Let me begin by stating that I am no guru. I have no course, no youtube channel and absolutely nothing to sell to you. I don't even have a personal website. I have been freelancing for several years and have completed 93 jobs on Upwork (another 3 in progress) and roughly 4200 hours billed. I don't want to post my Upwork link publicly here but if you are curious, I can share my profile link with you in a private message. If you know my profile link, I request you to not post it publicly here please.
Additionally, this is not a comprehensive guide or a course. If you want those, I strongly recommend buying from @Lex DeVille . As a professional freelancer with years of experience, let me tell you that his content is very good.
I have been wanting to write some tips for newbie freelancers wishing to start on Upwork and to help some of you who have emergency cash problems. Freelancing on Upwork can be a quick way to earn at least a few hundred dollars per month. I would say for someone with the right mindset you could make an additional $1000 within a few days. However, just like anything of value, it is not easy and the competition is fierce. But with a few strategies you have a much higher probability of winning a job than other people. These are things I have learned over the years and I will let you know as is. It is up to you to decide what you want to do with it.
I recently did an experiment to win some new jobs on Upwork. Here's that thread. The summary is that I won two new decently paid hourly jobs within a week of trying. A disclaimer here is that I am a web developer and I am very good with my skills. But I genuinely believe that the work I do isn't anything special and anyone who spends a few weeks learning can learn it. The differential isn't your technical skill set but your approach and your attitude.
So why Upwork?
Yes, it's the right question. Why upwork? Honestly, I don't like Upwork. The easiest way to earn a freelance task is through your contacts. Tell people who know you what you do. Don't ask for work. Just spread information. Chances are someone you know wants to get done what you do. And people trust whom they know offline more than online. My first freelance job 14 years ago while still in college was through a friend who worked at a university magazine. I just let him know that I am CS student and can make websites. So when his department needed a site made, he mentioned me.
But if you can't find work through contacts, there's Upwork. I started Freelancing full time in 2011. At that time, the top freelancing site was Elance. 2-3 years ago elance got acquired by oDesk and the joint entity was renamed Upwork.
I loved elance. At elance, what mattered was how well you approached a job and how good your work was. With Upwork however, there are these bells and whistles which distract. Their algorithm tends to be biased towards low cost ok-ish providers. It means the real quality guys are hard to find. But it is what it is. At this point Upwork is a near monopoly. I feel there is a business opportunity there. With the right people, a simpler alternative to Upwork would be God-sent for thousands of clients and freelancers worldwide.
Being a monopoly though has it's advantages. People have nowhere else to go. This means, there are great people on Upwork. Your (hard!) job is to fight the algorithm and find them.
There are essentially three parts to earning through Upwork,
Upwork charges 20% commission on your jobs and also has a $15 membership fee. Your paid membership gives you a certain number of "connects". 70, that I last checked. You can read more about connects here. Connects are basically like currency you need to have to be able to bid on jobs. Every job you submit a proposal to requires a variable number of connects.
I am of the camp which believes 20% is still ok given that if you make the right connections you can earn thousands of dollars. For example, my longest running job has now paid me over $100K and I found the client through Upwork. So treat the commission as a price for making connections.
I am going to go over each of the above three points in short. If you want to know specific things, please ask.
1. Setting up an account and Profile
I am not going to talk about signing up as a new user and getting your account approved since I haven't done that in a very long time. But the tl dr is that it is easy and quick. They do video verification calls for new accounts. IIRC my verification was quick and simple, they just connected and it got over in less than a minute. But it was a long time ago so things may have changed. Once you are approved you need to fine tune your profile.
Firstly, the profile isn't as important as people think. What matters most is your cover letter or proposal. Upwork also recently introduced "specialized profiles" which has further made life difficult for freelancers. I will explain that later.
There's a lot of stuff going on on your profile. But only the following parts matter:
Title
Overview
Work History and Feedback
Portfolio
Skills
Title
Don't try to be a genius and come up with your own. Go here -> https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/browse/
Search for what you want to work in and look at the top profiles and what they use for their titles. For example, when I search for "copy writer", I get the following results -> https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/browse/?q=copy writer
In the results I see, I like Beth H's title. "Irresistable copy that compels action". It's just an example, you should search for title from your top competitors and use a combination of something you like.
Overview
The same tip applies. Read your competitor's overviews. A lot of people here make the mistake of making the profile overview about themselves. I am this and I am that bla bla bla.
