How to grow your freelance business beyond Upwork sucess | Upwork Expert Talk
yeah i'm avery and i'll be your host for today's expert that's the next step after freelancing success um so while waiting for everyone to log in i would like to ask for those who are here to please hold on to this link i will send it through the chat um it's a feedback form that i hope you can submit after the webinars as it will help our team and need to improve on our events so please submit the form before we end uh or during the q a game with any valuable observations and suggestions you wish to share with us and as for the top itself if we go through any bombs such as um for example you don't hear me or you don't hear the speaker um please log out and log back in again or you can also run the webinar on two machines for example your mobile or your computer so that if one device has issues you have a backup okay so let's start hello let me just introduce myself um okay so hi again before we begin i would like for you to know me i am avery or ave i'm the ambassador of upwork in manila so there are other ambassadors in europe and the us and the ambassador program supports our fantastic talent and offering in starting and growing your independent businesses by hosting virtual and local events um what our team does is to provide resources to new and experienced independent professionals a place to meet and exchange ideas with like-minded people and a chance to be inspired to take the next step in your career so before uh pandemic time we used to have these events um face-to-face like we'll go um meet everyone in uh for example in a co-working space or in a events place and then that's where we have our event but since um we needed to transition online so we'll be doing this until we get out of quarantine i guess so anyway um uh so some stuff about me i dabble in the upper community if you want to interact with opera clients and operate talent like you you can visit the offer community at community.operate.com ask questions get tips and talk about freelancing in general so welcome to today's expert talk as a gentle reminder um in all the events that i post please note that i'd like um uh that the tips that will be shared here are optional meaning these are all recommended you are in charge of your business and we are only here to give advice um and guidance and recommendation to you so if you want to um if you want to uh what you call this speaker that's actually up to you these are just tips to help you um in your career so it will be up to you to manage your freelancing business at the end of the day so our agenda for today is um we will have a few reminders i'll be sharing it with you later um i'll also be sharing some product updates and then we'll have the expert talk by james aquino and then we'll go to our um q a afterwards um so some reminders so uh letting everyone know that there's no chat option but if you have questions you can send it through the question box box or button below i think it's below your window there um and the questions can be uploaded so if someone has already asked your question you may want to upload a question so that when we see on our end how many upvotes it receives we can prioritize that question um usually during these expert talks i recommend everyone to please wait for the q a session to ask your questions so if you can hold off uh sorry if you can hold on to your questions first before plugging it in that would be great and then once we have the q a you may want to send your questions so um also please make sure that the questions are related to our topic for today we'll try our best to answer questions that are unrelated like for example freelancing in general but uh out of respect for our speaker today it would be best if we can narrow it down to today's topic um and also the reason why i'm asking you folks to hold on to your questions is because your question might be answered by the presentation and we don't want um other questions to be um drowned by those questions that have been answered by the presentation already okay before we begin i just have six product updates um if you've been active on upwork recently or like you always check the website you will re you will know these product updates um but just a gentle reminder um and so that everyone is aware we now have um this is actually a new or big new beta offering or a test the freelancer referrals i've seen um some freelancers uh posted in facebook groups so referrals help spread job opportunities and when you decline a job invite you can refer a friend or search for a freelancer who might be a good fit and referring a freelancer who might um preferring a freelancer or a balance or a job invite is a quick action that goes a long way to share opportunities so referring someone actually has great impacts um it helps a fellow freelancer find work it helps apply and find the right talent who is fit for their job and if it's a long-term client that you've been with um um it also helps the client know that you are actually an expert in your field because you know who to refer to this um to their uh project so we're testing referrals with a limited amount of freelancers to make sure this works as is intended so not everyone may have this feature in their account but eventually our plan is that every freelancer and upwork will be able to refer someone for job invites so any freelancer who is randomly included in this initial test will have options um to decline and refer a freelancer on job database the next one is hourly rate filters and multiple freelancer jobs um filters in search results so this is also a test and over the next several uh weeks actually it was a test back in april so some of you may have seen it already um some of you may have noticed that the job search filters um we we actually try to improve the search capabilities for um in the search filters for talent so some of these developments include the ability to filter jobs by an hourly rate range and filter for jobs requiring multiple freelancers so these enhancements were created in response to feedback that we received from the community um they were who were requesting for advanced job search filters okay so i mentioned two things there so the hourly rate filters um during this test some freelancers and agencies will be able to filter hourly jobs using more specific rate filters based on criteria selected so this will enable on talent to filter by an hourly rate range and find jobs within the hourly rate range set by clients on job posts and for multiple freelancer jobs um so we understand that multi-freelancer jobs are highly relevant for agencies as well as freelancers who support teams and we want to ensure that these types of jobs can be found more easily so this update or this test will enable talent to specifically filter from for multi-freelancer opportunities in a couple of ways so you will see there that um you will be able to filter for jobs that are looking for multiple freelancers so this is very perfect for those um who have agencies and um who are who who support a team so i just want to remind everyone that these the first two that i mentioned are very limited tests so not everyone will see the filters described at this time but um stay tuned so hopefully we go to a broader rollout so recently we also um shared more information about the gss calculation because we understand how important the jss is uh we want to share another data point that we use to calculate our scores so it's