Welcome back to my channel, today I'm going to be jumping into a brand new feature that Upwork just
released, and this is going to help you make more money on the platform whether you are just getting
started out or you are already an established freelancer and that is the ability to now host
and schedule and deliver automated consultations. So let's jump right into it, you see here I'm on
my dashboard this is just when you log into your account you'll see they have a new little prompt
here that says share your expertise where you can meet more clients through one-on-one virtual
consultations. You choose when you're available to meet, you set your rate, and then clients can
come to you. So if you are on Upwork you're trying to find this feature and you don't see it on your
homepage dashboard you want to go to your project catalog dashboard so under find work go down to my
project dashboard now if you're not aware of the project dashboard check out this other video I
made, I'll put the thumbnail on the screen which goes over this new Upwork feature which kind of
resembles Fiverr in a way where instead of you having to send proposals out to clients,
you can set your rate your project and what you deliver and then clients are able to come to you
for the specific job that they need done. Now what Upwork has done is they've continued to invest in
this new dashboard and they just released this new feature which I just went over which is that
consultation feature so you can see it's the same thing here it's a share your expertise tab
and from there you can set up a consultation which we are going to do right now so I can
walk you through the entire process. So once you click on that it is going to walk you through
six different steps the first is the overview of your project then the pricing of the consultation
your availability the requirements that the client needs to give to you the gallery which
is images and videos and documents and then the different policies that you have to agree
to. So for this example I am going to kind of breeze through it, now of course you can
put even more time into this, more thought, but remember this is an example for example purposes
I'll probably go back in and polish this up but just while I have you right now you're watching
this video let me show you how easy it is to set up a brand new consultation on Upwork and start
to have clients come to you. Because not only is that the first part where the clients come to you
but now you can also get paid for your knowledge and your advice and your expertise whereas before
if you're reaching out to clients that is usually a free call and that can be anywhere from a half
an hour to an hour to even two hours in some cases where you're not getting paid you're
just talking to a client because you want to get their business you want to earn their business
however this is kind of turning that on its head it's giving the freelancer and the consultant more
power in this matter and now if you do have that expertise to share on that initial consultation
you can now get paid for it and it can be automatically scheduled. So for my example, I'm
going to be doing a Google Ads consultation. So if we look here you can see you can click on the show
all and these are all the different categories so it doesn't get as granular as some different
areas on Upwork where you can put in your specific skill set exactly, but for this case let me just
put in a couple things that make the most sense for what a google ads consultation would consist
of starting with search marketing, also marketing strategy would be pretty relevant market research,
etc, so I'm going to leave it at that for right now just because this is the most relevant
based on what I am doing and then you can also add some custom topics here so let's say i wanted
to try to see if Google Ads shows up...okay so Google Ads does show up so I can also add that in
as a specific custom topic, let's maybe also see if they have search engine marketing...and
they do so you can also add in some other ones under here
these are kind of the broad ones you can choose up to five then add some custom ones,
then we'll click save and continue to go to the next step, and this is the pricing and within
the pricing you have the option to either do a 30 minute or a 60 minute or both for this case
I'll include both of them just based on what the client wants they can have the ability to choose.
I don't want to cut clients out that want either a 30 or 60 minute so I think that's a no-brainer
to leave that open and then this is where you can set your rate and this is going to be per
30 minutes so it all depends on what your rates are what you've worked your way up to as well
as what your standard hourly rate is so usually my hourly rate on Upwork is around 80 give or
take but in this circumstance I will keep it at the 40 rate for 30 minutes so if they do want
to do a full hour that will be 80 and then also remember you don't want to price this too high
to scare clients off but at the same time you don't want it to be too low where it's not really
worth your time but also remember that the whole goal with this is not just going to be doing a
one-time consultation but it's also going to be showing the client that you can deliver the work
that they need done you can help them solve their problem and from there that can open the door to
a much longer relationship that's much more profitable. So you want to kind of hit the sweet
spot there and then this is where you describe the kind of guidance that you are going to be
delivering and this is where you know once again I'm not going to go into too much depth here so
this is just for example purposes but I will just put something like Google Ads Consultation...so
i just wrote it's a Google Ads consultation I will review your existing google ad strategy, identify
strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats now if I do circle back and i add some more things in
here I will go into more detail about how i'm well versed on all of the different google platforms i
have experience in this area I help clients all the time with their consultations and this will
kind of help show the client that I am going to be delivering the type of work that they want solved,
but that's up to you based on exactly what you're doing. So for this example let's keep going down
and this is where you are going to be selecting what documents for the client they are going to
receive so once the project consultation is done you need to send them at least one of
these documents and you can select all of them is that's actually what I would suggest you doing so
the first is a project plan this is all of the steps necessary to complete the client's project
the next is a time and cost estimate so that's an estimate of how much time it will take to
finish the project and how much it will cost as well as a meeting summary which is a recap
of the consultation for the client with your key points recommendations and next steps
now even if you're not doing this with the Upwork project consultation new project catalog they have
you want to be doing this anyway you want to be sending the client after that consultation
a project plan to show them what you can offer if they were to hire you to work on them in the
future and then the time and cost estimate how much time it would take you to work on the project
for that client as well as what it is going to cost followed by a meeting summary which is always
helpful something you should always be doing summarizing what went over in the meeting and then
breaking down all of the key points and the next steps and what is needed from each party to keep
pushing the project forward. So then after that you choose the delivery day so this is how many
