The COMPLETE Upwork Tutorial for Beginners!

are you new to freelancing on upwork are you burning through all your upward connects but never winning any jobs [Applause] listen i completely get it getting your first job on upwork can be a really difficult and stressful process personally it took me around three to four months before i got my first job i was doing so many things wrong and honestly i just didn't know how to stand out on upward my goal is to help you avoid the mistakes that i made and share everything with you that has worked for me and getting me to where i am today as a freelancer with the insane number of people filing for unemployment this year due to business closures and layoffs now is a better time than ever to get started freelancing before you listen to any of my tips let me give you a little background and history of my journey on upwork as a freelancer i personally wouldn't listen to tips from someone who couldn't prove their success on upwork and you shouldn't either there's tons of videos from freelancers providing upwork tips yet they have very little earnings and they're not even active on the platform my profile is linked in the description of every single upwork video that i create everything is public on my profile including my earnings it's important for me to actually show you results rather than just telling you what to do without being able to back it up i got my first job on upwork in may of 2016. since then i've made almost six hundred thousand dollars worked on 113 jobs worked over 7 000 hours and i've been featured in upwork marketing campaigns as one of the top freelancers on upwork including a tv commercial most recently to advertise upworks talent grants program in support of businesses working to counter the impact of covet 19. i'm now one of the top freelancers on all of upwork beginning a freelance career on upwork is easily one of the best decisions that i've made in my entire life i'm completely in control of the money that i make and i've developed my skill set at a rapid and insane pace there's no way around it getting started on a long road to be successful freelancer is tough and extremely time consuming however you're gonna get better and learn each day as well if you can push through the difficult times your long-term growth will be more than you can even imagine right now you know something else that should be a top priority backing up your important files memorable photos and basically anything that's valuable to you store it on your computer's hard drive if you're not backing up your files then you could lose everything our sponsor backblaze has a great solution to keep your digital files backed up backblaze is a cloud storage solution that's simple to use and affordable as well starting at just six dollars a month you have unlimited online backups allowing you to fully back up everything that's important to you they've recovered over 50 billion files and have great recovery options you can download your files anywhere in 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apart from the competition or hold you back did you know that nearly one third of jobs on upwork are invite only which means that many clients search for freelancers with the skills that they need and then they invite them to bid on their job i personally get invited to jobs every single week your goal should be to get invited to as many jobs as possible it allows you to actually focus on your work rather than spending tons of time searching for jobs on upwork i rarely search for jobs on upwork because of the long-term work that i have combined with the job invites that i get right now i have over 200 upward connects completing and optimizing your profile will also help you achieve rising talent status or top rated status both will help you stand out offer reduced fees on featured jobs along with other benefits as well so now let's take a look at my upwork profile and i'll show you exactly how i attract and hook clients if you're not familiar with what i'm showing you right now it's a page under the find work tab called my stats which gives you a lot of great information as you can see here my profile was discovered 216 times last week and you can actually follow along with this graph to see how many times it was viewed you definitely need to check this tab as you're working on your profile because it shows your profile completeness one hundred percent profile completion is also a requirement for top rated status on upwork so you can understand why it's critical to have a complete profile so you've probably noticed that upwork is making some major changes to profiles they've completely redesigned the profile layout and there's a lot of new badges each of the different badges has different requirements as you can see you can also scroll down and look at the benefits as well as the requirements for example to earn the top rated plus badge you need to achieve top rated status you need to earn 10 000 or more in the last 12 months and you need positive feedback on one large contract i'll go ahead and link this page in the description of the video in case you want to go through it look at the requirements and look at the benefits alright so let's go ahead and look at my profile and i'm going to go ahead and give you tips on how to set yours up starting at the top you need a high resolution photo a lot of new freelancers don't understand how important your profile photo is your profile photo is one of the main things that gets a client to click on you as they're scrolling through tons of job proposals the most important things that get a client to click on your job proposal is your profile photo your title and the first one to two sentences of your cover letter however out of all of those your profile photo is usually the first thing noticed it needs to be high resolution and clear you need to be smiling and you need to have a decent background the profile photo that i'm using is one that was professionally done this is from when i was on upwork's front page of their website and featured all over the place in their marketing campaigns if you don't have a good headshot of yourself you have a couple options so what i recommend doing is finding a photographer to take a headshot photo of you if a client is going through job proposals they see one photo of someone that looks friendly they're smiling they're engaging then they see another one of someone with just a blank stare on their face who are they going to click on they're going to click on the person that's smiling who looks friendly and looks like they would be a great person to work with next you have the profile title so you can see mine is sql server dba and developer data engineer upwork actually has specialized profiles now i'm sure you've heard of those so you can understand that i need to split mine out so i need to create a couple of customized profiles i would have one for sql server dba and sql developer then i would have another profile for data engineer but your titles need to align with the work that you're trying to get so when a client comes to up work and they're searching for a freelancer with a specific skill set you want to come up in the results so how do you do that number one your title needs to have the keywords in it my goal is that when a client searches for sql server dba that my profile appears sql server dba is my main skill set and it's the main keyword that i use in my profile scrolling through my