our charter and have all signed our Terms of Business, which form the basis under which they work. Furthermore, freelancers can choose to request payment for work ahead of it starting, or for that payment to be held by elements.biz during the time that the project is under way. There is also a level of social protection that comes from being part of a local platform. People are much more likely to behave responsibly if they belong to the same community.
Administration is another time consuming activity that freelancers spend time on for no remuneration. Most of it relates to billing and project management but the subject is broad. elements.biz covers the main points and offers advice on others. Billing is handled for you whilst our project management tool gives you the resources to interact with your clients, plus plan and record your time easily. elements.biz exists to ensure that all participants on our platform are free to focus on what they do best, with minimal distractions.
In all of the above, we have touched upon Community – supporting each other, making us more efficient and dealing with personal or professional isolation. By being part of this community, each participant makes every other participant stronger and this is the driving principle of elements.biz. We want to offer a new, modern, efficient way for businesses to work and thrive, and for freelancers to do so too.
Still not convinced? Drop us a line and we’ll talk it through. Ready to join the collective? Click the button below to get started.
