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Cody's avatar
Cody H Community Member

Want more clients? Start telling them what you can do for them instead of talking about yourself!

Happy Friday fellow freelancers! 

 

If you're like me, while others are winding down for the weekend, I'm prepping for a busy weekend of proposals and bidding. Most freelancers are taking time to relax, but clients are still in need of work. To start this weekend of job bidding I wanted to leave everyone with this helpful tip below that will change how often you hear back from clients and even increase the number of organic job offers that land in your inbox. 

 

Take a look at your profile bio today and from the first sentence, ask yourself, would a client want to hire you based on what you can do for them? When I was researching other freelancer profile bios, I noticed a lot of people started with their years of experience and why they were so great... it's boring and repetitive! Try opening with what you plan to help your clients with! Everyone is in different niches, so of course how you help clients will be different for each freelancer, but the point is, make your hook less about you and more about the value you provide! Anyone can say they have 10+ years of experience, but what does that mean? Anyone can say they went to an amazing school or have been awarded countless certificates—guess what, it doesn't;t mean anything to your clients. 

 

I've attached a screenshot of my intro below to share how I feel like I can help other clients! Of course, you shouldn't copy this word for word, but as we know.... time is on of the most valuable currencies there is. I want to give that back to my clients when they hire me! 

 

Cheers, 

Cody 

14 REPLIES 14
Pavlo's avatar
Pavlo L Community Member

Cody, you’re on fire! The second topic in 48 hours and just as good if not better!

 

I thought you were talking about proposals, so I wanted to say, that using the first two lines of your proposal is valuable property, which is not to be spent on 1. Dear Hiring Team, 2. I am fit for the job, that’s why I’m applying.

 

Instead, designing the first two lines of your proposal and/or profile needs to be approached like building on high value real estate: each word counts!

 

And that’s where I have to disagree with you a bit: saying “15 Years experience in (relevant field) / 100% positive feedback on (relevant projects) on Upwork “ may be worth putting into those first two lines.

 

Or at least it is in my humble opinion.

Maybe our co-forumers may share their thoughts?

Andre's avatar
Andre A Community Member

I´m an artist, and I knows for sure that clients doesn´t care about an artists years of experience, or in what university they studied, or how many degrees they have, or how many museuns they exposed their art before, or how many prizes they won in contests, or how many followers they have in social medias.

The only thing that clients cares is: "Can you draw this in the quality I want?"

Having a good portfolio is 1 million times more important than having 10 years of experience.

Pavlo's avatar
Pavlo L Community Member

Then put "Portfolio in your desired quality attached inside the proposal!" in your two-liner. 

BTW you're idealizing clients - they are the same people as others. 

And other people care if your work has been hanging in the Louvre beside the Mona Lisa for a year. Even if it's bad.

Andre's avatar
Andre A Community Member

Believes me, they don´t care if you were exposed side by side to Monalisa before. When I need to hire artists for big projects (I hired in other platforms), I don´t care too about "years of experience", "graduated in university xyz", "prize won in contest or galery xyz", "100k followers on instagram". First thing I asks is: "Let me see your portfolio".

An artist proves that he can do the job with his portfolio not with his degrees. A lot of artists is graduated every year and they can´t draw a simple smiling face. A lot of them learned art by the left wing system that says "art is emotion, there is no art beauty or ugly, everything is art", so they do complete garbage and thinks they are like Michelangelo. I knows that art is sometime subjective, and what l think is beautifull as art maybe another person won´t think the same. But a minimum of beauty and quality isn´t subjective. Minimum beauty is absolute. There is absolute truths, and we can´t relativize anything. So, no matter what is your art style, for all existing styles exists a minimum beauty and quality required.

Darren's avatar
Darren T Community Member

Holy crap, this is so obvious now that you have said it and provided an example... I have just had a quick look at mine and it really does look and feel like a self-intro, rather than an elevator pitch as to what I can do and what I am here for... I will definitely be working on this over the weekend.

Many thanks for your valuable insight. 

Cody's avatar
Cody H Community Member

Hey Darren, you're very welcome! I saw it a lot too when I was looking at other people's profiles so I could learn from them!

 

Cheers, 

Cody 

 

 

Darren's avatar
Darren T Community Member

I bought 150 credits and have used half of them over the weekend. I then sat back with bated breath, and not a sausage! I previously thought it might be because it was the weekend and perhaps I would get a few replies on Monday, but nothing as of yet. 

I am going to try your video idea for the other half and see what happens. 

Fingers crossed,

Darren

Cody's avatar
Cody H Community Member

Hey Darren! How specialized are you with the proposals that you are sending out? Similiar jobs? and what kind of jobs is it? 

Aileen's avatar
Aileen C Community Member

I keep my proposal short. only 1 paragraph about what I can offer the potential client followed by links of published works...ai think most clients don't have to read long proposals they want to see your work to give them insight of your skills and if you're the best fit for them

Cody's avatar
Cody H Community Member

So true! I also include links to my website portfolios to give others an idea of my work! I spend lots of time with my website portfolios, and I want my clients to experience the site as I designed it, not just with the Upwork portfolio thumbnails. Keep up the awesome work! 

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Cody.

Are you an Upwork employee?

I only ask as you are very keen to give out pointers that are exactly like the Upwork support chats.

Not only that, you cant be sending out a lot of proposals as your contracts haven't changed since July.

Just like your video intro post, exactly as Upwork support chats and again, no contracts since July.

 

Now I'm all for folks giving advice, but this seems a tad fishy.

 

ps, I have had seeral contracts awarded during periods where the client hasn't looked at the profile, in fact, the other day 3 offers, 1 view, then the other day 10 views and no offers, somthing fishy going on in the stats if you ask me.

 

Pete

Cody's avatar
Cody H Community Member

Hey Pete! 

 

I'm not an Upwork employee! I work full-time as a Senior Product Designer for start-ups that I LOVE! I've actually never chatted with an Upwork agent before, but I'm not surprised, as the tips I am sharing with the UpWork community is not exclusive to this platform. I don't work exclusively on UpWork since I find the clients on Upwork are less likely to pay for larger contracts and want cheap work! I do, however, practice my bidding and negotiation on this platform as it can be some of the hardest clients to close, as I'm sure others can relate to! 

 

Good point about your stats, Pete! I can't imagine UpWork's product team spending much time and resources on the stats feature as they do on the messenger app, web experience, and mobile experiences for both freelancers and clients while also tweaking their algorithm to find the best matches between freelancers and clients... it's just too much. 

 

I enjoy talking to others within the UpWork community about things I'm experimenting with to bring hope to others! Unfortunately, a lot of people here are only looking at my stats to prove false claims instead of experimenting with their own outreach! 

 

Anyway, all of that to say, I'm not an Upwork employee, but I have found incredible clients on the platform that have turned into longer-term relationships outside of this platform. 

 

P.S. I hope you're doing well! :clinking_beer_mugs::party_popper:

Shabnam's avatar
Shabnam M Community Member

Totally agree with the post we have to solve client's problem instead of showing our skills.

Cody's avatar
Cody H Community Member

Oh, you should deff show your skills, but also tell your clients how you plan to use those skills to help their business! It will take you a lot further!