LAURA PENNINGTON. Copyright Laura Pennington 2016

Transcription

1 HOW TO FIND FREELANCE SUCCESS ON UPWORK LAURA PENNINGTON

2 How to build a sustainable and profitable freelance track record on Upwork If you speak the words Upwork or online job boards in some freelance communities, you ll instantly have people telling you it s not worth your time. I firmly disagree given that leads from Upwork have been, and continue to be, a major source of business for me. Freelancing is all about marketing and delivering consistent value to your clients. Upwork offers you the opportunity to connect with individuals who already know they need help. For this reason, I m a believer. If you are totally new to freelancing or have not yet achieved success with Upwork, I m here to help. The purpose of this report is to give you as much information as possible to succeed on Upwork. Upwork can be an excellent source of new work as a freelancer, but it can also be a great place to return to when your private business is slow. When you know how to utilize Upwork properly, you'll be able to get the maximum benefit out of this site. Read on to learn more about my five top tips. As a freelance writer/editor/va since 2012, and having been ranked the top fifth writer on Upwork's predecessor (Elance), I can speak confidently about the best way to establish a freelance career. Keeping these tips at the back of your mind will help you whether you're a part-time freelancer hoping to make $500 a month or a full-time freelancer aiming to make over $10,000 a month on Upwork just like me. Tip #1: Ignore the Bad Posts Unfortunately, many online job sites are a breeding ground for low-wage jobs. There are so many jobs posted on sites like Upwork advertising $5 for a 500-word article or even lower. The sad thing is that there are many writers out there who are willing to accept this. Part of the challenge with Upwork and sites like it is that you need to weed through all of these potentially poor fits in order to find the gems.

3 Before you get frustrated and think that every job posted on Upwork is one that asks for the lowest possible price, I want to share with you that in my second year on the site, I landed a $50,000 five-month writing project from Upwork's predecessor Elance. All that involved was submitting a job proposal and getting on the phone with the client for 30 minutes. I nailed the job. I also landed three clients who paid me $2,000 a month in recurring work just from Upwork. (Recurring work is always, always your friend in freelancing.) The reality is that there are gems on sites like Upwork, but you have to know how to find them and be willing to put up with some of the frustration of wading through the poor quality job ads. I wish Upwork had a better system of hiding those jobs you find that are simply not a good fit, but for the short term, you just have to get comfortable with the process of working through a whole bunch of requests for proposals - some of which will be absolutely poor fits for you. Use keyword searches to find the jobs best suited to you. Terms like SEO or blog might help a writer, whereas Squarespace or WordPress might be best for a designer. Then, take ten seconds to look at the job post. Are there any red flags that you see immediately? If not, submit a proposal! Red flag examples I want the lowest possible price. I ve already hired 10 other freelancers and no one did the job right. I want you to be available on Skype from 5AM to 10 PM EST. Why being selective can work for you Not every job is going to be right for you. Realistically, you don t want every client so you have to learn to narrow your target market and ignore the low wage job ads. Don t let them overwhelm you. It goes without saying that, at some point in time, one of these clients will reach out to invite you to apply for a job or perhaps send you a message to see if you'd be interested. It can be very tempting as a new freelance writer to say Yes to these opportunities because you won t have the experience or confidence to say No.

4 Perhaps you have been working as a freelance writer for a while and don t want as many clients, or this month's income looks a little low and you'd like to bring on some new opportunities. I really encourage you to be selective and say No to the low paying opportunities even when a client reaches out to you directly. Getting in the habit of giving people something for nothing is really a poor way to succeed as a freelance writer. It keeps you from being able to bring on bigger clients because you're filling up your time and wasting your energy on people who don t value what you do. When they reach out to you directly, hold firm on your price. One of the things that I teach the freelancers I coach is how to determine your absolute bottom rate and hold firm at that rate even when clients try to push the envelope. If someone tries to push your boundaries, just be really firm and say I can t work within the budget of this job. The more you focus on high-end clients and platinum offers in your freelance writing business, the easier it will become to attract more of them. Tip #2: Be Consistent One of the most common mistakes I see people make with Upwork is inconsistencies in their marketing effort. If you only spend one day a week submitting job proposals, you re not going to get the kind of feedback or bring on the types of new clients that you want. Your efforts aren t consistent enough. Remember, it was my consistency that helped me land that $50,000 contract! It was also my consistency that enabled me to bring on a number of high-end clients who order recurring content every month. As a freelance writer, recurring content and platinum clients are the fastest way to bring your business to the six figure mark and allow you to really succeed and feel motivated about continuing. Commit to a certain number of hours per week during which you'll work on submitting proposals on job sites like Upwork. Commit several hours to finetuning your profile, resume, and writing samples. The more consistent you are with putting in bids for proposals, the more likely you are to succeed. Hint: If you re not landing any jobs, there is room for improvement with your pitch, profile or samples.

