Upwork Masterclass - Jasmin Alić and Anthony Muhye RECAP 🔥

Today is Wednesday and a special one - the special edition Upwork Masterclass Recap joins your usual Freelance Income Accelerator newsletter.

That means you get 10X the value today! Just imagine.

In this issue, I will go over every single question, answer, and value bomb shared by either Jasmin Alić or myself during Friday’s Upwork Masterclass.❤️‍🔥​

I’m doing this based on (my good) memory, so if I miss something, let me know on LinkedIn. I probably won’t send out a new “amendment” newsletter or something, but I will add it to future newsletters.

In this issue, you will learn:

• Everything Jasmin said during his part of the Upwork Masterclass.

• Everything I said during my part of the Upwork Masterclass

• Every question, every answer asked and responded to during the Upwork Masterclass.

• and finally, a Loom video at the end to sum it all up.

Total Reading Time: 18 minutes. Yes, it’s LONG. What did you expect?

Are you ready? The only valid answer is YES. Let’s dive in!

On Friday, September 15, Jasmin Alić and I broke LinkedIn.

Wait, not literally or anything, but we hosted an Upwork Masterclass event that had 2,445 attendees in total.

According to Jasmin, that was a LinkedIn record.

But some people didn’t join. They were either:

• Too busy with real-life or online responsibilities

• Forgot to set an alarm or simply missed it/arrived late

• Haters of progress and probably don’t like Jasmin and/or me (weirdos)

So on Saturday, I realized the number of people who missed it was unacceptably HIGH. Something had to be done.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what came from it. The Upwork Masterclass Recap. So, without further ado… let’s begin, because it’s already LONG.

DISCLAIMER: This is a summary, not a word-for-word transcript.

The first value bombs came from Jasmin, who I introduced as people poured in.

Me: “Dude, I want to know more about you working with Fortune 500s and how you landed Expert-Vetted status. Tell us.”

Jasmin:  “My Upwork journey involved a stroke of luck. That might sound crazy, but it really was. I got my first project by working for a really low price, writing testimonials. They weren’t all authentic. But it helped me get better at writing.

Slowly I became a better copywriter. And from copywriting, I shifted to brand strategy. It was where there was more money. Not just writing taglines, posts or emails, but actually helping people on a bigger scale.”

“You see, clients don’t always realize what they need or want. They can ask you for something, but you can offer more, more significant services and keep them around for a long time. And that's how I arrived at Digicel sending an invitation out of the blue.”

Me: “Digicel as in the Digicel?”

Jasmin: “Yes, the biggest communications company in the Caribbean and operating in over 100 countries. The first time they reached out, out of nowhere, they wanted me to help them do their entire rebranding. I declined the job - I had no idea how to do that."

“But a few weeks later, I had built a relationship with the chief officer and he reached out again. He wanted me to help with some marketing copy. So I did. And that’s when a 4-year relationship began.”

“You see, it’s not about just delivering the initial work. There will always be more work, and this is where your focus should be. By showing interest in follow-up work such as going from their initial billboard copy to the landing page copy that showed up after people scanned the billboard’s QR code, I had more to offer. They realized I was more than just a short-term freelancer.”

“We started working in 2019, and I still get work from them.”

Me: “This is amazing. While listening to you, three big values come to mind as a high-spending client:

1. Responsibility and professionalism. You’re serious and professional enough to decline a job, no matter who it’s from. An Enterprise client sends a rebranding offer? Sure, you could have accepted. But you didn’t. This immediately elevated you beyond so many other candidates who were perhaps desperate for the job. They now knew what you were made of: you aren’t willing to compromise.

2. Enthusiasm, interest. You declined one job but kept in touch with the hiring manager as a way of saying “I’m not going anywhere, I want to work with you.” It was a masterstroke and it opened the doors for you in the end.

