Upwork

Dog takes bus, Upwork success ensues

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A dog named Eclipse rides the bus by herself several times each week.

She even has her own bus pass.

Her owner is waiting for her at the dog park, and Eclipse takes the bus to meet him. It all happened by accident the first time — she got on first, the guy stayed behind — but now they’ve made a habit out of it.

The other passengers don’t seem to mind.

I guess it helps all this is happening in Seattle.

The liberal home of Amazon.

The platform on which I am planning on publishing my upcoming book on Upwork freelancing.

The book is titled:

“How to become a $150/hr, top-rated sales copywriter on Upwork”

And it’s going to share my experiences with the business (rather than the craft) of sales copywriting for clients on Upwork.

If you want to get notified when this book comes out, you can sign up at the link below.

And when I finish up the book, I’ll write an email, put it on the bus with its own bus pass, and send it your way. To sign up:

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

Freelancing incels on Upwork

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Around April of this year, a polarizing new term entered everyday language.

The word is “incel,” short for involuntary celibate.

This is typically a man, one who meets three criteria:

First, he’s not getting laid, and he can’t see a way to get women into his life.

Second, he’s suffering for it.

Third (and possibly most important), he wants to feel like a victim.

These incel guys have had a lot of hate piled onto them once their secret Internet lairs became exposed. I’m not sure that’s wise or fair, considering that A) these guys are suffering and B) many other people in our society like to feel like victims.

Consider for example, a post I saw in a copywriting group on Facebook a few days ago. The text read,

“Well, then. Serves me right for trying Upwork again.”

… and below this was a screenshot of a message that this freelancer got from a potential Upwork client. The client was trying to clarify what the freelancer’s rates were: 0.15 cents per word (which seemed too low), or 15 cents per word (which the potential client said was way out of their budget).

Now, I’m not here to discuss these rates, but rather the attitude. You see, this post and the thread that followed seemed to be made up of unsuccessful freelancers wringing their hands and shaking their heads about how Upwork clients are terrible and how they don’t offer fair wages for fair work.

To me, this sounds a lot like those other incels. Their problems are different, but the victim mentality is the same.

The fact is, there are good clients on Upwork. I know, because I work with them, month after month, year after year. And yes, I know they are far outnumbered by people who cannot or will not pay you what you want. That doesn’t mean you cannot make Upwork work.

But the thing is, nobody owes you anything.

And so, rather than going on Facebook and complaining about how you can’t find good clients on Upwork (or going on Reddit and complaining about how you can’t get a girlfriend), I think it’s much better to take the attitude that this situation is your own fault and your own responsibility to improve.

So how to improve it?

As I mentioned a while back, I was interviewed about how I managed to become successful on Upwork. I’ve had that interview transcribed, and I’m going to expand it a bit and make it into a little Kindle ebook. For now though, if you want to read the raw transcript itself and see how to become a top-rated, well-paid copywriter on Upwork, write me an email, and I’ll send you a copy. Here’s how to get in touch:

https://bejakovic.com/contact/

How to succeed as a copywriter on Upwork

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A guy named Nick Tubis interviewed me tonight for a product he’s making.

He actually hired me on the online freelance platform Upwork, to talk about how I became successful as a copywriter, on Upwork.

So Nick and I talked for an hour, and I gave him the full story of my Upwork experience so far.

In the end, he asked me, “Do you have one hack you would recommend to anyone getting started?”

I told him the truth:

Anybody can compete for any copywriting job on Upwork.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how much copywriting experience you have.

How much Upwork history you have.

What your background is.

All you do need are a few pieces of relevant previous work.

In fact, even one piece of relevant sample work can set you above the rest of the hungry crowd of freelancers crawling over each other to get a job.

Don’t believe me?

Let’s say a client just posted a job ad titled “Looking for 10-part email sequence to promote new supplement.”

My “application” for a job like this would simply be:

“I specialize in email marketing and I’ve written a lot about supplements.
Here are a few relevant samples:
sample1
sample2
sample3
Take a look, and if you like what you see, let’s talk in more detail.”

I regularly get 4-figure copywriting projects — and I even got Nick to pay me for talking about my Upwork expertise. And the stupid-simple template above is the only way I ever apply for a job.

“That’s great for you, John,” you might say. “But where am I supposed to get those relevant samples? Nobody’s hired me, so I can’t build a portfolio, and therefore nobody will hire me!”

Easy, friend.

You don’t need any previous paying clients to build a small but highly targeted portfolio.

Simply find a job you would like to get.

Then write a sample that’s very close to what they are looking for.

For example, in the hypothetical job I invented above, you would just write one email  promoting a supplement.

Slap this into your application, send it over to the client, and you’re off to the races.

Will it work every time? No. But if you do this every day, I would expect you would have a paying client by the end of the week.

By the way, even though I’ve had a lot of success on Upwork, I’m actively looking to move off the platform for various reasons.

That’s why, if you are interested in hiring me to do your copy, don’t  go to Upwork. Instead, get in touch with me here.