Freelance on Upwork: Success Guide from Beginner to Pro

1. Freelance on Upwork Intro : Are you looking to start freelancing or you are already a freelancer wanting to grow your business and reach more clients. Do you want to be out a sustainable freelance career online and earn a steady income? If your answer is yes, then this course is for you. Hello and welcome to freelancer on Upwork, success guide from beginner to pro, IM teaching team, a certified graphic designer and top rated plus seller on Upwork. For the past six years, I have used Upwork extensively to find hundreds of projects and clients. I joined up work back in 2016 without planning to go full time. After receiving a couple of large contracts, I turned my Upwork business into a full-time career in 2018. For the past few years, I have worked with large corporations as well as startups around the globe. Upwork has changed my career path in a way is and I have never imagined not only my financial situation improved drastically, but also the freedom and lifestyle freelancing has brought me is invaluable. It doesn't matter what skills you have, what level of experience, or where you are in today's world, you can make a successful career online by leveraging platforms like Upwork. This course, we'll show you step-by-step, a clean and organized way, how to get started as a freelance professional. How to find work, best practices in project management and client communications. And lastly, how to get to the next level, attract high paying clients, and grow your business. This is a complete course. I suggest you watch it in a few sessions so as to better assimilate each lesson. Let's dive right in and get you started on your freelance journey. 2. GET STARTED My Upwork Journey: There are many ways you can freelance. Upwork is truly a game changer for many people, especially those who have no client base. Upwork is the largest work marketplace, which means there is a huge number of potential clients actively looking to hire independent professionals around the world. I joined Upwork in 2016 after moving to the US because I was only able to find a part-time position. It took me exactly 16 months for my Upwork business to grow into a full-time career without any marketing or social media, I was able to grow $0-300 thousand earned income because of my Upwork experience, portfolio samples, as well as positive feedbacks. I was able to join Fiverr Pro seller program to expand my business even further. My income has been growing steadily year after year, despite the pandemic. Obviously your success will not come overnight. It requires a long-term effort and commitment to apply your skills and delivery are great service to your clients. However, there are things you can do, things you can avoid to achieve your success much faster and easier. I wish I knew all the tricks and tips in this course, I would have made my success much faster. There is a free resource guide I created, especially to help you streamline the process and offer you key pieces of writing examples. Be sure to use it. 3. GET STARTED Set Up Your Profile : Before I start, I want to mention than to join Upwork, you should have at least one scale and can be marketed as a service. The full list of job categories is in this link. To sign up, It's very easy. Join as freelancer and create an account. You will receive a verification email in your inbox. Once you verify your account will be created, step to fill out all the information required for your profile, such as expertise, expertise level, education, employment history, and your profile contact information and so on. In the expertise window, you can choose the category and also add the scales. In the level window you can choose from entry to expert level. The rest are easy to understand. Let's look at hourly rate, Upwork charges or service fee. The fee starts and 20 per cent. Once you have built over $500 with one client, the fee will be reduced to ten per cent. Once you have reached $10,000. It will be dropped to five per cent job title and overview, this is very important because this is what clients see when they land on your page. Job titles should be short and clear about what you do. While the professional overview varies a lot. I will show you my profile to give you an idea of how it looks like. Step three, review your profile and make sure everything is correct before you submit for approval. It takes about 24 to 48 h for Upwork to review your profile application, they will send you an email indication about the result. Step four, once your profile is set up, you will need to pass identity verification. First, add your ID, and then Upwork will reach out to you and have a quick video call. Setting up your Upwork profile correctly is the most important part in the beginning are solid and complete profile is the requirement to be approved. But also it sets you apart from other freelancers on the platform. If you are serious about freelancing on Upwork, your profile should look as professional as possible. You can always update and optimize your profile in the future. Let's go ahead and take a look at my profile as an example. Here we are. This is my profile page. Let me walk you through it and you will get an idea of how a profile looks like. On the top you will see my profile picture. It should be professional with plain background and have natural light when you take the photo where something professional but casual, smiling and have eye contact, you will see my name right here and my location. This is automatic. Then job success score. This is how Upwork measures your performance and client satisfaction. It is very important. It shows up on the search results. Ideally, it should be overnight 80 per cent on the right, this is upward badge. Currently there are four tiers. I will talk about this in detail later. This section is specialized profile. You can add up to two specialized profiles. This helps the client to find you through search. Then you have the statistics of your earnings, project and hours worked. You can add a short video introduction as well. This is your availability and languages. This is what you will get. This blue check mark once you verify your ID. And then education, talent clouds. I will talk about this later in part four. On the right, this is the profile title. It's the job title and what you do. It should be short and clear about what you offer and what you do. On the right, it's your advertised rate. You can change this by clicking on the pencil icon. Under the title, we have the overview. My profile overview consists of a short introduction. Services I provide and why hire me as well as testimonial section. It doesn't have to be exactly like this, but you should keep it concise. Remember to highlight your skills and experience on the top. Focus on what you can offer to the client. How can you help them avoid spelling errors? Work history, this is the most important part of your profile. It