Instead of talking about what you "are", write what you can "do". So don't say, I am an expert wordpress developer. Say, "I make quality professional wordpress sites". Focus on action and not identity.
Work History and Feedback
These will accumulate over time. Getting great feedback stems from your ability to communicate with your client. What I do is I never close a contract myself. I always ask my client to close the contract once he or she is fully satisfied the job is done. This means that when they go to close the contract, Upwork will ask them for feedback. So they will either leave you (great!) feedback or at least they have seen that feedback is to be given. If they didn't leave feedback after closing the contract, gently nudge them after a few days.
Portfolio
With the current Upwork interface you can link your completed jobs with your Portfolio and you should do so. Newbies often ask what to do if we have no past work. My answer is simple. When you are starting and have no work to show, create your own work!
For example. Let's say you want to be bid for copywriting jobs but haven't done any copywriting work and can't find work anywhere. Here's what I would do. I would write a 5 page eBook on any topic. Let's say, "The simplest workout routine in the world - Build your strongest body and lose belly fat in 90 days". (I just came up with this). You can pretty much copy paste or define any workout routine. Now register the domain, "simplest-workout-routine.com", create a wordpress site with a landing page selling this eBook for $3 or something. Name the author "Joe somebody" (kidding!). Have your best copy on the landing page for selling this ebook. All of this shouldn't cost you more than $20 and maybe a week of work.
Your target isn't to suddenly start a profitable business selling ebooks but have "The Simplest Workout routine" landing page and copy as your portfolio item as past work done. The portfolio and work history demonstrates that you have experience and you just created your own experience in maybe 3 days and spending 20 bucks.
This works in all fields. Want to work with wordpress, create a plugin or a theme and post it on the WP addons directory. Want to work as a translator, create your own samples somewhere. What we want to do is create work and put it on the internet to demonstrate that you have experience and authority.
Skills
These are like tags. Select as many as you can. Don't leave anything out. These are important for the algorithm to match jobs with skills.
Specialized Profiles
Upwork keeps making life of freelancers difficult. Specialized profiles is their latest attempt. Unfortunately it's a very bad addition for freelancers.
When posting jobs, clients have to select categories and then select specialties. These specialties are then matched with your specialized profiles when you submit proposals. The below is what a client has to select when they are posting a job:
Now a freelancer can only create two specialized profiles in addition to their general profile. Many clients have no clue which specialty to select when posting a job and end up selecting something which may not be perfect for their job. For example do you select "CMS customization" or "CMS Development" when you need wordpress work done?
Now depending on which specialty a client selected and whether or not your profile has that specialized profile, your proposal will be automatically discouraged by Upwork and the client will not even see your proposal. The proposal of a freelancer with non matching specialty is pushed to the bottom of the list separately and the client will 100% never see it.
Hence it is of paramount importance that you define your two specialized profiles and do them in the specialties that you want to submit proposals in.
If you come across a job you really want to do and the client has selected a different specialty, go to your own profile, delete one of the two specialties, create a new specialized profile for the specialty the client selected and then submit your proposal. It's a real PITA.
Bidding on Jobs - Submitting Proposals
This IS the most important part where people make the most mistakes. Before anything specific, let me tell you my golden rules on submitting proposals.
Rule 1 : "Find a Good Person"
When you are reading people's job descriptions, you can get a general idea of what they are like. Is this someone who knows what they want and will treat your time with respect OR do they sound authoritative, rude and perhaps think they are doing you a favor by hiring you on a job?
I will never ever submit a proposal on a job if I "feel" that the person is a *ick. You are only opening yourself to trouble, unlimited revisions, and a pain in the a$$ if you go work for such people. So first try to judge if the person who has posted the job shows respect or seems too "bossy". It takes practice but with experience you can tell. There's a difference between being specific and being an a$$...
Rule 2: "Be a Good Person"
The overall tone of your proposal / cover letter has to be friendly. You have to be honest in what you claim you can do and set realistic deadlines. Sometimes clients may be mistaken themselves in what they need. Provide good suggestions even if that means they won't hire you. Don't make them feel that they have wasted a single cent.
So with those out of the way, here's some tips on the proposals themselves:
1> Don't submit proposals where people need results immediately.
This one is generally true. There might be special cases where you are totally free staring at a computer and can get started on anything immediately but I would say that's not the case with most people. And the chance of making a mistake is highest if you can't thoroughly think through your work. I never submit proposals on jobs which require immediate (as in the same day, within a few hours etc) results.
2> Look at the client's total and per hour spend history.
