Top Three Freelancing Platforms

 With the evolutions of the Internet, the horizon of freelancing has expanded remarkably. In this digital age, you earn your daily bread & butter and even live a life of a millionaire with your hard efforts and that too from the warmth of your living room. Two decades age, work from home freedom was usually with the writers, nowadays SEO consultants, the graphic designers, and even the finance experts are providing offshore solutions. Today, the freelancing is a hot trend in the 21st century to build a profitable career. The future of freelancing is exceptional and the surge is tremendous in recent years. Do you know approx 36% of the Americans work remotely? What’s more, about 63% of the US people opt for freelancing over the traditional jobs. A stat that defines the scope of freelancing in the coming years is that by the year 2020, about 43% of the Americans will be freelancers. 

S.NO 3 Proven Tactics to Be Successful as a Freelancer 

1 Create a Strategy 

2 Create Your Network 

3 Find the Right Online Tools to Help You Identify New Work 

                                                                   Reasons to Be a Freelancer in 2021 Today, there are so many reasons for anyone to start his/her own freelancing business, but it would be impossible to list them all, so here we list a few- First of all, you can be your own boss. Secondly, become a freelancer to put an end to all the office politics. The time is your own, and most importantly, you are free to work anytime & anywhere. Being a freelancing, you have the luxury to choose the project you wish to work on, and lastly, you choose the clients you work with. 

What Are Freelancing Platforms? 

A freelancing platform connects companies and individuals for mutual benefits. The freelancing platforms such as the Upwork let professionals like the logo designers build their online profiles, share their work portfolio, and reach out to the potential employers for jobs. On a freelance platform, the companies or individuals who are looking a particular job to be done can search a complete directory of freelancers, based on their skill set, experience, and other search criteria. They allow businesses to focus on their activities and outsource projects beyond their means on these platforms, and that too within their project. 

Top 3 Freelancing Platforms 

            Upwork Today, Upwork is a worldwide popular freelancing platform, which brings along people of diverse walks of life and companies to work together taking the world forward. The Upwork freelancing platform has over twelve million freelancer register on it from various parts of the world and has five million clients registered. This platform covers the widest selection of technologies for both short-term and long-term projects, including entry to expert level professionals. On Upwork, you have to freedom to go with hourly or milestone-based projects. The payment here on this platform is quite safe & secure; it can give made in a variety of modes, as soon as the project is furnished. In comparison to any other freelancing platform, the Upwork has the widest selection of availability of online work. So, whether you are a beginner copywriter or an expert level designer, you are going to find the work easily.

Fiver in recent years has become one of the popular freelance marketplaces over the World Wide Web. This platform works in a different way; here the Freelancers having diverse skill sets can market their gigs or services. You can classify the gigs based on the keyword search. The name Fiver has been derived from “five” means here companies can get their work done for the price as low as $5. On the other hand, freelancers can start with such low pricing, and increase their remuneration as per their skill set and knowledge. 

Freelancer The Freelancer is another well-recognized freelancing platform that operates in its own unique way. This platform connects companies –, both small & big-with freelancers across the globe. On this platform, the freelancers from different backgrounds like the web designers can check out the latest jobs matching their skills in an efficient manner. On Freelancer, you can also compete with other registered freelancers by taking part in various contests. And, lastly, just like Up work, Freelancer let you work both on hourly basis and contracts.

Fiver Vs Up work

Fiver Vs Up work Summary

1. What is Fiver? 1.1 Fiver Pros 1.2 Fiver Cons 1.3 Fiver Pro 

2. What is Up work 2.1 Up work Pros 2.2 Up work Cons 

3. What Are You Looking For? 

4. Fiver Vs Up work Conclusion

If you’re looking to get started doing (or finding) freelance work online, two of the premier destinations to go are Fiver and Up work. both of these marketplaces will help freelancers find work. Additionally, if you’re looking to hire freelancers you can find everything from coding, log design, to freelance writing. Anything and everything you’d need to help grow your business or finish a side project can be found on these sites. But which one is better? We’ll take a look at each site from both the perspective of a freelancer who is looking to sell their services to make some extra cash. That said, we will also highlight some of the key differences for people who are looking to hire top talent. This is our breakdown of Fiver vs. Up work. 

