B E C O M E A SUCCESSFUL FREELANCER

Thank you for downloading my Free Guide to Getting Started on Upwork! ’. Why Am I Making This Guide? I think it’s safe to say that I’ve inspired quite a few people to pursue a location independent lifestyle and naturally, I get a bunch of questions flooding my inbox each week from people who want to know how they can get started doing what I’m doing (ie. freelancing online and traveling the world). Truth be told, I’m not an UpWork Freelancing guru.

I don’t have all the answers but I can share with you what has worked for me so far. The following guide contains the biggest lessons I’ve learned so far as well as my favorite tricks and tips to land jobs on a more consistent basis. My Journey on UpWork After a year spent working on a new career for myself as a developer, I embarked on a one-way journey out of Australia to pursue a location-independent lifestyle. Some of you are probably thinking that I picked up work easily and that I was able to continue the success of my web development career without any friction - wrong! This brings me to the first and most important lesson of this whole guide

#1: Just because you have experience and skills doesn’t mean you’ll succeed as a freelancer. To think like this is to ignore the other skills you’ll require as a freelancer, things like sales & marketing, branding, delivery, customer service, and everything else. Even though I had figured out how to get started as a developer in Australia, I was starting from scratch by trying to attract clients purely online. This why I stress that if you want to freelance online, you should get started as soon as possible. So, for the first few months on UpWork, I struggled to attract the right clients.

Back home in Australia, I had the ability to network in person and demonstrate my enthusiasm and drive. Online, I was just a name and a photo. I started to doubt everything that I worked hard to achieve over the last year. I saw the low rates that freelancers were getting paid for similar jobs and I started to have that thought that a lot of UpWork newbies have….

The Big UpWork Myth: There’s no good money for freelancers on UpWork The truth is, there’s both small money and big money to be earned on UpWork. Now, unlike me, you might not want to travel the world. Maybe the lower rates on UpWork are enough for you to survive in your home country and that’s all you want - cool!

For the rest of us, I can assure you that there are clients who will pay up to $100 USD per hour or more for the right freelancer. I know it can be scary and disheartening when you’re bidding more than double what the other freelancers are but you have to believe in your rate and believe that there are clients out there who will pay you what you’re worth.

#2: Look for quality clients the way clients look for quality freelancers

Don’t just apply for every job or accept every interview that you’re offered. This is what I used to do. Now, I make sure NOT to waste my time applying for jobs with clients unless I get the sense that…

1. I have a good chance of getting the job,

2. The client is actually going to pay me & treat me well

So, to get back to the story, I took an internship with a location independent entrepreneur in Chiang Mai to learn a different skill - digital marketing. It was a good opportunity to get a bit of steady income and a chance to build a new skill set that I could use to maybe pivot on my web development career but to be honest, I was mainly motivated by the fear of inconsistent - or worse, non-existent - work through online freelancing. When the internship finished in November 2016, I was back to square one but now, I was going to do things differently. I decided that the only way I was going to succeed on UpWork was to really back myself and not give up until I figured it out. Within my first two weeks back on UpWork, I secured a client that resulted in hours of ongoing work at a good western hourly rate. This brings me to my third crucial lesson…

If you really want to succeed on Upwork, you need a walkthrough manual!!!