Transcripts
1. Freelancing On Upwork Secret Formula For Getting Contracts for Jobs Phase 2 : Hello, everyone. Welcome to the freelancing on upward course where I teach you about my secret formula for getting contracts for jobs. This course is directed at all levels of skill. So it doesn't matter if you know you're a beginner or if you're an expert, however this is faced two in our series of courses for freelancing are up work. So I do recommend that you watch phase one because I do believe it can be beneficial, but it is not a requirement. But just remember that every phase number represents a different course. So what That being said, what we're going to go over in this course is number one headlines because headlines are very important. We're going to go over analyzing the job description. We're going to talk about some timing variables, and we're also going to talk about special promotions. And I think those are the key things that you want. Take a look at in order for you to have success in closing contracts for jobs on up work. So in conclusion, where you're gonna be able to do by the end of this course is you're going to be able to take the knowledge gained from headlines, analyzing job descriptions, looking at timing variables and looking at special promotions. You're gonna take all that information and be able to use it to execute a successful plan for being able to close or get contracts were jobs on upward. So I hope you're excited and get ready for the next video.
2. Quick Tips: in this video, I'm going to give you some quick tips that I think you should be thinking about that are really important. Before starting the main part of this course Number one, I think that you need Teoh practice. And actually, I won't even say think you really do need to practice daily. That means the things that I teach you throughout this course you need to practice it daily if you're going tohave success. So I don't think that you're going to apply the knowledge in this course just one day out of a week, and that that's going to result in a lot of success because that's not how it works. It requires a certain amount of commitment. The next thing that you need to do is try to identify when clients in your industry are most likely to post a new job. So figure that pattern out and make sure that you're searching for jobs around the time frame that they're likely to post a new job. And I know that that won't always be consistent, but you definitely want to try to see what the pattern is of when people in your industry are most likely to post a job so that you can be the 1st 1 to see that job opportunity. The next thing that you want to do is look for the highest paying jobs and see what the requirements are. And the reason for that is if you have the skills and the technical knowledge and whatever it is that they require for the highest paying jobs, you'll be prepared to work for any, you know, job that client posts on up work because you've looked at the highest paying jobs. And usually the higher paying jobs require more skills and knowledge. So being able to do all the things that the higher paying jobs acquire will pretty much prepare you for anything and the last thing and the most important thing. Do not short. Sell yourself, no undercut yourself. Don't undervalue yourself. I have to say this in many different ways because a lot of people you know may get online and feel like in order to win, you have to undercut your pricing, and that's not necessarily true. There may be instances where you do that, but that's not the book of it. A lot of organizations or individuals or people are looking for people that can get the job done, and also they want to make sure you get a fair pay, usually so not always the case, but from my experience most of the time, that is the case. My recommendation is that you have a pay range, meaning a minimum amount, that you're willing to work for a median amount, that you're willing to work for any upper in of how much you want to get paid. And as long as you have a pay range, you'll automatically have a flexibility that you can negotiate with any client. If you have to go to one of those particular ranges. So if you need to go to a minimum and you really want that contract, you'll have your bare minimum that you're willing to work for and nothing lower than that in By setting a pay range, you establish what your your requirements are, you know, as A is a freelancer, and you let the client know that Hey, I can't go below that level that goes against you know what my rules are? If you don't like that, you don't have to hire me, you know any. Of course. Don't say it in that manner, But you can at least tell the client what you're expectations are. So by having that pay range, you know, you will be able to negotiate more effectively with the client. And if they go below your minimum, you can tell them that. You know, you don't take on contracts below that because you feel that your skills and value are above that. Ah, and you know, if they don't want to hire you, then of course, you can let them know. You know, I'm not interested in the job and just move on. You know, if they recognized your skill and talent, they say, Okay, I'll be I'll pay you that and go for. And this This eliminates the situations where someone tries to take advantage of you and underpaid because that does happen. Sometimes, In fact, I've, you know, spoken with people in my industry. They were asking me for help, and we were talking about how much they got paid. And one of things I told them, is that for every client that tries to under pay you, there will be a client that will pay you more okay or pay you at least what you're worth? A to the very least. So, you know, don't get too tied up with the clients that don't pay you enough because there's always gonna be those clients out there that are not going to pay you properly. But then there's gonna also be those clients who are able to pay you properly. So just focus your energy on the clients who are paying you what you believe your worth, and as long as you do that, you'll be just fine. So I don't want you to walk away from this course thinking that you know the foundation of it is that you're going to lowball yourself because that's not going to be the foundation. The primary focus of this course is to deliver a skill at a reasonable pay, and I'm going to teach you different techniques to make you stand out so that you can get paid more. Okay, Wow, closing the job. If you are excited, which I hope you are, go ahead and watch the next video in this course
