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hermanng
Community Member

What does UpWork want?

From a Marketing point of view UW is at a crossroads. There are 2 choices, it can either be a platform for "skilled & highly knowledgeable professionals" or a "cheap labor platform". Trying to build a separate "upmarket" platform within the USA is clearly the wrong way.

Allowing low ball freelancers and clients will lower the overall perception of UW and do a lot of damage to its reputation and clearly lower profits over time. The solution is simple, provided by the UW score system. 

  • Raise the min. hourly rate to $15.00 + the min fixed price job to $100.00
  • Only allow scores to count for ratings (JSS) if the job value was $200.00 and over and add more weight to higher paid jobs - a job for $10,000.00 in earnings should by far outweigh a job for $200.00 in earnings
  • Add another choice for the client to ask for "Top rated" with a min. bid of $25.00/hour

Even a $150.00/hour freelancer (if he/she is good at the job) has to be great value from a client’s point of view  since there is no social security, no sick days, no holidays and the employer sets the duration of the job without falling afoul of any labor laws.

Every $5.00 freelancer who screws up the job is extremely bad for UW reputation because the client will not view it from a logical point ergo he/she was a cheapskate and only paid 5 bucks/hour, they will look at it as UW provides low quality freelancers and spread the word.

10 REPLIES 10
kat303
Community Member

Upwork will be or do neither. It will remain a Worldwide freelancing platform. And that will attract clients with low budgets. and freelancers willing to accept low payments. If that bothers you there are other freelancing sites which have higher minimums. But those sites have nowhere near the amount of jobs Upwork has. Otherwise, set a filter for jobs that have a higher budget and don't pay mind to those low bargain basement amounts. 

petra_r
Community Member

Those "ideas" would actually have absolutely not the desired effect anyway, quite the opposite, and would really hurt even freelancers outside the low-cost segment by driving away clients who hire across the whole spectrum.

 

Hermann is obsessed with $ 5 an hour freelancers and doesn't understand that those aren't his competition.

The clients who hire $ 5 an hour freelancers for the work he does at $ 25 would (obviously) not hire him at $ 25 even if such a minimum was imposed. They would simply go and hire elsewhere altogether.

 

There is no need to eliminate small projects either.

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

 

 

 

 

hermanng
Community Member

Petra, you obviously have no idea about Marketing and certainly not about Thailand. In Bangkok a good experienced company secretary who is bilingual earns THB 100k+ a month or $3k+ Bangkok is not

**Edited for Community Guidelines** . You should not make comments if you dont know the facts.

petra_r
Community Member


Hermann M wrote:

 You should not make comments if you dont know the facts.


And you should not try to change a global platform to suit the narrow preferences of Hermann in Bangkok, just because you currently can't manage to persuade clients to buy what you are selling and want Upwork to eliminate (what do you care if they starve) those you (wrongly) consider to be your competition. The $ 5 an hour freelancers are not your competition. Their clients would never hire you or vice versa. Your competition are the freelancers in your own market segment.

 

Rather than thread after thread after thread bleating how you can't get hired and it is all Upwork's fault or the fault of people in other countries or with different prices, either up your game so clients DO want to hire you again, or find yourself a different platform where clients fall into your lap and beg to pay your rates.

 

If you can find such a platform, that is.

 

 

 

hermanng
Community Member

Petra, you are a translater and thats it you have no idea about marketing stick to your thing and I do not apprechiate your **Edited for Community Guidelines**tone either so if you don't like what I write here just don't read it but keep your **Edited for Community Guidelines**comments to yourself please

The thing is not that clients are not hiring me, but that they are not hiring period 35 proposals out for weeks each with over 50 proposales and no hire - that is the problem

petra_r
Community Member


Hermann M wrote:

Petra, you are a translater and that's it


LOL,  that's not "it" - I spent two decades in international sales and marketing.

 

That isn't the point anyway.

 

Upwork aren't going to change their entire business model to eliminate what you consider to be your competition,  just so you can finally convince a client to hire you again.

 


Hermann M wrote:

Pif you don't like what I write here just don't read it


Do you need someone to explain the concept of a public forum to you?

What is the point of bringing **Edited for Community Guidelines** here?

I am an Indian and I have my branch in Bangkok and been living in Bangkok from 1996 onwards.

Your comparison is wrong.

You can find over 70% of experienced company secretaries in Kolkatta speaks two or three languages including English. Whereas  COMPARATIVELY it is difficult to find a good English speaking secretaries in Bangkok. If you get someone you will have to pay that high rate in order to use their service. Less competition and more demand makes them demandable. 

So if you dont really know the facts, please don't compare like this. 


Anonymous-User
Not applicable

Most FLs are running a business here and doing quite well, no matter their hourly rate. Anything under $200 shouldn't count?  Ludricous.

 

UW can do what they want and we can take it or leave it. We set our own minimum, hence the reason why most of us will never go back to corporate offices. 

versailles
Community Member


Hermann M wrote:
  • Raise the min. hourly rate to $15.00 + the min fixed price job to $100.00

Man, this would put a ton of people from some countries out of business. A lot of unskilled people from developing countries do stuff such data entry and earn a decent living, in the context of their local economy, by charging rates that seem low to you. On the other hand, the most successful FLers on Upwork living in western countries earn very good money. Mostly because they are not competing in the same category.

 

Finally, yes, there are industries in which prices are strained because of the global competition. But this is pretty much inevitable, clients who seek cheap work won't pay more because one given B2B platform introduces minimums. They will just move to another similar platform that doesn't have these minimums.

 

Maybe you should focus less on the jobs that are not for you and more on these that will make you money.

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"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless

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