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nicoalvaro
Community Member

Clients Are Not As Regulated As We Freelancers Are

I have submitted several proposals in the last months, always keeping and eye on my Available Connects account, since I'm not rich, each one I use is meaningful to me, and I really give a thought on spending them, and here is my point: 

 

- Upwork is very professional in regulating us Freelancers, they make sure we are not a fake, that we keep our profiles as clean as possible, and that we are as clear as possible when submitting a proposal to clients in defining Timing, Deadlines, etc. Thats a very good practice, and keeps the system in very high standard, but the thing is...Clients do NOT have any responsability or commitment with us Freelancers, in any form, and they just appear and dessapear at they free will.

 

Clients don't reply to messages, there's no tool that let's us know our proposals were at least read! They are not asked even to decline them, and that really hurts the system for us Freelancers! As an example, I submit 8 different proposals, spend 20 Connects on them that are important currency for me, and then....nothing! Just...nothing! I'm not complaining for the clients not to hire me, I'm just saying they are not asked to at least let you know they read your message, they declined it, they liked it, they hated it...I want to move on as quick as possible with other proposals, but not knowing anything about them since the second after I send them.....it's a real deal breaker for me.

 

Please upwork, is there a chance, a tool...something I'm missing or that you can add to the system to fix that issue?

 

Best regards to all,

 

Nico

15 REPLIES 15
petra_r
Community Member


Nicolas Leandro A wrote:

I want to move on as quick as possible with other proposals, but not knowing anything about them since the second after I send them.....it's a real deal breaker for me.


You need to move on immediately after submitting each proposal. Do not "wait".  Carry on immediately and only think about proposals if and when a client contacts you back.

 

8 proposals is nothing. Upwork, more than ever before, is insanely competitive. So many job posts have 50 or more proposals. Many, if not most, are never read. That's the way it is. Unless the first 2 lines of your proposal really grab the client's attention, it may well never get opened.


And as for how clients and freelancers are different: Clients bring the money that makes the whole show go around.

Hi, thanks for your comments, I agree with most of your ideas, my point is that there're not tools for us to know what happens to any of our proposals sent, no trace, no way to know anything about them unless the client answers to us, which is maybe 5% of the cases.

Anyway, I'm with you when you say that applying as much as possible is the way. Do you have any advise in how to write the first sentences of the letter?


Nicolas Leandro A wrote:

Hi, thanks for your comments, I agree with most of your ideas, my point is that there're not tools for us to know what happens to any of our proposals sent, no trace, no way to know anything about them unless the client answers to us, which is maybe 5% of the cases.

Anyway, I'm with you when you say that applying as much as possible is the way. Do you have any advise in how to write the first sentences of the letter?


If the client doesn't reply, it means they aren't interested. To get any data you need to have some feedback. So it's meaningless to ask for anything from a party that is not interested.

alangat
Community Member

I love this proposal. 

shivafernandes
Community Member

I think it would be very useful to have some more metrics relating to job letters:

a) If a client even saw your proposal at all. (So this way you can know if you're simply applying too late, or being filtered out by value)


b) if a client opened your proposal, and if so, whats the average time they kept at it.

I understand we may not get exactly "client x opened your proposal", but a general metric of how many times you applied x how many times your application was seen on their screen x how many times they opened up the application x how many times your attachments/links were clicked would be a great way to know if you're on the right track!

These things wouldn't really tell you anything useful. Clients get emails about you, and there's a preview of your proposal in their list, so it's easy to do some preliminary filtering without opening proposals. Whether or not they've opened wouldn't really tell you anything about whether it was too late or you'd been bypassed for a reason. 

 

I know some freelancers would like those polite declines from clients, but I would absolutely hate getting all those unnecessary notifications (and, from prior discussion of this issue, I know I'm not alone in that). 

Well, I desagree with you in thinking information is useless, I think it can help you to correct, to grow, to be aware of where all your effort is going when you send to a client a proposal.