Upwork shows you the average of what a client has paid per hour in the past. So if you see someone who's used to paying say $3/ hour or has a $20 budget for building the next facebook, it's futile submitting a proposal there. There will be other people bidding that low and it's a race to the bottom. So avoid submitting proposals on jobs where the client has only paid pennies per hour in the past. I don't submit a proposal unless the client has at least paid close to $15 / hr in the past.
You shouldn't ignore clients who have their payment unverified though. They could be potentially great people who are just starting out with Upwork.
3> Find clients who make money
Unless it's your first few jobs you are bidding for, find clients who make money themselves. That is, don't bid on projects by "hobbyists". From their task description, you can make out if they are running a service or product or something whereby you will be a business expense vs a personal expense.
You can command higher rates only from people who have money to pay you. On upwork you will find loads of people who might be doing "hobby projects". They will invariably have lower budgets and will turn out to be more demanding than for example a CEO of a media agency who hires you for marketing. So find people who are professional and are looking for tasks related to their business not hobbies.
4> Find hard to do recent jobs
This means searching by number of proposals, say less than 5 or 5 to 10 where the job's been posted at least an hour to upto a day. When you do this search, you will find jobs where some obscure system experience is required or maybe multiple skills needed. You should then research the obscure / hard stuff the client needs to the best of your ability and submit a proposal even if you don't have experience with it. Chances are the client's not finding anyone else with relevant experience either so if you come across as a smart, nice guy, they will hire you.
5> Research, research and research and be VERY specific in your cover letter.
Some people use standard pre-written copy in their cover letters which they re-use. This is like trying to fit different people the same clothes!
Here's a secret tip, Upwork only shows TWO lines on the page where the client sees all proposals. Yes TWO LINES only! Here's a screenshot. The below are from proposals I have received for a job I have posted.
Do you notice how I see only the first two lines of their proposals. And they put people who have done similar jobs with a low rate at the top of the list.
So now, do you still want to start with what your name is and how great you are!
I wouldn't.
Thoroughly research every single word the client writes in his job description. While it may seem that the cover letter is to introduce yourself, it is NOT. The cover letter should be used to present the entire solution to the client.
Tell them exactly what you will do, how will you do it and the time it will take IN the freaking cover letter.
I introduce myself somewhere after the first paragraph and usually with one sentence or two. The client is not interested in who you are. They aren't even interested in what you have done. The only thing which matters to them is whether you can get the job done. So why spend valuable real estate on meaningless fluff. Since you only have the starting two lines to capture attention, start by mentioning the most important point about the job in the very first sentence.
This obviously means that for every single proposal you will spend a LOT of time. But what you are really doing is being better than 99% of others.
If you did all of the above right, your chance of hearing back from the client are dramatically high. When I used to send regular proposals I would hear back 50% of the time. Even in my most recent experiments, I heard back from 3 of the 7 people I sent a proposal for.
Completing Jobs and earning feedback.
Once you get a message from a client, you have your foot in the door. Your chance of winning the job are very high unless you screw something up very badly. You want to be absolutely immediate in your replies now with no delay in your communication. Download the Upwork app and have it on your phone so that you don't miss replying to them. Chances are the client has messaged more than one person. So you don't want to be the guy who is late replying.
The main job you have at this point is really to establish trust. You have to make the other person feel they can totally trust you. The best way to get this done is to get your client on the phone. If you can get them to have an audio call with you, you will absolutely seal the deal. But even if not, make it absolutely risk free and provide specific deadlines.
Talk as little about yourself as possible and as much about the job as you can. I delve deep into the technical specifics of the work when I am talking to prospective clients even when I know that they don't understand much of the tech stuff. It is to establish authority and remove any lingering doubts. Let them feel that they have the "perfect guy" for the job.
If you follow the above and send in a few proposals, you should win some. And it gets easier once you have projects to your name. Remember, getting a job is only the start. Always play the long game. You did all this effort to win a job, you now want to be their go to guy for all future work. So do a stellar job, be honest, keep deadlines, and most importantly through chat or email let them know specifically and in detail what's going on, what you are doing and what's next. Never have your client wonder what you are doing.
I am actually genuinely interested in people. So often when chatting with my clients about work I find out what they like, their hobbies and even their families. As a result a few have become very good friends. I am always available on email for technical advice and one client saved thousands of dollars because I prevented him choosing a wrong technical direction. ALL for free. I don't say this to boast but to simply impress upon you that if you are genuinely helpful, you won't have to go searching for work for long.
