Step by Step Plan for Upwork # 2

The previous part .

I hope that you have already registered and filled out the profile, if not, then you are in the last article. And we will begin.
')
Before registering, I advise you to carefully read the rules of the exchange, otherwise as it was in my case - you can fly into the ban "without-a-mes-bottom".

If you have a bad communication with the customer, then the freelance on Upwork is clearly not for you, the only way out is agencies.

Fixed Price and Hourly

There are two types of payment: hourly and fixed payment. With a fixed payment you will receive money at the end of the project or part of it. Mostly use millestone. What is millestone? This is a way of paying for work that gives the greatest guarantees. You start the project, the employer deposits the first part of the amount, that is, the money is now not just a figure - this is real money that is somewhere, the customer cannot take it without your consent or the support of the support, but you cannot confirm it without the customer’s confirmation or support will receive. With hourly things are different - you install an upwork tracker on a laptop or PC (what you work there for). When you start working, you start the tracker every 10 minutes, it takes a screen, a snapshot of your face through a webcam, counts the number of keyboard and mouse clicks and sends it to the exchange. Every Monday, the customer can see what you did there and pay for the work. See more here .

Search for good orders

The basis is orders, and finding truly good orders is not easy. You have connections - this is the currency on the exchange, for which you can apply for a project, basically the cost of the application is 2 connections, but it can go up to 5. There are 60 connections per month on the base account (up to 30 applications), which is quite enough. Therefore, you can not click on the first post. By the way, spend all the connections and not get the order - fly away to the ban, forever . Need to choose carefully. For a newbie, getting a project on which more than 15 people have applied for is extremely difficult. First, you should choose projects up to 200 USD. But it is worthwhile to have the concept of the minimum amount, that is, projects whose amount below this one is not interesting to you. A crowd of Indians rush to cheap projects. Personally, I always keep to the principle: The more the customer first talks about the project, the more pleasant it will be to work with him. Therefore, it makes sense to look for orders with a great description, especially for beginners, because only this way you can be confident in your abilities, and only in this way can you write a good cover letter. For example, this file was attached to my first project:



You can immediately understand what you need, point out the weak points, and show the customer that you are in the subject line and you are interested. Write a cover letter. In which you indicate deficiencies and / or show how you will solve the problem.



This is a cover letter to my first draft. I pointed out the shortcomings, showed an alternative with which it would be convenient for us to work. As a result, I went to the interview stage, then painted my solution to the problem in more detail, and received an offer.

Communication with the customer

It is an extremely stressful process, because you need to show your professionalism to a person who does not really understand this. The only way to do this is to show how you will solve the problem. Sometimes for this it is worth resorting to diagrams (here is an excellent service for drawing diagrams). Many are frightened by the language barrier, because not everyone has knowledge of English at the highest level. But customers treat this with understanding, and do not pay much attention, if the level of English must be high - this is indicated in the project.

Memo freelancer:

• Do not work for review
• Do not put the price below the baseboard - call the real one. Some people take the order putting the price higher than indicated in the project (That's it - this is not fl.ru).
• On the proposal to work around the project, made in correspondence at the very upwork, you must immediately refuse and immediately complain.
• If it turns out that you do not have enough knowledge for this project, it is better to immediately deviate and leave with apologies, although something can be learned along the way.
• Perform a project with high quality and on time, if you break the deadline, make a discount so that you can somehow block your mistake
• In a conflict situation, they will try to solve everything on the spot, and only if a compromise was not reached, contact the support.
• Before starting work, negotiate at least some minimum TK
  

Invites

Always respond within 24 hours. It is not necessary to have a lot of work to receive invitations, before receiving the first order I received an invitation, I did not go through the skills, so I rejected it, but everything is nice :)

Exchange Commission

The exchange should also earn something in upwork for this created pro accounts and commissions (they are truly huge).



Who thinks that they will take projects only from $ 500 - the first $ 500 will still be with an increased commission. On the one hand, it’s like a bet on long-term relationships, and on the other, a monopoly.

Withdrawal of money

When you earn the first money, you will want to pick it up. In total there are 4 statuses:

1. Work in Progress. Work in progress (open milestone, or money for hours already worked)
2. Overview. The customer confirms that you must receive this money and sends it
3. Pending Upwork carefully eats away its commission and begins the countdown (security period) when the customer or freelancer can scribble on each other with a request to return the money / get more
4. Avaliable. Finally they can be removed

Where to shoot? For the residents of Ukraine there are not many options - payoneer and translation (not very popular due to the commission of $ 30). In Payoneer Order a card and withdraw money from it or to Privat (minimum amount is 300 USD). PayPal doesn't work in Belarus either. Cannot accept / send payments. In Russia, you can use PayPal.

Here is the Payoneer commission:

1. $ 1 takes apvork for withdrawal.
2. 3.5% conversion fee in local currency.
3. $ 3.15 when withdrawing from an ATM

I would be grateful if you say which one in PayPal.

Video Verification

When you register, you specify information about yourself: address, e-mail, etc. Be sure to attach a photo. No photo - no work. The photo must be real otherwise. Previously they demanded a passport and an extract from the bank where your name appeared, but now they have entered a video verification (here I got a ban). When you have earned a certain amount, you are asked to talk to the manager. Follow the link and the dialogue begins and ask questions - basically the name of the name, the address may be some kind of simple. question - they asked me what a prototype was, in parallel they check a photo, some after that get a mark on the verified level of English.

Useful resources

• Igor Petrunin's Channel - Profitable Freelance has a lot of useful information. And here's another page on facebook
• http://jff.name you can learn a lot
• There is also useful information.