 

Notifications can be activated and the other way around at your will in any case, thing is, I send a proposal...and that's it, if a client doesn't answer...it's game over, and I don't even know if I'm getting to be read at least, to know if my letter is weak, if the files I'm using as examples are not good enough, if there were already too much people participating, etc.

 

Thanks for your comments!


Nicolas Leandro A wrote:

I send a proposal...and that's it, if a client doesn't answer...it's game over, and I don't even know if I'm getting to be read at least, to know if my letter is weak, if the files I'm using as examples are not good enough, if there were already too much people participating, etc.


How does knowing your proposal was read v not help you grow when both have the same outcome? It doesn't help you to determine which aspect it was, and Upwork would never make clients give detailed feedback to dozens of proposals they barely (if at all) glanced at.

 

Upwork isn't the place to learn how to sell and how to structure proposals and how to present your portfolio. Proposals are not there to aid your personal growth or career development. They're there to allow clients to easily identify who they want to work with. "Stuff" that costs clients precious time or irritates them (such as being forced to respond to surplus applicants) is a bad thing as it puts clients off posting jobs here.


Tiffany S wrote:

These things wouldn't really tell you anything useful. Clients get emails about you, and there's a preview of your proposal in their list, so it's easy to do some preliminary filtering without opening proposals. Whether or not they've opened wouldn't really tell you anything about whether it was too late or you'd been bypassed for a reason. 

 

I know some freelancers would like those polite declines from clients, but I would absolutely hate getting all those unnecessary notifications (and, from prior discussion of this issue, I know I'm not alone in that). 


About the polite declines, it already exists doesn't it? Last Month I got two, I mean client's don't use it very often, but it's something in the system. And I agree with you, it's not necessary.

Now about metrics, I understand they don't apply to everyone, nor most people enjoy them. But I think they can be quite useful to fine tune your approach, specially when dealing with platform specifics.

Exactly, that's where I wanted to go when I posted this message, there has to be a way to trace the "post proposal" events, since we send them, and then....there's nothing! And that's poor feedback for us, we don't get to know if clients read our messages, if they don't, if they download the material we sent to show some examples, etc.

 

Thanks for your comment, I think your ideas are in the right way of what could be done.

 

Please UPWORK, can you take this at least in consideration?


Nicolas Leandro A wrote:

, we don't get to know if clients read our messages, if they don't, if they download the material we sent to show some examples, etc.

 


And just what would you do with this information if you had it?

They've not read the message? Then what?
They have read the message? Then what? 

What course of action can you possibly take that would help improve your fortunes on Upwork? 

Take a look around and you'll see the experienced, successful freelancers saying pretty much the same thing: Fire and forget. Do your best at writing a proposal, fire it off, and forget all about it. Act as if you'll never hear from them again, move onto the next one,  and when they do get back to you - that's great.

Again, this is the general consensus (from what I can tell) from freelancers who have been able to make it work for them. Don't you think that perhaps, maybe, they have it right? 

wescowley
Community Member


Nicolas Leandro A wrote:

 

Clients don't reply to messages, there's no tool that let's us know our proposals were at least read! They are not asked even to decline them, and that really hurts the system for us Freelancers!


I know! I mean, when I went grocery shopping this week, I had to explain to each coffee brand that I picked another one and why (it was a twofer and kind of good). Don't even get me started on the apples.

 

But really, requiring a client to add any explanation on top of not responding is friction that will drive people away. If I posted a job and had to explain to 50+ people why I didn't interview them, I'd post my next job on one of the F*r sites instead.

 

You have all the information you need already: whether you got an interview is the first filter, and whether you got the contract is the next. If you didn't get the interview, your proposal didn't meet their needs. If you got the interview and didn't get the job, someone else better met their needs (or no one, including you, did).

 

Others have said it but it's worth repeating: do not wait for clients to respond to your proposals. Keep submitting to jobs you can do. Worry about schedule conflicts when you get enough responses and jobs that the schedule becomes a problem, not before. It takes time, patience, and a boatload of connects to get to that point.

