In the current day and age, there are so many professional spheres out there that one can make money out of pretty much anything. As long as you possess a skill that can be sold in the market, you have the capacity to make money online. But to know how to sell your skill is itself a skill that needs to be developed over time.
One of the easiest ways to put your skill to use is by Freelancing. Nowadays, there are a plethora of Freelance marketplaces available online such as Upwork, Freelancer and Fiverr that provides you with a platform to sell your skills and services. These platforms are probably one of the best ways to get clients, network and earn money quickly even if you are only a beginner.
However, considering how this is one of the most popular ways to sell your skills and services, it is also extremely competitive. People who just start freelancing often find these spaces quite overwhelming. Initially, it can be an intimidating experience, however, once you get used to the competitive space, you can make a good amount of money by being part of the competition yourself. Here are some tips using which you can make money from Upwork (Formerly Elance):
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Research your competition well
As mentioned before, if you directly get started without understanding the kind of environment you are entering, you will be extremely overwhelmed. Hence it is important to do some research on what are the kind of strategies that your competitors are using. It is always better to be over-prepared for whatever task you are going to undertake. A good way to get a glance at what you are getting into is by posting a fake job. You can study the kind of responses you most commonly get and understand the competition better.
Analysing the results
Once you have figured out the most crucial bits of information, you already are a step ahead of most people as you have some insight into the kind of responses people send in. After studying the kind of responses job proposals get, you can come up with one that stands out compared to the rest of the responses and have an edge over the competition.
Stand out and start booking jobs
This again ties back to the previous two points. If you show your client that you have done your research and you understand the kind of requirements your client has, you will stand out in comparison to the rest of the proposals. Your response should always feel personalized and warm so that your client has an extremely strong reason to consider your proposal.
And in order to do this, you will have to conduct thorough research on your client’s profile before approaching them. The first thing that you can do is look at their purchase history. You can check their statistics on Upwork to find out how often they hire on Upwork and if they are actually serious about the work that they are offering. Secondly, you can go through the client’s feedback history.
Through this, you can find out what they have liked and disliked about the freelancers that they have worked with in the past. Finally, you can check out their personal details such as their location, interests, etc. This will enable you to create a more customized message while approaching them, making the response more personal in nature. This can really help in building a good rapport with the client.
After you take care of these basic steps, you just have to wait it out. You have already taken the necessary steps to make sure that your proposal is different as compared to the rest. Do not ever hesitate to flesh out your proposal even more if possible as that is the most important factor in deciding if you will receive the job or not.
In the end, To increase your chances, you can even try doing a custom video response for your client to show them that you are really interested in undertaking the job. Starting out on Upwork can be quite tedious in the beginning, however, as you keep undertaking more jobs, your portfolio will keep getting longer and better. And this, in turn, will increase your overall credibility, helping you land more jobs.
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