WHAT IS FIVER...?

Fiver describes themselves as an online marketplace for freelance services. If you’re looking for some additional help with a project or with your business, you can come here and hire quality talent.

Just a few of the skills you can find on Fiver are:

Graphic Design 

Digital Marketing

Writing & Translation 

Video & Animation 

Music & Audio 

Programming & Tech 

Business 

Lifestyle 

Industries..

Each of these main categories is then subdivided into even more detailed categories. For example, if you break down the category digital marketing, it will show options for Influence Marketing, SEO, and more. This gives you a scope of the options available on Fiver. So what are the some of the pros and cons of their service?

Pros Number of options As we mentioned, you can really find anything and anyone you’re looking for when it comes to finding freelance work. They have an incredibly large database of freelancers and you can really find anything you’d ever need for your project or business. 

Set your own rates Freelancers are able to set their own rates. This can be good for both parties for two reasons. 

Reason 1: Freelancers are able to be compensated off of their skills. If they aren’t quite as skilled they can set a rate of $5. Or, if they have years of experience and can handle bigger projects, they can set their rate as high as they want. 

Reason 2: It creates a free market, which will help buyers get the best possible price. If they only need something simple, you have a good chance of finding a freelancer who can get it done for $5. However, if you need a bigger project, you can find these freelancers as well. 

Ease of use As you can tell from the screenshots above, Fiver is really easy to use. As someone looking for a freelancer, you just scroll through the categories until you find what you’re looking for. Once you’ve arrived at the right category you can scroll through and compare different freelancers until you find one that looks right for you. This brings us to our next point.

Number of options  As we mentioned, you can really find anything and anyone you’re looking for when it comes to finding freelance work. They have an incredibly large database of freelancers and you can really find anything you’d ever need for your project or business. 

Profile ratings and reviews  Each freelancer on Fiverr is graded based off ratings for the work they do. This means if you do good work and get good ratings, you’ll be marked higher as a freelancer. It also is good for buyers because it means that you can see who the under performing freelancers are. You can see their account bio, what current gigs they offer, and their reviews and ratings. (NOTE: it’s against Versifier's policy to ask for good ratings as a freelancer. All reviews are given unprompted by the freelancer). 

Safe  When doing business with strangers online, there is always a hint of caution. You don’t want to just send someone money to do a job just to have them delete their profile and steal your cash. This is why Fiver holds all payments in an escrow account until the job is delivered and confirmed by both parties. 

Very detailed  Fiver offers a lot of analytics to help both parties track progress. For example, they rank Fiver sellers based on the number of jobs they’ve done and the quality of their ratings. As a freelancer, they offer statistics behind your gigs and earnings so you can get a good idea of how you’re performing and what needs to change (if anything). 

Online courses  If you’re a freelancer, they offer online courses to help you with your current craft or learn something new. 

Good for obscure tasks  Previously, if you wanted to find someone to code a portion of your website using CSS or have something translated from Greek, it would be tough to find. Fiver has solved this problem nicely.

Fiver Pro is an elite freelance team hand picked by Fiver. Pro members typically cost more than your average freelancer, but high price comes high quality. Fiver Pro guarantees highly qualified members with great communication and expertise. These members are some of the best freelancers out there that can work for you.  

            In summary, we would definitely recommend getting started with Fiver. That goes for both freelancers and people who are looking to hire freelancers. As a business owner it’s a clean, cheap way to get the work that you need for your business. As a freelancer, it’s a great way to start earning a little income on the side using your skills. Either way, there is really no downside to joining.

 What is Up work formerly E lance-desk is another global freelancing platform. Business and independent professionals can collaborate together (very similar to Fiver). Up work is a little bit newer than Fiverr (2015 vs 2010) and in our opinion was designed with the freelancer in mind whereas Fiver was designed with the business owner in mind.