3. Analyze the job description: in this video, we're going to analyze the job description. We're gonna look at the same job that we looked at before. Okay, Now, one of the things that I think is really important for you to do, you know, is to ask the right questions when you read through a job description, whatever industry you're in, and I don't know what industry you're in, but whatever industry you're in, if you read through the job description and you realize that the client hasn't provided you with enough information, you want to read through it and they ask yourself, Is there something important that the client has not addressed? For example, maybe the client in this case since we're dealing with video, maybe the client needs to give us information about the average limp off each of the videos . Because if the videos are hour long and I've ran into this situation recently, so that's when I'm sharing it with you. The videos are hour long. Then you might want to ask. The client will, Do you have the ability to, you know, do this project for these long videos. It's gonna take some time to do it. Is that okay with you. How much time am I allowed to spend on these videos? Because it might find out that the client cannot, you know, afforded it may not be within their budget. So asking important questions like that is essential. Okay, Another question you might ask is, what is the deadline? Because sometimes you know, when you read the job descriptions, there may be a sense of urgency, and they might say, I need this done as soon as possible. Now, in this case, it doesn't say that in this job description, But you still want to ask, Do you have a specific deadline for this project? Those are important questions that you need to be thinking about when you read through the job description. And if something is missing, you can say, Hey, you know, I read through this job description. I noticed that something was missing. Can you tell me more about this? Can give you more details about the project. In this case, it's also important to analyze the job description because a lot of clients will include key information that if you don't put it in Europe, your cover letter or your job post, I'm sorry. In your in your proposal, your job proposal, there's a good chance there 99% chance they will not let me show you an example. Let's say you know the client in this case, let's say that this this and this is this isn't true. But let's say that the client, you know, said that I want you to write, you know, Easter eggs at the top of your proposal, okay? And if they say I want you to write the term Easter eggs at the time of your proposal and you write your proposal when we go down here and you don't start off with the first word you know, Easter eggs, then they're probably not going to hire you. Okay, Sometimes the clients will request you to write a keyword at the top of your proposal because they don't like it when people don't read through the job description. So you need to analyze that job description because there may be key things like that. And I'm sorry that this isn't an exact example, because they don't actually ask you to write that what they could, Okay, and I've seen it happen a lot of times where clients will ask someone to write a key were at the top of their cover letters. So it's really important that you take a look at that and find out if you need to be writing something important at the top or the bottom wherever they request you to write it . Okay, Another thing that, you know we kind of already looked at briefly is look a skills and expertise. Sometimes a client doesn't really know what skills they need. And when you're looking at the skills and expertise, there may be something in there that is completely not related to the job. So you want to ask questions about Hey, do you actually need help with that? Or did you just accidentally add there? You weren't really sure what you're looking for, so sometimes the skills and expertise needed are not what they actually need. I can tell you from real world experience that I've had clients. They'll have this thing filled up with all kind of skills and expertise, and they don't even need like half of those because they're guessing because they don't know what they need. Okay, so you need to assess. We're looking at the job description what the client needs and you know your industry best . So you should be able to look at the job, read through the description, look at the skills and expertise and determine if something is missing that you need to ask questions about okay or gather information about. Okay, so that is, you know, the component for analyzing the job description and just a summarize. You want to try to form questions. You want to try to identify basically information that could be helpful, helping you to show the client that you're interested in a job and that you're able to help him manage it or her manage it with the best of your ability. Okay, so I hope that was helpful in helping you to analyze the job description. If it was, go ahead and move on to the next video.