called the trending jss and it is based on your most recent upward history so before we just communicated that there were three um calculators in your job success score um so right now in the interest of transparency we want to tell you that there are actually four different job success scores that are calculated every two weeks the 24 month window the 12 month window the six months window and the trending jss which we calculate by adding your average score for the past six months with your average dss for the past three months and then we divide it in half so what happens there we would review all four percentages and as mentioned above um we select the highest one as your jss so keep in mind that your score may go up or down as your old contract outcomes um age they're not included in the calculations course anymore and then um i just want to assure you guys that any movement in your score whether up or down has taken into account both the recent activity which is the 3 6 12 and over a longer period of time which is the 24 months so i just like to remind everyone that this is not a new calculation it's been there for a while we are just sharing these additional details to bring more transparency to the score and because we are always happy to share additional information with you so for the fourth um update we have a new earnings and billings report the billings and earnings report includes a date filter an option to download the csv file and detailed information about earnings so the report is now available in the navigation bar under reports so if you go to your account right now and you click on reports you'll be able to um view print or export reports in the csv format so here you will be able to view your earnings and any applicable fees or taxes by the plan for the past three years and for earnings older than seniors you can still um search for it through your transaction history and for the my last two updates we which are um somehow related we rolled out our new brand identity um last may i think i was supposed to say this may yeah last me um we unveiled this new brand identity and a brand and advertising campaign to help independent talent and clients better understand how our uh how our work marketplace can help uh our talent achieve more together so our brand look and feel has been reimagined to reflect what we're creating together and it celebrates independent talent helping companies thrive in the remote economy so you will notice um a variety of visual changes that bring an updated design to the site as part of our rebranding efforts so this fresh new look includes a small change to our logo updating our existing colors to brighter use and adding new fonts and invigorating photos and illustrations that showcase who we are today i actually shared these through my facebook account so if you haven't seen um our new branding in our um ads you can check out the upper youtube basis or you can also check out my facebook page and um just check out uh the post from uh sorry but just check out the posts um i shared about the new branding and lastly we have bannon scout um so to help you go further and advance your independent professional careers and operate the expanded uh your opportunities in the marketplace so it's a service we launched through a small subset of clients last year and it matches pre-vetted remote talent to some of the leading clients on our platform so if you're a freelancer specializes in web mobile or software development marketing or design and tan creative scott is an opportunity to work with dedicated upward recruiters who will bring opportunities to you so big name brands um who want to work with the best talent um and vice versa this is free so when you work with one of our recruiters they'll make sure that you um match with these um big brands putting you in front of the right people with the right projects at the right time so that was a lot of information so that you guys can go through it at your um convenience i'm gonna share everything through chat so that you can check like all the links and all the information i just shared um and if you have questions please don't hesitate to um ping us later about it or you can also like check our um top center at support.opera.com for more information about these updates so it's time to meet our speaker um james are you here let me just introduce him so it operated plus freelancer and the featured balance for january's upward spotlight um james aquino has been a registered freelancer since 2008.
however he started focusing on his freelancing career in 2015. he is a registered nurse by profession but has chosen the independent professional spas as a senior content optimization specialist and proofread their talent on um operate so in this expert talk james will reveal how to upskill within your niche rediscover a new niche what are other means of self-improvement and giving back to the community james hello can you say hi hi good evening everyone i hope everyone is having a good time even though we we're just about to get started so i'm happy to be here actually thank you thank you james for um saying yes to our invite okay let's start so again welcome to our event tonight so i hope you will learn something from this one because this is actually a very straightforward topic it's about the next step after freelancing success so again i'm james you can call me jc and um we're very happy that you are here with us with av for this evening so before we actually start with this um subject i just want everyone to be successful i think that's the most important thing that you should believe in whether you are starting in the freelancing community or the freelancing journey or you already achieved success but you want to proceed more or you are still testing the waters of the freelancing landscape so success is not easy but it's not impossible so to our participants tonight i do hope that success will reach your way we will find your way sooner or later so our topic now is the next step after freelancing success but first what is success so that's how we pronounce it success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose it is the moment of achieving a particular vision or goal so sometimes you have a vision and you have an objective and you have a goal success is also the opposite of failure however as a freelancer it's very important for you to understand that failure is one of the key ingredients to be successful you will not be able to appreciate success without failing a couple of times so success it is very important that not everyone has the same definition of success this is actually a very subjective topic to talk about and each and every one of us might not have the same definition of success it does not have a universal unit of measure so for example for freelancer lisa and john success is about earning a thousand dollars a month for freelancer krista and juni success is about being able to buy expensive stuff that they've been trying to that they've been wanting to buy for a very long time now that their day job cannot compensate their day job can never or for freelancer patricia and juvie and keisha success is about sharing something whether in cash or in kind or just knowledge just like what we are doing right now without thinking what's going to be left so that unit of measure and success is very subjective it depends on your perception of life and your very own definition of success so in the freelancing industry it's very important it's always