I hope the above is helpful. If you have specific upwork or general freelancing related questions, please ask.
Additionally, this is not a comprehensive guide or a course. If you want those, I strongly recommend buying from @Lex DeVille . As a professional freelancer with years of experience, let me tell you that his content is very good.
I have been wanting to write some tips for newbie freelancers wishing to start on Upwork and to help some of you who have emergency cash problems. Freelancing on Upwork can be a quick way to earn at least a few hundred dollars per month. I would say for someone with the right mindset you could make an additional $1000 within a few days. However, just like anything of value, it is not easy and the competition is fierce. But with a few strategies you have a much higher probability of winning a job than other people. These are things I have learned over the years and I will let you know as is. It is up to you to decide what you want to do with it.
I recently did an experiment to win some new jobs on Upwork. Here's that thread. The summary is that I won two new decently paid hourly jobs within a week of trying. A disclaimer here is that I am a web developer and I am very good with my skills. But I genuinely believe that the work I do isn't anything special and anyone who spends a few weeks learning can learn it. The differential isn't your technical skill set but your approach and your attitude.
So why Upwork?
Yes, it's the right question. Why upwork? Honestly, I don't like Upwork. The easiest way to earn a freelance task is through your contacts. Tell people who know you what you do. Don't ask for work. Just spread information. Chances are someone you know wants to get done what you do. And people trust whom they know offline more than online. My first freelance job 14 years ago while still in college was through a friend who worked at a university magazine. I just let him know that I am CS student and can make websites. So when his department needed a site made, he mentioned me.
But if you can't find work through contacts, there's Upwork. I started Freelancing full time in 2011. At that time, the top freelancing site was Elance. 2-3 years ago elance got acquired by oDesk and the joint entity was renamed Upwork.
I loved elance. At elance, what mattered was how well you approached a job and how good your work was. With Upwork however, there are these bells and whistles which distract. Their algorithm tends to be biased towards low cost ok-ish providers. It means the real quality guys are hard to find. But it is what it is. At this point Upwork is a near monopoly. I feel there is a business opportunity there. With the right people, a simpler alternative to Upwork would be God-sent for thousands of clients and freelancers worldwide.
Being a monopoly though has it's advantages. People have nowhere else to go. This means, there are great people on Upwork. Your (hard!) job is to fight the algorithm and find them.
There are essentially three parts to earning through Upwork,
- Setting up an account and Profile
- Bidding on Jobs - Submitting Proposals
- Completing Jobs and earning feedback.
Upwork charges 20% commission on your jobs and also has a $15 membership fee. Your paid membership gives you a certain number of "connects". 70, that I last checked. You can read more about connects here. Connects are basically like currency you need to have to be able to bid on jobs. Every job you submit a proposal to requires a variable number of connects.
I am of the camp which believes 20% is still ok given that if you make the right connections you can earn thousands of dollars. For example, my longest running job has now paid me over $100K and I found the client through Upwork. So treat the commission as a price for making connections.
I am going to go over each of the above three points in short. If you want to know specific things, please ask.
1. Setting up an account and Profile
I am not going to talk about signing up as a new user and getting your account approved since I haven't done that in a very long time. But the tl dr is that it is easy and quick. They do video verification calls for new accounts. IIRC my verification was quick and simple, they just connected and it got over in less than a minute. But it was a long time ago so things may have changed. Once you are approved you need to fine tune your profile.
Firstly, the profile isn't as important as people think. What matters most is your cover letter or proposal. Upwork also recently introduced "specialized profiles" which has further made life difficult for freelancers. I will explain that later.
There's a lot of stuff going on on your profile. But only the following parts matter:
Title
Overview
Work History and Feedback
Portfolio
Skills
Title
Don't try to be a genius and come up with your own. Go here -> https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/browse/
Search for what you want to work in and look at the top profiles and what they use for their titles. For example, when I search for "copy writer", I get the following results -> https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/browse/?q=copy writer
In the results I see, I like Beth H's title. "Irresistable copy that compels action". It's just an example, you should search for title from your top competitors and use a combination of something you like.
Overview
The same tip applies. Read your competitor's overviews. A lot of people here make the mistake of making the profile overview about themselves. I am this and I am that bla bla bla.
Instead of talking about what you "are", write what you can "do". So don't say, I am an expert wordpress developer. Say, "I make quality professional wordpress sites". Focus on action and not identity.