includes all the past projects and client feedbacks. I have worked very hard to try to receive as many as five-star reviews as possible. You should do the same portfolio section, where you can showcase your past work visually and try to align them with your scales and services. These tags or keywords. It helps the search engine to match you with relevant clients and projects. You can add up to 15 skills. And remember to align with your work history, your portfolio, and your profile overview. You should update them as you learn new skills. Project catalog is also a new feature. Upwork has released recently. It is packaged services, then the client can purchase directly according to their needs. I will also talk about it in this course and show you how to utilize this feature. Testimonial section. You can request testimonial from your old clients. Outside Upwork, you can control the visibility on your profile certifications. The first one, as you can see, is provided by Upwork. Right now, Upwork offer certifications in mobile web development and design and creative categories. The second one is verified by Upwork, which means you can upload third-party certificates, employment history, and other experiences. I strongly suggest to keep the employment history relevant to your profile. 4. GET STARTED Craft a Great Profile: Crafting a great profile takes time. A professional, up-to-date profile can help you gain trust and attract clients. My profile has definitely evolved from six years ago. I have come up with five practical tips to help you improve your profile. One, starting with the easiest formatting. As a designer, I have to deal with texts content all the time and I can tell you a good formatted layout is the easiest thing you can do to improve your profile. Because you want to make it easy for the clients to skim through your profile and understand your background, scales and services quickly. E.g. on top of bullet points and correct spacing. I am also using some icons to help with the formatting. Now, look at the exact same content without the icons. You can tell immediately which one is easier to read. In the course resource guide, I included my profile overview. You can just copy and paste those little icons. You can also search those icons on Google and copy paste into your Upwork profile. Three, writing. I'm not a professional writer and English is my second language. But you can always write your profile with some help. I use Grammarly and word web to help my writing. Grammarly, you might already know it. The best part is that you can download the extension and use it on your Chrome browser. It works automatically when you type in the browser. I also use word web. It is an excellent dictionary. You can download it on your laptop or mobile phone. And finding the right words becomes so easy. For portfolio with visuals, a picture is worth 1,000 words. Make your portfolio visual. I know many of you might say, what if I'm a programmer, translator, or marketing specialist? There is always a way to showcase your past work visually. I once helped a friend who is a translator to make our portfolio are added an image of the brochure she has translated, even though she did not design it. Just make sure you have permission to use those materials. Same goes with programmer. You can showcase the website or app you created on a laptop screen or a mobile phone. You don't need to be a designer. You don't need Adobe programs to make portfolio samples. You can use PowerPoint or another very popular app, Canva. It is web-based. You can do it directly on their website in your browser. They are fairly easy to use and most of you can learn it in 30 min. For getting inspired by similar freelancers profile. This is an excellent tip. I use it a lot to improve my profile. Here on Upwork, you can make a search. Let's try web designer. Make sure you choose talent instead of projects or jobs. Then you can see a lot of freelancers. Some are very established and highly rated. You can also see how they write their profile overview and the terms they use. Project history, portfolio samples. I'm not signing. I'm only able to see two samples. But once you login, you will be able to see everything. The last tip, ask your friends and family members to give you feedback. If you have someone you can trust, reach out to them and ask them to review your profile and portfolio samples, the writing and give you some feedback. Then you can improve based on their suggestions. 5. GET STARTED Specialized Profile & Find Your Niche : Now you may have a specific scale or a different scale than you can offer on Upwork. E.g. you are a copywriter and you can translate from English to French. This is one you can set up a specialized profile. Upwork allows you to create up to two specialized profiles. By doing so, you can tailor your service to clients with that specific needs. And it will boost your appearance on the search results. Let me show you how to set up specialized profile. Now on the profile page, click on your picture. Settings. Profile settings. Scroll down. You will see a specialized profiles. If you did not add anything, you will be able to see a plus sign and you can click and add a specialized profile. I have graphic design and editorial design. And I can view it or edit it. Now, I will show you in the editing mode. As you can see, this is highlighted editorial design, the title can be different and the rate as well. In a profile overview, you can write a different one. What I find helpful is to repeat some keywords, e.g. editorial. You will see that I have this keyword repeated several times. This will help the search engine to find you the client typing these keywords in a work history, you can include certain projects. To be in this profile. I can choose which project to be included. Same as portfolios. You can choose what you want to be included in this profile. I will include infographics, presentations, and then once I save it, it will appear under this specialized profile. Here it is. I have copied my job title, I have chosen the specialty. This is editorial design. And you will see my profile right here. As you can see, the title is my specialized profile, instead of the general profile, which is graphic design. Now, you have looked at specialized profile. How to find your niche is essential. Because your niche will help you narrow down your offerings, maximize earnings, and make it a lot easier to run your business. First thing I want you to think about is that what you do is considered highly specialized. Maybe you use a tool such as Webflow to make a website that could be your niche and your specialized profile. Or maybe you do Instagram marketing. You design pattern. So specialized areas and tools can be definitely marketed on Upwork. The next thing I want you to think about is your past work and projects. Things You Are most good at and you'll receive the most complements. Those are the areas you should develop and focus on. Third one is passion. It's very obvious if you love doing something and you will just get better and better at it. Because of your passion. You might be passionate about maps. You are passionate about laterally maybe. Or you are a digital artist and you create digital art. Maybe you are into NFT nowadays. Many, many other passions that you might have. Last language, if you are bilingual or multilingual, you should use that to your advantage. I'm able to do graphic design in Chinese language. I got started because of that. I definitely owe my success to my language skill. If you are able to build a website in French, or you can create Arabic calligraphy. Anything you offer that is so unique, different, and difficult to find can be your niche. I hope after this lesson, you will be able to find your niche. 