UpWork -> Unlimited Freelance Work Via Cold E-Mail Freelance (5min Read)

How To Go From $2–4,000/month to literally having Unlimited Freelance Work

UpWork’s a cesspool. First, many clients there are bottom feeding, including myself, depending on the niche. Each job gets 20–50 applications from both beginners, shitty and senior/highly skilled freelancers. Simply put, it wasn’t generating the income I needed. Here’s the step-by-step process I used to switch to cold-email freelance.

Benefits of Cold-Email Freelancing

1. Don’t need to pay fees to platforms like Fiverr and UpWork.
2. You can directly reach out to the “top” and largest (and hopefuly most generous) clients/companies in your niche.

All right, here’s how it happened for me. I came across this approach by happenstance. One of my UpWork clients paired me with another freelancer and we communicated via UpWork messaging. I rejected that freelancer based on lack of skill. Then he got me another one. I liked that one, but she disappeared. I asked my client why he gets freelancers with 0 UpWork history. My client explained that, while he found me on UpWork, he is getting his other talent from a large company which I won’t mention.

I asked him for the company’s contact info. I messaged (cold e-mailed) them. I said we had a mutual client and asked them if they needed my help. They started giving me unlimited work. All right, cool. I live in a 3rd world country (Dominican Republic) so, while I work hard, I am so called “balling.”

I decided to scale. This is how I’m doing it, you can do it as well:

Step: Know your niche

Next Step: Become a “Top Rated Plus” Freelancer on UpWork. (If you use “Nightmare Mode” like tactics, as described in my medium blog, it should be easy.

Next Step: Google search “top 10 companies in [insert your niche here]”

Next Step: Go on UpWork. Put a job post up. “Lead Generation and Data Entry Expert To Find Me 500 companies in [insert your niche here]”

Next Step: You have the freelancer find you 500 companies like the one you are targeting. Name of company, name of contact person, e-mail, phone, linkedin, how to apply, etc. Make sure you have the freelancer demonstrate his/her understanding of the job by finding you two or three sample companies. Depending on your negotiating skills, you can get a great price. (I got $5 for 500 leads). I’m not worried about the quality of the leads (since I’m not using a mass e-mail program, so I’m not worried about bounce rate yet. We can increase the quality of the leads once you use a mass e-mailing program like lemlist.

Pro Tip: The Data Entry/Lead Generation field is too competitive. So, you can get a good price + quality. However, you must implicitly threaten your prospective hire by stating that “I will only leave a good review if I check 3 random leads and they are good.” This will prevent the freelancer from filling in a bunch of invalid records.

Next Step (Devs only): (If you’re not a Dev, contact me or build a WordPress Site): Go on Themeforest, buy a cool HTML template for your niche. Honestly, for most niches, all you need is a Contact CRUD form to permit clients to contact you, so you don’t have to bulk up your server and always worry about site-speed with wordpress sites. Follow the tutorial (Laravel CRUD Contact Form for beginners) and you’ll get a blazing fast site with a contact form that doesn’t require SMTP.

Outreach Time!

Remember, your resume + everything is a sales letter. The following cold format should generate some responses:

“Hi, I’m a Top Rated Plus Freelancer on UpWork. Some of my clients include [Great Company Names]. I am a [highlight skillsets]. You can easily verify [said skillsets] by having an expert of your choice to verify them in a video interview.

With that said, here’s my UpWork profile. [Provide Link]. If you’re interested in working together, please reach out. Thanks!”

Your First Cold E-Mail Clients!

I’ve e-mailed no more than five clients and three of them responded positively. We’ve escaped UpWork, so make sure to charge fair market rates. I’m already floored with work.

Slowing Down Your UpWork (To Make Time For Cold E-Mail Clients and Vice Versa)

If you’re a Top Rated UpWork freelancer, you may have existing clients/obligations and may be getting invited all the time. I have a simple solution for this. Finish up your existing obligations, as soon as possible, and substantially raise your hourly rate on UpWork. You can still get work on UpWork, but they have to pay more than what your cold e-mail clients are paying.

Scaling To An Agency

I haven’t scaled to an agency yet, because this niche is not the niche which I want to scale in. However, if I were to scale, I’d do the following:

1. Set up Hubstaff: HubSpot’s integrated CRM(Customer Relationship Management) platform contains the marketing, sales, service, operations, and website-building software you need to grow your business.
2. Set up Lemlist: Lemlist personalizes cold emails, automates follow-ups, and engages with leads across all channels. According to their website, lemlist is your sales automation and cold email software in one.

I have experience in both, as I have used these for a marketing client. I’d then simply hire some top freelancers from various freelance sites to help me with day-to-day operations (e.g. Freelancer.com, UpWork, PeoplePerHour, Fiverr).

Non-Cold-Email Lead Generation? (SEO and Ads?)

French toast that for now, as I’m floored with work. If I HAD to pick a method, I’d do this:

1. Google search “Top 5 Companies in [Your Niche]”
2. Run Google PPC (Pay Per Click) ads to searches for those companies + your niche. So when people search that company, they will see your site.

[Note: I haven’t done this yet].

This way, when people Google Search that company, they will see your ad.

You may be wondering, how you plan on beating those top 5 companies. Well, since you’re a world class Top Rated Plus UpWork battle hardened expert, supporting clients like those companies, you are more specialized in your niche and affordable.

Conclusion:

So, I’m finally at, from Freelance work only, a minimum of $7k+ hitting my bank every month (if I break my back, $10k+). While it may not be impressive for some senior entreprenuers here on Medium, for me making the jump to cold e-mail outreach brought a big improvement from when I first started freelancing.

Questions or comments? Leave comment below. Also, my telegram is @simpsdotbiz

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