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lenaellis
Community Member

Agency Ask Me Anything Event 12/11 at 10am PST

Hi Agency owners and members,

 

Welcome to our new agency board! To kick things off we would like to invite you to participate in a  live chat session with other agency members and Upwork employees!

 

On December 11th, from 10am-11am PST, Lena Ellis, Upwork Community Manager, and Mike Jornlin along with colleagues from the Upwork Agency team will be here in the Community to respond to your questions and feedback in real-time. 


We’ll do our best to answer any and all questions, though keep in mind account specific questions will not be addressed in this public setting.

 

This announcement thread is currently read-only (meaning its locked to replies) and we will open it up to participate at 10am on December 11th. So all you have to do is come back to this thread to participate and post your question.

 

Tips:

To keep the conversation organized, we recommend changing your settings on this thread to "sort by topics". Just click on the three dots at the top of this post to access the drop down menu.

 

Screen Shot 2018-04-23 at 9.30.38 AM.png

 

We look forward to connecting with you!

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26 REPLIES 26
lenaellis
Community Member

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the Agency Ask Me Anything event! I as well as Upwork staff on our Agency Team are here to answer your questions in real-time. Let's get started!

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Hi Everyone! My name is Mike and I'm part of our Talent Success team. I focus primarily on agency success and can't wait to answer your questions about agencies!


Cheers,
Mike

Hi there, 

 

As an agency, I often need to open up multiple contracts so that each member on my team assigned to a project can start working. There are two issues here: 

  1. This creates a lot of administrative work and overhead for both myself and the client, making it harder to support their project. 
  2. There's also very little flexibility to use the dynamic capabilities of my team by moving team members around to meet the needs of my client. 

We work as a web development agency, and easy support alongside a dynamic offering are important parts of what we do. Are there any ways we can make this friendly for both my client and my agency? 

 

 

PS. Is there a live call I should be listening in on or will we be sticking to the community forum format? 

Hi Aaron!

 

I lead our Talent Success team, thanks for your question. 

 

Are you generally taking on hourly projects or fixed price? 

 

For hourly projects, you'll need to keep the contracts associated with each team member as you mentioned. For fixed price projects, you have more flexibility in that you could have multiple team members engaged on a project under a single contract (with one team member's profile).

 

Hi Nancy, 

 

Are you generally taking on hourly projects or fixed price? 

We are generally taking on hourly projects, as they are very dynamic project. We do occasionally do fixed price contracts as well, but even those have proved to be time consuming and there's less assurance for payment. It also restricts our ability to flexibly support the client for any requests that are out of scope. 

 

Currently, either option severely limits what we can offer as an agency and handicaps the advantages we have. I've already notice a strong aversion due to the belief that there's price hikes from administrative work with an agency. This is a minor factor, but the contracts issue certainly doesn't give our clients any additional confidence. I've actually lost clients to not just this belief, but also at the point of actually opening contracts because of the extra work involved. 

Hi Aaron, 

 

We definitely understand this challenge and hear your concern.

 

The best option currently is to provide the client the direct links to each member's profile so the client can make a direct offer to each one. We're hoping that we can make this process smoother in the future but for now that's the best process. 

I understand there's no immeidiate solution to this, but any way this can get pushed to a product team for development is valuable. Just knowing something is actually in progress makes a difference. As it is, it feels like Upwork is anti-agency, despite what's being said and the amount of business done in this way (on our own, we've done nearly $300K revenue over the last 2 years). I don't believe that's true, but that's often how it feels. 

 

It's a strong deterrent for us to run business through the platform because it pushes clients away and costs us valuable administrative time. I truly hope a solution can be prioritized and comes through in the near future. 

Some slightly related questions for this that may be helpful: 


Aaron V wrote:

Just knowing something is actually in progress makes a difference. 


  1. Is there any way to stay informed about in progress features Upwork is working on? It would help relieve some frustration by knowing it's under development. 
  2. Is there a way to submit feature requests to be considered for development? 

Knowing our frustrations are heard, addressed, and ideally on the way to a resolution will help give confidence that we aren't always going to be stuck with a less-than-ideal situation. 


Aaron V wrote:

Some slightly related questions for this that may be helpful: 



  1. Is there any way to stay informed about in progress features Upwork is working on? It would help relieve some frustration by knowing it's under development. 
  2. Is there a way to submit feature requests to be considered for development? 

Knowing our frustrations are heard, addressed, and ideally on the way to a resolution will help give confidence that we aren't always going to be stuck with a less-than-ideal situation. 


Hey Aaron,

 

For staying informed, one option is to subscribe to the Announcements board by clicking on the three dots next to the greyed out "New Topic" button. However we don't usually announce new features until they are live or nearly live. We're about to close this thread, but we'll reach out to you directly to discuss further.

 

In response to your second question, there is a "Feedback" button in the footer of the main site pages (not visible in the Community). This is your best option for submitting feature requests.

 

Thanks for your input and participation!

 

Sincerely,

Mike

 


Cheers,
Mike

Hi Aaron, 

 

Regarding your last question, there isn't a live call. The correspondances will just take place here in the thread. You may need to refresh the page to see the latest replies. Thanks again for joining!

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Hello everyone! My name is Adam and I am an Agency Acquisition & Relationship Manager here at Upwork. Looking forward to answering your questions!

Hi Lena, Sometimes I see few jobs are hidden in a few of our profiles while the same jobs are visible in other our profiles. if there are any qualifications user needs to complete so they can see those jobs. 