important to know that a lot of people are thinking oh freelancing is very saturated there's a lot of competition it's actually not your biggest competition the marketplace it's just a portion of the considerations about the competition in today's freelancing landscape so aside from where are your doubts your fears your what ifs however one of the major underlying fundamentals in order to achieve success is to take a huge number of risks like a lot of them there there's this risk being rejected risk of being declined this is about proposals or project opportunities of course there's a risk of failing and ultimately the risk of losing yourself in the process risk is a key ingredient to become successful and to become a highly skilled freelancer because even if you have the capacity even if you have the capability as a freelancer but if you're not willing to take risks you will end up being in this game which will stagnate your career stagnate your life risk is a risk and it's very likely that a person who is not willing to take risks no matter how big or small will end up just the same as a person or as a professional so in the world of free dancing it's very um it's very important to understand and remember that in freelancers that already achieve their own definition of success it should not be the end of the road it should not be the conclusion of your freelancing journey it should be considered more of a major milestone or a chatter or a series if you're a fan of trilogies a series of your adventures a series of your achievements a chapter and what's important when considering success as a milestone or chapter is that something better is waiting it should not be the conclusion or end goal because i'm telling you guys there is so much waiting for you beyond the moment of success so as freelancers if you already got the taste of success you should not rest on your laurels because the world is a big school and so is the freelancing landscape and beyond the horizon there are a lot of things waiting for you to be discovered to be learned and to be understood so as a freelancer what should we do next so if this webinar actually started or scheduled before the pandemic i will be recommending at least maybe two industries for you to flourish in the freelancing landscape however now that we've experienced um the pandemic first hand i'm sure everyone here tonight has been affected by the pandemic in more days more ways than one and i hope it will be finished soon because we're rolling out the vaccinations and the protocols are getting better i hope your freelancing game plan even if you're still in the process of achieving your very own golden successful moment these are the things that i recommend that you should do first find an industry or niche that will help you earn and sustain your needs so as a short definition this should be your base camp niche and your most marketable skill so this is something that you are really good at and this is something that we you will consider as your bed and butter this should be your most marketable skill the foundation of your freelancing journey and then we also have an industry or niche that you enjoy doing so what's the difference between this one and the first one is that it's not necessarily your vessel or your means or your avenue to earn but this is a niche or industry that you really love to do that you will not whether or not you are earning significantly now the last one is an industry or niche that you've been wanting to try so this is something that you are interested and scared at the same time so those are the three industries that i want you to consider after this discussion so first what we should do upskilling i think one of these days this is going to be one of the official words in the merriam-webster dictionary upskilling is the process of learning new skills or competencies that are timely and relevant to your current set of skills there's also as well as the current professional and industrial trends this includes a wide area of options we have creative administrative digital and analytical so what are the examples of upskilling so i hope we have some participants tonight who are into creative writing like me so creative writing is the process of curating awesome articles based on the project specifications and niche so it's about the creation of articles what i suggest is that you can upscale that into search engine optimization writing or seo writing a lot of projects in upwork right now they are specifically after the content the beauty of the content so you can level that up if your if your industry is creative writing you can elevate that one learn something about seo because search engine optimization is one of the it's one of the most critical aspects of business writing and businesses nowadays because as i have always believed since 2010 content is king but it's it was only highlighted few years ago how important content is in this ever evolving online method of communication then we also have our friends who are doing data entry data entry is one of the fundamental things and skills that you can do as a freelancer and you can elevate that one to do corporate data entry corporate data entry may sound scary but it's just an improved and upgraded version of data entry where you deal with bigger businesses and there are some metrics some mechanics and some indicators like kpis deliverables what have you that are included so this is actually a very conservative way to upskill especially if your base market about marketable skill is data entry we also have our non-voice customer service friends who are what you call this who are into non-voice customer support so you can do customer support through email and then elevate that one by learning something about marketing so that way you will be able to develop something beyond your marketable skill being an email support specialist to an email and marketing support specialist and then we have the last example i think this is going to be a very curious one especially for our participants who are into voice accounts we have customer service representatives now if you think you have a very nice speaking voice which i admire a lot of people um having a nice speaking voice which allows the customers or clients to be drawn to you to listen to you you can actually venture with voice talent i mean not everyone will be the next income agnae or who's the british sounding guy i forgot his name but you can try especially if you have a neutral to near native accent voice talent is actually one of the lesser explored projects and upwork and there are a lot of projects now it's a growing it's a growing demand especially during the start of the pandemic last year so upskilling in summary is one of the most feasible means of broadening your options without leaving your niche so you are still safe and you are navigating within the limits of your industry so it is one of the methods that can help establish a more improved version of yourself and your current skill set with inevitable limits another one is to learn a new niche or industry if you are brave enough or excited enough to learn something new i suggest go for it because when you get enough courage to jump in a completely new niche by heart you will know that this might be the moment that you've been waiting for to reinvent yourself and the reasons why you should learn a new niche for industry it gives you the flexibility it gives you the versatility to address more projects to accept more projects