Work History and Feedback
These will accumulate over time. Getting great feedback stems from your ability to communicate with your client. What I do is I never close a contract myself. I always ask my client to close the contract once he or she is fully satisfied the job is done. This means that when they go to close the contract, Upwork will ask them for feedback. So they will either leave you (great!) feedback or at least they have seen that feedback is to be given. If they didn't leave feedback after closing the contract, gently nudge them after a few days.
Portfolio
With the current Upwork interface you can link your completed jobs with your Portfolio and you should do so. Newbies often ask what to do if we have no past work. My answer is simple. When you are starting and have no work to show, create your own work!
For example. Let's say you want to be bid for copywriting jobs but haven't done any copywriting work and can't find work anywhere. Here's what I would do. I would write a 5 page eBook on any topic. Let's say, "The simplest workout routine in the world - Build your strongest body and lose belly fat in 90 days". (I just came up with this). You can pretty much copy paste or define any workout routine. Now register the domain, "simplest-workout-routine.com", create a wordpress site with a landing page selling this eBook for $3 or something. Name the author "Joe somebody" (kidding!). Have your best copy on the landing page for selling this ebook. All of this shouldn't cost you more than $20 and maybe a week of work.
Your target isn't to suddenly start a profitable business selling ebooks but have "The Simplest Workout routine" landing page and copy as your portfolio item as past work done. The portfolio and work history demonstrates that you have experience and you just created your own experience in maybe 3 days and spending 20 bucks.
This works in all fields. Want to work with wordpress, create a plugin or a theme and post it on the WP addons directory. Want to work as a translator, create your own samples somewhere. What we want to do is create work and put it on the internet to demonstrate that you have experience and authority.
Skills
These are like tags. Select as many as you can. Don't leave anything out. These are important for the algorithm to match jobs with skills.
Specialized Profiles
Upwork keeps making life of freelancers difficult. Specialized profiles is their latest attempt. Unfortunately it's a very bad addition for freelancers.
When posting jobs, clients have to select categories and then select specialties. These specialties are then matched with your specialized profiles when you submit proposals. The below is what a client has to select when they are posting a job:
Now a freelancer can only create two specialized profiles in addition to their general profile. Many clients have no clue which specialty to select when posting a job and end up selecting something which may not be perfect for their job. For example do you select "CMS customization" or "CMS Development" when you need wordpress work done?
Now depending on which specialty a client selected and whether or not your profile has that specialized profile, your proposal will be automatically discouraged by Upwork and the client will not even see your proposal. The proposal of a freelancer with non matching specialty is pushed to the bottom of the list separately and the client will 100% never see it.
Hence it is of paramount importance that you define your two specialized profiles and do them in the specialties that you want to submit proposals in.
If you come across a job you really want to do and the client has selected a different specialty, go to your own profile, delete one of the two specialties, create a new specialized profile for the specialty the client selected and then submit your proposal. It's a real PITA.
Bidding on Jobs - Submitting Proposals
This IS the most important part where people make the most mistakes. Before anything specific, let me tell you my golden rules on submitting proposals.
Rule 1 : "Find a Good Person"
When you are reading people's job descriptions, you can get a general idea of what they are like. Is this someone who knows what they want and will treat your time with respect OR do they sound authoritative, rude and perhaps think they are doing you a favor by hiring you on a job?
I will never ever submit a proposal on a job if I "feel" that the person is a *ick. You are only opening yourself to trouble, unlimited revisions, and a pain in the a$$ if you go work for such people. So first try to judge if the person who has posted the job shows respect or seems too "bossy". It takes practice but with experience you can tell. There's a difference between being specific and being an a$$...
Rule 2: "Be a Good Person"
The overall tone of your proposal / cover letter has to be friendly. You have to be honest in what you claim you can do and set realistic deadlines. Sometimes clients may be mistaken themselves in what they need. Provide good suggestions even if that means they won't hire you. Don't make them feel that they have wasted a single cent.
So with those out of the way, here's some tips on the proposals themselves:
1> Don't submit proposals where people need results immediately.
This one is generally true. There might be special cases where you are totally free staring at a computer and can get started on anything immediately but I would say that's not the case with most people. And the chance of making a mistake is highest if you can't thoroughly think through your work. I never submit proposals on jobs which require immediate (as in the same day, within a few hours etc) results.
2> Look at the client's total and per hour spend history.
