LITTLE ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

If you have been struggling to get clients to even interview you on jobs you sent proposals on, go into your account now and review your proposals.

Are you speaking more about yourself than addressing the clients needs? Knowing what you now know, how would you improve that going forward?

If possible, check through those jobs you applied for and rewrite your proposals to them on your notepad… only this time, try to address the clients needs and see how better your proposals sound; looking at it through the eyes of your clients.

Cheers.

lifeispeace:
My experience on upwork!
After reading Vic.tor101's thread elance.com-upwork.com-other-freelancing-site, an ultimate guide on how to succeed , I took action.
And by action, I mean an action of faith.i borrowed some money from a friend to get a laptop.
And my success story started from there.
I created a profile, it was approved after 2days.
I immediately started bidding for jobs.
I was online 24/7 bidding for the right jobs of course.
After 10 bids, I got 4 offers of $200 each...
I was like $800 just in a day?

I immediately started my clients project at a time.
I'm in the writing niche, so I thoroughly executed their projects to meet global writing requirements.
They were more than pleased and offered more work...
That's where my success story started.
I got work upon work from repeat contracts that I didn't even have time to bid for jobs again. Within a few weeks, I was slammed the rising talent badge, with a 100% job score success.
I can thankfully say I average $2000 monthly, which is way way above average from the normal labour pay package.
All thanks to Vict.or101, pa.schu, stag.ger, 3RN.EST, and other names that left an indelible mark on me when I was reading the thread. They left valuable information that I utilised and here I am today.
Now to the proposal thingy.
The client isn't at all interested in what you can do, although a nice profile matters.

But in all. You have to place the client's needs first before chipping in any of your proficiency.

God bless s.eun, Vic.tor101, and all nairalanders!!!

Venzal:
Nice. Taking action on whatever you learn is a massive step that many fail to understand. A lot of people will hop on this thread and begin to question your claims of making 2k/month when they have the same info within reach.

Keep winning.

lifeispeace:
I'll be waiting for them

3RNEST:
Wow, very impressive @lifeispeace I'm glad u made it, sincerely I gave up on upwork since the day they remove SKRILL from their payment platform..and the issue of account blocking so I quit the freelancing field long ago...but I pray to bounce back again cuz its freaky time consuming....

#Bless up to you and others who's winning...
#thumb up

Hunry:


what type of articles do you write & how did you learn it.

lifeispeace:
all articles rather.
I make good use of Google, online classes for Seo and Apa, as well as YouTube.

Martux100:
I opened upwork account early last year but I have not been able to make a single sale. I guess the problem I have is my proposal. I will be glad to learn how to write a winning proposal here.

I am a graphics designer. I design book covers, magazines, banners and also formatting manuscript for Kindle and createspace.

stagger:


You should be on 99designs.com, not Upwork!

lifeispeace:
My experience on upwork!
After reading Victor101's thread elance.com-upwork.com-other-freelancing-site, an ultimate guide on how to succeed , I took action.
And by action, I mean an action of faith.i borrowed some money from a friend to get a laptop.
And my success story started from there.
I created a profile, it was approved after 2days.
I immediately started bidding for jobs.
I was online 24/7 bidding for the right jobs of course.
After 10 bids, I got 4 offers of $200 each...
I was like $800 just in a day?

I immediately started my clients project at a time.
I'm in the writing niche, so I thoroughly executed their projects to meet global writing requirements.
They were more than pleased and offered more work...
That's where my success story started.
I got work upon work from repeat contracts that I didn't even have time to bid for jobs again. Within a few weeks, I was slammed the rising talent badge, with a 100% job score success.
I can thankfully say I average $2000 monthly, which is way way above average from the normal labour pay package.
All thanks to Victor101, paschu, stagger, 3RNEST, and other names that left an indelible mark on me when I was reading the thread. They left valuable information that I utilised and here I am today.
Now to the proposal thingy.
The client isn't at all interested in what you can do, although a nice profile matters.

But in all. You have to place the client's needs first before chipping in any of your proficiency.

