Upwork

Fighting over Wimpy copywriting clients

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Here’s a bit of 1957 cartoon wisdom for beginner freelance copywriters:

It comes from a Popeye cartoon, in which Popeye has just opened up a shiny new diner.

But then, his archenemy Bluto pulls up with a fancy food truck right across the street.

“You gotta move that thing,” says Popeye.

“A little competition never hurt nobody,” barks Bluto.

They’re about to come to fisticuffs when a potential new customer strolls down the street.

It’s J. Wellington Wimpy, the penniless moocher who pretends to be high class.

Wimpy sits down at Bluto’s food truck. “I’ll have a hamburger, for which I will gladly pay you Tuesday,” says Wimpy in his aristocratic tone.

“One hamburger coming up!” says Bluto.

But then Popeye gets in there, and steals Wimpy away. “I’ll have a generous portion of baked beans, for which I will gladly pay you Tuesday,” says Wimpy again, except this time to Popeye.

“Baked beans, coming right up!” says Popeye.

The rest of the cartoon goes on like this, with Bluto and Popeye constantly sabotaging and one-upping each other.

They eventually get into a fight, throwing barrels, stovetops, pork legs, and cakes at each other.

Meanwhile Wimpy the moocher sits by and eats their food, never paying and never intending to pay.

Maybe you see why I bring this up.

It’s pretty similar to the situation a lot of beginner freelancers find themselves in.

They roll out the red carpet for Wimpy clients, who “will gladly pay Tuesday” but want the work done today.

They find themselves in under-bidding food fights with other freelancers who desperately want to attract the same fake-aristocrat moochers.

And when it all comes to nothing — and how could it not, with a Wimpy client — they have no alternative but to blame the competition.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

As I mentioned over the past coupla days, I’m putting together a group where I help newbie freelance copywriters to get successful.

If you’re interested in participating, all you gotta do is let me know.

You can send me an email, or throw a leg of pork my way.

Either way, I’ll follow up with you to see how your copy diner is cooking, and how I could help you run it better.

Unfair Upwork advantage

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In a couple of weeks, I’ll be getting off Upwork entirely.

Which is kind of a shame, because I’ve built up a lot of insight into how that platform works and how to win high-paying copywriting jobs there.

At the same time, I know that some of the people who read my blog are aspiring copywriters and would-be freelancers.

And so last night, I had an idea.

I imagined putting together a kind of group where I share what I’ve learned about succeeding on Upwork, and where I provide ongoing guidance to anyone who’s interested in doing the same. If you’re just starting out on Upwork, I feel like this would be an “unfair advantage” over everybody else on there.

Bad for them. Good for you.

But here’s the thing:

I haven’t decided yet whether I will actually create this group — or what form it will take.

If you’re not interested in any of this, no need to do anything.

But in case you are interested, simply write me an email and let me know.

If there is enough interest, I’ll follow up with you directly to see where you’re at and how I could structure this group to best help you.

The secret to triggering Upwork’s recommendation algorithm

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One day, I got an invitation to interview for a job on Upwork. The invitation read:

“I’d like to invite you to apply to my job – and I found you by looking up something related to sex and gender. Please review the job post and apply if you’re available.”

The job itself wasn’t interesting to me.

What was interesting was this mention of “sex and gender.” You see, just a day before, I had added a new item to my portfolio.

This portfolio item was titled, “Daily Emails for a Dating & Men’s Health Guru.” It talked about how I had written all these emails about dating, relationships, and sexual health for a big ClickBank seller.

This was the only mention of “sex and gender” in my entire Upwork profile.

And that’s why I think your Upwork portfolio is the secret to triggering Upwork’s recommendation algorithm.

Sometimes, those recommendations happen when clients are looking for specific keywords, like in the situation above.

But in my experience, new portfolio items mean more job invitations overall, even for jobs that don’t have to do with the portfolio item you just added. It certainly doesn’t happen every time, but I’ve seen such a bump in invitations often enough to think it wasn’t just chance.

And here’s the beauty of your Upwork portfolio: you can put anything in there.

Of course, you should only put in actual writing projects that you’ve done. But it can be on Upwork or off Upwork, it can be paid or done on spec (ie. for no money), it can be professional or a school project — whatever, as long as it’s relevant to a potential client who is looking for a copywriter.

And if you want to know how I write those Upwork portfolio items that trigger the Upwork recommendation algorithm, you’re in luck.

I describe it all in detail in my new book “How To Become a Top-Rated, $150/Hr Sales Copywriter On Upwork.”

And what’s more, you can now get this book for free. At least that is, if you act by midnight tonight PST.

