How we started working on Upwork (personal experience)
The fact that there are foreign exchanges of projects I heard a long time ago, but before the economic crisis broke out in Russia, I never looked at foreign customers in general: I had enough Russian orders, stopped a serious language barrier, and did not think that my specialization could to be in demand there (My specialization is the introduction and customization of one domestic CRM). With the fall of the ruble exchange rate, I began to look for new markets for the services of my team, and decided to try upwork.
Having tried, I regretted not having tried it before. Looking ahead, I will say that I like the work culture of foreign customers. Hourly work there is, in fact, an hourly work, and not a job for the norm-hours that are loved in Russia. This makes upwork orders more profitable than Russian orders at a slightly lower hourly rate.
My experience is not great yet - this is what happened in my personal account for 4 months of work in my spare time:
')
But, I think my post will help to decide to start working on upwork for those who want, but for now are afraid:
1. How did I overcome the language barrier
I studied English in high school. However, this language was never given to me: I had a good vocabulary, but terrible pronunciation, and there were always problems with listening.
In January of this year, having firmly decided that I now needed English, I found myself a tutor, and we would study with him 3 hours a week and 3 hours a week I would study on my own. It was very difficult to combine this with my business activities - these 6 hours seemed like an impossible increase to my already loaded schedule, so after a while I realized that either I should already feel the profit from my English, or I should give up.
In late April, I switched from theory to practice - I registered myself an account for oDesk, then filled out my profile and started looking for the first order. In my profile, I indicated that my level of English is basic. At the moment, my basic level is verified and confirmed by the Exchange staff. This check happened somehow strange. An unknown person came to me on Skype, who started a conversation with me on an abstract topic in English. I also wrote to him in English, that if he is not going to order anything from me, then it is not interesting for me to spend time on him. Immediately after that, an icon appeared in my profile that my English was verified.
2. First order
I took the first order literally the next day after registration. It was a small order with a fixed price. I set the price 2 times higher than the budget of the customer, hoping that the high price will draw the customer’s attention to my zero profile. The strategy worked - I got the order, and after 2 days my profile was decorated with the first 5 stars.
3. First hourly order
Having received the first review, I felt that it was time to look for an hourly order, put in the profile a price of $ 35 per hour, and literally in a few days my first hourly contract was concluded. Like last time, the customer chose me because my price was about 2 times higher than the highest offered by other applicants, and in general I think that my marketing strategy works not bad:
To communicate with the customer in English was, frankly, more than difficult. We had to discuss the project not only in writing, but also verbally via Skype. However, to my surprise, the customer’s staff showed greater patience and tolerance for my level of English - they repeated the same phrase 5 times in different words, until we had a complete understanding. After Skype calls, my head was buzzing, but my level of English grew noticeably every day (now I don’t need a google translator for correspondence). I realized that not a single tutor in the world can learn a language in the way that communication with a native speaker teaches.
Another problem was with the customer's time zone. The customer was from Australia, and when I woke up for it at 7.30 am, his work day was already over, and these morning discussions made me very tired.
That contract also ended with a 5-star review, and I earned $ 775 on it within a month without departing from my main activity, which I did not give up during my upwork-experiments.
Later, I introduced this customer to my team, and we took him to a support - we continue to work with him at the moment.
4. First success
I consider the first success to be the day when the first foreign customer found me, loading my upwork profile. A customer from England found me himself and wrote me an email. Since earlier I did not work directly with foreign customers directly and was afraid of deception on his part, I said that I work only through the exchange, he registered for upwork, created a contract, connected me and 2 other contractors of my agency to it, and also became mine regular customer. By the way, British English is much clearer than American and Australian, and the difference in time zones with England is quite small, so I like working with this customer, and we have already done and continue to do a number of projects for it.
5. Agency
I have already mentioned that I have a team and that I have created an upwork agency. It was the creation and development of the agency that was and remains my ultimate goal. In my team, for some time now I have not been a leading developer, although I started with this. My responsibility is sales and project management. Although I often take projects for myself, so as not to lose qualifications. All my upwork customers initially meet me as a developer, and then with varying success I try to replace myself with another developer from my team.
Some customers agree that another developer will work on their project. Some disagree, and depending on whether I am ready to part with them at all, I either continue to work on their project myself, or part with them. In order for the customers to agree more willingly to switch from me to my leading specialist, we make a price plug with him: the customer can work with me personally for $ 45 an hour or with my lead expert for $ 30 an hour.
At the first stage, when the profile of my agency for upwork was zero, I had difficulty finding contractors. Even those people who usually go to the fire with me and into the water doubted that this game was worth the candle, and they had to be persuaded. New freelancers who did not work with me earlier refused my invitations in a rather rude manner, some of them tried to work on upwork on their own after that, catching up on my idea, and I could observe how their accounts died without developing. Now I have no problems finding colleagues, but I only work with those who believed in me from the very beginning.
My earnings as an agent are still far behind my earnings as a developer, despite the fact that I spend enormous efforts on the formation and sale of the team’s services, but I’m not going to give up trying, because this income promises to be passive.