profile you will find sql server dba a lot you know what let's go ahead and do a control fine so let's see how many times this is used and now we can scroll down sql server dba sql server dba sql server dba sql server dba and that's only on the first page of my reviews if you went through all my reviews sql server dba shows up a lot here it is in my portfolio and here it is in my employment history as well so your title needs to start out with the main keyword that you want to get jobs for okay here we are on the find work tab i changed the drop down to freelancers and agencies and now i'm going to search for sql server dba and as you can see my profile just appeared first for sql server dba i always show up on the first page usually within the first few freelancers obviously there's tons of factors that play into your ranking such as my earnings my job success score how many jobs i've completed related to sql server dba but the title is a huge aspect of it so if we scroll down you can see that a lot of these other freelancers those don't start off with sql server dba so make sure that your title is specific to the type of jobs that you're trying to get so right now my profile rate is at 125 dollars an hour because i know that i provide that level of value my first few jobs on upwork were actually between 25 and 35 dollars an hour i started out bidding in the entry level and the intermediate skill set because i wanted to gain some experience as a freelancer i started getting a ton of five star reviews and i gradually increased my rate as my value increased next up something that's gaining a ton of importance is the profile video on the old layout there used to just be a button that said play video now it's been redesigned for the client to meet you so in my case i have a youtube channel so i just linked one of my recent sql server videos and when a client comes to my page they can click on the play button having a video gives the client a chance to see you to hear you talk and to get to know you more before they even think about interviewing you all you need to do is record a brief video of yourself talking about your skills the services you offer and you know just be friendly it doesn't need to be a long video keep it five minutes or less focus on the value that you provide to clients smile often in the video and be friendly i would recommend filming your video somewhere with good lighting and a good background if you want an example just go back and watch the first of this youtube video look at the lighting that i have look at my background look how i have everything like that set up but again with the video being this close to the top on upwork profiles they're definitely putting a lot of focus into it so you need to as well having a good intro video is going to help your chances in getting your first job on upwork tremendously and next up we have the profile overview so if we go back and we look at our search for sql server dba here's something that's very important so what do you see here you can see that the first couple sentences in my overview show up in the search results just like the first couple sentences of your cover letters are very important the first couple sentences of your overview are equally as important think for ways to make these first couple sentences pop and be attractive to clients so take a look at how i started out obviously your profile overview is going to be very different from mine you know i recommend that you take a look at mine to get ideas for your own but make it unique mine's definitely evolved over time you can see right now how i start out saying that i'm the highest rated and highest earning sql server freelancer on upwork that's something that i've earned i didn't have that in my overview when i first started but think of ways to make your first couple sentences more appealing than another freelancer definitely try to keep your profile overview brief and make it client-centric make it focused on the client how you're going to help them how you're going to be beneficial to them how you're going to provide value to their business so you can see next i highlight some of the major companies that i've worked with so what does this do this helps to build my credibility with a client they can see that some major companies have trusted me so it builds my credibility and trust with the client and then i dive briefly into my experience in sql server database administration just really highlighting what i can offer to them this is another section that i added in to be unique these are not things you should copy and paste into your profile these are specific soft skill things about myself and what i bring to the table for clients over delivering responsiveness resilience kindness those are all internal things and things that i try to provide to clients you're not going to be setting yourself up for success if you're copying another freelancer's overview you need to make it specific to yourself specific to your skill set and what you provide to clients when you look at my overview the key points that i want you to take away from it is a layout and then most importantly how i'm client-centric think of ways to make your overview focused on the client and what they would want to read next up we have your availability you definitely need to have your availability listed here as you can see mine is as needed open to offers make your availability accurate to how much work you can take on education also used to be buried at the bottom of profiles now you can see that it's close to the top if you don't have a college degree don't feel discouraged i have mine listed here but it's 20 20 and not everyone needs a college degree to be successful however in most industries you probably need some type of formal training a certification something like that so whatever education that you can add whatever certifications make sure those are on your profile and as you can see right here in my overview the next section is one of the most important parts of my profile and it always has been from the day i started on upwork i focused on getting five star reviews providing the most value possible that i could to clients and over delivering as a result what do you see when you look through my reviews almost every single one of my reviews has 5 stars and has great feedback having reviews like this is going to help you get jobs more than basically anything else will it's going to help you get jobs like this one and get reviews like these as well the client review section is the most important part of my entire profile i put the most work into it and means the most to me and i value it the most before the internet and social media was huge most companies did well by word of mouth what do people say about you you want the word of mouth and your upwork reviews to be exceptional just like you wouldn't buy a product on amazon with horrible reviews a client isn't going to work with you if you have bad reviews how do you get reviews like this you over deliver and you focus on being client centric and providing as much value possible as you can to the client next up we have the portfolio section which is way smaller now on this new layout so i'm going to zoom in on it the portfolio section is still very important even though on this new layout it kind of looks less important than it used to be it's still a way for you to showcase your work you can see on mine i have listed where i was featured as one