and of course to progress professionally so learning a new niche that is on the other side of your spectrum can be one of the hardest and scariest things you can do in your freelancing journey however i'm telling you right now if you will go towards this path most likely it's going to be the most rewarding not because it's hard but because a lot of things that are worthwhile is usually outside of our comfort zone so what are our examples i hope we have bookkeepers and our participants tonight if you're into bookkeeping accounting it requires an exceptional attention to detail but it's more on finance related projects so my suggestion is why not try proofreading it also requires an exceptional attention to detail but at the same time you need to evolve and expand your vocabulary because proofreading is like a middle child type of industry it's not as mechanical as data entry but it's not way too technical like web development coding http html no it's not like that but it requires a great amount of accuracy to maintain to ensure that the quality and accuracy of the manuscript that you are proofreading is spotless because that's what clients are paying for we also have our beautiful and handsome vas so you can try and evolve yourself from virtual assistants to wordpress development so wordpress development it's one of the more technical aspects of freelancing but you can also reinvent yourself because virtual assistant is not a one type it's not a one type type of skill it requires versatility it's like it's like um a nice soft butter because your skills your expertise will be spread or spread i mean sorry but sometimes the scope is too broad but you are being spread too thinly so when learning a new niche or an industry you can focus on another one that you're willing to try even though you're scared even though at this point you are still clueless i really suggest wordpress because a lot of projects right now are leaning towards wordpress then we also have creative writing and updating it and updating yourself and learn towards graphic design we have adobe we have kanwa creative writing is part of the creative industries but it's more of words it's more on linguistics graphics design is more on visual it's more on the emotions it's more on the bursts and pops of color so if you have an eye for art if you have an eye for art and you want to try to translate your words into visuals i suggest trying graphics design so what's the difference between upskilling and learning a new niche so upscaling the process of improving yourself is vertical while learning a new niche outside your current industry is a horizontal type of growth but whatever you choose between upscaling and embracing a completely new industry it will still give you that type of benefit so when learning a new niche you are giving yourself a chance not just to improve your skills and marketability it also gives you the possibility of finding something that you love doing for a very long time so as an example based on my experience i've been a writer and a proofreader for a very long time and one of the best experiences i i've had before is that there's this job opening in upward looking for a visual storyteller so that was before tick-tock that was before the booming of ig and pinterest so the project manager is looking for someone who is willing to take videos and narrate a story from those videos so number one i don't have any experience about video recording number two i am terrified narrating because sometimes i feel like my voice sounds like a turkey sometimes it sounds like a hyena depends on the time of the day but i i sent my proposal there were i think 50 proposals during that time and to my surprise i actually literally i think i fell off my chair during that time because i got the job and it's one of the most exhilarating experiences i've had in my freelancing journey because if i never submitted my proposal i will never know if i will be able to express myself i will be living my years after that job opportunity with a what if what if i applied what if i got hired and then and i did i got it and it and it's still whenever someone asks me what's the best project that you got enough work it's still one of my best even after um seriously pursuing freelancing since 2015. so i want you guys to understand that upskilling and learning a new skill i'm not pushing you to become a jack or jill of all trades i want you to understand that this approach teaches you flexibility in learning and appraising what value you can offer to your potential clients because it's very important jack angel of all trades is having like at least six industries it's good but in the long run it's not good in my personal opinion because even though you will be trying different industries even if you're upskill there should still be a sense of focus to your projects and to your skills because if you all have the courage to try expert level project requirements and the client the potential client will be looking at your portfolio and there's no direction it might be a problem in the long run okay here we go i think we're running a bit fast but let's improve your marketability after what happened in 2020 which is still ongoing there are hundreds and thousands hundreds of thousands of freelancers that are who are considered to be exceptionally skilled i will give credit to that one a lot of freelancers i am doing some coaching sessions a lot of freelancers right now who are testing the water so freelancing and remote work are exceptionally skilled they're not newbies they're not newbies compared to what they think they are they're definitely not newcom newcomers yes but not newbies a lot of them are exceptionally skilled with the things that the project requires however a lot of freelancers today regardless of their tenure or experience level it's quite unfortunate because they don't know how to properly market their skills they have the experience they have the certifications they have the seminars they have sometimes they even have the face value for it but when it comes to marketability there are a lot of question marks on top of their heads because okay here's my here are my skills right now what should i do next so in preparing and updating your profile i might receive some hate mail about this but based on my experience again this is um a personal opinion you don't need to say much you need you don't need to say hi i'm maureen and i'm from the philippines everyone knows that it's already in your profile i'm a freelancer you know when you say you're a freelancer in your profile it's like you're introducing that you are a student and you're in university there's redundancy in that type of statement well i really recommend that you don't need to say much in your profile your profile should not be short enough to be forgettable it should be in the middle ground don't say too much but whenever you say something you should be able to identify your strongest points so in marketing yourself in upward especially it's either a client will be viewing your profile and will capture their attention they will be inviting you for an interview hopefully and you get the job that's good but more than half of the time you will be submitting your proposals so in submitting your proposals you have to remember that proposals should not focus on what you've done in the past your proposals should have depth and substance while meeting the needs oh i miss that while meeting the needs and specifications of the project so when