In case you’re interested, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

A sewer drain leading straight into the Upwork gold vault

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The Bank of England holds about 400,000 bars of gold.

It’s the second largest gold reserve in the world, after the New York Federal Reserve.

And though it’s worth over £100 billion, nobody has ever managed to break in and steal even one ounce.

Well, almost nobody.

Back in 1839, the Directors of the Bank started receiving anonymous letters.

The letters announced a man would meet them inside the vault at an hour of their choosing.

Finally, the Directors agreed to test out what was going on.

So, one night, they gathered inside the vault.

And waited.

And waited.

And then, at the appointed hour, they heard a noise.

It was coming from underneath their feet.

And the next thing they knew, a couple of the floorboards moved, and a man climbed out.

He was a sewerman who, during repair work, discovered that an old sewer drain led straight to the floor of the Bank of England gold vault.

It turned out the sewerman never stole anything — they counted all the bullion — though he sure could have.

So he was rewarded for his honesty with a gift of £800 — about £80,000 in today’s money.

I bring this curious story up because I’ve got a monumental announcement:

I’ve just published my guide to becoming a top-rated, $150/hr sales copywriter on Upwork.

This prestigious tome is like a sewer drain straight to the Upwork gold vault.

It contains the best insights I’ve gathered over the past 4 years freelancing on Upwork.

And while most of the book is not particularly glamorous (hence sewer drain), I certainly wish I’d had this guide when I was starting out. It would have helped me make a lot more gold shekels early on and save myself a lot of frustration and headache.

I’ll give an example of just one such story tomorrow.

For now, if you want to grab a copy of my Upwork guide, you can get it as a Kindle book on Amazon. Plus…

You don’t even need to reward me in any way for my sewerman honesty.

That’s because if you act in the next 36 hours or so (12 midnight PST on Wednesday), you can get this book for free. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

The four horsemen of the Upwork apocalypse

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A friend asked me about Upwork recently.

He wanted to know, are there red flags for job listings? In other words, are there some jobs you should never apply for, because the clients are guaranteed to be trouble?

And lo, I had a vision.

Four horsemen. Each more awe-inspiring than the one before.

Now these four horsemen do not bring death, pestilence, famine, and war. But they do bring frustration, low wages, uninteresting projects, and stress. Let me tear open the four seals of my upcoming Upwork Bible, and tell you about them:

1. The blue banana horseman

Riding on a perfectly normal job listing, this horseman carries a banner. And on that banner, it is written:

“Add the words ‘blue banana’ at the top of your application so I know you read this whole thing.”

This horseman is very clever. And he’s too clever by far for any decent freelancer. If you engage with him, be warned, it will end in frustration.

2. The waffle horseman

This horseman arrives in a cloud of mist.

In his hand, he carries a waffle. That’s because he doesn’t know what he wants, or he cannot express it. So his job listing is ominously broad:

“Looking for an expert to help me grow my business through marketing. You need to know video editing and design and copywriting. Added bonus if you’re good at Excel.”

What this horseman is really saying is, “My business isn’t profitable yet. But heavy is my burden of small, confusing tasks. Come inside my empire and you will be rewarded meagerly.”

3. The pied pier horseman

This horseman can be recognized from afar by the symbol blazing on his chest. It reads:

“Rewrite this paragraph to prove to us you’re right for this job.”

The pied piper horseman does not do this because he’s trying to cheat you or get something for nothing. Instead, it’s because he thinks of freelancers like lemmings: small, requiring tight corralling, and incapable of independent thought.

Beware of following the pied piper horseman, because he will lead you over the cliff into uninteresting, menial work.

4. The grim reaper horseman

The Upwork grim reaper does not hold a scythe in his hand. Instead, he carries an hourglass, which has just run out of time. This horseman has a tight deadline, requiring an 8,000-word VSL, which needs to be done by this Thursday. And he needs you to start work on it NOW.

If you allow this horseman to wrap you up in his raven’s wings, expect untold stress to descend upon you. At least until Thursday, and possibly even later.

Now these creatures and others haunt the Upwork job listings page.

They are not evil. But neither are they righteous clients.

I advise you to stay away from them, and focus on better work. And as for that Bible I mentioned at the start:

You might like it if you are wandering through valley of Upwork. It will show you how to avoid the unrighteous clients, and to stay on the path that leads to the light ie. high hourly rates. To get notified once I complete this book (in the next week or two), inscribe your name on the following:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

How Slack got too big to racially profile

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A few days ago, an Iranian guy studying in Canada gut kicked off messaging platform Slack.

U.S. companies are not allowed to do business with people from Iran, and somehow, Slack picked this guy out even though he was based in Canada.

Who cares?