of the top freelancers on upwork and i was in a lot of their marketing campaigns i have my youtube channel linked all my success with it and my sql server videos and i also have a few examples of my sql server skill set whatever previous projects that you've done big time accolades throw those in here any previous projects you've completed that showcase your skill set throw those on here especially when you're a new freelancer and you don't have any reviews or feedback yet clients are going to want to see examples of your work if you're really new to your skill set and you don't really have any examples yet then you're probably going to need to find example projects online using something like github or something similar go find a project that you can do yourself related to your skill set complete it and then create a portfolio item for it next up we have the skills section your skills again need to be related to the type of jobs you're trying to get take a look at mine microsoft sql server programming microsoft sql server administration database administration database sql server sql you can see that every one of my skills tie in to my title and the skills that i provide to clients hopefully you're starting to realize how all these things combined together on your profile factor into how you're ranked and how you're recommended to clients my profile is immensely optimized for sql server and database administration whatever your skill set is make your profile optimized for it in the next section you can create pre-packaged projects i haven't really done anything with this these aren't accurate i didn't set these up they were all default so i'm not going to cover these next we have employment history if you have employment history related to your skill set you need to highlight it here and remember keywords use your main skill set as the keywords for your previous experience if you have it for that skill take a look at mine database administrator sql server dba sql server dba you can see how my main skill set is in a lot of my employment history as well and then last you have other experiences now this is on the bottom of your profile so it doesn't have a lot of importance so what i used it for was to highlight some of the certifications that i have if you have any certifications or any type of training that you've done and you want to throw it in here this is a good place to do it i've put a lot of work into my upwork profile and it's been an ongoing process over the years these are tips that i've acquired over the years and i'm giving them to you to help you get your first job on upwork and be a successful high earning freelancer updating my profile is something that i do periodically if i come up with a new idea i have new accolades to add to it or if i just want to try something different and since recording the first part of this video when we went over my profile i actually updated something in my overview which i want to show you so if we scroll down to the bottom of my overview so i remove the very last paragraph that used to be in my overview honestly that section had been in my overview basically since i first started on upwork i wanted to update the last part of my overview to make it more attractive to clients so i took one of my reviews and i placed it in my overview and this is what i added the client review below which you can find in my review section and numerous others like it describes the quality of work and value that you can expect from working with me i grabbed one of my reviews and i placed it at the end of my overview and this is a really great review that i got from a high paying contract i placed this in my overview to give the client more confidence in me and my abilities to help them achieve whatever their task is whatever their job is and provide immense value to them so if you're a brand new freelancer on upwork something you could do is get a review from a client a previous job you've had something that relates to your skill set get someone to give you a review you know previous employers you know someone along those lines get a review from someone like that and then you can place that in your overview and just list the name of the client or your previous employer list the name of them right beside of it i personally didn't list the name of the person leaving the review because it's in my review section and the client can easily find it so let me show you it real quick it's a recent review and here you go database administrator needed to help maintain and migrate databases here's the review which you just saw in my overview and as you can see it was a high paying contract the key takeaway here is to let you know that i'm always looking for ways to improve my profile i want you to constantly think of ways that you can improve it if you create your profile and never come back to improve it you're going to be stagnant just like your skill set you always need to be improving it building upon it and finding new ways to service clients your profile needs to be viewed in the same regard you need to be thinking of ways to improve it new ways to make it attractive to clients which is going to earn you more money when clients post a job on upwork they will be really active for the first few hours if you can submit your proposal within the first few hours of it being posted your chances to be interviewed skyrocket this is immensely critical when you're trying to get your first job on upward you don't have the reviews and the jobs completed on your profile like a lot of other freelancers do however if you submit your job proposal before those freelancers then you can get noticed and interviewed quick if you meet the client's requirements a great way that you can throw your upward connects down the drain is to submit a job proposal on a job that's been open for days or a week with no recent activity from the client as a new freelancer on upwork you need to do everything in your power to find competitive advantages over other freelancers applying fast is one of the best ways that you can separate yourself and give yourself a competitive advantage i mentioned this in a lot of my videos but i actually hired my youtube video editor alex on upwork he's been editing my videos for about two years now he's very talented and just overall a great person to work with so when i created the job on upwork i quickly shortlisted several freelancers who submitted their job proposals within those first few hours a lot of you probably don't know this but upward clients actually have a button that they can click and that will shortlist freelancers this is a great feature for upward clients because it allows them to only focus on those freelancers who they're considering i know personally that when you have a job created and it gets over 20 proposals submitted it's really hard to navigate through the list even more importantly to remember clients come to upwork for the convenience the simplicity and the quickness of finding freelancers to fulfill their business needs you see most clients want to find a freelancer quick and get started it's one of the main benefits to use freelancers because the hiring process is so much quicker and easier as well make sure that you have the upwork app installed on your phone so that you can check for new jobs frequently and have it ordered by newest jobs first if you get invited to a job and it's a good fit for you and your skills then again apply fast if a client