5 It takes a while to acquire your first client but once you do, it can often open the floodgates because you are then able to use the good feedback that you receive from your first client to win future jobs. This is the exact process I used to bring my company to the top 1% of providers in just three months, and I surpassed the five figure a month mark much faster than I thought I would simply by implementing this strategy. In the beginning, it might be tempting to quit because it feels like you have to spend money on the connects or the bids needed to make a submission, but I assure you, this is an investment well worth it. In my first month, I spent over $100 on extra connects and it paid me back at least fivefold with new clients. Over time, you won t need to spend as much money on the connects with the bids inside Upwork because you'll have a steady stream of recurring clients and you'll also be invited to more jobs. As you get invited to more jobs, you don t actually have to spend the connects in your Upwork account. It's free to submit to jobs you've been invited to, but at the beginning you almost have to blitz the market with consistent applications because you need to build a reputation, you need the feedback to grow, and ultimately you can use the groundwork you've laid during these first few months to be really successful and decrease your marketing budget in the future. Tip #3: Use High Quality Samples and a Profile I feel this should go without saying, but the number of writers that I see using poor quality work samples or a profile that looks like it was thrown together in five minutes is astounding. The same goes for graphic designers and web developers too! The only way a potential client knows of you is through the work samples that you submit and your profile. Both should present you as a high-quality freelancer.

6 Revise those work samples over and over. Make sure that they truly represent the best of you. Submitting a work sample that has a spelling error in it is a huge nono and is going to throw you off the client s shortlist. I ve hired for major freelance digital teams like True Car and Microsoft, and I was amazed at how many people submitted materials to me that had mistakes or poor writing. A lot of people worry about the fact that they don t have freelance samples when they first get started because they ve never been paid for work before. Or perhaps they entered into a non-disclosure agreement and are, as such, not able to submit a piece of work as a sample. That s why I teach freelancers in my courses exactly how to create winning samples you can use over and over again. If you don t have work samples, create them. It does not take that much time to create a few top quality samples. If you're an ebook writer, you don t need to write a whole ebook. Just one chapter will suffice. If you re a blog writer, come up with a couple of top quality blogs that represent the best that you have to offer or the highest quality SEO techniques that you can use for clients because it takes a lot of trust to hire someone that you don t know. There s no question that you should be providing high quality work in your profile and samples. Tip #4: Stand Out From the Crowd The easiest ways to stand out from the crowd are to make your pitch unique or to make it so easy to work with you that the client can t refuse your offer. As someone who has been on the hiring end of bringing digital teams together on sites like Upwork, I am amazed at how many people will submit 20 different samples. No client has time to look at 20 different writing samples especially as individual downloads. It s very easy to pass over people who make this mistake of overwhelming the client. Remember, you are only one proposal amongst many. It is essential that you submit materials that are very easy for the client to download. Another way to stand out is to have a really unique pitch. I know some people who use audio bits or video files where they're actually talking on the video and submit it to the client. It s a personalized pitch. It s only going to take you a couple of minutes to record something like this but it shows the client that you really care.

7 The best way for a writer to stand out is with really good quality work samples, a well-crafted proposal, and an awesome profile but if you want to stand out from the crowd you could get more attention from a client just by being willing to get on camera or put together a personalized audio sharing what you would do if you were hired. That being said, video editors, graphic designers, and web developers all feel that video is their way to shine. It s really essential to stand out from the crowd because you'll always be competing against other people. Even as an established and successful freelance writer, I'm always up against the best that Upwork has to offer, so you need to have a unique value proposition that sets you apart. Tip #5: Use Past Success to Achieve Future Success Whether you've had the opportunity to lock in your first job or you re well into your freelance career and have landed lots of work, use that past experience to get other people to hire you. You could talk about how you're ranked on Upwork. Use a testimonial from the first client ever who hired you. Or if you land really cool and well-paying gigs, you want to brag about that to your potential clients too. As an example, when I landed my $50,000 writing and editing gig in my second year as a full-time researcher, I used generic information about that in my pitch to future clients. I would mention that I had just wrapped up a $50,000 project. Why? Even if it was unrelated to my client's current project, it indicates that someone saw me as enough of an expert to pay that much, had no questions or qualms about hiring me on contract to do that. It indicates professionalism. It indicates quality. Someone wouldn t work with you if they weren't committed to the quality that you were providing. I ve done the same whenever I have the opportunity to work for a wellrecognized client.

8 I strongly recommend that you use your past successes to achieve future success. If you have never written professionally or been paid to write, perhaps you can get one liner feedback from those whom you have worked with in the past so that you have something to start with. It can be nerve-wracking for someone who has never met you to have you create something for their business. You need materials that telegraph professionalism and commitment. To recap the key elements you need for success on Upwork, follow these tips: Tip #1: Ignore the Bad Posts Tip #2: Be Consistent Tip #3: Use High-Quality Samples and a Profile Tip #4: Stand Out From the Crowd Tip #5: Use Past Success to Achieve Future Success As you can see, success on Upwork is all about knowing how to work the system. If you know how to work the system properly, you can set yourself up for success easily and quickly. These tips will work for anyone, but I ve got special free courses and materials just for VAs and writers. Use the links below to find what will work for you: yourwaytova.com