Mahmoud M wrote:
Hello, I just had a question about me not getting any new jobs in a week.
this month alone I got 9 jobs and some clients disappeared after making an offer but that is not the question.
Is there something wrong with my profile, or am I doing something wrong? or this is normal and happens a lot to all freelancers, I would like to read your opinions on the subject, thank you.
Actually I am not in love with your profile description but...
Seriously you have had 9 jobs this month. The average person who comes to Upwork never gets 1. You are obviously doing something right even if you don't know what it is.
I think your larger question is about the lifestyle. There are people who make a very consistent living on Upwork and do so, it appears, mostly from work coming to them. But they are generally going to be outliers and have been at this a long time. Mostly you have to hustle, a lot, and you will have periods of time where things just aren't going your way.
The thing about being a freelancer is one of the things you are free of is the bonds of consistent employment. The joy of that definitely cuts both ways and my advice is to largely build your lifestyle around the reality that you don't know how long you will be between work. I barely worked all summer which was kind of nice since my kids are home wanting to be entertained. But it also tends to make you a little bit anxious about IF you will ever work again. I batted something like 1 for 90 on proposals during that period. Part of that is somewhat intentional in the way I go about my business but it still tends to deflate the ego quite a bit.
But I was prepared. I try to make sure when I am working I am making enough money to build up savings for periods of inactivity (planned or otherwise). My second and so far the third quarters were definitely below my break even for the year but 1st quarter was bananas. If I ate all those bananas back in March I would now be hungry.
So, overall your profile could be better, my profile could better, we could all do better marketing and sales. But the main thing I think you need to understand is consistency, however much it is desirable, can be very hard to obtain. I also find it come with obligations which are the ties that bind.