submitting a proposal you should not give the client a long list of your achievements it should have something that the client needs and have you ever wondered why upwork refers to applications as proposals and not applications because that's what your your submission should be your submission should look like a proposal your submission should offer solutions and not just introducing yourself it should have meat in it should be like a very impactful proposal with solutions based on the client specifications so after learning how to properly market yourself i think one of the best things to do after you already achieve your very own definition of success is the time to give back because honestly right now we live in a very toxic world i mean if we will be talking 10 20 years ago the world is a nice place but right now it's also a battlefield even in our own personal personal lives we deal with our own personal battles every single day so right now there's a war zone of conflicting opinions shoved aspirations validations or i mean of problems that seem to stack up endlessly one after another so i always mention this to the veteran ones to the veterans of the freelancing industry i mean in 2008 we already have internet i feel so old already of the internet and the resources in the internet during that time is very very scarce right now just one click type some keywords in google you will highly likely that you will find something that you need you will find your answers however because of the overflowing resources available online it's easy to get lost to get lost in the right direction sounds good but most of the time if you have no idea what direction your heading or which direction you wish to pursue you will easily get lost and going back to our marketability topic earlier it depends on how well you will research or how well are you going to learn more self to self study freelancing if you are already an established freelancer i encourage you to help the others yes there might be some instances of spoon feeding but i think we should be a little kinder now that the world is very toxic to deal with conflicting details to the keyboard warriors to bashers and to those who want to watch and enjoy and to see you fail we have a lot of new freelancers right now especially it started last year when the world managed to appreciate two major industries one is the healthcare industry and the other one is the freelancing or remote industry i highly encourage you to be more accommodating to help others because sometimes success the sweet taste of success is more fulfilling if you will be able to share a portion of your experience to become an inspiration to others who are struggling and who is in the journey that you once pursued so why not mentor someone or mentor a lot of people we have a lot of we have i think a lot of upwork groups in facebook alone why not mentor one if you don't want if you're not willing or if you're not available to offer a good amount of time offer mentorship to a person it might not make a difference to the world but it can make a difference to that one you know inspiring others that there is hope that there is success it's one of the most it's one of the greatest things you can do as a freelancer be someone that other freelancers can look up to that other freelancers can respect that other freelancers can speak with to be a beacon of light yeah beacon of light speaking of beacon of light what i learned about this journey is that most freelancers who are new to it to the industry they only need a torch and as a veteran you don't need to set them on fire to find the light that they're looking for mentor someone inspire someone give a portion of your time because you know there will be a great sense of fulfillment whether well i highly recommend that it's not paid because there's passion in it there's what we call labor of love in it and you will you will be surprised that being kind the universe will find its way to reciprocate the kindness you are giving to the world so aside from mentoring someone you can also offer educated opinions answer inquiries from the newcomers in their respective and logical manner just be kind the world needs it especially now to our participants who are already i don't want to say old but already established in this industry i want you guys to inspire others in such a way that your success will be reflected on them this is why i'm very critical about my opening statement that to our participants tonight i wish a success because i believe someone should believe in you at least one because that will help you to push harder and to achieve your own definition of success okay so for conclusion you know what i'm very happy because in my more than a decade's worth of free dancing i mean progressively and seriously is around six years but being a freelancer since 2008 i never thought never in my wildest dreams that i will be sharing this journey with you and i hope that if you're struggling if you have problems in freelancing it will never be easy but always keep in mind that things will get better eventually you are being tested you are undergoing the baptism of fire it's part of the process remember diamonds are formed by pressure same with other semi-precious stones gold experiences fire before it becomes the best version of its of yeah of itself so when you fail always remember that failure is part of the process to become successful and i hope one day when you reach when you reach that pinnacle of success your greatest milestone or greatest um chapter you will be able to savor and appreciate the failures before and the profound definition and the profound meaning why those failures happened in the in the past will give you clarity the moment you reached success and i hope during this time once you meet that one that success stay grounded stay grounded stay kind stay passionate and always carry a sense of compassion with you wherever you go whoever you speak new newcomers veterans and a lot of people let your journey be an inspiration to yourself and to the others who will eventually look up to your journey as your journey is being reflected to them because yeah if you will be asking me about this success when i just started no but after enduring lots of failures by being resilient through failures by being persistent by being hungry literally i think for learning learning new things success becomes sweeter and it becomes more worth it so at the end of the day success is what you make it you know what your journey might be starting maybe you're in the crossroads but your journey is like a basket full of keys and each of those keys will be able to unlock something however it is a matter of heart mind resilience and maybe critical thinking at some point when deciding on what to do with those keys don't let others decide for you this is your journey take ownership own it own your journey own your failures own your success at the end of the day so that's it thank you so much and um yeah before i start trying here have thank you so much yeah just cleaning up the mood but thank you so much for that james i was actually um taking down notes and um before i guess before we proceed with the questions there were some questions that i already answered through the q a but just out of interest i wanted to ask you so you gave us a definition of success you gave you told us that success is different it's actually it actually depends on you on how you define success how about you james how do you define success