4. Headlines For Cover Letter : in this video, we're going to be taking a look at headlines, and there's really two important factors to consider when evaluating headlines. Number one. It's important for organizing information for potential clients who are looking at your proposals for your cover letter, and it's also important to grab the clients attention. So let's look at an example of a cover letter that I submit it So you can see here that we start off with my first hit line here and headlines air basically just titles. OK, think of it like you know, chapters to a book. If you're looking through a book, each chapter has a title letting you know what that chapter is going to cover before even reading anything in that particular chapter. So think of it like that. So in this case, I'm telling the client when I wrote elite level can't Asia expert that I'm a expert and I'm going to talk about why I believe I'm an expert and how I could help them to accomplish the task that's necessary, or a combination of tasks for the job that they've posted. So in this case, I could say something about that in this case, I say Not only can I deliver the results you are looking for, see it merely I focus on I can get done what they want done in regards to be wrote, transitions, removing speech problems, etcetera, etcetera. So I talk about, you know, the specifics in the job proposal in relationship to the title that I wrote here at the top . So the client may not even care about me being expert. Maybe they don't care about that this much. And they just read the title like, OK, we know he's an expert. Let's skip on to the next thing I know I have some trade show explainer video here. Okay, I don't really care about that. Let me go the present. Now, I don't really care about presentation videos, but I do care about motion graphics for texts because I want you to create an intro and outro. So let me take a look at that. So this helps the organize that information, okay. And, you know, you could do a better job of writing your hit lines and what I've done. I just wrote something simple and quick because I just wanted to get the proposal out there . But you can put more time and effort and add some words that really grabs the clients attention. Like you could add stunning presentations instead of this writing presentation videos. That's very generic. So he adds, stunning. That might really make them think, Wow, is it really studying? Let me go, see? And if you blow them away and they look at that, maybe they'll hire you. The reality is, you know, most clients aren't going to read through your whole, you know, cover letter or your whole proposal, so you have to organize it in half titles that capture attention so they'll know where to focus. You know, their energy, it okay. And if they are able to walk away having the right information with just a few seconds of looking at your cover letter, you're more likely to get higher. Now, all this information I have here for the headlines came from the job description. So I read through this and I saw Oh, he wants someone who can be role were appropriate and at visual appeal, you know? So I need to have examples that have visual appeal. You know, that type of thing he wants it to be done in camp. Tasia Onley. So that's the reason I made sure that the term camped Asian was in one of the titles. He wants me to remove arms and other distractions. You know, all those different things. So I made sure that I included titles that were relevant to that job description. So what you want to do is make sure that you read through the job description and figure out how to break that information into different parts. Okay? And that's pretty much it. So I hope you enjoy this video, and if you did, go ahead and move onto the next video in this course.
5. Timing Variables : in this video, We're going to look at what I call timing variables, so let's go ahead and get started. The most important thing for you to analyze from a timing perspective is when was the job posted? So you can see here at the top. It was posted two hours ago, which isn't very long ago. The lower this number is the better opportunity that you have. If you can get your proposal submitted in the first hour the 1st 30 minutes, the 1st 10 minutes, the 1st 5 minutes, the first minute, if you're able to get it in. And those short at the very beginning of the thing being opened up when this job is first posted, the sooner you can get it in the better opportunity you have of closing the job. Okay, If you're able to get your proposal submitted in the 1st 30 minutes, you significantly increase your chances of closing the job. If you get it in the 1st 10 minutes again, it's gonna exponentially Increase is gonna exponentially increase your chances of closing the job. Okay, so timing is super important. The other timing variable that you need to look at is how many proposals were submitted. Now I know this is a timing variable that you can't control. You can't control how many proposals are going to be submitted in five minutes in 10 minutes from the time that the job is posted. But this is a timing variable. It's the timing variable because is going to show you how many people submitted proposals roughly or have the estimate. You'll have an estimate of how many people you're competing against within a GIF int, you know, timeframe. So within two hours, there's less than five people competing to try to close this job. If you see 100 proposals in the 1st 2 hours, you probably should run away from that job because it's going to be very difficult for you to close it in your wasting time energy by trying to apply, unless you really have some, you know, unique idea of how you're going to close it. I wouldn't recommend wasting your time, energy and money applying to a job that you're not likely going to succeed in. I like toe stay on the side of maximizing my chances of winning. But in this particular case, there's less than five proposals, so you're very likely to have a good chance of closing this job. You can see that the client specifies what time zones that they're most interested in. Again, timing is very important where you're located and your accessibility is a timing variable. So you want to look at that. The client specifies a specific timing variable. You may be wasting your time if you don't have a location that's in alignment with the time zone that they're asking for. Okay, so just keep that in mind. So those are the key timing variables that I think that you need to pay very, very close attention to. There may be some other timing variables that you can consider, but at least for this training Siri's those are the ones that I think that you need to put your attention on heavily. Okay, heavily have your attention on those variables. So I hope you enjoy this video. If you did get ready for the next one
