Best Options for Landing Freelance Work?

[Island]

My cashflow is pretty tight right now to the point where either I invest into my lead gen websites, or I take money out to sustain myself. The more money I take out, the less I can invest. I have some clients through my business, but I need to make some extra cash at a reasonable hourly rate so I can put more money back into the business.

I had an Elance profile but ever since they merged with Freelancer and created Upwork, my profile's old ratings are completely gone. So I'd have to start from scratch. Last thing I want to do spend a couple of weeks working shitty gigs to get my rating up.

Here are the options I see-

1) Go through Upwork and find some freelance work, the only issue being I have 0 ratings, and freelance websites are a massive pain in the ass.

2) Get a real job, although I don't want a full time job. I have enough experience to land a decent full time digital marketing job but have no desire to because It'll leave very little room for me to work on my own projects, not to mention the existing clients I have.

3) Cold pitch businesses and clients, offer them a free consultation, and then parlay that into clients to improve cashflow. I don't know how effective this would be though, my experiences with cold calling have been pretty mediocre.

Option 1 seems most likely to get me some extra income within the first week, while option 3 seems like the most work and will take longer, but will have the highest reward.

Option 2 seems solid, I just don't want to get a full time job. That on top of my existing client work and my own projects would be brutal.

Also, I want to build a personal brand and have a website for that with lots of content, but that's something that takes longer.

I need to decide on a course of action, I have the skillsets but I have done absolutely zero personal branding. And my sales skills are not that great. Maybe getting a full time job may be the best option because It would allow me to reinvest heavily into the lead gen websites.

 

[Murk]

Fix you Upwork

• Reach out to ppl you know online
• Have them create or use their Upwork account to hire you for "gigs".
• They rate you, you pay them back through PayPal
• Consider Upworks cut as advertising costs.
• Rinse , Repeat
• Do it on other freelance sites

Meanwhile..

Build Your Brand

• Create you Personal branded Site
• Use SEO/CPC to Target your local market
• Use your Upwork Profile/reviews as proof work
• Expand your site with case studies based on clients, from site, Upwork and your imagination

Bonus Tips:

UpWork/Freelance sites - Don't go home and create multiple Upwork account to hire and rate your self, you will lose your account. Reach out to friends in diff states if possible. Have them hire and rate you.

Your brand - Same deal, build out sites, buy sites or say you built/ranked/designed other sites. Use them as proof of product/portfolio/masturbation material

 

[Island]

Just landed my first Upwork gig, ends up being around 35$ USD/hour after the 20% cut they take. (fucking bullshit)

I'm going to focus on building up my personal brand as well, and start creating blog content for my own website.

I like to think of a strong personal brand (website, upwork profile with reviews, etc.) as a good backup source of income when you're tight on cashflow. That way at least I don't have to get a 9-5 Job.

 

[Stephen]

To me, all my freelancing work has come from my own network and recommendations. This should be a no brainer for most people unless you are nube straight out of high school, and even then there must be family and friends you can tap up!

 

[Kevin]

Pitch people and ask friends is the fastest way for sure.

 

[Dani]

A thing which generated me 2 more clients this week is recommendations from former clients. I'd hit your clients up and simply ask for recommendations after you checked if they're still happy with your work. Offer an incentive if you don't have the "youngster who is just starting out and needs support"-bonus.

I'd stay away from upwork because $35/h is really shitty for high quality freelance work. Except you're doing it the NeverFrugal way.

(...) I then set-up a profile on a freelance site and saw a guy looking to outsource the redesign of his agency's site. This is where most peasants would submit a proposal competing with all the other bottom-feeding jokers. He also listed his budget as under $800. So I did some research and found his direct landline. Gave him a call and closed him over the phone for $1200, 50% upfront. Using the same method I outlined in the post mentioned above - each client is worth X, 3 clients extra from the design equals 3X, 3x minus 20% = our fee. No brainer.

We've actually delivered and signed off on all the sites except the agency site who needed 2 rounds of tweaks rather than the usual one round. Between my VA and myself we'll spend around 10 hours on the site, so not a bad hourly rate all things considered. He mentioned on-going work but I've been in this game long enough to be deaf to those promises. I've thrown his email on a mailing list for occasional promotions once every month or so to keep our name in his head, so we'll see.

Generally, I shoot for $100/hour bare minimum and add 20% if it's a dubious project that I'm not sure how to do. I say yes to absolutely everything, no exceptions. If I don't know how to do something I'll say "we can definitely do that, but I'm not sure what the current best practices are off the top of my head since we haven't done it in a while. Let me discuss that with my team and come back to you". Then I research what it'll take and make up a price. (...)

Posted this way because the website is dead​