Freelancing 102: Do more with Upwork

Are you thinking of becoming a Freelance web developer and you’re not quite sure how to start? Are you looking for a proven system to do so?

Well I’m going to answer exactly that.

but first go ahead and get familiar with the first part of this article here.

lets get on with our freelancing then. So, the third service that I currently recommend on Upwork for web developers is

Shopify

Now Shopify these are projects there are a thousand to three thousand and sometimes even seven thousand dollars on Upwork.

This is a more tricky platform to work with and the requirements are steeper but the supply is lower Because anyone these days can do landing pages and WordPress. The competition is higher but for Shopify, there are best practices. you need to go through the documentation or find someone another freelance to help you with it who has more experience.

It is a little bit more complicated with that and that’s why the projects are so much more expensive. there’s also more money on the line usually Because eCommerce websites generate quite a bit of money.

Usually, before someone wants to do e-commerce they will usually have a budget, or they already have a business, which definitely means they have a budget.

So, how do you get your first clients on Upwork as a freelance web developer or agency owner?

you need to create a profile that is like a landing page that gets people on a call with you and I know it may be a little bit scary and I’m just kind of throwing you in the deep end here. but you will want to talk to someone on the phone. You need to check that they are normal, same people and they can pay you a good amount of money for the project.

you need to interview them. you’re not like a freelancer who gets interviewed for a job you’re a business owner and you want to interview clients to make sure you actually want to work with them and is the right choice for them and you can deliver a lot of value to them. which of course means that you can charge them a good amount of money Because that’s valuable.

That’s a value that you provide as a professional so you get five reviews on up work.

something about your profile.

you want to make sure that your profile looks very legitimate with lots of proof if you don’t have to proof make sure you get to proof build some websites or take on some clients cheaper outside of up work and then bring them to pay you enough work and leave you positive reviews to make sure you have five reviews as soon as possible. So, you can get top rated as soon as possible.

Just go read through the Upwork Help section and it’ll tell you how to get top-rated and with five reviews and top rated your profile will look really good.

Then you want to make sure you’re sending ten proposals per day, highly customized even video proposals if you’re into that kind of thing and make sure you’re getting people on calls on skype to interview them and make sure they’re ideal clients.

clients that pay right.

As I said so if you choose to go without work and if you choose to get clients on there I recommend getting clients to pay you upfront Because Upwork will want you to get paid through their platform which has some fees and the fee of course is included in a price to the client ultimately pays for the fee so it’s not a big deal for you.

At least so what you want to be doing is, you want to get clients that are highly qualified to pay you through the platform even if you get the clients from outside of the platform and the fee is the fee don’t worry about that. Because, the client is paying it and then you want to make sure that you get five reviews and your profile looks super amazing to future clients.

Because what you’re really doing is not just getting those five reviews and five clients, what you’re really doing is building a funnel to consistently get clients for the next five to ten years in your business. If you do things right and that’s why it’s worthwhile Because, Upwork is a 1.7 billion or so dollar company they have an unlimited amount of leads and unlimited amount of sales that you’ll be able to close over the next few years.

So, I highly recommend taking it seriously and really building out that platform and building out your ability to get clients on there. It’s an extremely valuable medium even short-term and definitely long-term.

committing to the project.

So, you’ll want to get the client also to commit on how they will contribute to the project when the deadlines are for you and for them and how you guys will communicate I recommend one weekly call with an update on the project where both parties discuss what they need to deliver and what has been delivered and what has been created so far and the client needs to approve every week what has been done and if they don’t they still should pay you.

Because, if they’re late same as what you’re late like you still need to get paid Because, things happen and that’s okay and they have busy schedules but they need to stay committed to delivering feedback to you and this needs to be in the agreement on up work make sure that is mentioned how the communication happens and how soon after someone says a message.

legal help.

I reply error is expected from both sides Because, that way the project doesn’t get stuck and dragged on for months and months and months and they should also have to pay you even if they don’t reply and the project gets stuck. They should still have to pay you.

Because, if they stop the project by not replying you still deserve to be paid for your work so for a contract you can go to a website like LegalZoom or Loch Rocket Lawyer and you can use one of those contracts on there are templates they’re almost free you can also Google templates for web design or web development and you’ll find a bunch of templates to use it’s not very complicated or hire a lawyer this is of course not legal advice but you know Rock allure and LegalZoom they have lawyers working for them and their templates then to be good in my opinion.

overpaid or underpaid

So, most freelancers they’ll say oh the budgets are so low and the competition so high and the prices are being driven low. well, it depends with you sell to if you sell to the people that are just starting a business they have no idea of how much things cost they have no budget they have no idea that it’s worthwhile investing in web development then, of course, you’re going to get in trouble and of course, you’re going to have to charge less money.

Because, you’re competing with everyone else who sells to those people but if you have a great portfolio that you get and your team has of course as well then you can get.

based on your track record pay a lot more and it’s perfectly fine to ask for more money than you’re comfortable with in the discover wood and then saying no that is perfectly fine it’s better to for them to say no than for you to work on a very small cheap project and get in trouble with your account and get in trouble just wasting your time so it’s better to wait for the right client than to take on anyone and everyone who wants a little website done.

So, as you’ll see when you start to specialize and perfect your craft and focus on things that truly matter to people with budgets to people that are entrepreneurs and want to spend real money on web development. you’ll soon realize that these are great people to work with as long as you manage the client properly and you have the right contract and charge enough money these problems tend to go away and you’ll drift away from the crowd of people that are complaining about bad clients and bad days.