what is success for you success is what i'm doing right now um i actually you know i'm an introvert i'm an extroverted introvert do we have a word for that one like that yeah yeah because i only started um participating in the community in upwork philippines late last year because i realized that there are a lot of questions what is i mean there are some simple questions that are answerable if they will search enough but there are a lot of freelancers who are very lost in the direction so i realized i consulted with my wife i hope my wife does not disown me after this webinar but um shout out to my wife by the way i love you um but for this i realize that maybe i should help and then through helping others there is a good sense there is a great sense of fulfillment by helping others and then when you see those freelancers updating you messaging me oh um jc i got a job already thanks for your feedback it it warms my heart and that for me is the def that's my own personal definition of success if you will be able to help others without um without looking what will be left of me or how much i mean what's it for me without asking what's it for me i think that's that's my definition of success so earlier you said um that the world and the freelancing landscape is a big school and um i understand that you have been encouraging us for the past hour to upskill yes uh by profession you're a nurse how did you um transition from being a search optimization specialist or and the proofreader i'm sorry from being a nurse to a search optimization specialist and a proofreader how did you do that can you tell us more about that okay um my clinical experience as a nurse was very short it was only around two years and if i mean i i'm pretty sure we have participants here who are also licensed nurses so they know the struggle especially to this day it's underpaid overworked and during that time it's a complete yeah it's a combination of personal professional and financial conflict for me when i was still working the hospital our first daughter was a baby during that time and her pediatrician actually encouraged me to try cleaner jobs because during my time oh my god i feel so good but during my time the pay is is oh my god it's not even a pay it's like an allowance and my uh my daughter's media told me that james your passalubong to your daughter are a wide array of viruses and bacteria so might as well consider other jobs and um there was also a political part to it but i will not put that in detail so i considered um i considered looking for other jobs so i tried bbo i worked into one major and one obsolete um bpo companies in the philippines and then i also tried to immerse myself in remote work ever since i was young i really loved to write so it was like an init skill and i tried to improve it in the process that's why my colleagues before whenever they see and read my articles or the things that i write they're like they're wondering why i did not pursue something that is related to writing like journalism mass communications but during that time i still have my very own set of confidence issues i i was told bullying story um story time in high school i hope i don't have my classmates in this webinar but um in high school i was told that i don't have the voice for the radio and i don't have the face for the television so where should i go so i just poured my energy into writing my own stories writing my own articles and then through that process i was able to sharpen it and then when i reached the stage when i graduated college yeah um during my informal freelancing time you know what i have my only goal during that time is to sustain my gaming habit to earn a couple of dollars a month to our participants if you know ragnarok online you're already old get married so um what do you call this so when i started in 2015 the freelancing landscape is more serious it's more competitive and i'm seeing serious amount of income from it i was like oh okay so maybe we should try this more seriously so after a very very low um a very very low time in my me and my wife's married life i told her okay that's pursue awkward um during that time it's the oldest let's let's pursue freelancing and then eventually after a couple of years we survived and we're here it's um it's actually um to our participants you can backtrack back read late um earlier um for this if you have an init skill that you really love doing it should be part of your market about marketable skills it should be part of it and you can just add include add-ons in the process because yeah you know what i'm actually trying to look for this lady she's also a nurse and she has a profile in upwork but her intro i hope she's here if you're here i forgot your name but if you're here message me her profile and upwork is that um mentions that she's a dialysis nurse she's a very experienced in the clinical setting but i know that she can market herself more because you cannot do dialysis online i mean you can do online sabo online ramboland something like that but online iv injection iv gluta or dialysis it's not possible but if ever i will find this lady i want to help her because i know she can do something more than being a dialysis nurse because she really took the time to polish her profile but all of those activities that she's doing she's doing in the hospital how are you going to condense that in remote work that is actually most of what that is actually the major problem of most of our freelancers now so yeah it's about flexibility it's about understanding what you can offer in it inside you and then just improve it and be a versatile version of yourself yeah and i actually agree because when i started freelancing it was um so uh when i started freelancing if i may also share um the reason why i'm freelance is because even if i live close by my word um i used to work for a five-star uh resort in the visayas even if i was close by my i live close by my work i start my day at five and i end my day at nine pm so i get back around 8 8 30 um because of the commute and um i don't have time for my son to the point that when he needed someone so it was like an emergency situation he got stuck inside of the bathroom and he was like uh one year old then he was stuck in the bathroom and he started crying and um he he he looked for the yaya and not me he was shouting for his yaya and that struck me and it made me feel like i need to spend more time with my son i need to spend so that he knows me better so when i transitioned to freelancing i started as a va um before i started doing all this um mainly because i was um i have experience in um managing the day-to-day accounts of my uh of the owners of the company and also i also doubled a little in marketing and um so i had to mix a mix of skills but i enjoyed helping like ceos and doing that until i discovered my want and my passion for educating which is why i transitioned to doing this being an ambassador and i'm also like you can also see me in the upper community sometimes i answer there um and then right now i transitioned to um uh doing evaluations for the rest of my team so you'll negotiate on how to do my evaluations really well so it's like it's like really an upward climb but um as you as you grow your career online or through your work or through uh whatever clients that you get through upwork or maybe outside of opera there will be a time that you will have to learn new skills um so that you can progress so that you can climb up and um i can honestly say