Upwork shows you the average of what a client has paid per hour in the past. So if you see someone who's used to paying say $3/ hour or has a $20 budget for building the next facebook, it's futile submitting a proposal there. There will be other people bidding that low and it's a race to the bottom. So avoid submitting proposals on jobs where the client has only paid pennies per hour in the past. I don't submit a proposal unless the client has at least paid close to $15 / hr in the past.
You shouldn't ignore clients who have their payment unverified though. They could be potentially great people who are just starting out with Upwork.
3> Find clients who make money
Unless it's your first few jobs you are bidding for, find clients who make money themselves. That is, don't bid on projects by "hobbyists". From their task description, you can make out if they are running a service or product or something whereby you will be a business expense vs a personal expense.
You can command higher rates only from people who have money to pay you. On upwork you will find loads of people who might be doing "hobby projects". They will invariably have lower budgets and will turn out to be more demanding than for example a CEO of a media agency who hires you for marketing. So find people who are professional and are looking for tasks related to their business not hobbies.
4> Find hard to do recent jobs
This means searching by number of proposals, say less than 5 or 5 to 10 where the job's been posted at least an hour to upto a day. When you do this search, you will find jobs where some obscure system experience is required or maybe multiple skills needed. You should then research the obscure / hard stuff the client needs to the best of your ability and submit a proposal even if you don't have experience with it. Chances are the client's not finding anyone else with relevant experience either so if you come across as a smart, nice guy, they will hire you.
5> Research, research and research and be VERY specific in your cover letter.
Some people use standard pre-written copy in their cover letters which they re-use. This is like trying to fit different people the same clothes!
Here's a secret tip, Upwork only shows TWO lines on the page where the client sees all proposals. Yes TWO LINES only! Here's a screenshot. The below are from proposals I have received for a job I have posted.
Do you notice how I see only the first two lines of their proposals. And they put people who have done similar jobs with a low rate at the top of the list.
So now, do you still want to start with what your name is and how great you are!
I wouldn't.Thoroughly research every single word the client writes in his job description. While it may seem that the cover letter is to introduce yourself, it is NOT. The cover letter should be used to present the entire solution to the client.
Tell them exactly what you will do, how will you do it and the time it will take IN the freaking cover letter.
I introduce myself somewhere after the first paragraph and usually with one sentence or two. The client is not interested in who you are. They aren't even interested in what you have done. The only thing which matters to them is whether you can get the job done. So why spend valuable real estate on meaningless fluff. Since you only have the starting two lines to capture attention, start by mentioning the most important point about the job in the very first sentence.
This obviously means that for every single proposal you will spend a LOT of time. But what you are really doing is being better than 99% of others.
If you did all of the above right, your chance of hearing back from the client are dramatically high. When I used to send regular proposals I would hear back 50% of the time. Even in my most recent experiments, I heard back from 3 of the 7 people I sent a proposal for.
Completing Jobs and earning feedback.
Once you get a message from a client, you have your foot in the door. Your chance of winning the job are very high unless you screw something up very badly. You want to be absolutely immediate in your replies now with no delay in your communication. Download the Upwork app and have it on your phone so that you don't miss replying to them. Chances are the client has messaged more than one person. So you don't want to be the guy who is late replying.
The main job you have at this point is really to establish trust. You have to make the other person feel they can totally trust you. The best way to get this done is to get your client on the phone. If you can get them to have an audio call with you, you will absolutely seal the deal. But even if not, make it absolutely risk free and provide specific deadlines.
Talk as little about yourself as possible and as much about the job as you can. I delve deep into the technical specifics of the work when I am talking to prospective clients even when I know that they don't understand much of the tech stuff. It is to establish authority and remove any lingering doubts. Let them feel that they have the "perfect guy" for the job.
If you follow the above and send in a few proposals, you should win some. And it gets easier once you have projects to your name. Remember, getting a job is only the start. Always play the long game. You did all this effort to win a job, you now want to be their go to guy for all future work. So do a stellar job, be honest, keep deadlines, and most importantly through chat or email let them know specifically and in detail what's going on, what you are doing and what's next. Never have your client wonder what you are doing.
I am actually genuinely interested in people. So often when chatting with my clients about work I find out what they like, their hobbies and even their families. As a result a few have become very good friends. I am always available on email for technical advice and one client saved thousands of dollars because I prevented him choosing a wrong technical direction. ALL for free. I don't say this to boast but to simply impress upon you that if you are genuinely helpful, you won't have to go searching for work for long.
I hope the above is helpful. If you have specific upwork or general freelancing related questions, please ask.
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:
