Giving Upwork Another Go

I’m currently giving Freelancer job boards another go. This is something I have sworn off many years ago, so why am I giving Upwork another go?

Race To The Bottom

Freelancer sites always felt like a race to the bottom in my mind. Cheap clients looking to offshore to the cheapest possible service providers.

How can I compete on cost against WordPress developers in India or the Philippines where there cost of living is so much less than mine.

When I submitted proposals I got little response, my proposal was lost in the sea of other replies.

My Hiring Bias

I’ve recruited from these sites before and the deluge of cookie cutter and frankly shite replies really turned me off from the sites.

When I posted a job I would get hundreds of barely qualified responses.  These freelancers and agencies setup automated replies and treat prospecting like a numbers game.  The more proposals for low cost services I can sling out the more chance they will get a hit.

I don’t want to work in that infrastructure.

I have A Client Roster

I have my own roster of clients I can market to directly so why would I need to get new one? Simple my clients don’t always need WordPress support service from me and there are times (like now) where the top of my funnel is sparse.

There is a freelancer feast and famine cycle and I’m not in famine, but I need a little snack.

I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, I have Q1 2020 fully booked I have always enough reserves in the bank and I have enough work on my books to see me through, but I always like to have a full funnel.  It makes me feel more secure.

I need a constant trickle of new clients coming into the top of my funnel to keep my client roster full and that’s what I’m using Upwork for.  I’m trying to fill my books for the rest of the year.

Paid Advertising

I tried some paid advertising but that is notoriously hard and expensive to get new service clients.  You need to build long nurturing sequences and lead magnets.  It’s a lot of hard work and it’s expensive

I’ve got some work this way but at a cost.  I know this work is an investment, once I have a new client I can market to them for almost nothing but there is still a substantial up front cost.

Nurturing Exiting Clients

I have this down pat, weekly blog articles to keep me at the top of my clients minds. I have an automated email reach out every 90 days to check in to see if you need my help.

But if my existing client base does not have any requirements for me, then no number of emails will fill that funnel.

Why I’m Giving It Another Go

I read a book The Million Dollar Freelancer: Work From Home, Set Your Own Hours & Become Rich.  In it the author, Daniel Hall was advocating using freelancer sites and in particular the market leader Upwork (which was formed by the merger of two sites oDesk and Elance) to get new work.

It was at this point I shouted “effing bollocks!” at Daniel Hall via my Kindle (my wife looked up and gave me that has he eventually lost it look).  Everyone with a few weeks of freelancing experience knows these sites are rubbish, don’t they?

I was about to abandon his book then, but I decided to carry on to see what he had to say and I’m glad I did. His recommendation was to treat the prospecting process much more professionally.  Here are my takeways from Daniels book.

Go Where The Jobs Are

Freelancer sites are where the work is at.  Clients are actively seeking freelancers.  They have projects that need to be done.

My reluctance to go to these and being aloof is like a gold miner going to the Jewellers to get gold rather than grabbing his pick and shovel and starting to dig in the mine that is upwork.

Niche Down

I’m not searching for generic WordPress jobs, I’m looking to niche down on Upwork and solve the tricky problems that not many people can solve.

I’m looking for jobs on WordPress performance tuning.  One of my specialities.  It’s hard work, and as a results attracts premium prices.

I can stand out above the crowd by niching down like this.

Treat Your Proposal Like A Landing Page

I was also guilty of sending generic proposals, and that’s probably why I had little response.

But a take away I took from the book was to treat your proposal more like a landing page, answer objections, show social proof then tailor your proposal to each job.

Here’s what I’m doing:

1. Created a very flexible template I can modify to each job
2. Added a client testimonial to the proposal and link to my full range of testimonial;s
3. Show my expertise in performance tuning with links to my site
4. Create a video audit of performance tuning and upload that to YouTube
5. Create a custom response to their proposal

So this comes from a template but is highly customised per project.

How I’m finding Work

I’m approaching this like a professional sales process.  Leads come in that need to be qualified and then a detailed and tailored proposal is created.  From that a sales call is made.

This will take a lot of time. so I needed to add a little automation.

I’ve setup a search in Upwork for keywords that suggest someone needs help speeding up their WordPress site.

From that I can get an RSS feed

I’ev posted that RSS feed in Zapier so when there are new leads an automation is created

I created a new Trello board, the new leads are placed into that board and I movede them through the lists new lead, proposal sent, interview/sales call,  proposal won, proposal lost or rejected.

I can move my leads through a process much more smoothly.

Results When Giving Upwork Another Go

I’m impressed, this morning when I woke up I had 13 “leads” in my Trello board. I spent a good hour filtering and creating proposals for these leads, it has not cost me anything like paid ads, only my time.

I did the same thing yesterday and I have two sales calls setup.  I’m, happy with that result.

Filtering Is Important

A lot of the leads are poor.  They are bringing back hits that have nothing to do with my skills, a quick scan and I move these cards to my rejected column in Trello.

Then I looked at the prices and request, some were too low or the job too big for the payment offered. These were moved to rejected.

Then there are the job specs that make you spidey sense tingle, you can tell who will be a pain in the ass to work with “You will need to share your screen with me” or “I need pizzaz”.  go with your gut and filter those jobs.

For the rest I move them to proposal sent and create a custom proposal for the project.

Eating Sh1t While I Build  My Portfolio

Your work history is gold on these platforms.  I currently don’t have any feedback or portfolio and as a result Upwork is taking a big slice of my fees, there is a sliding scale when you are new to prove yourself which comes down as you do more work.

I need to build that portfolio and body of clients   Daniel talks about this and 10 jobs with 5 stars positive feedback is the goal, from there things get beter

Eventually I can move them out of the Upwork infrastructure into my standard client roster, but until that point it’s a little painful.

Resilience Is Key When Giving Upwork Another Go

Another thing Daniel Hall said in his book was this takes time.  You will need to send a lot of proposals at first.

Once you have built momentum then you start to get private invites to jobs and don’t need to jump through the proposal hoops.

Wrap Up – Giving Upwork Another Go

I’m quietly confident this new approach to prospecting on Upwork will help me fill my funnel.

The advice from the book The Million Dollar Freelancer: Work From Home, Set Your Own Hours & Become Rich. is well worth a look

Photo Credit: Alan_D Flickr via Compfight cc

Doing the SEO dance Giving Upwork Another Go