In general, upwork is full of money and customers, and competition is low. Customers do not consider Hindus as desirable performers, but they love specialists from Russia and the countries of the former CIS. Among other things, the upwork-profile is perfectly indexed in Google, and in addition to orders through the exchange itself provides a stream of direct customers from this search engine. Search for orders for upwork and simple, and difficult at the same time, but much easier than usual to think. Therefore, I recommend this exchange to everyone.
Having tried, I regretted not having tried it before. Looking ahead, I will say that I like the work culture of foreign customers. Hourly work there is, in fact, an hourly work, and not a job for the norm-hours that are loved in Russia. This makes upwork orders more profitable than Russian orders at a slightly lower hourly rate.
My experience is not great yet - this is what happened in my personal account for 4 months of work in my spare time:
')
But, I think my post will help to decide to start working on upwork for those who want, but for now are afraid:
1. How did I overcome the language barrier
I studied English in high school. However, this language was never given to me: I had a good vocabulary, but terrible pronunciation, and there were always problems with listening.
In January of this year, having firmly decided that I now needed English, I found myself a tutor, and we would study with him 3 hours a week and 3 hours a week I would study on my own. It was very difficult to combine this with my business activities - these 6 hours seemed like an impossible increase to my already loaded schedule, so after a while I realized that either I should already feel the profit from my English, or I should give up.
In late April, I switched from theory to practice - I registered myself an account for oDesk, then filled out my profile and started looking for the first order. In my profile, I indicated that my level of English is basic. At the moment, my basic level is verified and confirmed by the Exchange staff. This check happened somehow strange. An unknown person came to me on Skype, who started a conversation with me on an abstract topic in English. I also wrote to him in English, that if he is not going to order anything from me, then it is not interesting for me to spend time on him. Immediately after that, an icon appeared in my profile that my English was verified.
2. First order
I took the first order literally the next day after registration. It was a small order with a fixed price. I set the price 2 times higher than the budget of the customer, hoping that the high price will draw the customer’s attention to my zero profile. The strategy worked - I got the order, and after 2 days my profile was decorated with the first 5 stars.
3. First hourly order
Having received the first review, I felt that it was time to look for an hourly order, put in the profile a price of $ 35 per hour, and literally in a few days my first hourly contract was concluded. Like last time, the customer chose me because my price was about 2 times higher than the highest offered by other applicants, and in general I think that my marketing strategy works not bad:
To communicate with the customer in English was, frankly, more than difficult. We had to discuss the project not only in writing, but also verbally via Skype. However, to my surprise, the customer’s staff showed greater patience and tolerance for my level of English - they repeated the same phrase 5 times in different words, until we had a complete understanding. After Skype calls, my head was buzzing, but my level of English grew noticeably every day (now I don’t need a google translator for correspondence). I realized that not a single tutor in the world can learn a language in the way that communication with a native speaker teaches.
Another problem was with the customer's time zone. The customer was from Australia, and when I woke up for it at 7.30 am, his work day was already over, and these morning discussions made me very tired.
That contract also ended with a 5-star review, and I earned $ 775 on it within a month without departing from my main activity, which I did not give up during my upwork-experiments.
Later, I introduced this customer to my team, and we took him to a support - we continue to work with him at the moment.
4. First success
I consider the first success to be the day when the first foreign customer found me, loading my upwork profile. A customer from England found me himself and wrote me an email. Since earlier I did not work directly with foreign customers directly and was afraid of deception on his part, I said that I work only through the exchange, he registered for upwork, created a contract, connected me and 2 other contractors of my agency to it, and also became mine regular customer. By the way, British English is much clearer than American and Australian, and the difference in time zones with England is quite small, so I like working with this customer, and we have already done and continue to do a number of projects for it.
5. Agency
I have already mentioned that I have a team and that I have created an upwork agency. It was the creation and development of the agency that was and remains my ultimate goal. In my team, for some time now I have not been a leading developer, although I started with this. My responsibility is sales and project management. Although I often take projects for myself, so as not to lose qualifications. All my upwork customers initially meet me as a developer, and then with varying success I try to replace myself with another developer from my team.
Some customers agree that another developer will work on their project. Some disagree, and depending on whether I am ready to part with them at all, I either continue to work on their project myself, or part with them. In order for the customers to agree more willingly to switch from me to my leading specialist, we make a price plug with him: the customer can work with me personally for $ 45 an hour or with my lead expert for $ 30 an hour.
At the first stage, when the profile of my agency for upwork was zero, I had difficulty finding contractors. Even those people who usually go to the fire with me and into the water doubted that this game was worth the candle, and they had to be persuaded. New freelancers who did not work with me earlier refused my invitations in a rather rude manner, some of them tried to work on upwork on their own after that, catching up on my idea, and I could observe how their accounts died without developing. Now I have no problems finding colleagues, but I only work with those who believed in me from the very beginning.
My earnings as an agent are still far behind my earnings as a developer, despite the fact that I spend enormous efforts on the formation and sale of the team’s services, but I’m not going to give up trying, because this income promises to be passive.
In general, upwork is full of money and customers, and competition is low. Customers do not consider Hindus as desirable performers, but they love specialists from Russia and the countries of the former CIS. Among other things, the upwork-profile is perfectly indexed in Google, and in addition to orders through the exchange itself provides a stream of direct customers from this search engine. Search for orders for upwork and simple, and difficult at the same time, but much easier than usual to think. Therefore, I recommend this exchange to everyone.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/293460/
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