Hi Abhinav,

 

Are you referring to job search, or the jobs appearing in work history on team member profiles?

Hi Nancy, I am referring to job search. 

With same keyword say "Nodejs" search result is different. few jobs are not visible in few profiles while the same jobs are visible in our old profiles.  

So to clarify, you may see jobs when you're searching but other members of your agency are not able to see them in search? This can happen for a few reasons some being related to job requirements such as if a client specifies a certain location.  Nancy is checking on this for you to get more information. 

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"you may see jobs when you're searching but other members of your agency are not able to see them in search" -- YES

All the members associated with our agency work from India only. so if the job is location specific and accessible in India it should be shown up in our all profiles. 

Hi Abhinav, thanks for clarifying. I'm assuming you also have the same filters set and you're viewing the search results at the same time across profiles. If that's the case, I don't know why this would be the case off-hand, but I'm investigating with our product team.

One more question- I think its a suggestion
Small job or jobs with a tight budget like jobs with budget upto 500 USD upwork retains 20 % of earning, It too high, it should be =<10 % so we can earn something also we will have some scope to negotiate with the client.  


Abhinav B wrote:

One more question- I think its a suggestion
Small job or jobs with a tight budget like jobs with budget upto 500 USD upwork retains 20 % of earning, It too high, it should be =<10 % so we can earn something also we will have some scope to negotiate with the client.  


Hi Abhinav,

 

The service fee is based on a sliding scale that decreases based on how much you have earned with the same client. Our goal is that freelancers and agencies will build longterm relationships with their clients. You can try focusing your attention on projects likely to build those lasting relationships. Additionally, you can augment your bid prices to accommodate for the service fee.

 

Also, be on the lookout for projects posted by Enterprise clients. In general, Enterprise contracts have a flat 10% service fee. Enterprise clients are designated by a badge on their client profiles.

 

Thank you for feedback and please let us know if you have other questions.

 

Thanks,

Mike


Cheers,
Mike


Also, be on the lookout for projects posted by Enterprise clients. In general, Enterprise contracts have a flat 10% service fee. Enterprise clients are designated by a badge on their client profiles.


Hey Mike, 

 

Is this saying that enterprise clients will be at 10% for the entire duration of a working relationship? When I think enterprise, I think of larger projects that are more long-term. Usually these are projects that would cross the $10K threshold and drop down to 5%.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but this seems a bit counterintuitive as that would cost freelancers/agencies more in fees than a regular client (average rate drops below 10% at $11K). 


Aaron V wrote:

Also, be on the lookout for projects posted by Enterprise clients. In general, Enterprise contracts have a flat 10% service fee. Enterprise clients are designated by a badge on their client profiles.


Hey Mike, 

 

Is this saying that enterprise clients will be at 10% for the entire duration of a working relationship? When I think enterprise, I think of larger projects that are more long-term. Usually these are projects that would cross the $10K threshold and drop down to 5%.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but this seems a bit counterintuitive as that would cost freelancers/agencies more in fees than a regular client (average rate drops below 10% at $11K). 


Hey Aaron,

 

You are correct that the fees are static on projects with Enterprise Clients. Enterprise freelancer fees are set at specific negotiated rates which may differ from typical marketplace rates to avoid cost fluctuations among engagements. While the fees do not decrease , you can factor them into your rate for the project.

 

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions.

 

Thanks,

Mike


Cheers,
Mike

Hi Mke, 

Thank you for your answer. 

I am happy with the service fee for project range 500 to 10k and 10K+ but I see everyday there are lots of job posting with a low budget. We do want to serve those clients as well. But the challenge is the 20 % service fee. please understand client budget is already low and then further upwork is deducting 20 % 😞

Hi Abhinav,

 

We really appreciate your feedback. It can be helpful to account for the service fee when making your bid. Consider what that fee will be and adjust your rate accordingly. Also, consider the longterm possibilities for the relationship and whether it will bring more projects in the future.

 

Thanks,

Mike


Cheers,
Mike
aaronvanzoeren
Community Member

What is Upwork doing currently to make the platform more welcoming and friendlier for agencies? In what ways is the platform growing to provide better support for businesses? 

Hi Aaron,

 

Thanks for your thoughtful question.  I lead the Agency Success team - an entire team of people dedicated to ensuring success for Agencies on Upwork!  We recognize the current challenges for agencies (like the administrative burden you previously mentioned) and are passionate about improving the experience both for agency members and for clients engaging with agencies. While we are driving exciting improvements for 2020 in a number of ways, here are a few things I can share with you now:

 

We recently added new fields to the Agency profile.  Completion of these fields allows agencies to better communicate capabilities to prospective clients.  In the next couple of weeks, additional enhancements will be available in which agencies can create a custom URL to the Upwork profile and hourly rate ranges can be edited on the agency profile directly.  

 

In an effort to better showcase agency talent, we created an improved experience for clients to quickly view relevant agency profiles when they conduct a search.  

 

We are looking forward to sharing additional improvements throughout the new year.

lenaellis
Community Member

Thanks everyone for joining us today for our first agency Ask Me Anything event. We will leave this thread up as a reference however we will be closing this thread to new replies. If you have any further questions feel free to post and start a new thread on the Agency board. We appreciate all the engagement here and look forward to connecting with you again soon!

 

-Lena

 

 

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