Overall I am signed up with more than 200. Of those, some have disappeared over the years, changed their names, been bought out by someone else etc. etc. Any time I see a new-to-me company I register to try at least one shop if possible. Then we play 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'. [queue sound track of 'di-le-di-le-di dum dum dum'] IF a company has work in my area (and less than a quarter do), put my best shopper observation skills to work on them. What is the job, what are the requirements, are the guidelines ridiculous or just absurd (or sometimes even reasonable), is the pay appropriate for the expectations? What do peers I respect think about the company/job in question? Perform the job and note when, according to them, I should be paid. What kind of feedback do I get? Was the job worth the pay? How much would fair pay be for this job in the future? Was I paid on time (not necessarily to the minute, but within a reasonable range of when I expected to be paid)?
Note, I will not bother to do a job that wants me to be paid by some method other than direct deposit, check or Paypal. Life is too short to deal with payment by bit coins, bill.com, Pay-quicker, Pay-slower, Come-and-Get-it, gift cards or other nonsense and I want to be working with companies that handle their business in a business-like fashion.
One or two shops is generally enough to decide whether a company is one with whom I wish to work further. Within that company there will be some jobs I will be willing to perform and some that just are not interesting.
Each year, around the end of the year, a certain number of clients will change companies with whom they are contracting for shops. I want those companies to step up and send me an email that they finally have shops in my area, and usually they do. Meanwhile, it really doesn't matter if I get 40-50 emails a day that go directly to the trash without opening because I know who the 20-30 companies I am working with this year are.