invites you to a job then you're likely one of the select few the client will often want to work with the first freelancer who they communicate with that can fulfill the job requirements and also communicate their value don't wait around for another freelancer to get that first discussion jump on that invite quick okay now let's jump back over to upwork i'm going to show you how to find the best jobs for you and apply fast by using advanced search so how do you find the right jobs and apply fast so how i got to this screen was i went to find work and then i clicked on a category that i have saved which is database administration there's currently 276 jobs available for the category of database administration globally instead of trying to just go through 276 of these we're going to throw some filters on now i'm going to click filters for job type i would pretty much leave it open to anything unless you only want to work on hourly or fixed price jobs when you're starting out as a new freelancer and trying to get your first jobs i would leave it as any job type experience level now this is something that comes down to your ability to perform your skill for my specific skill which is database administration sql server database administration to be specific i have over eight years of experience working as a sql server dba i've been exposed to so many different types of projects and jobs on upwork i've put so much time into my skill set and i'm really comfortable working on projects for sql server and that's something that i always try to drill home in you your skill set is the most important prerequisite to your freelance career without your skill set you're never going to make any money on upwork if your skill set isn't where it needs to be today then you have to start putting in the time when i first started learning sql server i made sure that i dedicated a certain amount of hours to learning it every day i didn't just go through one course wait a week and then maybe pick up another one i made sure i put x amount of hours into developing my skill set every single day so whatever your experience level is for your skill set you need to select it here and you can select more than one when i first started out freelancing for example i was trying to just build my confidence as a freelancer so i started out by selecting entry level and intermediate for me personally when i first started out i wanted to work on jobs that i knew i could deliver five star ratings on so my first jobs were in the entry level and intermediate range over time as i completed jobs i got five star reviews and great feedback i increased my rate and i increased the experience level of jobs that i was looking for today every single job that i do is expert level you're going to make way more money at expert level but it takes time to get there now if you're someone that's been in a full-time job for years and you have tons of experience in your skill set this doesn't apply to you for those individuals you could start out in the expert experience level because you have the expert level ability so again i'm making this specific to me so i'm going to select expert i would recommend leaving client history open the reason i recommend that is because some of my largest contracts have come from new clients to upwork i've had some very large really high paying contracts that are long term with clients that just came to upwork because of that i'm going to leave any client history for client info you can make sure that they're already payment verified again i don't select this personally because a lot of new clients to upwork will create their account and they may not set up the payment right away so if you select this you can end up filtering out some clients that just haven't had the time to set up their payment method so i personally don't check this because i don't want to filter out any of those clients this is one of the best ways that you can avoid wasting your connects number of proposals so as i mentioned earlier it's really important to get your proposal submitted fast when a fairly new upwork drop has been created and there's a low level of proposal submitted you have a very great chance to stand out and get noticed through my years of experience on upwork and trying so many things out i find that it's best to submit a job proposal when there's only been about five to ten submitted this means that there's a very short list that the client is looking through once a job gets in the 15 to 20 or even 20 to 50 range there's so many job proposals submitted the client likely isn't going through all those they just don't have the time to and let me just go ahead and show you exactly what it looks like okay so now i'm logged into my upwork client account again as i mentioned previously this is my video editor alex who i hired through upward so what we're going to do is take a look at the original job proposals as you can see my job had 19 proposals submitted again as i mentioned earlier shortlisted this is why i told you that short listing is so important you want to be shortlisted your best way to get shortlisted is to get your proposal submitted fast as soon as the client notices you and they believe that you can complete their project successfully they're going to shortlist you so here's exactly what proposals look like whenever you submit them to clients these proposals are linked at the top because upwork recommended them as best matches for me i can highlight over best match and you can see that it says that this freelancer has been selected based on their work history and fit with my job and something else i want to mention remember earlier when we went through my profile remember how much importance that i put on the profile photo take a look at these photos which of these am i most likely to click on in the first photo the freelancer is smiling it has good lighting the only thing that i would recommend changing is this background so he's obviously outside or something but what i would recommend doing is having a solid background this background is kind of distracting and it takes the focus away from him take a look at the next profile photo there's obviously two people in this photo the distance is kind of bad as well it's just something i wouldn't recommend and here's an example of a good photo this photo has great lighting it's focused on him on his face he's smiling he looks engaging this is overall a great photo and it was the first one that really caught my attention when i scrolled through these again if you have the ability to get a professional headshot photo taken of yourself definitely do it they're gonna have the lighting they're gonna have the background they're gonna have everything that you need to make it a great photo so what i wanted to mention in regards to submitting your proposal fast is this look how many proposals there are i even have to click on load more so this is with 19 proposals submitted so it actually shows 10 proposals on the first page which means that there's nine proposals that the client doesn't even see unless they click this load more button your chances of being noticed from someone that has to click load more to even see your proposal are very very very slim if you submit a proposal on a job that's in the 15 to 20 range or 20 to 50 and then you end up on the load more side so an example of what you just did by doing that is you took your upward connects you opened your window while driving down