3. Confidence and giving MORE. You were not just a service provider like so many others. You showed them that you wanted to be integrated into their entire process. You were not “another freelancer”. You were a Digicel team member. And that’s what put you above anyone else, and why they’ve kept you for four years.

It’s simple. Relationships are everything. You built a relationship with them from Day 1 and they appreciated that. It’s what you do on LinkedIn, too.”

Jasmin: “Absolutely, I agree 100% with what you’re saying. And that’s what freelancers must be able to do. There is always work that the client will need and you can cover. Build rapport with your client and rise within their team.”

“Long-term work is everything. I have never chased clients ever again, and I charge the rates I want to charge. It has given me freedom.”

Anthony: “Bro, you couldn’t be more right. My saying has always been: Don’t get MORE clients than pay LESS; get FEWER clients that pay MORE. This is how wealth is built.”

Jasmin: “That is so true. And I want freelancers to know a tip. It’s super unorthodox and even coaches are shocked when I tell them this. Heck, I was training a team at a company and told them this. They thought I was crazy. Following week, they were like ‘Wow, this WORKS, Jasmin.’

I’m talking about going for $0 spent clients on Upwork. Clients who haven’t spent a single dollar on the platform. Everyone out there, everybody from YouTubers to coaches, course creators to bloggers, are telling people to avoid these clients.

So everybody is doing the same thing. But these clients - well, unless they’re writing like one line in their job post - are actually just normal clients who haven’t hired yet. That’s the only difference.

But by becoming their first freelancer, they will associate Upwork with you, and they’ll come back to hire you. So… take that risk. It will almost always be worth it.”

But before that, I need your help. One last time.

I have joined forces with one of LinkedIn’s biggest business advisors to build a tool that will help freelancers automate their most annoying tasks and be able to focus on landing and completing high-ticket projects.

For this, we are doing market research with top freelancers, like you.

I need you to give me 5-6 minutes of your time and answer the following survey.

All freelancers who answer will be considered for our alpha and beta testing.

Find the survey here: SUPER SURVEY!

The value-packed Q&A session - this is where the magic began

Questions came in a flurry. So many hands were raised. I will go through them as concisely as possible in a kind of messy order:

• “I’m great at getting my proposals seen and responded to, but how do I negotiate? I feel I’m so bad at it.

Jasmin: I don’t want to be rude, but… shut up. Say nothing. Don’t give a price or a rate. The first to give a price LOSES the negotiation. Don’t degrade your work by putting a price on it. Instead, think of how much value the client has on what you’re doing for them, and let them reach a number.

• “What do I do when clients who invite me are unresponsive?”

Jasmin: Send more than just one message. Follow-up messages, that is. Not all clients are planning to hire. Some are just testing the waters. I send three messages to clients who reach out: one message after getting an invite, then one week to remind them I’m interested. Then one more after a few weeks, to say “Hey, I'm interested in this job but it seems that you’re not ready. It’s okay. We can talk in the future.” And I close it with that. So, so many of them end up coming back thanks to this because nobody else does this.

Anthony: That is fantastic, Jasmin. And I also must add - don’t allow the client full control of the conversation. Make sure that your messages force answers, via questions that show your interest and make them engage.

• “How can a new freelancer make money on Upwork with all that is going on there with boosts, expensive connects, and more?”

Anthony: I’ll tell you a story: my first job on Upwork was ghostwriting Minecraft books for kids. I didn’t discover it by accident - instead, I actively targeted rare jobs on Upwork when I joined. It took me a week to land my first contract and I was getting paid $50 per 7,500-word book. It was peanuts.

But this was like a snowball rolling down a hill - I didn’t just end up writing a ton of more books for small and then bigger publishers in Minecraft; I then actually ended up working with MICROSOFT itself to write upcoming Minecraft content in 2022 and 2023! Massive, my first Enterprise Fortune 500 client.

And I think this is where the value lies. Freelancers need to stop competing with 49 others who probably have more experience than they do. As clients, we don’t go through most proposals and usually ignore $0 earned freelancers.

