Things you wish you had known!

[schardo]

Hello! I've been bumbling around UpWork for a few months now, and I'm still trying to navigate running my own freelance business. I'm not even sure this question belongs in this forum but, here we are.

I worked in customer service for years; I know how to make customers happy, but I'm struggling with clients! I'm not really looking for any super deep advice (I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually), but I was curious: what is something that you wish you knew before you started out? Or what are some things you realized way too late, that would have been helpful in the beginning? Or any big whoopsie moments that you wish you could have avoided?

Could be Upwork related, freelance related, life related, whatever. 

[joansands]

I did not know about private feedback when I first joined Upwork and knowing about it would have been helpful. 

[mwiggenhorn]

I wish that I had better understood the relationship between the client and freelancer.  I now view that relationship as one between equals, working together for a joint solution.  I am a business owner and as such, demand respect for my talents and experience.  Once I got out of the employer/ employee mentality, things went a whole  lot better.

[schardo]

I really want to "accept this as a solution" but that's not the point of this exercise. 😂

[wlyonsatl]

I wish I had better understood the labyrinth of rules and processes of the entire Upwork system of hiring, payment practices, defining project scope with/for the client, managing client expectations, preventing client fraud and sleight-of-hand and knowing how soon a firm "No" to a client can keep things on track.

It is important you figure out as soon as possible what each client's skills and experience are. If they have hired you as their expert, be very specific with what you expect of them and what they can expect from you, preferably before you agree to work for them.

In hindsight, most of Upwork's processes make sense but they are not covered in great detail by Upwork's own written instructions and information and you'll have to reconcile yourself to making mistakes as you learn - just try to keep them small.

There are just things here - honest mistakes you or a client can make, dishonest ploys by a small minority of clients, etc. - that you'll only learn by doing. Take on a lot of small projects early on if you can, so you have less at risk as you figure out how all of this works. 

[joansands]

As some sage said some time ago, you can read about how to boil water but you don't really know how to do it until you try.

[gilbert-phyllis]

Your profile is private, so I have no idea what field you are focusing on and, therefore, what kind of paradigm shift you need to be making from CS work to whatever you want to do here.

With regard to freelancing in general, to succeed you need:

- a skill that is worth money to other people

- knowledge of that industry, so you can position yourself effectively relative to what clients are looking for and relative to your competition

- the confidence to be in charge of your own destiny, with all the freedom and insecurity (financial, logistical, technological, etc.) that brings

- confidence in your own experience and expertise so you can relate to clients as partners, as Mary said; they are bringing the money but the good ones will be receptive to your professional guidance and not expect you to just function as an order-taker

- thick skin

- the emotional maturity to remain business-like and rational at all times

- patience

- a generally optimistic outlook, which enables you to persevere when it seems like you're never going to get traction at the beginning; and during the inevitable lulls when your success has dried up and it seems like that next project is never going to come along

- a sense of humor; if yours tends toward the dark and edgy, all the better

- the ability to learn from your mistakes

- a strong work ethic--don't be fooled by the flexibility and autonomy that successful freelancers enjoy, we work hard to get and maintain it

Finally, don't expect UW to look after your interests--that's your job. UW is merely a marketplace where you can connect with clients you'd never find otherwise, without spending gobs of money marketing yourself (and maybe, not even then). The payment protections have limitations. The JSS is a fact of life that must be managed. Learn how to use it (UW) and pay attention and don't be careless, and you can do well here. 

Good luck!

[schardo]

Phyllis: My profile is private? It appears to be set to "UpWork users only." Does that actually mean "private," and "private" means *super private?"

Well anyway, I mostly do content blog work. Ghostwriting, reviews, articles, etc. People do apparently pay for that, although not much. 

I would love to take my dark and edgy humor to my clients, but so far they're um....not the dark and edgy type. Which is a shame, really. A dark and edgy review sounds like my kind of review. But alas, I'm not the one paying, I guess. 

[gilbert-phyllis]

---

Sarah C wrote:

Phyllis: My profile is private? It appears to be set to "UpWork users only." Does that actually mean "private," and "private" means *super private?"

Well anyway, I mostly do content blog work. Ghostwriting, reviews, articles, etc. People do apparently pay for that, although not much. 

I would love to take my dark and edgy humor to my clients, but so far they're um....not the dark and edgy type. Which is a shame, really. A dark and edgy review sounds like my kind of review. But alas, I'm not the one paying, I guess. 

---

There may be something I still don't understand about profile privacy settings. I keep mine set to 'UW users only' and others have told me they see it as 'private'. 

Anyhow, re. sense of humor: of course, having a good one helps to get along w/ people including clients. The dark and edgy part is for you, it helps contend with the many aggravations of UW and freelancing in general.

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Phyllis,

I checked your profile and I'm seeing it as "Upwork users only" as well. If you have more details about this feel free to send them to me via PM and I will investigate it further. Thank you.

[petra_r]

---

Phyllis G wrote:

---

---

There may be something I still don't understand about profile privacy settings. I keep mine set to 'UW users only' and others have told me they see it as 'private'. 

---

When someone has their profile set to either private or Upwork users only, their forum profile says "profile is not public" - which is not the same as "private." This is because this is a public forum and not everyone who reads here is an Upwork member.

This covers both profiles set as "private" and "upwork users only."

Profiles of people with profiles set to "upwork users only" can still be accessed by using the person's user ID as the search term in a freelancer search.  So to find you I'd just pop ******t-p****** in the field to get straight to your profile.