days you'll need after the consultation to deliver your documents you can do anything that you feel
comfortable with here if you are pretty busy with client work and you like to schedule your week out
I would say three days is a nice sweet spot there it gives you a couple days to get planned on it
and then a day to work on it if that's kind of how you work now if you're just getting started
out and you don't really have much else on your plate you can do one day on here or two days on
here but it's all about your specific situation so after that let's click save and continue and
now you can see we're in the availability section so this is the part where it gets pretty automated
and it's pretty cool because it's going to plug directly into what your specific availability
is which is going to save on a lot of time where clients may want to meet when you're just not
available and you have to go back and forth you have to go through all the different time zone
translations and all of that this simplifies that whole process and you can just click here
to set your availability and then once this loads up we'll see that it is in the right time zone
and then you can also put in the days of the week that you're available and then the hours you are
available so let's say I do Monday through Friday but let's say I only want to do consultations
in the afternoon I can set that to let's say 2 pm and let's say we do that from 2 to 5 pm so 3 hours
a day I'll dedicate to the different consultations but it's all about what works for you and of
course you can also add in different ones so let's say you are also available on the weekends you can
also click Saturday and Sunday here and create a customized schedule and let's say on the weekends
you like to work a little bit later in the day actually so let's say we do 5 pm on the weekends
to 7 pm let's say you just dedicate a couple hours to that on the weekends you can then click
save and exit and that is going to save those settings. Now you have your other settings this
is the minimum booking notice so how long that the client needs to give you notice before that
they can actually book that on your calendar for this I like to keep this once again at three days
now this is helpful because let's say it's a Monday a client can't just schedule a meeting
for later that day or even for Tuesday so they'd have to schedule it three days in the future so
it'd be for Thursday that way you can plan your entire week and you can make sure you can deliver
on the consultation because if you don't it is going to negatively impact your job success
score so you don't want to have to cancel any of these consultations then you can also set a future
limit so how far in advance clients can schedule consultations and this can help you plan in case
your availability does change from here let's just keep this down to two weeks in the future
I don't really think four weeks is that realistic you know let's keep it a couple weeks time so this
is going to get clients that can book within three days but not further than two weeks out this way
you always know exactly when you are going to have those consultations on your calendar from there i
will click save and then I have that availability set so we will then click save and continue this
is where we are now on the requirements tab so this is where you want to ask the client for any
information you need to know like what kind of topics do you want to cover now remember these
will be the questions the client sees so be sure to talk to the client directly so they have a
placeholder text right in here that says tell me about yourself and what you want to talk about
all regarding your Google Ads account and then from there you can just click
save that's a mandatory requirement and then you can add another question so from here is another
client requirement, so I'm going to ask for Google Ads access read-only access to their Google Ads
account, so I can actually look at if they have any campaigns running before the consultation
I can go ahead and make sure they add me that way I can look at it before
I get on the call with them have a better understanding of where they are currently at
and then I can have more solid suggestions formed for them instead of if i was just looking
at everything from scratch so here is where I would put something in like please add my email
address or message me so you can add my email address for a read-only access to your account.
And then you can also make that a mandatory requirement and of course you can also change
this up to a free text a multiple choice or a file attachment there so in that case I will
say please message me so I can request read-only access to your Google Ads account. So now they're
going to tell me what they want to talk about regarding Google Ads as well as give me access
to their Google Ads account and then you can also put in some frequently asked questions here
now once again I'm not going to go through every single thing in this video but you can always go
back add some more of these things in as you start to talk to clients you start to hear some of the
questions that they ask pretty frequently go ahead and add that in here so that can just help qualify
the client a little bit more and that is going to help you once again get started on the right foot
and be more prepared for the consultation when that time comes around so then let's click save
and continue and we are going to be moving on now to the gallery so I have an image prepared
right here i'm going to drag and drop that in and then from there you can set the different crop
for your image and click upload now this will be the project image on the project cover photo then
any additional images you add will be viewable if the client clicks on the project the consultation
starts to click through but remember you don't want to have a bunch of text on this image it
will actually not approve that so you're better off just including an image of what you're going
to be working on so in my case i put a laptop here with the google ads logo the google partner badge
in the top corner and then my face you can do any combination of those things based on what
the type of consultation is that you're going to be offering but remember not to include any
big text and then you can also upload a project video as well as any sample documents for the
client and remember there are a couple different things to focus on here some tips for success you
can choose attractive and professional images and videos only add images and videos that you have
the right to of course and then also some things to avoid is too much text on the photo like i said
any low quality images or blurry anything that's unrelated using any Upwork logos or badges is not
allowed and then using text or watermarks with like contact information your email address your
phone number also that is not allowed and then referencing another company or service
directly i kind of do that indirectly here but doing it directly can get that image not approved
and then anything that's poorly cropped images so if my face was half cut off or something like that
doesn't make the project look that appealing to the clients so once you've done that you've added
a video you've added some sample documents as well as some project images then you can click continue
once again and now you are on the last step which is just looking at the different policies
of the project consultation dashboard so here are some of the policies you have 24 hours to
send a message to the client after they submit the requirements to confirm the consultation or
to clarify the requirements if you don't send a message it will impact your responsiveness score.
