- You are just starting out on Upwork,
or maybe you're not, but you're still struggling
to get more jobs.
Well it's probably because you're making at least one
of these five mistakes that I keep seeing people make
again and again.
So if you want to know more about how to get
more jobs on Upwork, and really, what's keeping you
away from being more successful on the platform,
then keep on watching.
(intense electronic music)
Hey, welcome back to Super Humans,
the place to be if you're looking to create
a fabulous career and master your life.
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nice to meet you, I'm the founder of Super Humans.
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With that out of the way, let's get straight
into the video on how to get more jobs on Upwork.
A couple of weeks ago, when I posted this video here,
where I was walking you through my thoughts
on how to write an amazing proposal on Upwork,
I received a lot of messages, either in the comments
of the video or on some of my other platforms as DMs
asking me about how to get more jobs on Upwork.
People are either starting out or really struggling
to get more jobs and while you're probably thinking,
"Okay, we understand that the proposal is important,
"and we know now how to write it,
"but how can we really get more successful
"and higher success rate on Upwork?"
So let's get straight into the video
and start with number one, which is niching down,
and I cannot stress this enough.
If you remember anything from today's video,
I hope you remember this, because it is so, so important.
Niching down is key.
If you advertise your services as too generic,
you are going to blend in and it is going to be very,
very hard for you to stand out
for any of the jobs that you bid for,
or for any employers or customers
that are looking to hire freelance talent,
because you could very easily be spotted
by somebody and invited to apply to a job
if your profile really stands out,
but unless you niche down and you make it very,
very specific on what is it that you do
and what pain point and what customer needs
you're serving or you're solving,
you will not be able to stand out.
So what you need to do is first of all,
in your profile, make sure that you make
that very clear, but also when you apply to jobs,
make sure that they are very, very aligned
with your niche.
For example, if you are, let's say,
a video editor, and you are amazing at what you do,
I would suggest that you pick a niche
or you look back at the kind of work that you've been doing
and you try and niche down.
It could be that you are very good
and you specialize in education video,
or animation videos, or action videos
or tutorials, but you need to pick your niche
and the narrower you can go, the better,
because then you will be able to really address
a very clear customer profile,
and with that, you will be able to really understand them
and serve their true need.
For everything there is a niche,
so you want to make sure that your profile
really shows that niche, and also as I said,
you really pick the jobs that are very specific
to this niche.
All right, we have come to number two,
which is your portfolio.
And here, there are a couple of really important things.
Number one, make sure that whatever you choose
to include in your portfolio not only is really
your best quality, but also very, very specific
to your niche.
So let me take them one by one.
First of all, you want to make sure
that whatever you choose to include is really top-notch,
your really best, best, best quality work,
because some people seem to feel that they want
to include everything to kinda show how much
they've worked in this space.
And what that does, it just shows average work.
What you want to do is really pick those two
or three things that are so, so great quality
that your future customer will click on them
and will go, "Hmm, that is something I want for myself."
Make it look as if they are shopping
in an online store and you are already
answering their needs.
So, best quality you can do.
Number two, make it very specific to your niche.
So let's come back to the example of the video editor.
You do not need to include in your portfolio
other types of videos you've edited
other than the ones that are very specific
to your niche, so if you are niching down
on animation videos, you only should include those
or if you are niching down on education videos,
you only should include those,
because if you start including different bits
and pieces from different types of categories,
your customer will be like, "Hmm, what do they actually do
"and where are they actually best at?"
So it'll just make it a lot more difficult for your customer
to understand the type of services you offer
and the level of expertise and quality
you can offer to them.
Now also, what you want to make sure
is that if you're new to Upwork or new
to this whole freelancing thing and you don't have
a lot of projects that you can include in your portfolio,
you should create some.
Yes, you heard me right.
You should do the work and create some pieces
that would be speaking to the level of quality
that you can offer your customers, even if nobody
asked you to do that, because once you do that,
you have something to showcase the work
that you can do for your customer.
So don't waste the time and wait until
you get your first gig to create something
that you can add to your portfolio.
Do that ahead of time, do the work before you start
so that the customers already know
what to expect when they hire you.
Okay, let's talk about the third really, really important
thing that you need to do in order to get
more jobs on Upwork, and one of the mistakes
that I see so often, and that is your testimonials.