the highway you toss them out and then they got literally obliterated by tons and tons of cars running over them crushing them this is where you want to end up and the best way to end up here is by getting your proposal submitted fast you want to be on the shortlisted side once i had these freelancers shortlisted i never checked all proposals again i never went back to it i made my decision based off the freelancers that i shortlisted here and again the freelancer that i chose is in my opinion the best video editor on youtube he's great alex so i hope you realize that when you submit a job proposal for a job that has more than 10 proposals your chances of being noticed are very very small i'm gonna leave less than five checked and five to ten checked i don't really focus on any specific budgets i pretty much leave the budget open and then hours per week i leave this open as well to anything most clients just throw this in here but they really don't know how much time it's really going to take something else that i recommend once you have a really good filter set like this instead of having to come back and put all these in every time you can actually click on save search right here i'm going to call this one database administration with filters and then i'm going to click save and now i can go back and reference that one anytime and then for project length you can really put whatever you want in here i'll leave it as any project length there's not any specific length that i'm looking for so i just leave this as any and now when i start going through these jobs these are really filtered down and specific to what i'm looking for also something that i forgot to mention i always have my sword on newest there's other options here but again my goal is to apply fast i want to see the newest jobs that were submitted this one is at the very top because it was marked as an interesting job but again posted three hours ago posted four hours ago and then what i would do is start going through the job descriptions making sure that it's something that i can do something that fits my skill set and if it's something that i'm interested in i'll click on the job and then go through the process of submitting a job proposal after checking some other criteria as well there's tons and tons of jobs that get uploaded to upwork all the time so for instance if you come to upwork right now and you go through and look at these jobs like i am none of these are really standing out as jobs that i want to spend my connects on does that discourage me not at all i could literally come back here and refresh hours from now and there will be new jobs so don't get discouraged if you go look for jobs and you don't find anything right away that you want to bid on there's jobs uploaded to upwork every single hour you have to frequently check the new jobs after you have your search saved all you have to do is periodically come in and refresh it if you're not searching for new jobs you're not going to get anything keep in mind that there's someone else in the world with a similar skill set as you and they're probably searching for jobs more often than you are if you want to be able to get jobs and compete with those freelancers you have to check for new jobs frequently after you find a job that has a great title that matches up with your skill set and the description is something that you feel comfortable doing whenever you click on the job before you hit submit a proposal there's other things that you need to look at number one this job is going to cost two connects so i have 210 connects right now so that's not a problem for me depending on how many connects that you have available you need to take a close look at the job to determine if it's worth using your connects on what i would personally recommend doing is scrolling down and taking a look at the reviews of the client if it's a new client this isn't going to be here however this is a client that has one review from a freelancer why is that important it's important because you want to see what the freelancer said about the client as a freelancer i can tell you that there's clients out there that aren't worth your time when you're building your freelance profile and really working on setting yourself up for success you don't want to work with bad clients not knowing what type of review you're going to get from the client is going to be really stressful you need really great reviews starting out the more great reviews you get the more it's just going to keep building with the steamroll effect you're going to get noticed more you're going to get more jobs you're going to make more money so you can see they have a 5 star review and we'll go take a look and see what the freelancer said as you can see this is a really great review i would not hesitate to work for him again so this gives me confidence that this client is going to be a good one to work with so would i go ahead and click submit a proposal now not yet what else should i look at this section right here is what you want to look at activity on this job there's been five to ten proposals submitted again that's in a range of a filter we set this doesn't have a filter last viewed by client now obviously this is a newer job so it's going to be viewed pretty recently it was last viewed by the client three hours ago so what happens when you find a job that fits your skill set but it's been open for days or maybe a week you click on the job and you're so excited to submit a job proposal because it aligns with your skill set so well it's something that you're really confident doing because of your emotion you go ahead and click submit proposal because you're ready to get it submitted and what happened is you just made a really huge mistake you completely forgot about checking the activity on the job you didn't check last viewed by client now if this job had been open for a week or maybe even longer there's a good chance that this value could be days and let me give you an example of that right now let's take a look at one of the jobs that's been opened the longest alright here we go this job has been open for a month and if we scroll down and take a look at activity on the job the client hasn't opened this job in one month the client hasn't reviewed or interacted with any of the applicants for this job in a month so what you did is you just submitted a job proposal on a job that the client isn't even looking at this is one of the most common ways that i see freelancers wasting their connects you have to look at activity on this job if you don't look at this section you're literally just wasting your connects after you find the best jobs that fit your skill set and are worthy of using your precious upward connects on next you need to write job winning cover letters you've optimized your profile you have an eye-catching profile photo and now you're ready to hook the client with your cover letter if you're someone who copies the same cover letter that you put mediocre effort into and then you paste that into all your job proposals please stop doing that today you're literally wasting so many connects i do have a template but i only use it for repetitive things that are in all of my cover letters which i'm going to show you shortly coincidentally i also have a full video on my channel that covers the entire process that i use when i write cover letters however i'm going to quickly cover it here as well for anyone who hasn't watched that video