So remember once you set this up you need to be checking up work every single day and making sure
that if you do have a request for a consultation you're doing one of these two things you're either
approving it confirming that consultation on your calendar or if you need more clarification on what
the client has submitted as their requirements make sure you're getting that information and
you're messaging them back as soon as possible the next is the cancellation policy so you can
cancel at any time but if it's less than 24 hours before the consultation it can impact your job
success score and if the client cancels within 24 hours they won't get a refund and you'll get paid
now i can't emphasize this enough because this is so important i know some of you out there
that have been freelancing before have been in this situation where you've prepared maybe for
a couple hours even for a meeting with a client and they either don't show up or they just decide
to reschedule at the last minute and it throws your entire schedule off and if you're busy like
me even one canceled meeting can kind of throw the rest of the day off so this protects you
if the client does cancel within a 24-hour window you still get paid for that service and also it's
important to remember on your side of the token if you need to cancel the meeting that you do so
with over 24 hours notice so it doesn't impact your job success score then any late attendance
this policy is you or the client can be up to five minutes late for your scheduled meeting anything
after that it can actually be either a miss meeting on the client side or the freelancer side
so make sure you have this in your schedule and you are showing up to the meeting on time.
And then also they have a no-show policy so if you don't show up or are more than five minutes
late the client can file a dispute and ask for their money back if the client doesn't show up
you'll still get paid so this is really important to make sure you understand and you agree to these
policies for offering consultations so you can put yourself in the best position to succeed
and you can have your job success score go up and eventually earn the top rated badges just like I
have which has really helped me on my freelancing career. Next you'll go into the copyright notice
this is just stating that anything that you are sharing any photos videos anything like
that that you have the rights to and that you also acknowledge that you understand your project will
be reviewed and evaluated by Upwork to ensure it meets Upworks requirements you can click on the
Upwork term of service here the user agreement and the privacy policy for more information on that
I work on Upwork all the time so I'm aware of all these policies and lastly is the privacy notice
which states by submitting this project and activating it I understand that it will appear
in Upwork search results visible to the general public and will show up in search engine results
even if my profile visibility is set to private or Upwork users only now once again this is important
to understand because if you don't want your profile out there which I don't know why you
would want that but let's just say you are trying to stay low-key maybe you already have a 9-5
and you're doing this on the side and you're kind of keeping it low-key on nights and weekends
you may not want to do this, however if you're like me you're doing this full-time or you want to
get into freelancing full-time being a full-time consultant then 100% make sure you understand that
this is going to show up on search engines and that is going to be to your benefit because Upwork
is going to pay money to advertise your services to potential clients. Now of course they do get a
cut of that but that's because they're doing all of that work to get the client to the platform
they have all of the different policies set up to protect you like if the client doesn't show up
and then don't forget they give you the platform to make all of this possible.
So once you understand all of that you agree to all of that you click submit and then it will
come up with one more quick warning that says make sure you review your project for watermark images
any personally identifiable information and references to projects on other websites so once
we do that and we click send to review that is where it will give you the congrats symbol and say
you've successfully submitted your project will let you know when your project has been reviewed
and approved and then from there you'll see that now I have a consultation right here and I also
have my previous Google Ads Project there and you can see this consultation feature is still in beta
and it will be available for clients to purchase in early 2022. So if you get started with this new
feature right now you can get ahead of the pack once again jumping on all of the new features
and opportunities that Upwork releases will help put you in the best position to succeed
so once again if you are looking to start offering consultation services
you're tired of clients canceling meetings last minute and you're tired of not getting paid for
putting hours into a consultation this is an awesome feature for you. So if you are
looking forward to trying this out please comment down below your experience I'd love to hear how
other people on the Upwork platform are utilizing this new feature. If you like this content please
subscribe to my channel, hit the like button, and check out all of the other videos on my channel
about Upwork, freelancing, and creating lifestyle freedom. Until the next one, my name is Paul
Mendes with Profitable Freelancer, and I look forward to your success, thanks for watching.