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bc27afe9
Community Member

Hide agency association on Freelancer Profile 2020

I want to hide an agency I'm associated with on my profile. Solutions provided by knowledge base and community do not work. Can't contact support directly. 

Please advise.

12 REPLIES 12
AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Matthew, 

We looked into this further, and the team has confirmed that this is currently not an available option. Could you please share why you would want to hide your association with an agency? I would like to understand how this feature would be useful for agency owners like you so that I can share it with the team. 

In the meantime, you have the option of closing your agency account if you would like to currently work as an independent freelancer.


~ Avery
Upwork
bc27afe9
Community Member

Its valuable to me as a freelancer for a couple of reasons.

There are many clients that prefer to deal with freelancer not associated
with an agency. I think being able to choose how I market myself (wether it
be as an individual or agency) should be up to me.

Also, there are some clients who would hire me only if I wasn't operating
as an agency because they may feel that I am competing with them.

There are also instances where people are moving to freelancing as a
starting point to creating an agency and while they build their business
they may not want previous employers to be privy to their startup
operations and would like their agency to act as their brand while they
complete the work.

I think it should be up to the agency as well as the individual freelancer
what information appears on their profile.

This was previously a feature and I'm not sure why it was discontinued.

Thanks for your reply and I look forward to hearing from you regarding a
solution.

M


Thank you for this helpful information, Matthew. I'll be sure to share this with the team. 

~ Joanne
Upwork

Is there any update that can we hide my agency from my freelancer profile? Looking forward to replying. Thanks

Hello Ali,

 

You cannot hide your Agency on your Freelancer profile. You can choose to close your agency if you are no longer using your Agency account.

 

Thank you.

Pradeep H.

Upwork

Hi, can you close my agency account? I accidentally created it.

 

Thanks

Vaibhav

I'm here to ask the same thing. Business-wise, most of the time the jobs that I apply for as an agency and as a freelancer differ a lot in context. So it makes great sense to separate them (at least make it optional).

 

On the other hand, seeing the agency badge on our profile hurt client interest. I used to get 1-2 invitations each week, and plenty of interviews from my applications until I open an agency. Now I'm getting 0 (zero) invitations or any returns for interviews despite being more experienced with more portfolio items, and having a "Top Rated Plus" badge and 100% JSS for many consecutive years.

 

I also do not prefer to close my agency as the portfolio built up has a real business value. I also have ongoing jobs providing occasional support for previous development work.

 

I moved some of my convenient personal clients to my agency and re-paid the %10 commision until hitting $10K once again, just to lose new client interest on both of my profiles.

 

I feel like I'm getting punished for seeking Upwork's advice to open an agency and grow our business here. I expect Upwork to be supportive, keep in mind client behavior and habits instead of hurting us for trying to grow our business while staying within Upwork.

I'll be happy if you could share this with the team as well.

Guney
base29
Community Member

 

Matthew you are right and I am also facing the same issue and looking forward to a solution for this from Upwork. 

ayushgupta12
Community Member

Upwork really needs to bring this feature in.

Whether or not the agency association is visible, should be for the Freelancer to decide.

At least this option should be given to owners and non-exclusive members of the agency.


Ayush G wrote:

Whether or not the agency association is visible, should be for the Freelancer to decide.


I disagree. Some clients feel strongly about this and should not be conned into hiring someone they would not have hired if they hadn't been tricked by hiding what is important information as far as they are concerned.

victoronwukwe
Community Member

This is a very necessary feature, and in fact, is what I was searching for that led me here.

 

It's hurting my potential despite being top-rated. I mean, if I bid for a job with my freelancer profile, I don't expect any association with an agency shown to the client, since I didn't bid with an agency profile. Somehow, this is the case and it dampens my chances of landing a gig. I have no other option but to delete my agency right now, which I don't find ideal.

 

And right now all efforts to delete the agency profile have been futile as a result of what seems to be an internal server error. I know this because I get a weird error message with a json payload, and I have literally no activity with that agency profile.

Some clients specifically ask not to work with agencies and list it in their job postings.  If Upwork were to allow you to 'hide' this from the client, the client would not be able to see that the proposal is coming from a freelancer that doesn't meet their requirements.  If the client specifically says they want 'independent talent', then that means they don't want proposals from people affiliated with agencies.  You have to respect the client's wishes as well:  Nothing good is going to come of trying to 'trick' a client into thinking you're an 'independent' freelancer if you're actually associated with or controlled by an agency.  If a client doesn't want to have to deal with agencies, they should not have to and certainly shouldn't be 'tricked' into doing so.

 

If you are having trouble 'dissolving' your UW agency or 'de-linking' your freelancer profile from the agency, then you should contact Upwork tech support.

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