6. FIND WORK Job Search: Now your profile is set up and you are ready to work. As you start out, client will not be able to find you. You need to start searching for jobs and submit proposals. Client, then we'll select and higher the freelancer he or she wants to work with. As a new freelancer, the best chance for you to get hired is to act fast. Client may post jobs and stay active for couple of hours. If you can submit proposals within that timeframe, you are more likely to get hired. I remember I submitted to those jobs labeled urgent. I got those jobs not only because I had the skills, but also because I was available for over two years now, I haven't actively search for jobs. I believe most experienced freelancers don't look for jobs anymore as they are already busy enough. There is a huge opportunity for new freelancers like you. You should take advantage of it and build up your work history on the platform. You will need points to submit proposals. Every time. This system is called upward connects. When you sign up, you will be getting 40 connects. But after that, you will be only getting ten points each mass. To use them wisely and avoid wasting time, you need to identify the right jobs for you. Let me show you how to search for jobs, identify the right jobs, and write Winning Proposals. This is a job search page. If you don't know how to access it, go to the menu on the top. The first one, find work. You need to have at least 60 per cent profile completeness to be able to apply for jobs. But I highly recommend you to have 100%. You will see how many connects you have available. Each proposal costs 2-6 connects. So use them wisely. If you use up all your connects, you have to pay around $0.15 per connect. Now let's tap into search words and look for a job. On the right, there are many filters. Experienced level, number of proposals. I usually apply for those with fewer proposals. Payment verified. My previous clients category. I wouldn't worry about it for now. Job types. Is it hourly or fixed price? Project lens? Client history. You won't be able to see this talent clouds because you don't have access it just yet. Now on the right, Let's look at each posting. You can sort them by the newest relevance or clients spending as well as rating. I would sort them by the newest. Let's read the top one. There is a hourly rate. Halide met last and why it was posted. Job details. This one might be a spam. I never contact them outside Upwork for the first time. You can see on the bottom the payment is not verified and $0 spent. How much connects it cost? I would think twice about this posting. Now let's see if we can find something better. Something worthwhile. Okay, This one might worth considering. You can save it for later or you can click on it. You will see a pop-up window. It was posted 1 h ago, which is great. Read the description. You must have PowerPoint and Google Slides experience. Of course, they want a portfolio sample. Then the client says, one. Let us know how you fit the brief to share a link to your PowerPoint portfolio. Three, tell us what your favorite food is. Wow. I think the client wants to use the screening questions to know whether you read the description or not. On the right. It will tell you how many connects to submit a proposal and how many connects you have available? About the client payment verified? I would not apply for jobs if the payment is not verified. There are exceptions, but that's my general rule. The client has five-star out of 11 reviews, which is excellent. And he's from UK. He has posted 15 jobs. 94% higher rate, which means 94% of the time when he posted, he hired through Upwork. He spent $30,000 on the platform and 28.25 hourly rate paid. He wasn't members since 2015. The client definitely looks reputable. You should consider submitting a proposal, even though there is a huge number of proposals submitted already. Last viewed by the client 1 h ago. You wouldn't want to submit proposals if the client hasn't viewed it for like two days. On the bottom, they are actual reviews from freelancers. Read them and check if there are any red flags. You can also check the rate of the job. They are small things to look out for. After some practice, I'm sure you will be able to identify the right jobs for you and act quickly because there are many more other freelancers submitting proposals as well. So you want to apply for New York jobs. Also job postings that the client has been actively viewing. 7. FIND WORK Proposals & Offers : Now, if you have decided to submit a proposal, click on Apply Now button. It will open a new window. In the proposal page, there are four sections. The first one is which profile you would like to use. You can use either general profile or one of the specialized profiles. In job details. You don't have to worry about this because you have already read it in the terms. How much you would you like to bid for? If it's an hourly contract, you will be putting your hourly rate. If it's a fixed price, you will put the fixed price. Of course, we already talked about 20 per cent Upwork service fee is take a look. This is per client. The first $500 you will be paying 20 per cent. That means 80 dollar per hour. 500-10 thousand, you would be only pay 10%. So that's actually $90 per hour for you. Over $10,000 building, you would only pay 5%, so you will get 95/h net. The most important part, cover lead. I will show you how to write in this part attachment. If you have any samples, you can attach it to, the clients, will be able to view it. Boosts your proposal. This is optional. I wouldn't do it because it caused a lot of connects. Once you have filled everything up, you can just send your proposal. And it will cost you to connect. To find your proposal, go to find work proposals tab. This is your proposals page. You will be able to see offers. This is when the client decided to hire you and he or she will send you the offer. You will see it here. Right now. I have no offers. This is an invitation for interview where I should submit proposals, but it will not cost me any connects active proposals. This is where your