3 Mistakes You’re Making on Upwork That Stop You Winning Projects

I’ve discussed in other articles, why Upwork can be such a competitive platform.

In this post, I’m going to discuss 3 things you have to be done properly to start winning projects on Upwork.

Once you have these things set up, winning projects on Upwork can be like turning a tap on and off for new clients and projects.

The 3 things I’m going to cover in this post:

• The perfect profile
• Power proposal sending
• Speed is king 

The perfect profile

Is your profile 100% complete at the moment?

If not, you’re already losing the game.

The freelancers who are winning lots of projects, their profiles are 100% complete.

You must have a good profile pic.

A good profile pic is a clear picture of your face, usually smiling.

You must fill out your past experiences. But, and this applies to every part of your profile, your past experiences need to focus on benefits/results.

Benefits/results you achieved.

For example…

Let’s say you worked in sales for a few months.

Sales might not be 100% relevant to the types of jobs you’re looking for on Upwork.

Maybe you’re looking for programming projects.

You can still say…

• “Closed $50,000 in client projects in 60 days”
• “Created a daily sales report so management would always be informed”
• Etc

Your profile title must match what job posters are already looking for.

It is kind of like SEO, but for Upwork jobs.
You need to research who are the current top-rated freelancers for the type of jobs you want to win.

You can switch your Upwork profile to a “business” profile, and search for freelancers.

E.g. “copywriting”, and “funnels”.

Create a list of the top freelancers.

And ask yourself questions like…

• Are they using certain words in their titles?
• How long are their profile descriptions?
• Did they include a video?
• What type of things did they include in their descriptions?
• What are their rates?

You want your profile to be at least as good as your competition.

You also need to research what keywords, phrases, and tags are being used for the jobs that you’re interested in.

You want to include these keywords, phrases, and tags as well with the things you found on other freelancers’ profiles.

Benefits and results are the biggest focus of your profile description.

Your profile might read like a CV right now, “I know this. I know that. I studied this.”

But clients on Upwork only care about the results or benefits you can bring to their business.

Your profile description needs to be like a sales page.

You are selling the benefits and results of you working with a client’s business.

Power proposal sending

Now you have a good profile.

You’ve given yourself the best chance.

We need to send high-quality proposals to catch the eye of a potential client on Upwork.

The keys to a good proposal:

• Personalization
• Benefits / result focused
• Social proof
• Call-to-action

Click here to read the longer article discussing each of these components in depth.

Personalization

Personalization means we include the job poster’s name or location.

They can see this before they even open your full proposal.

This shows the job poster you are at least reading the job post just a bit.

And tells the job poster it’s less likely you are copy-pasting your proposal.

Benefits / results focused

Job posters only care about solving their problem.

How you can solve their problem, and any other benefits you bring to their business.

If you can show the job poster you understand the problem the job post is trying to solve…

You’re going to jump to the top of their list to respond to.

Social proof

A lot of job posters are skeptical.

They’ve never met you before.

You’re just a stranger on the internet.

It might be their first time hiring someone on Upwork.

People have told them, “I can do this for you”…

And then they don’t deliver.

You need to show the job poster results you’ve gotten for other clients, who are just like them.

This is called social proof.

It can be as simple as…

“I just helped this client x, to achieve Y, by doing Z”.

Call-to-action

You need to tell the job poster what you want them to do.

You want them to hire you.

But what is the very next step?

You need to tell the job poster at the end of your proposal what they should respond to you.

Or if you want to book a call, etc.

The decision needs to be as easy as possible for the client.

Again, click this link if you want to read the longer post about creating good proposals.

Speed is king

You can send the best proposals.

You can have the perfect profile.

Your chances of winning the projected decrease a lot if you are responding to a job post, hours, or days after it is posted.

There are 2 reasons for this.

First. Job posters receive 10, 20, and 50+ responses to job posts.

It is overwhelming for the job poster.

After they start speaking with a few freelancers who look like a good fit, they usually stop responding to more proposals.

Second. Right at the moment, a client posts their job, they are usually at the peak of wanting to solve their problem.

Their emotions are the highest.

You want to catch the client’s eye and start speaking with them when they are in this mindset.

And this is where Leapfrog Leads helps you. Leapfrog Leads sends notifications to your inbox minutes after a job is posted. Notifications for jobs that you are most interested in. And might be your next dream client.

Click here to sign up for a 14-day free trial to Leapfrog Leads.

Conclusion

Consistently winning dream projects on Upwork requires having 3 key things.

• Have your profile correctly setup so that it attracts clients and presents you as an expert
• Sending proposals that catch the job poster’s eye and get them excited about how you can help their business
• Being one of the first people to respond to a job post so that you catch the job poster when they are most ready to solve their problem.

And again, Leapfrog Leads helps you with the last step.

Leapfrog Leads sends you notifications of your dream projects minutes after they are posted.

Click here to sign up for a 14-day free trial.