10 Tips To Start Freelancing On Freelancer.com

• Discover the story of a million-dollar freelancer and learn how you can succeed too.
• Free and relevant information shared without paid courses or groups.
• Weekly valuable content on freelancing tips and strategies.
• Insights on profile creation, bidding, communication, and building your portfolio.
• A roadmap for new freelancers with essential tools and resources to thrive.

Why are you here? Perhaps because you want to start freelancing but do not know where? Or maybe because you know you can do better. If any of that applies to you, it's time that you discover my million-dollar success story because I'm planning to reveal it all. I do not have any courses, I do not have any discord groups, just free and relevant information. And my promise to you is to make my free content better than any of the paid content you can find anywhere else.

Hey guys, I'm Matt and I'm about to close a single $500,000 project on freelancer.com. But just three or four years ago, my maximum deal size was a hundred dollars. In those three or four years, I managed to get from zero to being number one on freelancer.com among millions of other users. At the same time, I watched countless freelancing courses and channels, and some of the things that I'm going to show you have never been shown before because it's free.

For me to keep making this content, make sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell so that you can always stay up to date. This content will be coming out on a weekly basis. I'm going to unpack a lot of things here, so make sure to go over everything at least a couple of times so that it all syncs in. The value will gradually increase with every new tip. So be patient with me because the first tip might be a little bit boring, but everything after that will be super exciting and super relevant for you.

Here are the things that we are going to cover:

• Freelancing Journey
• Profile Prodigy
• Portfolio Possibilities
• Rate Wizard
• The Big Champions Formula
• Five Minutes to Close
• The Royal Introduction
• Quotation Book
• Communication with Clients
• Preferred and Verified
• Why and How Reviews

If you are new to freelancing, my absolute recommendation would be edx.org. It's a free site that collects relevant courses from some of the top schools in the world like Harvard and MIT. If you already have a skill, let's start with the one that you know about, but it still needs to be covered.

When I started, I was working 16 hours per day and for me, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme but an exciting and life-changing journey. However, I made countless mistakes and I will show you how to automate and reuse the work and what you can do to skip the hard part. First of all, you need to create a profile, right? Because most of my audience knows how to do so or has already done it. I'm not going to go into that. I'm here to give you motivation.

I'm a hard worker and by following this channel, you have more than enough to be at least as successful as me. I will be your accountability partner and you can always shoot me a message when you get stuck. We are here to do it together, so let's do it.

Regarding profiles, I know what works because I heard it directly from a member of the freelancer.com team and today I have this unique opportunity to share with you. They told me that based on their data, a profile photo should be a clear headshot on a white background and this makes sense when you think about it, right? Employers would rather connect with a person than with a logo or a company. For this, use a tool like removal BG and then if you feel experimental, go to Canva and choose a different background. I still prefer to stick to white, but that might change soon.

Regarding taglines and descriptions, in the era of AI, it wouldn't make sense to only rely on our knowledge, right? If I were you, I would go into Chat GPT and ask it to write brilliant and custom taglines for myself. And here is how you do it:

We are a software on demand company, the number one ranked team on Freelancer.com, and some of our clients are Retit, Aura, Sky News, Airbus Freelancer, and many others. We like to keep our communication professional but casual. Write a 60-character long tagline and a 500-character long description and make it unique. Most importantly, be as specific as possible. You do not want to rely only on AI but tweak it and make it truly yours.

I'm going to talk about the portfolio section next, which is a make-or-break part of your profile. Have lots of examples and most importantly make it visual. If you are in a niche that is hard to visualize, make sure to have either before or after pictures or some results that can prove it. These can be divided into two: you either have previous work or you don't. In case that you do, there are two things I would recommend.

Number one: ask industry experts for feedback because there is always room for improvement, and number two: make sure to use a portfolio template generator so that you can produce a unique-looking style. On the other hand, if you do not have a portfolio, there are great sites online like Sharpen the Design where you can go and get a list of project tasks and build one.

You cannot fake a portfolio, but it will provide you with a list of project ideas to sharpen your skills as the name says. And importantly, make sure, like the first group, to volunteer with different brands and collect relevant experience.

I will be honest with you on this one and let you know that there isn't a specific answer. It can vary greatly by your geographic location, skills, what clients are willing to pay for, and numerous other things. However, there are great tools online like Rule IO and their Freelancer Rate Calculator tool and the Freelancer Rate Calculator sheet, so make sure to use one of them.

These tools count in your living expenses, taxes, working days, and many other small factors when putting together a final rate. Please note that these rates are only suggestions and it's mandatory that you do them correctly as otherwise they will provide you with a wrong estimate.

As I have a large team now, it's a bit different for me, but I still use the principle of price cards. Bidding is the way to get projects in the beginning. Customer inquiries are rare, so make sure that your bids are fast but custom to the client. And how do you do that? Always be among the first 10 freelancers to put in your bid, but make sure to not autobid because your bids will eventually get reported and banned.