What Are You Looking For? Deciding on a platform to start using between Fiver and Up work comes down to your preferences. On the bright side, they are both free to join so there is little risk to trying out both of them before deciding your preference! We’ve decided to lay out a few terms and see which platform has the advantage over the other:

Fiver Vs Up work Conclusion  

Better user interface: Advantage Fiver. It’s just a little cleaner and does a better job of using visuals and analytics to add to the user experience. 

Better for businesses: Advantage Fiver. It’s very easy to navigate and you can find and hire top talent on the spot. With Up work, there is a little bit of a waiting period while you wait for freelancers to apply and then evaluate them. 

Better for freelancers: Advantage Up work. You can proactively go out and find new business for yourself by applying to jobs (as opposed to sitting and waiting on Fiver). 

Better to find top talent: Advantage Fiver. They’ve been around longer and have more categories to choose from when trying to find top talent. In conclusion, if you’re a freelancer who is driven to make as much money for themselves as they can, you probably want to check out both. If you’re anyone else, Fiver is probably the best place to start

How To Get Started On Fiver and Up work

Freelancing is a great way to start a side hustle at the comfort of your own home and work based on your schedule.  Fiver and Up work are two of the largest freelancing platforms. In this article, you will learn how to get started as a new freelancer, tips to be successful, and the pros & cons of both platforms. 

FIVERR Fiver is a freelancing service website where buyers demand services within any categories of their choice, and sellers offer services based on their expertise. 

On Fiver, a seller can provide almost all kinds of services in exchange for compensation. But before you can get a job on Fiver, you have to create a Gig on the service you intend to offer on the platform. Creating a Gig After opening a Fiver account, you will be asked to fill in your personal information, after which you can start to create a gig. A gig is a service you offer on the platform. 

The secret of creating an Excellent gig As a Fiver seller, your gig needs to be well written as the number of Jobs you will be getting from buyers depends on it. 

Use keywords in search tags Fiver allows you to put five keywords that will enable your gig to show up in case someone is looking for your kind of service. For example, let’s say you are offering a writing service that has to do with edit and proofread, you will have to use search tags such as article, proofread, essay, blog post, and edit so that whatever the buyer searches for about writing he can see your gig. 

Allow multiple packages when creating a Gig For each gig, you can define 3 offering packages – Basic, Standard, and Premium.  The Basic package represents the minimum amount of the work you will do and the lowest price you will accept.  It’s no surprise that the lowest price on Fiverr is $5.  The standard package involves more work, but you can also charge a higher price.  The premium package requires the most amount of work, but you can also charge the highest price.

Write a good description for your gig The description of your gig should be well detailed as it enables potential Fiver buyers to know how capable you are in handling their job. Make sure there are no spelling or grammatical mistakes.  In the description space, write about the years of experience you have, about the work you can do, and how reliable and excellent you are in the delivery of your service. It is an opportunity to express yourself and how best you can deliver a task.

Start with a $5 price tag Lower price attracts Fiver buyers. No doubt that the amount is small, it is the sacrifice you have to make as a new seller. With time you can change the price to a more substantial amount as you must have more customers then.

Bid on buyer’s request Use the BUYER REQUESTS option to bid for a job. In BUYER REQUESTS, Fiver shows you jobs that are related to your gig, and you are allowed to bid for up to 10 Fiver jobs daily at no cost.

Levels in Fiver 

No Level The seller can create up to 7 gigs. 

Level 1 Level 1 seller can create up to 10 gigs.  This level is achieved after a Fiverr seller has been active for at least 30 days, with positive reviews, and has completed ten orders with a minimum amount of $400 sales. 

Level 2  seller can create up to 20 gigs. For you to be a level 2 seller, you have to complete 50 orders and must have made $2000.

Top-Rated Seller The top seller can have up to 30 gigs.  To be a top-rated Fiver seller, you have to be manually selected by Fiver staff bases on seniority, sales, community leadership, and feedback.