and if you want a more in-depth walkthrough then go back and watch that video when you finish this one i keep all of my upwork and freelance videos in a playlist at the top of my youtube channel so you can easily find and watch them so let's go ahead and jump back over to upwork again i'm going to show you exactly how i write cover letters and give you a real life example okay so now i'm going to show you something completely for free on youtube which i could take and throw in a course like so many people have done and then charge you for it but instead of doing that all i ask is to take one second and hit the like button on this video i really appreciate it so much and it really helps my channel i'm gonna show you exactly how i write cover letters that win jobs so i looked through a bunch of these jobs there's nothing right now on upwork that i want to bid on that i would really want to spend my connects on this client is specifically looking for a database architect and administrator this is a job that fits my skill set i'm comfortable doing it i know i have experience with it so i'm gonna go ahead and submit a proposal and you may be thinking that my hourly rate is higher than this why would i submit a proposal for it i've had clients that had the same type of range and then they ended up hiring me for over a hundred dollars an hour this doesn't discourage me and now i'm going to start constructing my cover letter and one other thing that i want to mention be sure to follow me on instagram and twitter i post upwork tips to them almost daily i also link a lot of great useful information like this template i'm getting ready to show you for cover letters the links are down in the description of this video for you all of my cover letters are broken down into sections which i make specific to the job i'm bidding on and the client the first section grab attention and hook the client fast what would make you click on the proposal be creative and think in the client's perspective if you don't already know this the first one to two sentences of your cover letter is what the client is going to see first when they're scrolling through draw proposals so here we are back on my client account and i want to show you this the first one to two sentences of alex's cover letter is one of the main reasons why i hired him as you can see it's the first one to two sentences that appears to the client before they click on your proposal what did alex do he was creative alex was creative and he told me exactly what i wanted to hear this section right here is something that caused me to take action and this is the really great part right here ideas for your channel and then he went into giving me ideas for my channel so why did this jump out at me and why was it creative well let's take a look at the other proposals and let's scroll down and look at a few of these a bunch of these freelancers and a lot of people do this they're telling me their name at the very first part of the proposal which i can already see right here there's no reason to throw your name at the first year cover letter when they can already see it most of these proposals just start talking directly about their experience that's why it's important to be creative and think of ways to stand out the first part of his cover letter was very great alex really took advantage by making his first two sentences stand out so again grab attention and hook the client fast next you need to give a specific example of your work that relates directly to the client's job the client needs to know that you can deliver on their job and their project the best way to build that confidence is to give them a specific example of something that you've already done next i focus on building credibility by providing the client with hard evidence of my skills and my experience then tell the client what separates you why are you unique sync the hook in further give the client a reason why hiring you while working with you is the best decision for them which will provide the most value call to action cause the client to take action and then i end with a professional closing how can you stand out one way is to find the client's name and this is possible the job i'm actually submitting a proposal for doesn't have any reviews with a name in it so i'm going to open this job right here so i can show you so before you hit submit a proposal what you can do is scroll down and look at the client reviews you can see that the freelancer left a review and they use the name of the client so if i was submitting a job proposal for that job i would come to the first section here under grab attention to hook the client fast and i would lead off with something like this as simple as that was it made my proposal way more personalized i will likely be one of the few proposals actually referencing the client's name and then i would use something to grab the client's attention and i try to customize this and try different ways instead of having this in a template and pasting it into every single one of my job proposals i really play around with different ideas to see which ones perform best so for this one i'm going to start off and say your job post grabbed my attention instantly this tells them that something that they placed in their job description really grabbed my attention it's something that i do a lot now i'm going to remove this header because i'm finished with this section okay next up example of work this is where you give the client confidence that you can deliver successfully and here's what i use for this proposal i've completed numerous sql server database administration jobs on upwork all with five star reviews and great feedback as well two specific examples that relate directly to your job post are attached to this proposal for you so i went to my profile and i took screenshots of two reviews that relate directly to the client's project and their long-term contracts that i made a lot of money on i'm going to go ahead and upload those now so we have review one and review two and now to show you what both of these look like let me go ahead and open them so here's review number one microsoft sql server dba again database administration relating directly to their project this was a really large contract that i worked on 55 000 earned but most importantly forget the earnings this is what's important the overall rating was 5 stars they gave me 5 stars on every single thing skills availability communication quality deadlines cooperation and the feedback is just as great this is something that is going to give the client very very very high confidence in me client confidence and trust is monumental and then we can take a look at review too again large contract it doesn't have to be a large contract though if you haven't had large contracts yet just use something that has a really good review you don't even have to have the earnings on it i left the earnings on mine because it shows that i was able to retain this client for a long time it also shows that the client invested a lot of money in me and they're happy with the value that i provided it will give this client confidence that the return on investment for hiring me is going to be good for them but the review is the most important factor 5 stars on everything with great feedback so what if you're brand new to upwork you don't have any client reviews yet that you can use this way you can easily reach out to someone some employer that you've