submitted proposals will appear. You can click on it and see the details. In a proposals details you will be able to see your proposal. And you can change terms, always draw your proposal, as well as your cover letter. And you will be able to message the client or the hiring manager. Right now, I have no offer in my page, but I want to show you how an offer looks like. This is an hourly contract. You will be able to see the contract tidal start date, as well as weekly limit, which is 40 h per week manual time allowed. Yes. This is important because when you get an hourly contract and Upwork, you will be using the time tracker to track your time. Maybe sometimes you forget to track your time or the system is down. You can actually add time manually. They did not allow that, then you won't be able to get paid. But it's very rare that Upwork is not working. Your hourly rate, the fees, and what is the amount you will be receiving. For fixed price projects, the payment might be divided into milestones, e.g. initial draft and then final delivery. Or it will be a lump-sum by project. It will look very similar to this. And all you have to do it to accept the offer. Once you accept it, you can start working. 8. FIND WORK How to Write a Winning Proposal : For all freelancers, writing a winning proposal is the most challenging and daunting part of getting a job on an app work. In today's lesson, let's talk about how can you write a winning proposal that will land you jobs? First and foremost, you should read the job description. I cannot emphasize this enough. Many freelancers apply for jobs without reading the job description. You should read every detail of the job description, including the links than the client has provided attached documents. Once you have understand fully what the client is looking for, then you can create a complete and relevant, unique proposal that will get you to land the job. There are four parts to a job proposal. Number one, introduction, number to highlight your skills. Number three, back it up with your relevant experience. And if you have samples, sent them. Last one, call to action. Let's look at a real example of this formula that I have used. Part one, introduction. This is a brief sentence to greet the client. You can say, hi Jack, I see you are looking for our presentation designer. Or Hi, I'm excited to apply for this online course copywriting job that you have posted. Or if you are invited, you can say hi, thank you for the invitation. Most of the time you can find the client's name. He might include it in their invitation, or you might be able to find their names. In the freelancers reviews. Second paragraph, highlight your skills and expertise. They should be as specific and as relevant as possible. You can refer to the client's job description and mention those keywords, which is what I have done here. I mentioned infographics, I mentioned layouts because these words are in the client's description. Sorry, paragraph, back it up with relevant work experience. I said I have created numerous marketing materials. Again, the client has used this in the job posting. Not only I mentioned, but I also attached the report I have created, which contains various examples for charts, graphs, and editorial pages, which are also in the job description. For call to action. I asked a question and you can invite the client for core, show your interest. So I said, would it be possible to share the draft content with me? I would be happy to take a look at it. Thank you for your time and consideration. This formula has worked for me. I have landed numerous jobs with this formula. I hope you can take it and develop your own formula. Remember, avoid using copy and paste templates and some other things you might need to consider. The clients may list a few screening questions. You should remember to answer each of them. Here are some examples. Do you have experience in what challenging part of this project you are most experienced in? This is where you can talk about your past experience. Do you have any questions about the job? If you do, don't hesitate to ask. Another important thing is attaching past work and samples. You can include your past work in the proposal. And this will definitely boost clients confidence in choosing u. Lastly, always check spelling and grammar before sending the proposal. I personally use Grammarly. It is free and you can install it on your browser. It will definitely help you to type better proposals. I included this cover letter in my resource guide, so feel free to use it. 9. FIND WORK Clients to Avoid : You cannot satisfy everyone. Sometimes it's bad luck that you have to deal with bad clients. It is very frustrating and this bad experience can impact negatively the client who are likely to give you a bad review. In the beginning when you communicate with the client, there are some red flags I would like to talk about. I have had a few bad clients and they are impossible. Avoid getting into this kind of situation. The only way is to stop it from happening in the beginning. Act as friendly and professional as possible, refused to work with them or pull out early. The first red flag, sensitive to price and budget. When a new client asks for discount or special price because of whatever reason. Sometimes they say, Oh, I have many more work for you. Or they might say, it's just a logo design and it shouldn't take that long. Or simply, your price is too high and you charge too much. They are interested in the value and quality of your service. They don't want to pay the price. Second, bad communication, vague, unclear instructions or over-communicating. Some clients can't give you any idea of what they want, what they have in mind, or the expectations. They might say, I know it when I see it. Work without the plan, will be a total waste of time. And you will be under immense stress during the process just to satisfy the client's changing ideas. On the other extreme, the clients keeps shooting your messages, emails about what they are thinking about. Because they are organized. They don't know how to put their salts together. They impose on you and disrupt what you are doing. No respect for your time. E.g. a. Client says he or she is in a rush and expect you to meet their impossible deadline or the e-mail you and expect you to respond immediately. Very likely they will be always like this. They think by hiring you, they are entitled to control your time or the way you work. Last one asked to work outside Upwork because they want to avoid putting the deposit. Strongly recommend you avoid working outside. Upwork. Upwork protects you and the client needs to put the full amount and the deposit to start the project so you can get paid after completing it. If the client asks you to work outside, Upwork, most likely he or she will not pay you. These are for red flags. I have summarized for you. Hopefully you won't have to deal with many bad clients. But