And here is how to automate it and still be safe. Make sure to have pre-made templates for every single service you provide and just change the introduction. Affirm to the client that you understood the assignment and connect it to one of the previous examples that are the most similar to what the client is after. To have your templates ready, use Clipy or any other clipboard manager app. It is an absolute lifesaver.

Also, here is how you can use ChatGPT to your advantage. Let's say that the client is looking for an animator that can provide them with a style of breadbir. Add info to the tool and ask it to analyze the style and provide a reply which covers a few lines on what it knows about that style and how you can help them do it in a similar way. In the meantime, always monitor the bidding inside section on Freelancer and make sure to add those bids into ChatGPT and then ask it to analyze it and let you know what works and what doesn't work, and then you can simply redo it based on that feedback.

In the following video, I will break down my bidding formula that helps me win five times more projects than all of the best freelancers on the site, so make sure to stay until the end. This one is a bit of magic which I've been saving for later. Sorry about that.

I've closed numerous large-sized clients in as little as five or ten minutes and it comes down to a three-step process. Again, you can use AI to write it for you. Usually, I write:

“Hello, my name is Matt and I was referred to you by Joe, who is a recruiter at Freelancer.com. How are you doing today?” If you are just a regular client, it looks pretty much the same: just appreciation plus introduction plus inquiry.

Here is how it usually looks: “Hey, thanks for reaching out. My name is Matt and we are happy to have the opportunity to chat with you about the project. That being said, could you share some more information about yourself, the project, and anything else that you might find helpful?”

Next is the Genuine Interest plus an occasional joke. I cannot explain how important it is to not only show genuine interest but actually be interested in the client and their project. Spend a couple of minutes asking relevant questions, and if you’re a humorous type of person, even crack a joke or two. It will make them relaxed and get a bit of trust in you.

And the last one: I always, always, always ask clients for a deadline and a budget, and here is how I explain why I need it.

Number one, I want to understand what is the level of quality they are after.

Number two, I want to understand the creativity and urgency they want to achieve.

Number three, I want to be able to plan our resources, and that's how I explain it to them. Remember, in sales, whoever speaks first loses. And you didn’t hear this from me, but in case they speak first, there is always a bit of room for improvement, right?

Clients always want to see a structured and detailed offering. Because we are an agency now, I usually send custom quotes which require very detailed breakdowns. But do not worry because Freelancer.com has got you covered here. Their Quote system is easy to use and gives you the option to give an accurate description of your project and set out deliverables in the List items section.

This is great for clients, especially when they have a document to share with the rest of the decision-makers in their team. If it's great for the client, it's great for you as well. Another excellent element of the Quote system is the valid until section. This will give your clients a sense of urgency, especially if you give them a discount.

Remember, the faster you close, the better you are. This one deserves a video on its own, but I will give you a couple of major points if you are planning to build a successful freelancing career. It comes down to honesty, dedication, and quality.

Honesty: Rather underpromise and overdeliver than the other way around. If you get to a roadblock, make sure to communicate it with the client because it will be so much easier to sort it out together.

Dedication: Always, but especially when starting out, dedicate one thousand percent of your being and existence to the project. I know it's hard, but it will result in so much additional work that it's going to be well worth it.

Quality: This one speaks for itself. Always ask for feedback, provide the best work you can, and make sure to make the client happy. It is your moral obligation to give it.

The short answer: Getting into the preferred program is the biggest game changer on the platform. While getting verified is more or less just a necessary step in the right direction, getting verified will give you higher credibility amongst clients and give you the ability to bid on better-paying projects.

At the same time, getting into the preferred program has certain prerequisites that you can check on the link below, but you need to collect about 10 reviews which need to be excellent, and you are on your way to becoming a preferred freelancer.

And why is it a game changer? Because now you will get the recruiters to do the work for you. Instead of browsing through numerous projects, you will have recruiters that will send you messages when there is a project that matches your skills. How cool is that?

And number two, it gives you premium credibility and access to the big bucks. From the moment I got my preferred freelancer status, the majority of my clients are from the preferred program. For me, that’s the big boys' league in freelancing.

I've always said that the review is key. It's the number one thing clients are looking at when selecting a freelancer to work on their project. And nobody can just buy a five-star review. You need to earn it.

When you are starting out, take projects that you can actually overdeliver and make sure to have great and timely communication with your client. To earn a five-star review, make sure to put everything on paper, either a contract or a written paper—Google Docs, it doesn't matter—so that both you and the client can sign it off and that you both know what will be worked on.

As I said earlier, it's always better to underpromise and overdeliver. Trust me, guys. But it doesn't end here. In the next video, I'm breaking down my custom bidding formula so that you know exactly what I do and what tools I use to make it a seamless process.

It is yours; you just need to click here. Let me know down in the comments what you think about this and make sure to subscribe to get a lot more of these. See you in the next one.