Clients looking for salesman

[thefriendlydog]

Just spent about 4 hours going through all the sales jobs available. 

I think upwork should require more details about the job. For example, what are you selling? Products? Services? 

Should that matter? Yes, 100%, personally I want to sell things products and services that can help the world be a better place. 

I think many of these ads are just coming from recruiting agencies. They could at the very minimum explain the niche of the market their in. 

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

Michael, 

I understand your perspective.

You feel that the job postings are inadequate to give you, a potential salesperson, enough information about sales jobs.

But Upwork is most definitely not a sales job platform.

Upwork is a general-purpose freelancer work platform that allows users to post sales job postings on the platform.

You seem to believe that many job postings are not written very well. You are 100% correct about that. Upwork provides resources that help clients learn how to post more effective job postings. Do all clients read those materials? Probably not. Do most? Probably not.

This will not change. You will need to develop your own strategies for how to decide what job postings are worth your time. You may also develop strategies for applying to job postings which are sub-optimal, and selling those clients on the benefits of hiring you.

[thefriendlydog]

Wise man! 

[colettelewis]

Perhaps this is what you should be asking the client in your proposal. 

Your profile needs attention. The first three lines are valuable real estate because this is what the client  sees first before either binning your profile or reading on.  So don't waste the lines on breezy "hellos" or how wonderful you are at what you do, but how your experience in what you do can help them.  

The three-line thing also applies to a proposal. So, if a  client does not give enough detail in the offer, then move on to a client who does, and then convince him or her how you can market their product.

No good complaining to Upwork about it. Upwork has no jurisdiction over how a client phrases their job offers. Clients need to learn too, but Upwork is not about to teach them.  

[prestonhunter]

re: "I think upwork should require more details about the job. For example, what are you selling? Products? Services?"

Think about it this way. A grandmother wants to hire an artist to draw a picture of a Greek cat playing the piano. This is for a t-shirt she is designing for her granddaughter.

Why should she answer questions about what product she is selling?

She isn't selling any product.

This thought experiment can help you understand why Upwork doesn't ask questions that YOU think they should ask.

If the grandmother is a skilled job proposal writer, she will include details about the resolution, illustration dimensions, style, colors, etc.

If she is NOT a skilled job proposal writer, she might leave these details out. That may frustrate some artists. But some artists are willing to send a proposal and ask these questions.

[colettelewis]

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Preston H wrote:

re: "I think upwork should require more details about the job. For example, what are you selling? Products? Services?"

Think about it this way. A grandmother wants to hire an artist to draw a picture of a Greek cat playing the piano. This is for a t-shirt she is designing for her granddaughter.

Why should she answer questions about what product she is selling?

She isn't selling any product.

This thought experiment can help you understand why Upwork doesn't ask questions that YOU think they should ask.

If the grandmother is a skilled job proposal writer, she will include details about the resolution, illustration dimensions, style, colors, etc.

If she is NOT a skilled job proposal writer, she might leave these details out. That may frustrate some artists. But some artists are willing to send a proposal and ask these questions.

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__________________

If the grandmother is looking for someone to design a card for her granddaughter, then she is not looking for a salesman to sell her card. She is looking for an artist to create something for her daughter, so the OP is not likely to have this kind of job in his job feed, however badly worded the grandmother's job offer is . 

Preston ,you need an appropriate sales story - not one related to design!  

[marc_compte]

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Nichola L wrote:

If the grandmother is looking for someone to design a card for her granddaughter, then she is not looking for a salesman to sell her card. She is looking for an artist to create something for her daughter, so the OP is not likely to have this kind of job in his job feed, however badly worded the grandmother's job offer is . 

Preston ,you need an appropriate sales story - not one related to design!  

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I think the story is very fitting.

The original poster suggested Upwork to require more details from the sales jobs he has been looking at, but which details should Upwork require when you will have a huge variety of fields and job types? Should they ask about what kind of sales is your job post about to a grandmother looking for a designer? or someone looking for a photographer? or a writter? Or should they ask what kind of design you are looking for to someone looking for a salesperson?

All they can do is put up a guide on how to write efficient job postings, like there is one about how to write good job proposals, but other than the rate and project length, you simply can't build a questionnaire template for every possible job out there.

That is what I understood from Preston's grandmother story.

[colettelewis]

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Marc C wrote:

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Nichola L wrote:

If the grandmother is looking for someone to design a card for her granddaughter, then she is not looking for a salesman to sell her card. She is looking for an artist to create something for her daughter, so the OP is not likely to have this kind of job in his job feed, however badly worded the grandmother's job offer is . 

Preston ,you need an appropriate sales story - not one related to design!  

---

I think the story is very fitting.

The original poster suggested Upwork to require more details from the sales jobs he has been looking at, but which details should Upwork require when you will have a huge variety of fields and job types? Should they ask about what kind of sales is your job post about to a grandmother looking for a designer? or someone looking for a photographer? or a writter? Or should they ask what kind of design you are looking for to someone looking for a salesperson?

All they can do is put up a guide on how to write efficient job postings, like there is one about how to write good job proposals, but other than the rate and project length, you simply can't build a questionnaire template for every possible job out there.

That is what I understood from Preston's grandmother story.

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OK I concede! 

[prestonhunter]

re: "you need an appropriate sales story - not one related to design!"

That is exactly my point.

[thefriendlydog]

Yeah, I just looked at other profiles for the first time. I see what people are looking for. So, done.... Thank you. 

[thefriendlydog]

Right on the head.