that because i have had this um passion for learning and being able to help my team more um it helped me also grow in the company so i'm so i'm at a point where i'm really happy working um for upwork i'm really happy doing this i actually enjoy um meeting new people that's why i do all this ambassador work and someone said earlier that the the term for being an introvert and um is an ambivert but whoever you mentioning that so maybe we can proceed with the q and a some of the questions here um some are really interesting and i selected some that we can answer uh live mainly because these were the questions earlier that i was able to answer live but later we'll go through some of your questions so here from john arbenziolo uh what method of upskilling do you use coursera uh certifications what do you think of you demi james what do you think um i tried coursera and you didn't me if you are after i hope coursera will not chase me for this but coursera um it's like you enroll first and then you pay for the certification udemy i think they have more flexible options so if you're up after the experience without getting the certificate if you are right now if you're still in the process of improving yourself to be more competitive in the market i suggest coursera has a lot of very informative and very long free courses and then just take them and then if you have already the finances to obtain the certificates you can get them later just pile up on knowledge make sure to understand them make sure to understand them properly because it will really help you my only tip if you are attending online courses make sure you are not distracted because it's going to be a very distracting time so you need to make sure that you treat your courses seriously it's not just like a series of short videos and powerpoint presentations no you should take it by heart because you are it's an opportunity and then after that yeah we save up for the certificate so you can also add it to your upwork profile later on yeah and document um i i used link in learning for a time so before i what he called it i subscribed to the membership i tried a few of the free courses first to see that like do i like these courses and stuff so that was like two years ago but right now um since my brother got the master class up um i'm riding on his app so every time he's here um we watch some of the lessons and i think it's great because it's not just you know it's not just about jobs and it the master class app also has some path about um some past that you will want to take because of your passion or because of your interest and hopefully in the long run it's something that you can do also as a job so um just like the two of us style we enjoy what we're doing so i think that's great that we have the um we have the privilege of being able to enjoy what we do okay so next question is from romer agony um i chose this question i chose to answer this question live uh mainly because i wanted to get your inputs but i also have some answers for this so anyway um rommer asks i have a strong i have strong skills and experience for a particular proposal but eventually clients are still looking for a certification and sadly i do not have anything that i can provide do you have any suggestion that i can still on how i can still market myself in the long run so basically with some certifications and i'm guessing the skills that he's trying to sell yeah may require certifications what do you say about that um short answer is to when you go to the let me open my profile when you go to the marketplace in the fine jobs um section of upwork check the category check for project openings within intermediate and expert because you know what surprisingly these um project lev project categories they are looking for your skills first and not your certification that's that's the short answer because not all clients in upwork are looking for certifications you just need to find a little bit harder because um you've mentioned and i think you're confident with what you can offer so that's good that's actually a very difficult thing to teach you need to be very confident with your skills so if you don't have certifications i suggest taking it in the process while while you are in the process of looking for your project because certifications will be able to help you sir what you call this certifications will help legitimize your capabilities yeah yeah it's very important i mean right now try to look for smaller projects aim for the big guns later because um yeah the short-term solution is to find clients who will not be very critical with certifications but in the long run you still need it because i'm not sure yeah like what i've observed i think you are offering a very technical i'm i think you're into coding c plus plus or html something like that which requires certificates because you know a lot of freelancers i mean it's not bad but living by the code fake it till you make it can only bring you to a certain point but it will not lead you to success yeah and i agree at one point and especially if you have technical skills and skills that are on skills that are um in the it or in stem or in programming in minded and very technical learning skills the certifications and i will echo what james said the certifications will actually legitimize your skills and your experience and it will act and this will help you in the long run so if you can invest in them or maybe factor that in your on cost or in your way so that you can um get certifications for the skills that you have that will actually help you um get bigger clients it will also help you if you are actually certified in a very technical skill you can also command a higher rate so that is why you invest in yourself and that is why there is um um we we would highly suggest that if you can do it get a certification so that you can present it in your profile and also elsewhere so another question from an anonymous attendee which have been um um a lot of people said that they're also in this field so i am in purchasing procurement and supply chain field of work for seven years both local and international industry but still i'm having difficulties finding a client here on uprook is it okay to share these experiences in my proposal and discuss how these experiences can help their organization yes that's actually the best thing that you should do because your proposal should be able to reflect your past experiences at the same time the impact of your proposal should be based on the solution you can offer to your client by relating it to your people to you about an experience network seven years in both open can you send me a message anyway um yeah you need to highlight those strengths in your proposal at the same time you're i think you're one of the few that i will be recommending to cite something about your past experience because it's very very solid already and then towards the end of your proposal offer a solution to your client because the client will be very happy about your extensive work experience it's almost a decade in both local and international settings but what's it for them that should your proposal should answer that question what's it for me as a client so your proposal should yeah so your proposal yeah there so actually maraming um there are a lot of clients who look for supply chain management um experts in um seven years is 13 of platform you should mention that in your profile and you should also mention that in your skills and um sorry in your