6. Bonus Footage Analyze The Freelancer Market: This is another video for bonus footage. In this case, I am going to be talking about analyzing the market by looking at other freelancers. So by looking at other freelancers, you can get a general idea of some things that you need to think about when you're competing against other people that are potentially in the market. And at what hourly rate did they have success? Okay, and what was their reviews? So let's take a look at that. We go to the top of our screen here and change it to freelancers and agencies, and then I'm gonna place Can't Asian there in search for that. And then it shows me of listings for those who have camped Asian experience. So let's click on the first person here, and we can see his hourly rate, how much he's earned, how many jobs. But that doesn't mean that every job is related to Camp Tasia. So let's keep that in mind. Must look at all work history, and you can see he edited a video file for this much here for two hours, so we know that it's possible to charge that rate now. It doesn't mean it's for can't Asia. It's just for video editing in general, but it doesn't specify if it's were camped Asian. This one does, but it's a fixed rate, so you could charge $250. We know that that is a possible deal We see here that $29 was charged for cancer video editing, So you know that there is a market potential to charge that much because someone has already done it. So by analyzing and looking at the data in different freelancers profiles, you can get an idea of the market potential or how much you can charge per hour for whatever industry that you're in, or what the fixed rates are that you can charge in your industry. So by analyzing this information is going to help you enclosing more jobs because you can get a general idea of where to position yourself in the market when setting your rate when applying for jobs. So that's one of the other secrets to being able to close deals. On upward is analyzing the market potential by looking at historical data from other freelancers. Now, in some cases, this information may be private, so you may have to look at a few different freelancer profiles to find one that doesn't hide this information. Okay, so I hope you enjoy this bonus footage, And if you did, that will make my day.
7. Analyzing The Client : in this video, we're going to give you some bonus footage in this case is about analysing the client. And I think that this is important for helping you, you know, determining if you even want to close a job with a particular client. So let's look at the about client section, OK? And this is a part of the job post. Okay, when you look at the job description, you know, to the far right, we have the about client section and you can see here that they've been a member since 2009 . So they've been a member for a long time, which is OK. It's not really necessarily a bad thing. If they haven't been a member that long, they have an average hourly rate of 2192. So we know on average how much they're spending for jobs that they post on up work. But they only have five hours of work executed. So they've been there since 2000 I and the only half five hours of work. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It could mean that the people that their high are super efficient and they're finishing the job quickly If we look at how many hires they have, the only have five hires and only $100 total spit a little bit over 100 says $100. Plus, you can see that they have nine jobs posted with a 56% higher rate, which is not bad. It's not a horrible hiring read, so you get a general idea of how likely the client is going to hire someone. So there's a 56% chance that they're going to hire someone for the job that they post it, which is not bad. It's not a horrible number, but you do want to evaluate that and analyze. Is it worth it for me to try to close this job? There's no point in using all the secrets. I told you to apply to a job that the client, maybe the client has a 10% higher e. That's very low. Then you're wasting your time and energy applying to that job, and you don't want to do that. So this bonus footage could help you save a lot of time and energy by analyzing the client and focusing on the clients that are gonna give you the highest you the highest return. If you look at the location, that's not as important unless the client specifies that in the job post. But then, let's look at payment. Verify. This means that the client has a account miss connected financially to pay you. And it's a much better Dio to go with a client who has painted verification because you know that you can get paid. You don't have the wait on them to connect an account. They don't have payment verified. 98% chance. I'm not going to even try to apply to the job unless I see that they're very new now. If this said a member, you know who just started on up work like a week or two ago, and I'm going to assume that they didn't have time to set that up yet. Okay, so there are exceptions to the rule, but you do want to analyze the client before you apply to the job. So I hope you enjoy this bonus footage that I'm throwing in as an extra