Those are so, so critical because they allow
your customers to see what others say about you,
what others think about your work,
and really, it's letting others promote you,
so you want to make sure that you have enough
really, really strong testimonials included on Upwork,
and if you're new to the platform and you don't have
a lot of jobs that you can refer your new potential
customers to in order to get that feedback,
then make sure that you either bring testimonials
from other platforms that you might've worked on,
or if you're completely new to freelancing,
make sure you screenshot different types
of feedback or testimonials that you would've received
in your corporate job or any other type of job
that you would've had before.
Even if you are a student or you've just graduated
and you had no job before and you are going
straight into freelancing, you must've received
some feedback from your professors, your teachers,
your coworkers, your teammates,
somebody must've given you some feedback
that would be relevant to your potential customer.
So make sure you bring that into the picture
because they will really help you
secure more jobs on Upwork.
Once your customer sees what others think
about you and your work, then it will be
a lot easier for them to trust you as well.
And we've come to number four,
which is your past experience.
I am seeing so, so many profiles on Upwork
that have nothing in their past experience section.
That is totally empty, and honestly,
I think it's a missed opportunity.
That space is there for a reason,
so why not use the real estate?
It would definitely help you to tell a much better,
more cohesive story about yourself
and about your capabilities.
So why not leverage it?
No matter if you are just starting on Upwork
in which case this is really critical,
or if you've been on Upwork for awhile
and you already have a few projects under your belt,
I think it's important for you to take advantage
of that real estate.
And there are a couple of things to mention here.
First of all, do not include everything under the sun.
You want to make sure that whatever you put
in your past experience section is directly relevant
to your selected niche, because unless it supports
to tell that story of the value proposition
you can offer to your niche,
it should not be included on your profile,
so obviously not included in your past experience either.
Now, second of all, if you are just starting
and you let's say are a student
or you have just graduated and you have not worked before,
and you're wondering what do I put there,
I have no past work experience, I'm sure you do.
There are certainly some projects that you worked on
in your high school years or in your college years
that are relevant to your niche,
to your target audience.
If that is not the case, then maybe you've done
some pro-bono work, some summer internships,
or some work that you might've done in the past
that maybe you didn't get paid for
but is still relevant to your target audience.
So make sure you go ahead and include that
in your past experience section,
and if you don't have any of that either,
maybe you want to reconsider whether
this is really your niche, or if that is still the case,
maybe you want to start considering
doing some of those pro-bono projects that would allow you
to tell the story about how amazing you are
and how you can solve that particular need
of your target audience.
Let's talk about number five,
which is your price.
And really, I think this is a false friend.
And oftentimes, getting the right price
will mean making or breaking the deal,
and what I mean by that is you should not always
go for the lowest price, because while customers
are price sensitive, of course, and probably
even more so nowadays, you want to make sure
that the price you quote also speaks about
the level of quality that you are offering,
because if you go ahead and quote very, very low,
many times customers will associate that
with low quality as well.
So you want to make sure that the price you're quoting
is not too high but also not too low.
You want to find the sweet spot for the level of quality
of work that you're offering and for the level
of expertise that you have so your price
is a very good reflection of this.
I was going to finish my video here,
but I simply cannot do that without mentioning
this one last tip, so tip number six,
even though it was not supposed to be included in here,
I need to mention it, and that is the importance
of the right proposal.
And I'm not going to use the time in this video
to talk about that, because as I mentioned earlier,
I've done a whole video where I walk you through
what I think your proposal needs to include
and what I think it should not include
in order for you to land more jobs on Upwork,
so if you're interested in that, make sure you go
and watch this video here, I'm gonna link it up as well
and down in the description box, so once this video
is over, make sure you go over and watch that one
where I go into a lot of details
on what the right proposal should look like.
I truly hope that this was helpful and I hope
it brought up some new ideas or areas
where you might've been making some of these mistakes
without even noticing.
And if you want to know more about the other seven areas
where I see people making mistakes all the time
in terms of their Upwork profile
or Upwork presence, then make sure you go
and download right now my Upwork Audit Checklist,
where I talk about all 12 aspects
where I see people make mistakes a lot
and I hope it helps you audit your presence
on the platform on your own and realize
where you might be making mistakes
and for you to be able to address those mistakes
and make the changes right now.
I hope this video inspired you,
please like it, comment down below
and let me know what you thought
and also share with a friend who might be interested
in getting more jobs on Upwork as well.
With that being said, I hope you create everyday magic.
I hope you have a lovely day and a lovely week
and I'll see you next time, bye.