worked for a colleague that you've worked with someone that can give you a professional review if you want to make it professional and stand out get them to write you a formal review in a word document which you can save as a pdf and then have them sign the document as well this is literally the same thing that you would do if you were getting references for a resume i did this when i graduated from college when i built my resume i also got references i reached out to professors i had in college i reached out to my former employers and what i did is i had some of them write reviews they signed it they were all professional and i included those with my resume when i was applying for jobs you can literally do the same thing here so i'm finished with this section so i'm going to go ahead and delete the header as well next i focus on building my credibility i achieve this by discussing my experience letting them know that i have over eight years of experience directly related to their job next i list a couple of really quick accolades i discuss how i'm one of the top sql server freelancers on upwork with over 7000 hours worked over five hundred and eighty thousand dollars earned you get the point and then i discuss how i've been featured in tons of upwork marketing campaigns including the front page of the website and i'm gonna add those attachments as well so i include these two attachments and i'll show you what they are really quick the first one is when i was featured on the front page of the website here's a screenshot from that and next is when i was used as the cover photo for their facebook page so think creatively and think of any accolades or achievements that would help build the client's confidence and trust in you so i'm going to remove the header for this section so what separates me and makes me unique among other freelancers please review my profile where you will find numerous 5-star reviews and raving feedback as well i tell the client to review my profile where they will find numerous five-star reviews and raving feedback i then mention my youtube channel this is something that makes me unique and makes me stand out among other freelancers i have a youtube channel with over 25 000 subscribers and 1.7 million views as all of you know on my channel i provide freelancing personal finance and tech review content i also have a full playlist dedicated to sql server content my sql server videos demonstrate my skills and my abilities within sql server this is a very unique way that i build client trust and confidence the client can see specific examples of my work and my knowledge in sql server so i'm going to go ahead and remove this header next it's time to sync the hook in further here's a way that i would do this if you choose me you can be assured that you're getting top-notch expertise in sql server as well as someone who will complete your jobs correctly the first time i'm giving them confidence in me that they won't have to hire someone else to go in and fix all my mistakes so i'm going to go ahead and delete this header okay so let's take a look at the call to action and this is one of the most important parts of my cover letters this is definitely a section that i modify a lot and try a lot of different variations of however this is a great one here so let's see how i structured this one the call to action that i'm using is getting them to schedule an intro call with me which i can use as an interview this is not only an opportunity for the client to interview me but it's an opportunity for me to interview the client the client's job post and description is not enough to get me to accept it i need to speak to the client i need to make sure they're going to be a good person to work for i need to make sure we're going to have a good working relationship i need to make sure that they i need to make sure that they didn't leave something out of the job description that i'm not comfortable doing overall i need to make sure that this specific job is a great fit for me and i can deliver 5 star high quality work on if it doesn't meet that criteria i don't accept it i've had a ton of success on upwork my profile is flooded with 5 star reviews a lot of that has to do with me being very selective i make sure that i set myself up for success so then i go on to tell them that we can discuss the project in more detail and we can ensure that my skill set will be a great fit i give them two specific times that i can be available this week and then i tell the client that if neither of those times work for them to just let me know when they will be available and i will alter my schedule around for it this builds a little extra confidence and trust in me because a client can see that i'm willing to alter my schedule i'm willing to make it work for them and this is something i do to build a little extra confidence and trust in me i make sure that the client knows they're important to me so i'm going to go ahead and delete the section off and there's no reason to leave the j uppercase that was just a mistake on my part and last we have professional closing and this is one that i would use and i'll go ahead and delete the header off this one and that's how i write cover letters and now what i do is i go through it one more time i make sure there's not any typos and i make sure i didn't leave anything out so now i'm just going to scroll down through the cover letter and double check everything and here's a great example of something that i need to change so i need to change freelancing to freelance where i provide freelance personal finance and tech review content okay that sounds way better and there we go i've constructed a great cover letter and i'm ready to submit it your success on upwork is dependent on your ability to service clients needs and provide value to them you need to stop focusing on yourself and put yourself in the perspective of the client to get five-star reviews with the feedback that i have on my profile you have to constantly think about the client what would you expect if you were the client are you communicating effectively and keeping them updated are you making an effort to over deliver are you providing immense value these are all things that i think about when i'm working with a client or trying to get a job and you need to as well so what's the best way to become a client focus freelancer i would recommend thinking of something that you need help with it could be a very simple task then go to upwork create a client account and post your job then hire a freelancer to complete your task this will be an eye-opening experience for you and put yourself directly in the perspective of the client the better that you can fulfill clients needs and over deliver the more money that you're gonna make on upwork a lot of freelancers ask me how i get really great reviews and feedback on my profile it's a combination of over delivering and always putting myself in the client's perspective i always strive to go above and beyond their expectations of me for example i recently worked with a client to resolve an issue that they were experiencing after i resolved the issue i sent them a best practice document that they could go back and reference this is a document that i already created in the past so all i had to do is just go through it and update a few things did they ask for this no but i knew it was something additional that i could add which would be of high value this led to an amazing 5 