8. Special Promotions : in this video, we're going to look at special promotions, and this is really something that is required for any business. You wanna have different promotions that will excite potential clients and get their attention, because at the end of the day, that's what you want to do in order to close the job. So let's take a look at one of the special promotions that I used and one of my tactics that I used to try to encouraged a client to have a reaction and to respond and eventually higher. So in this case, I wrote special discounts just for you. So I put it emphasis on it that this discount is not for anyone else. It's specific to you in this job that you posted really, really important. To do that to create a personal communication with that client is special and a specific for them. My mother promotions are not the same as they are for this particular job. So if we read through this, I wrote, I know things are difficult for businesses right now. To try to help with that, I'm willing to offer a special discount, and I don't offer this discount that often. Okay, so I offered him a special rate there, Okay? And I told him a normally I would charge between this and this range, and this range could change over time. It doesn't mean that it's going to be consistent. As the industry changes. As the market changes, you have to adjust your pricing. So no pricing is, you know, 100% set in stone. Just keep that in mind, but I let them know this offer is valid into you, such and such date. Okay. And if you don't hire by that date, you're not gonna get that rate. But if you do higher by that date, you're gonna be locked in at that rate, even though other new clients will likely pay a much higher rate because they're not blocked in it. That special rates. So it is truly special for you. And it's true. You know, I have clients that if they hire me with my special promotions, I give them that rape for a lifetime. But that's only if I feel like giving a promotion for that day depends on how I'm feeling. And if I'm having a good day, offer a special promotion But the purpose of offering the promotion is you separate yourself from anybody else and you create value. You let that client no hay off, charged these types of rates. But I'm giving you a special discount that's lower than what's normal. So you have an opportunity to get more value for your money. And that's one of the key ingredients were offering a special discount, okay, and then putting a time limit on it makes the client have to respond in a certain amount of time. So you're putting or applying some pressure. Hey, you're gonna miss out on this deal if you don't take it at this particular time, and I and I mean business when I set that date is set in stone. There might be some exceptions, but it has to be a really, really good reason from you make to make that exception. And in some cases, clients go past the date and they end up paying the higher rate and they don't care because they like the work that I showed them. And other cases clients will rush and they will hire before that day passes because they want to save money and get more value for the service. Okay, so try to include special promotions. If you believe that, it's going to help you close the job and there's cases where it won't help you. You know, there's some clients that budget is not. Even an issue is just like, you know what? I just need someone to get the job done. I don't care how much it costs. Just get it done. But there other cases we're offering a special discount is going to be the difference between getting the job and not getting it. Okay, so you need to be able to showcase value, and that's one of the ways that you can showcase them value. It's by offering them something special that's specific to that client. So I would highly recommend that that be a part of your marketing strategy, helping you to separate yourself from all the other people who are so many a proposal for the job compared to everyone else. No one else may not even be offering a special promotion, but you are and the clients going to remember that and they're going to remember you, and that's going to separate you from the crowd and At the end of the day, you want to be, you know, special compared to anybody else was applying for that job. So I hope that this video was helpful when, if it was, then I know I did a great job for this Siri's. And if I did do a good job for this, Siri's be sure. Teoh, you know, leave a review for this course on steel share because that's really, really important until being I'll see you guys when we start on our new course for Phase three, which will be our third course in this Siri's. But before we end this Siri's, you do need to do your class assignment, which we're going to go on and talk about that in our next video.
9. Class Assignment : Come on in this video, we're going to talk about your class assignment. So basically, you're class assignment is to take the things that you learned in this course and apply them toe up work. So going up work, using the different secrets that I share with you of how I was able to close different jobs and use that to close your first job. Now, I do want to add a key component here. Do not think that you're gonna go on upward in post your first proposal and close the job. It doesn't work like that. You need to look for many job opportunities. Apply the 2030 40 50 jobs. Maybe before you close your first job. It may take that much, but just make sure that you're using all the different techniques I share with you because that's going to increase your chances of closing the job. So if you do that, I'm very confident you'll be able to have some success. And when you close your first job, okay, because that is the class assignment. The class of Simon is not just just your classic Simon is not just to go out on the plight of jobs is to close a job accident, earn your first contract and once you do that, simi a screenshot because it will make my day to know that you were able to execute the plan properly with the secrets that I share with you. I know that this stuff works because I've done, and it's not just me teaching you as a teacher is me teaching you as someone who has real world experience. So go out. Focus, stay focus. You've got to do that, stay focused, keep applying a jobs, used these techniques that I showed you. And I'm very confident you'll be able to have some successful closing jobs and seeing that screenshot from you will make me happy. It will make my day leave a review for this course as well, because that's really important to me. But seeing that screenshot is more important than anything more important than a review because I wanted really, honestly, you know, because I really wanna honestly help people to close deals and make a living, take care of themselves, take care of their family, whatever it may be. Okay, whatever your needs are, I don't know. Everyone has different needs, but go out and close your first job using these techniques. And remember, it's a numbers game, so apply to enough number of jobs and execute and close. OK, so thanks again for watching this course and just stay tuned, subscribe and follow me. You're going to see more videos in this series. This was just phase two okay of the course serious.
Allen Smith, Motion Graphics & Animations