Pros and Cons of Fiver Pro You have an opportunity to earn income Fiver encourages tips to Fiver seller It’s not a must to bid before you get a client 

Cons     Low income, most notably when your gig is $5 

              Fiver charges 20% commission, including tips 

              Fiver has a strict policy of no contact outside the Fiver platform 

              It’s difficult for new Fiver sellers 

UP WORK is an online market place that connects businesses to freelancers. It is a platform where sellers submit proposals to potential clients for Jobs. Unlike Fiver, Up work does not have different levels grade as a form of grading, but it rates freelancers by Job success score, which reflects the reputation of the seller based on the feedback of a client. The scores of top freelancers are 90% and above, which indicates that the freelancer has an overall track record of meeting and exceeding the client’s work expectation.

Improving Customer Awareness US Bank enhances CRM efforts with great success using SAS®

 In the competitive world of banking, the winners are those that play on the cutting edge. That's how Minneapolis-based US Bancorp rose to become the nation's sixth-largest financial-services holding company.
"Long before CRM was a popular acronym, we were using behavioral insights and predictive analytics to drive relationship strategies that created real value for our customers and for the bank," Richard Martino, US Bank's senior vice president of market information and research, says of customer relationship management.
With more than 13 million consumer banking customers and 1 million business customers – not to mention more than 10,000 database variables and up to 16 million transactions a day – US Bank needed to mine customer data efficiently and then deliver insights regularly across a variety of segments. To ensure success in those efforts, US Bank chose SAS Customer Intelligence.

Users at all experience levels have transparent access to their SAS CRM solutions. "SAS^®9 integrates the technology across all these applications," explains Gerry Gaerlan, US Bank's marketing analytics manager. "It works for my most senior power user and my most junior newbie. Regardless of your experience, you can work with the application."
What benefits has US Bank seen?
"The investment we're making in expanding our customer insight platform will have a significant payback over the next five years," Martino says. "And the return to our shareholders will be impressive because the investment is very reasonable for an institution of our size and complexity."
Such is the power of a reliable database, says Jill Enabnit, US Bank's database marketing manager. "We have data coming in from so many different sources – whether from the account level to household information. We've worked hard to have a centralized data mart that allows us to have a holistic view of the customer," she says. "So, using SAS, we're able to go through, process and gain intelligence from those 16 million transactions that occur each day."
Making better, faster decisions gives US Bank the edge to compete among the nation's largest banks. A bright and hard-working staff and great working relationships with channel managers get the credit for the bank's successes. Using SAS as an integral part of turning huge stores of data into intelligence just made it easier.
"SAS has been a great partner in helping us achieve our goals," Martino says. "But there's a big difference between putting software into production and being productive. And SAS is helping ensure that we achieve productivity."

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has announced that it has revised branchless banking regulations for financial institutions including commercial, Islamic and microfinance banks for expanding the outreach of banking operations in the country.

“Financial institutions, which have already been allowed to offer branchless banking services, are advised to streamline their operations as per amended regulations within six months and report compliance to SBP,” said the central bank in a circular issued on Monday.
According to the amendments, the central bank has introduced Level ‘0’ branchless banking accounts to bring the low income-earning segment into financial services loop. Now, instead of sending a physical account opening form and copy of customer’s CNIC to the financial institution for processing, the branchless banking agents could send the digital account opening form, customer’s digital photo and an image of customer’s CNIC to the financial institution electronically.
The following transaction and maximum balance limits on Level ‘0’ accounts will be applicable: Daily limit Rs15,000, monthly limit Rs25,000, annual limit Rs120,000 and maximum balance limit Rs100,000.
Similarly, the transaction limits for Level 1 branchless banking accounts have been increased to cater to the needs of customers by rationalising the Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. The transaction and maximum balance limits will be: Daily limit Rs25,000 (previous limit was Rs10,000), monthly limit Rs60,000 (previous limit was Rs20,000) and annual limit Rs500,000 (previous limit was Rs120,000). There will be no maximum balance limit, according to the amendments.
According to other salient features, all branchless banking account holders will be allowed to transfer up to Rs25,000 per month to non-account holders.

Work At Home Mum Makes $10,397/Month Part-Time

Have You Ever Considered Working Online?
Joan Richards from Brooklyn, NY never thought that she would, until curiosity got the best of her and she filled out a simple online form. Before she knew it, she discovered her secret to beating the recession, and being able to provide for her family while at home with her three children.
I read Kelly's blog last month and decided to feature her story in our local job report. In our phone interview she told me her amazing story. "I basically make about $6,000-$8,000 a month online. It's enough to comfortably replace my old jobs income, especially considering I only work about 10-13 hours a week from home.