skills in your proposal and one thing i i always mention in my webinar proposals that sell i always say that and as james said you should um share how you are going to solve the client's problem how you are going to find a solution to their problem or to their project and um you should also be able to because in the proposals actually when you send the proposal and on the client side because i'm also client on upload on the client side we only see the first two lines of the proposal so when we have a list of all the proposals that we receive only the first two lines of your proposal can be seen unless we click on it so make sure that when you when you what you call this when you click on oh sorry when you create a proposal make sure the first two lines catches the client's attention yes okay um yeah one rude alignaza says thank you so much for doing this zoom webinar uh it could help them a lot though so yeah for those who keep saying that they're having a hard time finding a client on operate um it's really hard i mean apple i don't know your experience james pero apollo it took me about six to eight months before i was able to find a client and around that time the client already hired someone and i just sent a proposal because the job was interesting it was a new technology a new space and technology and um so they hired two already and there were 50 plus proposals that was and then i got hired they let go of the two people to hire me and one reason why why they hired me is because i researched uh the client's website and i told them if i'm gonna be and this is what a time when i was still hiring uh when i was still selling myself as a va i told them let's check your website and there are a lot of typographical errors here are some examples and then i highlighted it and then i told him if you want me to go through all your website we can discuss this further so that um maybe you can hear me and i can help you improve your website and then from there um the client was impressed um he actually called me the next day and he was like i'm actually impressed by our proposal i'm thinking of letting go of the managers that i got um when can you start so it was um any hiring is not easy in 2015 oh my god actually i think i came in the right time during that time because in the writing landscaping of work um it's not as saturated now it's you know what's the difference before and now before i mean half a decade almost a decade before ago there are fewer freelancers i know yeah there are fewer freelancers and the projects are also few because a lot of clients are not very familiar with platform-based freelancing employment with odesk before so during that time i think when i registered in upwork in 2008 and then i started in 2015 after i polished my profile i think i got a client in a month yeah so if um some i'm i'm i will not give you guys a definite time because some especially um in the coaching that i'm doing it's a five-week coaching session and some of them based on what we learn in the process they get clients after two weeks after three weeks because we have a lot of freelancers especially in the upper philippines group a lot of them have the experience but they don't know what to do with it they don't know what how to properly condense it to make it a very marketable version of themselves so there's no right or there's no slow or fast process because i always believe if the project is for you it's for you unless you don't apply for that project yeah yeah and i agree with that there's no there's no fast process yeah people think and you know what if it were easy everyone would have done it so this is actually a really it's hard especially now that um freelancing or working from home or the whole world has transitioned to working from home and a lot of clients a lot of businesses they also transition to hiring online so um that's actually a good thing because we now know that there are a lot of clients who are hiring online but it's also a difficult thing because now we know that um you are competing competing against a greater number of talent who have the same skills that you have so i think the best way there is to make sure that you differentiate uh make sure that you um differentiate through your proposal differentiate through your um profile make sure that you highlight your skills and you highlight what you have done before and how you um how this will help your clients yes exactly and i just wanted to highlight this from lani marquez who said thank you thank you very much sir jason you made me right now oh wait i have a teacher here don't yeah please hello yeah ruben de jesus said um to james good job thanks could you cite a few examples of what to write on a profile because you said um highlight the strong points he yeah he he mentioned strong all caps that you need to highlight in your profile in your profile because um what you call this our pro let me explain the profile just to be sure profile so in the profile we have introduction employment history in the introduction it should be more of hold on i have a template because um aside from coaching i'm also reviewing random profiles hold on okay profile feedback so for the introduction it should make your introduction focused about you as a freelancer and add some personality to it because you know um i hope some will not kill me about this but you will know an introduction without looking at the location you will know that the freelancer is from the philippines it's very it's very it's very philippines it's like hi i'm let's say hi i'm krista i'm from the philippines i'm married with something like this it's like a slum book it should not look like a slumber it should um be a reflection of it's it should be a narrative of who you are as a freelancer and also who you are as a person because an introduction is not just about your skills if you have like um who is our who gave the question earlier that has an extensive experience already that extensive experience can be reflected in the employment history you don't need to be redundant about that so for the introduction you should treat it as an introduction so except for the name for my my profile if i did not mention my name in my profile because it's already there james a you don't need to mention the location because it's already there you don't need to mention the school you graduated from even though you're proud you're very proud of it because there's already a space for that so the introduction should speak to the client more of who you are as a person with a glimpse of what you do before if you had a day job before and what keeps you busy in my profile i mentioned that i travel a lot i go to several countries these are my experiences but not as detailed as the employment history so to make the long story short the strong points in your introduction should include your personality your your profile i mean your introduction should not be monotonous it should sound like for example if you will look at my profile it should sound like james if you look at abs profile it should sound like it's like she's introducing herself to you guys without speaking she's introducing yourself to the client through her words because yeah because you know um that's what i realized about um a lot of the introductions that i reviewed before then they would ask me um sir what's the problem with my intro i i will be friend with them because i i want to help them to improve so some introductions are just two sentences i'm lookin
2021-09-03 12:51