if it happens, you better know how to handle the situation and cut ties with them. 10. MANAGEMENT Keep Clients Happy : I'm sure you heard about soft skills such as communication skills, interpersonal skills, problem-solving, time management, and so on. If you are willing to learn and improve your soft skills, you will definitely have happier clients, better relationship with them. That's a more successful freelancing career. Once I had a very small project with a marketing manager, I remember it was a flyer design. It wasn't a lot of work or money. My communication skills and the quality of the work he had received impressed him. He then brought me two more reference which led me to land on projects worth tens of thousands of dollars. Keep your clients happy, then your business will grow. In the next four lessons, I will talk about best practices in client communications and tools to use, including Upwork messages. Also what I learned from working online and how to manage projects. Most importantly, Upwork payment system for fixed price contracts and hourly contracts. Lastly, I'm sharing free tools that you can use to improve efficiency and boost your productivity. There are four principles I follow to ensure the best communication with my clients. One, put yourself in the client's Shu have empathy, understand the client's needs, understand his or her situation. Most importantly, understand the problem and how you can solve it. Be professional. No, the project inside out. Understand the client's goal and expectations. Communicate clearly what is your process and what you can or cannot deliver. And when you will be sending the first version of the work. Three, be positive. Respond to request positively. Instead of saying No, I can't do it. You can respond by saying, I haven't came across this issue, but I will look into it and let you know. Follow up by following up with the client. You show you care for the client and the success and progress of the project. If you didn't hear from the client for over a week after sending your work, you can definitely reach out to them. Lastly, upon completion, the best way to complete a project on Upwork is for the client to close the contract. He or she can leave a review. This benefits you are rating and feedback client gave you will be a good reference for the future. If you feel one project is a success and the client is super satisfied. You can just ask him to close the contract because the work is completed and idol contracts may impact negatively on the platform. I'm sure they will understand and they would be happy to spend the time and give you a good review. By improving my communication skills, I'm able to grow and reach where I am today. You can also apply the same principles in your work. It will only become natural. You will feel at ease when communicating with your client. Now, let's take a look at Upwork messages, which is the main tool that you should use when communicating with your upper clients. Upwork messages is the most frequent tool I use to communicate with my clients. You can access it by logging on the web browser. There's also desktop app and mobile app. You can download the desktop app, choose Windows, Mac, or Linux. Desktop app is super important, not only because you can communicate with the client, but also the time tracker. This is essential for hourly contract. You have to turn on the time tracker when you start working on hourly contract. To be able to get paid. Mobile app, you can download the freelancer app. The freelancer app allows you to communicate through Upwork messages. And also you can search for jobs, submit proposals, ad manager contracts, and get paid. Now I am on my desktop app. It works seamlessly with the web version and a mobile version. I haven't had any issue on the message window. You can attach documents. You can use emojis and you can also take a screenshot. On the top near the search bar. You can go to the settings. The out of office setting is very helpful. You can turn it all and choose the day. There will be an automatic response when someone sends you a message is on the app. Now, if you miss any messages, Upwork will send you automatic notification emails. You can change the setting by going to your picture, settings, notifications settings, and the very bottom. Make sure that you have all the notifications turned on. I have kept as it is. It will send me e-mail with all the unread activities once per day. And all of these updates will be emailed to me. Besides Upwork messages, I do use other channels as well. Sometimes it's because of the client's requests. They might prefer Slack, Zoom, especially when working with a team. So be flexible and accommodate your clients as much as you can. 11. MANAGEMENT Project Management : It took me some time to develop my own system of project management. But there are four main areas I would like to share with you that I think it will be very beneficial for your freelancing work. Number one, prioritization to file organization, time management. For streamline process prioritization. You should have a system that helps you to track all the ongoing projects. It can be posted to-do list or anything that you use to keep track of all the work. And by doing so, you can ensure that you deliver the work, not missing any deadlines. File organization. If you only work on five projects, you might say, Oh, I can find my files. But what if you have 500 projects? You can start the habit of organizing your files on the computer so that in the future, you want stress out because you couldn't find your files. This is a screenshot of how I organize my files. All the folders are named for this particular client. I had a lot of projects with them. So I add a zero to the branding assets because I need to access it all the time. By adding the zero, it will always show up on the top. And then I organized each project by the date e.g. January 10 would be 01110. The second one is 19 January. On the very bottom, you will see these are archives of past year's work. You don't have to follow exactly the same thing that I do, but you need to have a system that you can easily navigate and find your files. Three time management, you will have a lot of freedom working as a freelancer. Managing your time can have a huge impact on your business. Considers a time zones when you work for clients in different countries and plan for delivery time, meetings, and communications accordingly. Also, think about your lifestyle. When will you be most available and dedicate those time to the most important and demanding jobs. This one is called time blocking. Block. The most productive time you will be able to complete whatever tasks you plan to do. Three, track your time. So you have a clear picture of how many hours you worked in a week or how many hours spent on a certain project, then you can use it as a reference. When you price your services. Streamline your business workflow. If you are