hi everybody in this video I'll explain
how I made my first freelancing income
using mostly the popular upwork platform
first I'll explain what did I do to get
started uh then I'll go through the
types of gigs I've had so far some of
which require close to zero experience
as well as the income I've earned over
the course of three months of doing
upwork gigs part-time lastly I'll share
my wisdom of these three months and tell
what would I do differently if I was to
start freelancing now so make sure you
watch the video Until the End to get my
tips to start earning more for yourself
the very first thing I did was to map my
skills so this will serve the purpose of
first of all figuring out what type of
gigs you could do as well as be a
stepping stone for you to start build
building your portfolio the idea is to
basically write down everything you've
ever done in school work in your
personal life and the skills that you
have Acquired and I would suggest you to
break down these skills so let's say you
you chose writing as a skill so what can
you write is it email templates
reports fiction social media content
copywriting what is it exactly break it
down and let's say you're a service
design for example so your toolbox
likely includes skills like survey and
interview design Workshop facilitation
uh use of collaborative online tools
maybe visualization tools prototyping
building user personas so break it down
list all of these next I would also list
down all the different tools and
software you've used so let's say you've
used the productivity or project
management tool so list down is notion
is it sauna if you build websites have
you used WordPress Squarespace if you
speak multiple languages I would also
list down all the languages that you
have learned and we will come back to
that how that might serve you in finding
gigs I would also write down things that
you're currently learning so let's say
you're taking an online course about how
to build websites with WordPress I might
start pretty quickly looking for
WordPress related gigs because that will
be an amazing opportunity for you to
apply what you've learned while earning
money at the same time so it's kind of
like paid coursework you can find you
know beginners level gig somebody might
need you to help them with posting
content on their blog on WordPress so
they would essentially have produced all
the content and all you would need to do
is just to copy paste the content on the
WordPress blog and make sure that the
formatting and everything is all right
I've seen a gig like this on upwork and
my last tip for skills mapping is that
even if you don't find a lot of demand
for your skill in upwork don't abandon
it for example I speak decent Chinese
but I don't feel comfortable teaching
Chinese in any higher than beginner's
level so there was not a lot in upwork
for my level of Chinese they mostly
needed somebody native and mostly
non-teaching gigs but what I did I took
the skill of mine built a profile on
another platform which was more teaching
focused and I started targeting students
from my own country Finland and
surprisingly it's a small country but I
managed to get regular clients regular
students through this app after that I
just built my profile I listed down
every possible thing I thought I could
do
and I started waiting so I had already
built the profile so the clients should
come right nope of wrong so only after I
started really sending out applications
myself uh did I start actually getting
my clients which takes us to the types
of gigs I have done in these past three
months first I would like to address the
opportunity that upwork provides for
somebody without much experience so I
listed down some of my thoughts of what
are the types of gigs that you could
start doing search your native language
or language that you speak really well
sometimes people need like audio samples
proofreading transcribing these types of
things that you could do another thing
you could do is to participate in
different user interviews so for example
somebody's trying to lay out a new app
and they need somebody to test how it
works and give feedback you could also
search the country or the city where you
live in because people sometimes need
somebody to go mystery shopping maybe or
take photos of certain locations hunt
for apartments plan for travel so since
you already know the city that might be
something easy for you to start with and
then there are some pretty easy jobs
such as data entry or data labeling
virtual assistants and different
writings such as copywriting tasks so
let me go through the first gigs that I
have started my freelancing journey with
as well as what I've earned from them
I've tried to estimate also the hourly
pay although all of my payments have
been Project based my very first gig was
a tiny finished transcription project it
was just a few phone calls that I needed
to listen and write them out and I
earned five dollars from that one I
would estimate that the hourly pay was
about 10 dollars the second gig I did
was creating a simple notion template as
well as a guide on how to use it so the
template was very simple but the guide
on how to use it required me to dive a
little bit deeper on the client's
business but I earned eighty dollars
from that one and I would say I spent
quite a bit of time with this one so the
hourly pay would maybe be like 15
dollars per hour I also did a few user
interviews on
um two different travel apps or Services
as well as for a new payment function in
an online store so basically the
developer just asked me a bunch of
questions while I was trying to use this
new feature so those earn me ten dollars