But if our job is up there for a while with <10 proposals and we get a really good one, we’ll definitely check it out because we need to hire. As a freelancer, you need to target rarer jobs and niches, and please try to niche down enough to stand out to your target audience.

And as for boosts, my friend, boosts do nothing against you if your proposal is MUCH better than the booster’s.

• “How can I build a relationship with a client, what does it imply?”

Anthony: Remember: clients aren’t robots. There’s this stupid belief that clients can only be talked with about work. “Here’s the work.” “Pay me.” “Thanks for paying”. That won’t build you anything, let alone a relationship.

Did they mention a difficult real-life situation? Follow up on it. Ask if they’re doing okay.

Maybe you had a great vacation? Share it with them, and ask them if they’ve gone there too.

Are they expanding their business somehow? Ask them about their product, service and/or market and study how you can help them attain their goals.

It’s not all about being a freelancer and a client, but two human beings interacting with each other. My favorite freelancers actually TALK to me and I respond with more work.

• “What if my profile gets views but my proposals aren’t getting me hires, how can I manage?”

Anthony: See, this might be a mindset problem. Proposals aren’t job applications like you send on LinkedIn or elsewhere.

Seal this in your brain:

A proposal is nothing more than a REPLY to a client’s job post. You must take the job post and REVERSE ENGINEER it as a response.

And I’m not talking about just copy-pasting what they said. I hate when freelancers do that. I’m talking about analyzing and addressing what the job post says, line by line.

…even stuff that ISN’T written there. Go through their work history, look them up on Google. Don’t be lazy. Go all the way and we WILL hire you.

• Two questions in one: “I have a review with really low feedback, how do I manage?” and “I had to take a break and have 30% Job Success, can I quit and start over or should I just grin and bear it?”

Anthony: First of all, your proposal is where you talk to the client. It is the place where you can tell them ANYTHING, not just “I can do this job.” Start with a hook, like you would on LinkedIn, telling them what you need to.

A story: a past freelancer of mine started his with “You will notice I have a low JSS%. I had an accident last year.” With those two lines alone, he hooked me.

He went on to tell me he was in a car accident that almost cost him his life, and while recovering, he lost all of his contracts and dropped to 67%. It really hit him hard.

I ended up hiring him. And it wasn’t a $5 job either. It was a $2,000 project of my own.

But if your JSS is at 30%… I’d say consider deleting and starting over. It’s easy to lose JSS… but super hard to recover it.

UPDATE: After the Masterclass, someone who was an Upwork Community Manager reached out to tell me this is against TOS. Do this at your own risk, but it’s better than nothing, honestly. What’s a suspension if you’re not going to get work at 30% anyway?

• “Upwork is great, but can I get work on LinkedIn the same way?”

Anthony: You can, and LinkedIn is actually better for getting work these days than Upwork… because LinkedIn allows you to build relationships (and didn’t I tell you that relationships are EVERYTHING?).

Warm leads will always be stronger than cold leads. And with the power of honest, transparent engagement, like the kind that allowed me, a relatively small creator, to land a live event with LinkedIn’s #1… you can accomplish ANYTHING.

That’s it, guys. That’s all I remember. Hope you enjoyed. Now scroll down and watch the video I prepared for you.

Today’s Loom video is one big 5-minute summary about what was learned during the Masterclass. I created it to make it even MORE digestible. I hope you like it!

Subscribe | The Freelance Income Accelerator - 20 September 2023 - Watch Video

FIND THE VIDEO HERE.

Did you enjoy the video? Do you want to say thank you? Feel free to do it on my latest post on LinkedIn: Https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7109885311832211456/

WOW, that was exhausting. That’s all for today, don’t forget to rate the newsletter and to send me a thank you somewhere, maybe?

See you next Wednesday, and if you don’t follow me yet, find me on LinkedIn!