I have to say I feel the frustration that the author of this post reflects because I've spent hundreds of connects (both granted for free & paid) into dead end job posts. However your logic into this matter does make sense to me and I stopped getting bothered by it. Idealize other outcomes to those applications and try to gather information from them is a total waste of time and energy.


Wes C wrote:

I know! I mean, when I went grocery shopping this week, I had to explain to each coffee brand that I picked another one and why (it was a twofer and kind of good). Don't even get me started on the apples.

 

But really, requiring a client to add any explanation on top of not responding is friction that will drive people away. If I posted a job and had to explain to 50+ people why I didn't interview them, I'd post my next job on one of the F*r sites instead.

 

You have all the information you need already: whether you got an interview is the first filter, and whether you got the contract is the next. If you didn't get the interview, your proposal didn't meet their needs. If you got the interview and didn't get the job, someone else better met their needs (or no one, including you, did).

 

Others have said it but it's worth repeating: do not wait for clients to respond to your proposals. Keep submitting to jobs you can do. Worry about schedule conflicts when you get enough responses and jobs that the schedule becomes a problem, not before. It takes time, patience, and a boatload of connects to get to that point.


Apples... Smiley LOL I have the exact same thing with coconuts!

 

But seriously, I agree with Wes 100%. Let's not consider making clients click every proposal. Even if it takes 1 second per each. Let's keep the system easy and flexible for clients who want to do business here and let the learning process of freelancers happen elsewhere. This is a tough place to start freelancing these days. There are already millions of us and those with long track records (and longer beards) tend to beat the newcomers.

 

Just a practical example.

 

As a client, I wanted to pay $20 for someone to copy-paste some transactions for my books. I got 85 proposals! No chance I would even click through each page of proposals, not speaking of each individual proposal. No thanks! As a client, I just want to get that little job done, that's all.

 

Since the job was so simple that almost anyone could do it, I got lots of entry-level proposals and I picked the guy RANDOMLY. But I picked among those who had $0 earnings to give some lucky winner a chance to get things going.

 

With projects that many people can do, it is a lottery. Best of luck!

 

With projects that only a few can do, it's real business.

 

Business is about who needs who, and the need is real and acute. Worth real money.

 

So, to freelancers complaining about reach and replies, the lack of feedback on proposals, missing growth opportunities, etc. I only tell to focus on:

- finding a very specific niche where you and only you can excel, globally (eventually)

- sticking with your initial niche until your profile is strong (which might take years BTW)

- expanding to broad and highly competed categories only after you have a "boss profile" (and you know how to appeal to your dream clients with just a couple of lines of proposal text)

 

One of the keys to all of the above is the understanding of how the domain where you wish to do business, works. What's your place in the value chain? Do you improve a client's business? Are you a critical part of it? Are you merely a cost-saving factor? Is this platform a place where your dream clients go in the first place? And so on...

 

Nicolas, I think nothing hurts us Upwork freelancers as much as missing clients. Let's try to keep them here. The more, the better. Each of us just needs to figure out our own UNIQUE selling point that works out great for the client and the freelancer at the same time.

jeremiah-brown
Community Member

The simple and honest answer is that you are a freelancer.  It is now up to you to market yourself.  Tell the other person why you stand out and why they should hire you over everyone else.  That's it.  This is called a "value proposition" if you need a term to Google and study up on.

 

When you submit a proposal, just fire and forget.  You'll only have maybe a 2-8% response rate.  If someone responds, you are 80% of the way to being hired, don't blow it.  Do good work, go the extra mile, make good on your deadlines, and eventually those jobs, projects, and reviews will compound.  Eventually, you'll be able to increase your response rate to 50% or more.  When that happens, project management becomes more of a problem you'll need to master.  Juggling projects simultaneously and making deadlines is critical so as not to destroy your ratings and reviews.

 

 

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