Working online has been a financial windfall for Kelly, who struggled for months to find a decent job but kept hitting dead ends. "I lost my job shortly after the recession hit, I needed reliable income, I was not interested in the "get rich quick" scams you see all over the internet. Those are all pyramid scams or stuff where you have to sell to your friends and family. I just needed a legitimate way to earn a living for me and my family. The best part of working online is that I am always home with the kids,

 I save a lot of money." "I basically make $6,000-$8,000 a month online."

I asked her about how she started her remarkable journey. "It was pretty easy, I filled out a short form and got immediate access to the Home Business System. I got the Kit and within a month I was making over $4,000 a month. Its really simple, I am not a computer whiz, but I can use the internet. I fill forms and surf sites, I don't even have to sell anything and nobody has to buy anything."
Online giant Google, worth over 100 billion dollars is the most used search engine and internet market place. Google is the #1 internet site in the world, over 50 percent of all internet traffic flows through them everyday. Using Google and the other search engines to make money online has been a eye-opener for Kelly. There are plenty of scams on the internet claiming you can make $50,000 a month, but that is exactly what they are scams. From my conversation with Kelly, "I am making a good salary from home, which is amazing, under a year ago I was jobless in a horrible economy. I thank God every day that I filled out that form."
Quickly, Joan Richards was able to use the simple Home Business System to make it out of the recession.

Kelly had never shared her story before, and with her permission, we are putting it public
Step 1
Go to this link, fill out a basic online form and hit submit at Home Business System
Step 2
Follow the instructions at Home Business System and set up your account.
Step 3
You should receive your first cheque within a week or so. Or you can start to have them wire directly into your bank account. (Your first cheques will be about $500 to $1,500 a week. Then it goes up from there. Depends on how much time you spent on it.)

Mobile Banking Powerhouse Born From Bus Fare Theft

A microfinance pilot project pioneered in Africa turned into one of the world's most successful mobile banking systems thanks to one woman's bus fare getting stolen. Now the service could make its way to the United Kingdom.

M-PESA, one of the world's most rapidly expanding mobile banking systems, is transforming the banking sector in Africa. And it started, in part, when a thief stole bus fare from a woman who was participating in the M-PESA pilot.
Until then, M-PESA was a microfinance initiative, but the victim's husband used the mobile pay service to transfer funds to her phone--essentially giving his own wife a microloan--so she could use the phone to offer proof of payment for the bus ride. After the theft, the M-PESA team realized what a potent alternative banking tool they had in their hands.
"During the pilot we were supposed to focus on microfinance but we hatched a plot to launch the peer-to-peer money transfer functionality at the same time, without telling anyone," said Paul Makin, one of the initial project leads at Vodafone who now runs mobile money at Consult Hyperion. Vodafone first launched M-PESA after the U.K.'s Department for International Development (DFID) had already piloted it and the service is now run by Vodafone's Kenya subsidiary, Safaricom.
At the heart of the project's success is the idea to expand beyond microfinance into the broader area of transactions. With that more inclusive goal, M-PESA took off in Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa, allowing users to go about their day without large amounts of cash in their pockets and while saving time on transactions and travel.

"We told the financial regulator we thought we would have a quarter of a million customers after three years," said Makin. "He could see the potential, so he was very supportive. But if he had known it was going to grow as big and as quickly he might have had second thoughts."
Since 2007, the number of users of the service has grown to over 13 million in Africa, Afghanistan, and India.

In Kenya, 90% of the population does not have a bank account, according to some statistics. Plus, Kenyans often work hours away from their villages. The time and expenses saved by instantly making payments via text message with M-PESA are improving the qualify of life for millions of people there.
"People would disappear from their jobs for three or four days having just been paid, to take money to their families," said Makin.
People in Kenya are now using M-PESA to make basic utilities payments, transfer funds to family members far away, and purchase insurance. And mobile banking itself has been so well-received that off-shoot mobile banking services are proliferating.