creative like myself, you might say, We should work in a more free and less organized way. But the reality you can't, every person, including creatives, have their own process or workflow? I didn't have any workflow in the first two years. So every new project, I would have to plan the whole process and waste a lot of time because I have to do many steps over and over again. E.g. writing lists of requirements for client, gathered portfolio samples for client consideration, quotations. And then I follow the course how to improve the work process and streamline the workflow. Now I feel more relaxed. I can see clearly when I start a project, not only has my productivity improved, but also I can minimize risks so the clients become more satisfied with the final result. We don't have a universal formula to develop this workflow. It is mostly through trial and error. You can first analyze your current workflow, then break down the process into different steps. Three, identify key steps where you can improve. And for use template for steps that can be automated. Take my work e.g. before the project, I need to first communicate with the client. Project goals, final deliverables and quotations. I wasn't asked for unnecessary files from the client. Only then I can start working. During the project. I use Adobe programs and many other tools. I need to access resources online such as inspirations, fonts, icons, and images. I need to save many resources files on my computer as well. So I automate it below things. I gathered sample works for each service ready to send out for the client. I built a table of my services and pricing so I can send quotations much easier. Then I saved those messages I had written requesting files from the client for different services. During the project. I have saved resources online. I bookmarked all the resources and saved it on my browser. I also saved resources offline on my computer. On top of that, I have templates created in Adobe programs for each size of different flyers, brochures, and so on. There is no perfect process or workflow. They will likely require continuously adjustment, refinement. You may want to change the process based on your results to achieve the best outcome. 12. MANAGEMENT Get Paid on Upwork : For fixed price and hourly contracts on Upwork, there are some differences in the way you get paid. For the fixed price project. Upwork is an escort system. So the client deposits the amount in Upwork. Then you deliver the work and the client approves it, then you get paid to submit your work for approval. Remember to do it on the contract page instead of the Upwork messages. Go to my jobs and choose active milestones. You will see this green button. Click on it to submit your work. On the submission page. You can choose the amount you would like to get paid, write a message to the client and attach files, and then submit. After you have submitted it, you will be able to see it under Payment Request tab. For our lake projects. You need to access Upwork desktop app. You need to learn how to review your work diary and Reports. Me, show you how to go to the desktop app and double-click guide. You will see the time tracker. You can choose the contract you are working on and simply turning on. When you start working. You can add a memo and the screenshot will be taken randomly automatic. You can review your work diary, can click on this button and under the screenshot or go to my job, work diary, me select the date I worked on the job. It's indicated with a green dot. You can see the screenshots are stored here and they are in 10 min increments. If you would like to delete any of the screenshot that you don't want. Just click on it and remove. Remember, when you remove the screenshot, the 10 min will be removed as well. Instead of 15 min worked, it will be only 40 min. This will be reflected in your pay. In the work diary, you can choose any project and view them independently. If you want to review all the projects in a week, you can go to Reports overview. Here. If the reports overview during this week, you will see all the hourly contracts, the time you worked, and your weight, and also the amount. In our reports overview, you will be able to see what amount is under review, what amount is pending. And when you submit a work for payment for fixed price, the payment will be under Pending. It takes around five days until it becomes available. Your hourly contract payments will be under review for five days. When your earnings become available, you will be able to see it under available tab. If you have a payment setup, it will be automatically sent to your bank. But of course you can get paid anytime you want. If you would like to change any of the Payments Settings, you can go to the settings, get paid, you can change the payment schedule and methods. As for payment methods, there are several ways you can transfer directly to your bank, either in the US or outside the US. You can also set up third party payment system such as PayPal, pay on year to get paid. 13. MANAGEMENT Free Tools : As I mentioned earlier, tracking your time can help you in the long term. You can price your service more accurately if you know how long it takes for certain work. Upwork already provides time tracker for hourly contracts, but not for fixed price. There is a free software I use to track my time. It is the best one I have tried so far. It's called clock e phi. You can create unlimited projects. There is a dashboard and you can review the reports. Let me show you how you can use it. Now, I'm logged in on clock e phi. The first thing I suggest you do is to create project. Go to Projects. And let's create a new project. Typing the name. You can choose the color, and you can select the client or leave it empty. This is our project. Click on it. As I assume you work alone. You don't need to have to add members in the settings. You can choose the client and you can add the client or change the color. And you want it to be billable or not. If you want to be billable, you can say set array. And if you have agreed on the price, so you don't need to be calculated per hour. Then you can just turn it off. You can also put an estimate. How many hours you think it will take you. Let's put manual and 5 h. And it's already saved. As you work, you will be able to see the progress, how many hours you spend on the project. And it will show here as a percentage. Now to track your time, Let's go to Time Tracker. Write a note, draft, and choose that project, and then start. Once you finish working, you can click on stop. And you see that time is saved here. Let me change it to 30 min. And if you go back to the projects page, you will see that I have worked half an hour, which is about ten per cent of the total I have set. Another important insight this software gives you is the dashboard. You will be able to see a set of charts and pie charts. You can see clearly how many hours you spend on each