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Sarah,

I’ve reset your profile visibility back to public. Just so that you are aware, freelancers with no earnings in 30 days will have their profile set to private (locked) automatically. To avoid this, you can resume earnings on a new contract or upgrade your membership to the Plus plan. You can check out more info about this here. Thank you.

[barada00]

I wish I knew food don’t cry if it’s unfinished and spinach doesn’t make you strong. I wish I knew those couple of pimples were not even visible to my contemporary girl friends who also occasionally had them when we were teenagers. Going to high school I wish I knew “this might go down to your permanent record” was a dud threat. I wish I didn’t choose the most popular and hardest to enter university just because it is the most popular and hardest to enter university. (Was my brain misplaced?) I wish I started freelancing as a side gig when I was working 9 to 5. That way I’d probably get out of corporate way earlier.

While freelancing I wish I raised my fee earlier to something I felt comfortable with. I wish I learned to say no to clients earlier and didn’t try to take all the work I could regardless of the price or the character of the client. And most importantly I wish I understood how lucrative hourly jobs were and didn’t look only for fixed price jobs being concerned about my privacy, freedom etc. just because of the screen capture feature.

[florydev]

I wish I had known to start Upwork sooner honestly.   I went to work for a company in 2006 that was using ODesk to outsource building some software.  When we finally put that software in place it was  a complete nightmare.  This led me to a certain impression that definitely stopped me from looking at it.  I was finally convinced by someone to give it a shot and I am happy that I did.

Here are some things I have come to believe (most of which I believed coming in to Upwork but you said in general).

1) Cheap clients are the worst.  The want quality and don't want to pay for it.  They are just as demanding but not nearly as satisfying.  There is nothing wrong with frugal, frugal people are looking for value.  Cheap people just want the lowest cost (no matter the cost).

2) Having a higher rate means you will most likely have a smaller pool of clients to choose from but those clients are self-selecting to not be cheap.

3) Most often the budget numbers clients put on their proposals are meaningless, they are really not sure what something should cost.

4) Long proposals make almost no sense.  I started off writing very long proposals and then I realized that nobody would want to read that so I am really wasting two people's time.   Get to the point quickly.

5) Try not to get emotionally attached to any particular job you propose on.  Some of them sound like really good fits and you will want to pin hopes on them but you have to remain detached.  Even if you get an interview.  Even if you get a phone call.  Even if they say they are going to hire you until you can run the clock on them, don't get too attached.

6) A signficant portion of the jobs I propose on never seem to hire anybody.  Don't take the silence as meaning anything.  One of the hardest things about finding the first jobs is a complete lack of feedback and you can easily want to give up.

7) You are really not in competition with anyone.  It's almost more like dating where there is really no telling why someone will like someone and not.  You just need to find the person for you rather than worry about the people who are not.

😎 You don't work for your clients, you work with them.  Don't downshift to employee thinking when you have a project because that will lead you to make bad assumptions.  The relationship can be friendly but it is still professional and it will end.

[wlyonsatl]

Re: your #6 comment, Mark, we have recently been told that clients must tell Upwork to close a job to new proposals if they have hired a freelancer/s and don't plan to hire more.

Otherwise, Upwork leaves the ads open for a while after a freelancer/s are hired (which, of course, Upwork would know without being told by the client.)

As a result, many job ads continue to show as open to new freelancer proposals. Some connects, which may be some small projects-focused freelancers major expense, are being wasted on still-open job ads that the clients actually have no intention of further hiring on. 

[wendy_writes]

Wisest comment to date >

You don't work for your clients, you work with them.  Don't downshift to employee thinking when you have a project because that will lead you to make bad assumptions.   ~ Mark F

Remainder of the comment deleted as I felt it to be extraneous ...

[florydev]

>extraneous 

Lol, this is why I am not a writer...

[allpurposewriter]

Geez, Mark F ... that 's a great answer. Kudos, 

[lakitel]

I'm not sure if you can 'know' this, rather than have it a skill that develops, but being able to realize which contracts I'm more likely to get and which ones I won't. I think a lot of new freelancers (not just to Upwork, but in general), don't know which contracts they are most likely to get and that ends up having a demoralizing effect.

When I first started, I had maybe a 10% success rate. Now it's closer to 80% because I target my bids more carefully and as a knock-on effect, I send out less of them.

[schardo]

I will say, something that has been REALLY helpful (and entertaining) is browsing these forums. There's so much sage advice, even though sometimes it's buried within a thread about something else. 

Something I literally just learned is to always check what time zone a client is in before accepting any offers. I'm currently working with someone from China (12 hours ahead), and man, is communication difficult! I saw a tip from someone in the forum to get your work in early, so you're not stressed about weird deadlines. 

So thank you, to whichever kind soul left that tip. 

[kfarnell]

Mainly for Upwork, but not exclusively so:

How bad most people's writing is, including many of those who claim to be writers. (This isn't an ESL thing.) By being average to decent in the outside world, you can appear a genius on here. I'd guess the same applies to all fields.

That many people think editing is correcting spelling mistakes and will fall off their chairs in astonishment if you do anything more complicated. (I warn them now.)

That editing fiction can be a deeply personal and emotional exchange and people aren't rational about it. 

That being able to write in rhyme and make it scan properly isn't something everyone can do while knocking back a coffee. (I have no idea why I can do this so easily and honestly thought until recently that people refused to do it because it can be dull.)

That deadlines seem too complicated a concept for most people to grasp. 

[yitwail]

Many great answers, and this isn't a startling insight by any means, but since nobody's mentioned it, one should generally avoid jobs that claim to be 'easy for an expert to do', 'should only take xx minutes for an expert', etc. Ditto jobs promising future work for higher payment.