Everybody. Slack is valued at over $7 billion, and the story of the Iranian guy quickly went viral and made the front pages of news aggregators, under accusations of racial profiling.

That’s incredible, when you think about the history of the company.

Slack started as an offshoot of a failed game company run by a guy named Stewart Butterfield.

Glitch, the game they were developing, never went anywhere. But they took their internal messaging platform and turned it into a multi-billion dollar business.

And this isn’t the first time Butterfield has done this. He had another failed game before Glitch, and another side-project that emerged from that game which became a successful company. You might have even used it yourself — it’s Flickr, the photo sharing platform.

So what’s the point?

Well, it’s simply the attitude of pivoting to what the market actually needs.

As it is for tech entrepreneurs like Stewart Butterfield, so it is for copywriters, or even information marketers.

For example, when I got started on Upwork as a copywriter, I was trying to focus on writing autoresponder sequences. I think the title on my Upwork profile read “Email copywriter for soap opera sequences.”

There wasn’t that much demand. However, people started hiring me to write cold emails, even though I didn’t even know what the hell those are. So I become a “Cold email specialist.”

I eventually moved on from cold emails (I don’t believe they work well, and when they do, you don’t need a copywriter). But then lots of clients started hiring me for advertorials and writing Ben Settle-style daily emails, so I pivoted again. I’m currently selling “Hype-free sale copy (Emails, Advertorials, and Sales Letters).”

What does this mean for you?

If you’re looking to build up your freelancing career on Upwork, get going now. The market will quickly tell you which services you should offer, which ones you should drop, and which skills you should develop.

And if you’re looking to maximize your Upwork success, from a guy who gets paid $150/hr and has a 100% job satisfaction rating, check out my upcoming book. It won’t make you a Slack-like success. But with the info inside and with a little dedication and work, you will soon be an Upwork force to reckon with.

For more info, check out the following:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Gary Halbert’s first and most important lesson

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A long time ago, in a beautiful city far, far away…

I worked as an IT office drudge, and I decided I had had enough.

Fortunately, I knew a guy who was doing freelance copywriting.

I thought I could do the same, so I took a week off my regular IT job to sit at home and try it out.

I wanted to see if I could do the writing, and what it would be like to work by myself.

The writing part was fine, and I decided that I would give the freelance life a shot.

However, there was one problem.

Two days after starting my stay-at-home work experiment, I started to get depressed.

Not sad.

Not hopeless.

Just my nervous system seemed to be slowly shutting down, and I found it hard to concentrate or feel very motivated about achieving anything.

And again, this happened just two days after trying to work from home by myself.

The good thing was, I had a suspicion of what the problem was.

And I had a quick fix for it.

In fact, it’s an idea I got from the Prince of Print, old Gary Halbert himself.

It’s something that Gary once called his first and most important lesson.

And it’s something I continue to apply to this day, and that I consider to be vital in making me a successful freelance copywriter.

The thing is, this has nothing to do with writing.

Nothing to do with persuasion.

And yet, without it, I could never have succeeded in making a comfortable career, working a couple of hours a day, usually in my pajamas.

Anyways, if you want to know what this important lesson is, you can rifle through the thousands of pages of content that Gary Halbert has left online as his legacy. It won’t be a waste of your time.

However, if for any reason you don’t want to go that route, there is a second option.

You can also consult my upcoming book,  which covers freelance copywriting on Upwork.

I’m making my way through all the sections I’ve planned out for this book, and I should be finished with it by the end of the month.

If you want to get notified once it’s out, simply sign up below, and I’ll send you an email to let you know when I finish. And then, you’ll have Gary’s secret lesson all to yourself. Here’s the link to get notified:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Cogsworth wisdom for long-term Upwork success

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“This is yet another example of the late neoclassic Baroque period. And, as I always say, ‘If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!'”
— Cogsworth, Beauty and the Beast

A few weeks back, I was interviewed about freelancing on Upwork.

Nick Tubis, the guy who interviewed me, said something along the lines of, “Most successful freelancers get invited to jobs. What would you do if you’re not getting invited?”

To which I told him the truth:

Yes, I regularly get invited to Upwork jobs.

And I also regularly scroll through listed jobs, and apply to any for which I might be a good match. It worked for me at the start of my time on Upwork, and it’s working for me still. In the words of Cogsworth: If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!

Let me give you an example:

Earlier this year, I landed a daily email writing gig this way.

It paid $150/hr.

I didn’t get invited to this job. I found it and applied.

If I hadn’t searched for jobs that day, and I hadn’t applied, I wouldn’t have gotten this contract, which netted me about $6k before the client decided to take the work in-house.

The fact is, many potential clients who might be a perfect match for you will never find your profile.