star review of my profile and you can even see they reference a document which i sent over the freelance content on my channel is unique because i actually talk about what it takes to be a successful freelancer you could be one of the most talented people with a high paying skill set however if you lack motivation consistency resilience and work ethic then you're going to be limited there's so many people who become successful but then they plateau become stagnant and just lose their motivation a large portion of my success on upwork is due the fact that i love what i do freelancing youtube and growing my business all those feel like a hobby to me rather than work this is a major reason why i'm able to pour the hours that i do into freelancing and youtube now personally as an actor i started enjoying my work and literally being more happy when i stopped trying to make the daily labor a means to a certain end for example i need this film to be a box office success you know i need my performance to be acknowledged i need the respect of my peers all those are reasonable aspirations but the truth is as soon as the work the daily making of the movie the doing of the deed became the reward in itself for me i got more box office more accolades and respect than i ever had before you know if anybody watching right now if there's anything they take away it's like look like you're going to only be so pretty you're only going to be so smart like you like there's there's things that are going to be natural and there's things that you can actually control i do believe and i don't know if i'm right or wrong i don't but i do believe that work ethic is a taught behavior it's something you do have more control over of course there's days where i'm extremely tired or i'm just lacking motivation however those days are usually due to me not getting enough sleep or working out enough i truly love freelancing on upwork and creating youtube content that helps others and that allows me to put in the work and put in the grind that's required to get where i want to be how did i become successful in upwork and earn almost 600 thousand dollars in four years i put so much time into developing my skill set and making it a point to be the hardest worker on the platform your work ethic is always the one variable that you can control you may not be the smartest person you may not be the most naturally talented but you can always outwork the competition i've always had the mentality that i will never let someone out work me the feeling of someone working harder than me it eats away at me i think about it constantly then in turn it causes me to work harder and grind longer how much time do you spend staring at your phone each day every one of those seconds count as each second passes you're setting yourself back those seconds could be put into developing your skill set becoming a better freelancer or learning from others who are in positions that you want to be in every second counts you have to watch you have to watch every single second because those seconds they turn into minutes [Music] and minutes turn into hours and hours turn into days and days turn in to years [Music] and so that second that second that just went by that counted when i need a little extra motivation i watch videos like the clip i just showed you from mulligan brothers i turn on their videos and listen to them during the day as i'm working it's something that just works for me listening to their videos helps me set my mindset for the day and work harder my work schedule has changed a lot in the last year since i'm working from home full time now i typically work from 9 a.m to 8 p.m then i eat dinner and spend time with my fiance who's also working from home right now and due to coving then i usually work again from around 11 pm to 2 a.m on weekends i get done when i need to i have a lot of flexibility to spend a lot of time with my fiance on the weekends because of how hard i work during the week of course i definitely still work on the weekend because i'm a freelancer and because i make youtube content the majority of my work gets completed during the week because of the focus effort that i put in however all my work feels like a hobby to me so i'm never tracking hours i count what i got done and the progress that i made i personally recommend using something like trello i use it to set my top priorities for the day and then mark them as complete as i finish them i love looking at my long list of done items because i know that i put the work in that i needed to previously i was using one note to keep track of my top priorities which was really difficult to manage trello also has the option to set due dates and reminders as well and this video is in no way sponsored by trello their service has helped me a lot which is why i'm sharing it with you it's also completely free to sign up as well i plan to make a more in-depth video on how i manage my top priorities all my freelance work and everything that i do there's way more that goes into being a successful freelancer then you realize your consistency work ethic and resilience are so critical starting today make changes in your life that will elevate you to where you want to be when i first started freelancing i searched for top freelance profiles for earnings and reviews and i use those as motivation everyone wants to see examples of people who have made it in their industry and reach the highest levels my goal is to be that for you as a freelancer to show you that a kid from a rural area in central kentucky who grew up on a farm can become one of the most successful and top earning freelancers on upward your potential is far greater than you know i was fortunate to have the best mom that you could ever imagine she was selfless and cared more about her family than herself she passed away in 2014 after a tough battle with leukemia losing her really changed me losing someone that close and important to you really makes you realize that tomorrow isn't promised every day is a blessing and an opportunity for you to go after whatever you want in life for me that's helping people all around the world achieve success being a positive impact on everyone that i meet and being the best person i can be for my fiance and my family you only get one shot at life so take advantage of it your goals aspirations and ambitions for life are likely different from mine and they should be whatever your ideal life looks like whatever that may be go after it starting today put in the work put in the grind leave a positive impact on the world and you already know what's coming next let's get to work on this end screen i recommend checking out these videos and be sure to hit that round subscribe button for weekly tech videos and hit that notification bell so you don't miss anything thank you for watching and until next time

Channel: Josh Burns Tech

Views: 360,884

Keywords: upwork tutorial for beginners, upwork tutorial, upwork for beginners, upwork, upwork tips, upwork profile, upwork profile tips, upwork cover letter, upwork proposal, upwork job proposal, upwork freelancer, upwork jobs, upwork connects, how to get first job on upwork, upwork.com, how does upwork work, upwork profile approval, upwork account create, how to use upwork, upwork 2020, up work, upwork portfolio, how to bid on upwork, upwork how to get first job, upwork 2021

Id: PTzJlrahqgc

Length: 56min 24sec (3384 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020