project. On the top, you can change the time range. It can be by month, by week, or any custom range. It gives you an overview of your work log, how much time you spend each day. This is an excellent app. I can't believe it. It's free. If you work alone. This is perfect. If you would like to upgrade, to be able to add other people or use other features. Feel free to explore the free version first. And then when you get comfortable, you can always upgrade it. For project management tools. I have three choices. First one, Google Tasks. Second one, Trello. Last one notion. These are listed from easy to difficult. Google Tasks is the most basic tool and requires no training to use it. Trello is very popular. It is free if you don't need to collaborate with others. Notion is very loaded and there is a deep learning curve to it. Cocoa tasks, you can use it on your mobile phone and laptop. The best part is that you can use it directly on your Gmail. It's all part of Google workspace. If you are a Google person and you use Gmail for work, then this is perfect. You can actually add our email into the Google task. Click on the icon on the top with a checkmark. Here you have create the task. You can write details here. You can change the date and time. Then you will see that it's automatically linked to that email. Once you save it, you will be able to view it on your phone, on your Google Calendar or your email or Google task app. The second app for project management is Trello. Trello is free. If you don't need to have other users in the Trello, you can create a board and different cards and you can drag drop anywhere you want. E.g. when you start a new project, you can add a card. You can change the label, change the date, and also attached documents. The middle section I have is work in progress. So I can drag and drop this card if I'm working on it. And if one project is completed, I can drag and drop to the completed section. It helps you to keep track of all their projects and you can use it on your web or on your phone. The third one is Notion. I'm quite new to it. I've just started using it for less than a year. I've created a table here with all my projects. You can have the name, status, and priority date, as well as the platform. And the note. You can add a new project. Let's change the status not started. As you can see, it's automatically reorganized and then change the priority deadline. So in fact, you don't have to create this table from scratch because they are templates you can use. In the templates, I have chosen projects and tasks. This is a template I'm using. Notion is extremely popular. There are many people offering training in ocean. You can find resources or YouTube videos if you are really interested. 14. NEXT LEVEL Job Success Score: With scales and consistent delivery, you will be able to get more and more jobs and you will receive client reviews. Upwork algorithm will calculate this and display it as job success score. If you can maintain 90% job success score for a period of time, you will receive Upwork badges. All of these are beneficial for your business to grow on Upwork. In the next four lessons, we will learn in details about job success score and how to improve it, Upwork badges, and how to get them. Another important part, increase your rate as you grow. This will get you to the next level. It is common sense the clients are looking for the best value, not the lowest price. Especially when it comes to serious clients. If you have the skills, experience, and charging a low rate can really hurt you. Why should you increase your rate? How much should you increase? How do you approach existing clients about your rate increases? I will talk about this in details. So keep watching. Job success score, or GNSS, reflects the overall contract history with your client and is the most important part of your Upwork profile. When you go to my stats page, you will see the genesis score on their client satisfaction section. Regularly review your score and maintain at least 90 per cent. Because clients can filter out freelancers below 90 per cent jazz score. Aim for 100% because it says a lot about your work. It will boost clients confidence in choosing u over others. If you just started out, you don't see it. Don't panic because you need to have completed at least for jobs from two different clients. If you have worked long enough, Upwork will take the past 61224 months average into consideration. The job success score is updated every two weeks. You won't be stuck with a bad score. And if you do fall under 90 per cent, don't worry, you can always get new projects, hopefully to improve your score, trying your best and delivering great service to your clients so that you can maintain a 90% job success score. Then you will be on the way to earning Upwork badges. Except for rising talent, you will need to have at least 90% for 13 weeks out of the past 16 weeks to earn top rated or top rated plus batch. Upwork does not reveal exactly how JSX is calculate. They explain on their website as positive outcome minus negative outcome divided by the total outcome. Which means that fewer negative outcomes will be better for your job success score. The GSS is not only dependent on the public review that you see, but also the private feedback which you don't see. The private feedback is on the 10-point system. As you can see here, the public feedback is the five-star system. This is how Upwork really distinguish hardworking freelancers who are committed and offer great client experience. There are other factors such as repeating clients, long-term clients, and also try to get larger jobs with higher earning potentials because they have more weight than others. To sum it up, choose clients carefully. Only take job that you can really deliver. Have good communication with the client, and close the contract after the work is completed so the client can leave a review for you. 15. NEXT LEVEL Badges & Certifications : Same as job success score, Upwork badges and certifications are also important. They set you apart from other freelancers on the platform. There are four types of Upwork batches. When you are new to Upwork, the rising talent is the one you should aim for. To become a rising talent, you should show you have a great potential by showing your strong background in your fields, portfolio samples, and also have success with the first few clients on Upwork, foot-operated and top-rated plus badges, you will need to have at least 90% job success score for a period of time, which is 13 weeks out of the last 16 weeks. The only difference between top-rated class and top rated is that the 12 months earnings needs to be $10,000 to be able to get top-rated plus batch. If you have only made 1,000 dollar in the past 12 months, then you will receive the top rated expert vetted badge is the most difficult one to get, and it's by invitation only. You must go through a thorough screening and evaluation by Upwork talent managers. They might invite you to apply for the screening process. If you really stand out. For Upwork certifications, you can add third party certificates. Here are some common and key industry certificates. If you are not a native English speaker, you can also upload your English language certificate, such as Cambridge English or IELTS. Upload them manually on the certification section on your profile. You will get a confirmation from Upwork once they review and approve it. Upwork offers scale certificates as well. But the category is limited. Currently there are two categories. Mobile, web, software development, design, and creative. Here are the scales under these two category. If you happen to be working with this scales in these two industries, you might get Upwork certified, try to keep a complete and up-to-date profile and portfolio. Set it to public, not private. If you have been actively working and earning Upwork, should reach out to you to have you certified. 