Two Upwork Gigs A Day

[Sully1994]

From 10 Dollar to 10 Grand Gigs- My 6 month freelance journey.

My freelance writing journey started with a brief stint on Upwork. From there, I was lucky enough to find clients from other sources for a couple months.

I'll have some money coming in from a long term ad campaign gig over the next couple months, but it's not a lot- certainly nowhere near a full-time income.

I made the mistake of assuming that when someone says "we've got more work coming for you!" that they mean it.

Never assume that.

Here's the thing. Circumstances change. Budgets change. As a freelancer, it is YOUR responsibility to find clients and work. Don't take anyone at their word when they promise future gigs. Be grateful for the work you have now.

You're disposable, and can be replaced quite easily. There's tons of great writers out there.

So after throwing myself a mini pity party, I asked myself-

Do you want to be a writer? Or do you want to be a F*cking loser?

Part of me tried to rationalize that overbooking myself could lead to me screwing up the more promising gigs that I have going on currently.

But the reality is this- creativity isn't tied to hours put in. You can put in half an hour, or 20 hours into thinking up that "big idea" for your client- and be in the exact same position.

You might as well be working.

So, I've decided to get off my dead a$$, start applying to 2 Upwork gigs every day- and see what kind of business I can drum up.

I'm picking two gigs, because you get 60 connects on Upwork each month, and each gig costs 2 connects. So, If I apply to 2 gigs a day, I'll use up all of them.

I'm going to try to improve my profile by adding a profile video. Thanks @Sanj Modha for the great idea.

I also want to niche down- but am not entirely sure what my speciality should be. Most of my experience is Marketing/Advertising related. I might go with that.

I've sent out 22 applications, and gotten 3 clients, all of which I have done repeat business with.

Any advice on application/ profile strategies would be greatly appreciated.

Here's my current profile. ( Mods, is this allowed? If not I apologize in advance- delete as necessary lol)

David Sullivan

I plan to update this thread every two weeks. Stay tuned!

-Sully.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Overbooking yourself with niche clients would be a good thing. The more clients you have the more easily you can charge higher rates. It's simple supply and demand. Most freelancers would do well to niche down and specialize.

Marketing and advertising is an industry tho. Not a niche. A niche within marketing would be copywriting, Facebook ads, landing pages, etc. On Upwork copywriting would be considered an industry. As would blog writing and ebook writing. A niche within those might be email copy, food articles, or romance ebooks.

At each level of niche you'll find less and less clients.

Once you niche down it's actually better to apply to gigs only when you know 100% for sure they're the kind of client who has money, is ready to buy, and is willing to pay you to solve their problem because your profile proves you can solve it better than anyone else.

Instead of sending 2 applications a day to random clients, you'll make a lot more money a lot faster if you only send an application when you're 99 to 100% sure it's the exact right person. Spend the rest of your time searching for those same people outside of Upwork.

At first glance this seems like more work. On some level maybe it is.
But the rewards are far greater.

 

[Sanj Modha]

I don't see why you can't do it. I made almost a 1000 bucks off small jobs for 4 clients and that was literally 2/3 hours a day every other day. OK, it was over 4 weeks but you can easily scale this stuff up.

Listen to @SinisterLex. He's the pro on this.

 

[PatrickWho]

I used to spend a great deal of time on UpWork getting clients as a WordPress developer.

Here are some thoughts that may help:

Competition appears to be fierce, but...

I found that the vast majority of bidders were not much competition.

1. Clients appreciated that I was in their timezone.
2. Web styles are also pretty different across the globe, so clients liked it that I had an 'eye' for the styles they were looking for.
3. I communicated well with clients. I always proposed a quick phone call before they even decided to hire me. This was a great way to establish rapport and not put any obligation on them. Not many freelancers were willing to do this. And no, this didn't waste a lot of my time.

Create an Application Template

I would start my message with something particular to the client, of course.

Often they'd post their requirements in the job description, so I would briefly answer their concerns at the very beginning of my message.

I would usually have a question or two, as well, and this was a great way to get a conversation going. I believe it showed that I was really thinking about their issues.

Lastly, the templated part would be explain, in point form, my workflow. This way the prospective client would know what to expect when working with me.

It's a bit of a grind at first, but if you're diligent in gathering reviews for your work, it gets easier.

I would also direct clients I got via other channels to UpWork, so I could get their reviews on my profile.

Take Small Jobs, too

Taking small jobs is a great way to get quick reviews. I ended up working for nothing on some of these, but I got more stars on my profile

UpWork is Expensive:

They charge a lot for connection credits and they also take a sizable chunk from your pay, so I do not believe it is a great long term strategy.

Remember UpWork means you have less control:

Keep in mind that they can change policies at any time, so you're really giving a lot of your branding up to them.

My advice would be to turn as many UpWork clients into recurring clients as you can, and establish a relationship off their platform so you can remain their go-to person. This may be expressly against their ToS, though, so that may give you pause...

If I could do it all again:

I'm not sure I would go through UpWork, at all. There's just too much loss of control.

For web dev, I would instead choose a niche and market myself on Twitter, etc. as an expert in that niche.

For writers, I'm not sure what channels you have available, but channels where you have more control over your brand would be a better choice for sure.

Hope that helps?

 

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