When you’re passed the early phase, you’ll have more opportunities. Previously, the clients were filtering you. Now is the time you filter clients. Why? Because you have limited time and it’s important that you proceed with worthy clients. You want to work with clients where you’ve the opportunity to grow, earn and do important work.
Four Categories of Such Clients
Based on my experience, there are four different cases where
the clients invite you. In all of these cases, the client (or Upwork
specialist) has already seen your work history on your profile and he/she
thinks that you might be a fit for this job.
Category 1 Clients
- The
clients themselves will send you invitations to apply to their jobs. In
such cases, the first thing I always check is how much money has the
client spent? The second thing I check is the client’s rating. Both are
usually highly correlated. It’s rare to see a client who has spent so much
money yet has such a poor rating. For example, a client with $2M+ spending
will likely have a 4.9+ rating out of 5. Freelancer’s want to work with
great clients again and again, and they don’t want to burn the bridge by
giving a low rating to such clients. And, vice-versa is also true. Clients
with budgets and available work will want to work with the great
freelancers again and again. In such cases, client-freelancer
relationships go on for years.
If you’re the right person for that job, go ahead and send
a serious proposal.
Mistake I Made
Early when I received an invitation from a client. I thought
the client was inviting me. So, the client must have seen something special in
me. And, I sent a few lines of proposal which showed I was not serious.
Lesson I Learned
Even though the client himself/herself is inviting me,
he/she’s inviting 10 other competitive freelancers as well. And, the client has
seen something special in all ten of them. Yet, he’s going to hire only one.
So, it’s important to show seriousness in your proposal. The clients can always
feel when a proposal is serious enough and the freelancer is interested enough.
Category 2 Clients
2. In some cases, an Upwork specialist will contact
freelancers on client’s behalf. In these cases, clients are mostly worth it
even if they don’t have much spendings. The Upwork specialist is contacting
freelancers because clients are on some paid plan which means the client is
serious, he/she’s got the fundings and wants to get the work done. If the work
is of interest to you, you should definitely send the proposal
Category 3 Clients
3. In some rare cases, Upwork itself is the client. I mean
working with company Upwork whose CEO is Hayden Brown. I once had such an
interview several months ago (in my expansion phase) yet didn’t get the job.
The recruitment process had many phases.
Category 4 Clients
4. In some even rare cases, a big company wants to hire you as its own employee where the job likely will last for several years. I recently had an invitation to apply for such a client. But, I was not available to commit 40 hours per week for them.
Caveats
Why do the early phase freelancers never receive an invite
from a client let alone a worthy client? Because early phase freelancers are
too much risk for the client when he/she has fundings to hire a more
experienced freelancer. Note that, even when a client/specialist invites
you, sending the proposal does not guarantee that you’ve won
the job. Jobs like this will also have 10-15 proposals and all of those
proposals would be invited/competitive. Yet, if you do win such a job (which
eventually does happen), it’ll be worth it.