16. NEXT LEVEL Increase Your Rate : You probably wouldn't stay and work for one company. And the same rate as when you started. Your page should be increased over the years and it should be the same when you freelance. The difference is that your client will rarely increase your rate unless you ask for it. Many people get nervous when talking about money. You may be reluctant to increase your rate because you fear that you might lose clients. I want to share some tips with you in this lesson and help you to decide when to increase your rate and how to approach existing clients about this. Why should you increase your rate? First scenario when you are fully booked, when you don't have time to take on new projects? Because probably every client said yes to your rate. So it's time to think about bringing new clients with higher rate. Second scenario, you have kept the rate for a long time. It applies to your Upwork rate or a particular contract. So if you are advertised rate was 20 dollar when you started on Upwork, after one year of actively working, you should increase it by at least ten or 20 per cent. Or if you start it on one contract with one client at $20 per hour, you can also increase it by ten per cent after a year or so. The third scenario, your skills and expertise has significantly improved. This means you are serviced, become more valuable. You should get paid for it. You can decide to increase based on what you improved in terms of the value for the clients. Now, changing your rate or Upwork is very easy. You don't have to tell anyone. But to approach our existing client might be a bit tricky. So I suggest try to be informative instead of begging. There's no need to beg for it. Simply inform the client what you decided and hope that they can agree on it. So the proper way to do it is to send an e-mail or message. But I would prefer email. Ask them politely and state your achievements and how long you've been working together. Then you would mention about the rate increase. The last thing is closing. Here is an example that I have used. I started by saying, Hi, I hope you had a wonderful time off for Thanksgiving holiday. And then I said, I've been going through all contracts on system, not just them. And I found that it's been two years since we started working together. And to keep up with my current rates and prioritization on our projects, I would like to increase my hourly rate by ten per cent, amount of 82.5. So there's no confusion. Well, i'm I'm able to change it on my side. I would really appreciate it. If you can agree on this and update it, then thank you again, and I hope to reconnect with you soon to discuss the upcoming projects. I think it's very straightforward. Feel free to use my sample and make it your own. You can find this letter in my course resource guide. 17. NEXT LEVEL Enterprise Client: When you start working on Upwork, you may only receive contracts from individual clients. Compared to individual clients. Enterprise clients or larger companies. They can be Fortune 500 or they can be startups who utilize upward to find freelancers. According to Upwork, 30% of Fortune 500 choose Upwork enterprise solution. Once the client sign up with Upwork enterprise, they will be able to create a private network of professionals and agencies. This is called talent cloud. If you get invited and hired for one project, you will always be in that network. And given top considerations when the new project comes. Because managers will start first looking for freelancers in their own talent clouds. Only after they have exhausted their own network, they will start looking outside. There are many benefits working with enterprise clients. It gives you access to more high-quality opportunities and steadier stream of work. This means less time spent searching for jobs and more time spent working. Working with enterprise clients is also much easier because they are professionals and they know exactly what they want. Most of the time they are very familiar with the general process of a project. This work experience is great for your profile and opens door for future opportunities. There are only two disadvantages I can think about. One, you have to pay ten per cent Upwork fees. This is fixed no matter how much you earn from this client. Second, confidentiality, which means that you are not allowed to use the work or publish on your portfolio. Enterprise clients post their job privately, so you won't be able to see it. The only way is to get invited by the client or account manager from Upwork. Like I said before, they will start looking first on their own talent clouds. But when they don't find the right person, they will start searching outside. You might get invited. How to increase your chance to get invited. You should know what our enterprise client is looking for. They're looking for a few things. Relevant experience, reliability, communication skills, password, and other enterprise projects. What you can do is to stay active and keep delivering great service. So you can get positive reviews from the clients and improve your skills. Find your niche. Also, you can improve your English skills and communication skills, especially if you're not a native English speaker. Update your profile and portfolio. And lastly, watch out for invites from enterprise clients. This is an enterprise clients posting. It looks like this. You can see as it's labeled enterprise, and you will see that they have spent a huge amount of money on the platform. So watch out for these invites and respond in a timely manner. 18. Closing : Wow, you have reached the end of the course. Congratulations on completing it. I'm sure you are now very excited to get started on Upwork one step at a time. Start small. Start today. Remember to download the resource guide and use it. I wish you all the best in your freelance journey. And I hope to share more tips about freelancing and productivity in other courses. Stay tuned.