God bless seun, Victor101, and all nairalanders!!!

Venzal:
If you’re a freelancer on Upwork, you already know that one of the fastest ways to get clients is to send proposals for jobs you see on the public marketplace.

The other option is to get a private invite.

But when you are a newbie with zero or little work history, getting private invites doesn’t come easy.

So to build that work history and win jobs, you have to slug it out with a ton of other freelancers on the public marketplace.

And it's usually a tough battle to win (especially in saturated categories)!

Many guys, just freshly-landed on the Upwork platform are usually at a loss on what should go into their proposals.

And this confusion has seen many people bounce out of Upwork as fast as they came in because they sent a good number of proposals and couldn't win even a single job.

Upwork is making it even tougher now with their new send-account-into-private-mode-or-timbuktu "punishment" for not getting a job within a set number of days.

IN THIS THREAD, I AM GOING TO TALK ABOUT UPWORK PROPOSALS...

And somewhere along the line, I’ll drop a download link with which you can access a few samples of Upwork proposals that won real jobs. So that those who are currently struggling to crank out persuasive proposals can "tweak" them to write better proposals.

The first thing I will talk about on this thread is ONE common mistake most freelancers make (even the experienced guys) in writing their proposals.

THE "ME, I, MYSELF" PROPOSAL MISTAKE

If you read through a great number of Upwork proposals, you are going to see things like:

“I have 5 years experience…”

“I have been doing this for years…”

“I know how X works and if you hire ME now I will give you a solid deliverable.”

Etc. Etc. Etc.

It’s natural to speak about ourselves and our skill because we want clients to see that we are after all, capable.

But is that what clients really want to see?

No.

Consider it this way…

It’s like that guy who walks up to a pretty lady and belts out something akin to the following:

“Hey, I am good in bed… I own an ultra-modern apartment, my exes think I am the best boyfriend. Do you want to date?”

A HUGE number of ladies will consider him a jerk and gladly tell him “NO” every single time.

Some might even throw in a few choice words to trim his over bloated ego to size.

Don’t you think it’s a similar approach when you hit up on hitherto unknown clients and begin to yap about how amazing and wonderful you are?

So what should you do instead?

Writing your proposals to address clients needs will instantly increase your chances of getting a “YES.”

... compared to when you talk all about yourself.

And this is largely down to an innate human behavior.

As humans, we mostly only care about what we can benefit from any given situation.

For example, you prob’ly opened this thread because you wanted to quickly grab a lesson and move on, am I right?

You don’t care about the OP… just what YOU can grab from the thread and be on your way to the next thing that catches your attention.

Marketers call this the “WIIFM” station.

Meaning “What’s in it for me?”

Every time you try to pitch (and your proposals, just like your profile overview, are little sales pitches) someone and try to focus on the awesomeness of the product (you in this case) as opposed to quickly addressing the NEED of why they should grab your offer, you’re more likely to get a “NO.”

So how exactly do you address a client’s NEEDS with your proposal right off the gate?

For example, instead of saying: “I have been doing this kind of work for years.” (A client might go like: And so? How does that benefit me?).

Saying something like: “This project you are looking to embark on bears a striking resemblance with one I was recently hired to work on for another [Upwork] client…”

The first one is a little okay on its own (and a few clients won’t even mind)...

But you’ll agree that the second has more punch and immediately piques the client’s interest because they go like: “Okay, so he’s done this for another client before? Good, let’s see what happened then…”

You get the gist.

This is just an example.

There are a lot more ways to tap into the “WIIFM” station. But the very first rule is that MAKE SURE “I” takes backstage and beam the flashlight on “YOU.”

That does not mean you shouldn’t talk about yourself. But you have to present that in a way that is BENEFICIAL to the client's need at that moment in time.

This is why it is very important that you thoroughly read through a client’s job post, try to figure out what the client’s MOST IMPORTANT need is before cranking out that proposal.

Once you begin to do this, you can be assured of writing proposals that sound a lot better… and as a result, you increase your chances of flooring the competition and winning more jobs.