They won’t invite you to their job.

They will pass like a ship in the night.

So my strategy now is the same as my strategy when I started on Upwork.

Each day, I take a bit of time, and go through the newest job listings.

And then, if I find something good, I send in a very brief and yet very effective job application.

It usually takes me about 2 minutes to write.

And yet, it routinely wins me 4-figure contracts, just like that daily email writing job.

I’ll lay out how I write this typical job application in my upcoming book about freelance copywriting on Upwork.

This book won’t teach you how to write copy.

Just how to win jobs, deal with clients, and get paid better and better rates on Upwork.

If that’s something you’re interested in, and you want to get notified when I finish up this book, you can sign up here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

How to properly toot your own horn on Upwork

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A while back, I was lurking in the CopyHour Facebook group when a post caught my eye.

By the way, CopyHour is a course offered by Derek Johansen.

It’s a structured take on Gary Halbert’s idea of neural imprinting — basically, copying out successful sales letters by hand each day.

Anyways, the post in the CopyHour group was by a guy going through the course, and trying to get started on Upwork as a sales copywriter.

He was asking for feedback on his profile overview statement. That’s the description about yourself you put on Upwork to tell potential clients about yourself. The trouble is, copywriters, especially new copywriters, mistake this for an opportunity to display their copywriting skills.

That’s exactly what this guy did.

He wrote a long, conversational post.

He tried to make the skeleton dance (“I’m new and inexperienced but that means I’ll work extra hard”).

And he even used a “secret” lead.

In my opinion, this is not the right way to toot your own horn as a sales copywriter on Upwork. So I responded to this guy with my thoughts, which might be relevant to you as well if you’re starting on Upwork:

1. Don’t be clever. There are good clients on Upwork but they are outnumbered by people who need miracles for under $50. To me it seems your description would appeal more to the second group than to the first.

2. Don’t apologize for starting out. The majority of people offering services on Upwork are incompetent to begin with — odds are, you’re already better. Instead, tell potential clients in detail what you will do for them, and give them reasons to believe you will deliver (beyond just trying hard).

You see, Upwork is basically a B2B platform.

People who are searching for freelancers on there already have a pretty good idea what they need. They just want to make sure you’re it. And that’s why fancy copywriting tricks that are designed to suck in prospects from cold traffic will only get in your way.

Instead, I think it’s much better to be direct with your Upwork self-description.

Yes, there are some tricks to making your description stand out, and making it more convincing. Though it’s more about putting on your marketing hat, rather than your copywriting hat.

Anyways, if you want to find out what these tricks are, and how I used them to write my own Upwork profile, you’ll be able to read about it in my upcoming book on the business of Upwork freelancing.

I’m planning to finish this book by the end of the month.

And if you want me to notify you when it’s out, simply sign up below:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Why you should disqualify your best prospects

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A true marketing tale:

Yesterday morning I got an email from a well-known copywriter.

It was a long content piece, talking about where the world of copywriting and direct response was going.

It was interesting, even inspiring.

At the end, the guy introduced his offer: mentoring for copywriters who want to take advantage of all these coming changes to become the top 1%. He wasn’t selling anything directly — rather just trying to get people to set up a kind of strategy call.

A good sales pitch.

And I was ready.

But I couldn’t really tell if it was right for me.

I still had questions, and even the free call seemed like too much commitment to make.

Now this email was probably over a thousand words long. But these doubts I had at the end could have been resolved with a few lines at most. Something like: “This offer isn’t right for you if x, y, or z.”

Would it have turned me off if I didn’t match these criteria?

Sure.

But I didn’t act anyhow.

There was still some hesitation and resistance, even though this expert copywriter did everything else right.

This hesitation can be overcome, by all things, when you state who your offer is not right for.

Don’t try to massage it either.

Be blunt and honest.

After all, why would you want people who are not qualified leads taking you up on your offer?

Just my attitude.

And it’s the same attitude I take when I talk to prospective copywriting clients.

It’s served me well so far. I’m not as far along as the A-list copywriter I’ve been writing about. But I am well-paid, and on Upwork, where I still get most of my clients, I’ve got a 100% rating.

Only taking on jobs where I know I can deliver is a big part of this. It’s another thing that disqualifying prospects helps with.

Anyways, if you want to know more of my Upwork strategy, and how I’ve managed to get to a $150/hr rate on the site that clients are happy to pay, then you’ll want to read my upcoming book on freelance copywriting on Upwork.

This book isn’t for you in case you’re looking to learn the craft of copywriting. It will only cover the business side, and only on Upwork.

If that’s something you want more info about, then sign up below, and I’ll notify you when the book is out:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/