ten dollars and thirty five dollars and
all of them took approximately an hour
so I would say that the pay was about 10
to 30 five year dollars per hour not
Euros then I got my first long-term gig
so I was writing brand descriptions in
Finnish for a website and I earned all
together 410 dollars from this one and
I'd say the hourly rate was about
fifteen dollars I also just started a
sales Consulting gig and there is
potential for it to become a more
long-term project so this is mostly
um sending emails to potential leads
I've also gotten the experience of using
a CRM tool which is customer
relationship management tool so I've
added that to my CV
and the rate for this one is eighteen
dollars per hour and so far I've worked
approximately five hours per week so
that would mean about 90 dollars per
week or three hundred and eighty dollars
per month then there's another one in
fact uh just this day that I'm filming I
was approached by a potential client who
would need help in analyzing Market
survey data which I have experience of
so I would be creating reports and this
could also be a long-term gig so let's
see what comes out of that one so my
first freelancing income for three
months working part-time with these ones
is uh 550 dollars from upwork and after
their Hefty 20 fee that would be
440 and I mentioned that I started
teaching Chinese on another platform I'm
also teaching Finnish there so that has
also earned me 550 dollars in these
months
um I would say that I've earned maybe
only about ten dollars per hour from
there considering that in the beginning
I needed to give out free lessons and I
needed to prepare a lot of materials but
the hourly rate is slowly climbing up as
I'm getting more regular clients as well
as being able to reuse the materials
that I've created with these multiple
clients all in all I have made about one
thousand dollars from these freelancing
gigs with the average hourly pay of all
these games being maybe 16 17 dollars
per hour uh do I want to get that hourly
rate up absolutely yes so now let's look
at what I would do differently if I was
to start my freelance Journey now so the
first thing I would do differently now
is that after I've done my skills
mapping I would dive deep into some type
of market research within upwork and I
would start typing those keywords in
those skills of mine and see both what
types of gigs are being offered as well
as who are the Freelancers doing uh gigs
in these areas that you also have skills
in so this will help you both to
identify what is on demand from the
client side as well as what the best
performing Freelancers are writing in
their profile so the second thing is to
build a better profile so uh based on
what you see the best performing
freelancer is doing just you know don't
copy paste of course but take ideas and
also attach work examples upwork allows
you to do this create a folder on your
computer where you save these work
examples such as blogs you've written or
designs that you've created so this will
help you both in building your profile
and creating a better cover letter and
there are lots of more things you can do
to hone your profile really focusing on
your headline and the first two lines of
your profile description also in the
description focusing on your value
proposition what can you offer to the
client I think the channel freelance MVP
seems to have a lot of good tips for for
such things so I'll just link that
channel down below the third thing I
would do differently is to build some
type of template for my cover letters so
don't waste time like writing the same
thing all over again or doing a really
half-hearted job in writing your cover
letter you know when you're already
tired from the day I can't even count
the times I've done that you'll have the
folder with your work examples utilize
those ones also you know if you're
applying to a lot of writing gigs there
will be certain experience that you're
constantly referring into so just create
these default paragraphs that you're
going to attach to the relevant cover
letters what I would then do is to make
sure that I get good reviews so apart
from always doing your best work as well
as communicating proactively with your
clients make sure to ask them to finish
the contract when the work is done so
that you can both give each other
reviews I just asked a couple of old
clients to do this for me since the
contracts were just hanging there
although we finished the project and I
immediately got two replies back and two
new reviews on my profile and the last
thing I would maybe now start doing
differently is to start being a little
bit more picky with the types of jobs I
get so I think there is no point really
after you've done some work and gotten
some reviews to like undersell yourself
so I don't apply anymore to jobs that
simply don't pay enough it's not worth
of my time I would also only apply for
jobs with proper job description as well
as verified payment methods and good
reviews on the client side and although
I never really did any sketchy jobs I
would highly recommend not to take those
so I've seen requests to make these
scammy reviews for online casinos
claiming that you've won millions of
dollars I wouldn't do those personally I
would also not send my feed picks but if
that's your thing maybe you can do that
then I've also seen some job postings
that kind of scream you know the
exporting or importing illegal
substances like they seem really shady
so I definitely wouldn't go for those
ones that's all my tips from my short
freelancing Journey so far if you found
any value in this video please give it a
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watching and hope to see you soon bye