Speaker 1: Upwork isn't always sunshine and clear skies with money raining from the heavens. The truth is freelancing on Upwork is extremely hard and most people struggle to win jobs. I've personally made over $780,000 freelancing on Upwork and while on the surface that looks amazing, what you can't see underneath are all the failures, struggles, and sacrifices that I've gone through to get here. I thought a lot about this and I realized there are five things that I wish I knew before starting freelancing that would have helped me grow insanely faster. Starting with the number one, my self-worth. No matter what anyone tells you, Upwork is not a race to the bottom. In fact, whatever your current rate is, I encourage you to go ahead and raise it. You see, there's a misconception among new freelancers that the only way to win your first job is to bid the lowest rate. I promise you that every client on Upwork is not trying to take advantage of you and knowing your self-worth will prevent that from ever happening. I really wish I had known this when I first started freelancing on Upwork because my first job was $25 an hour and honestly, I should have started with a rate of $50 per hour for my skill set. Don't get taken advantage of and don't try to win jobs by offering the lowest rate. Believe in yourself, charge what you're worth, and prove it. The second thing I wish I knew about freelancing before starting is that great portfolios win jobs. So when I first created my Upwork profile, I basically copied and pasted everything from my resume and LinkedIn and while telling a client what you can do for them is important, showing them is way more important. For example, I've needed help with my YouTube thumbnails for a long time and I recently hired some freelancers to help me out. Can you guess where I found these freelancers? If your answer is Upwork or Fiverr, then you're wrong and that's because I actually found them both on Twitter. Okay, I know what you're thinking. Why in the world would this guy hire a freelancer on Twitter? I wanted to work with both of them because they both have amazing portfolios. I could see the results they've generated for other clients, which gave me the confidence I needed to hire them. This means that you need to put a lot of time into your portfolio on Upwork, making sure that you have at least three to five portfolio items. So if you want to impress clients and stand out among other freelancers, then you need to create a personal portfolio as well. Listen, it's no secret that I love Upwork and make the majority of my freelance income on their platform. However, you need another method of generating leads and a portfolio that you always have full control of. Now, there are two really simple ways that you can do this. First, you can set up a static portfolio webpage that showcases examples of your work. Or number two, which is my favorite, you can set up a simple two-page website, one to host your portfolio and the other page for a blog. This allows you to showcase examples of your work and create content around your skillset. And it only takes a few clicks to get a portfolio up and running on platforms like Hostinger, which actually has an amazing deal going on right now for premium shared hosting. After clicking on my link in the description, Hostinger.com forward slash JoshBurnsTech, you are brought to this webpage where you can get premium shared hosting and a free domain for just $2.99 per month. That's quite big. Impressive. Now to help you get an even better deal, if we select premium shared hosting and enter coupon code JoshBurnsTech, then you will get an additional discount. And it's also important to mention that you can select other durations like 12 months, which has a much lower cost of just $33.36. After you get signed up from here, you can start creating a WordPress portfolio with just a few clicks. Select claim domain, and I recommend using .com because it's the most used and recognizable. Then enter a domain name to check the availability. This one is available so we can click claim domain. And after entering contact details, we're good to go. Now we can easily start creating a portfolio website. Let's click on setup. Start now. I'm creating a website for myself. It will be a portfolio website, and I'm a beginner, but have some experience. Select WordPress for the platform. Click continue. Now we can choose a theme, which makes creating the portfolio very simple. I'm going to select the personal portfolio theme. Choose my domain, which we created earlier. Make sure you choose a server location that's close to you, and then click finish setup. And there we go. The portfolio site is live and ready to be customized. So don't procrastinate and get started today. If you want to stand out as a professional freelancer, click on my link down below in the description and use promo code joshburnstech to get a huge discount. The next thing I wish I knew about freelancing before starting is that you need to be ready for imposter syndrome. It really doesn't matter who you are because everyone experiences imposter syndrome at some point in their life. As a full time freelancer, I often have self-doubt that I'm not good enough, I've been lucky, everything I've built will come crashing down, and eventually I'll be right back in a nine to five job. It's actually so common among freelancers, and mine is often caused by overthinking. No matter how great of a job that I do on a project, I always think there's a chance I'll get a two-star review and it will kill my Upwork profile. It's that brief moment after typing your review for a client, hitting refresh, and waiting to see what review they left you. And don't even get me started on comparing yourself to other freelancers who have more earnings and five-star reviews than you have. I used to constantly compare myself to other freelancers and even YouTubers until I realized how bad it was for my mental health and all the negativity that it brought into my life. Don't compare your chapter one to someone else's chapter 20. If you're just starting on Upwork, then you should not be comparing yourself to freelancers who have been on the platform for years. You are good enough and you deserve to have success. The only person that you should be comparing yourself to is the person that looks back at you in the mirror. All you need to do is make sure that person gets at least 1% better every single day and be patient. I really wish that Upwork was some utopia where bad things never happened, but like every other freelance platform, that's simply not the case. Bad clients exist and I wish I understood the meaning of that before I started freelancing. If I did, then this right here would likely not be on my profile. So top rated freelancers on Upwork can request a feedback removal every three months. And thankfully, I've only had to use this feature one time for one very unfair and toxic client. I was hired by a manager at the company and was working directly on a project with another internal employee. This employee was very unresponsive, which consequently led to delays on my end. And the most unexpected and shocking thing happened. Without any communication, any previous notice, or anything, the manager closed my Upwork contract, left me a two-star review, and then sent me an email saying how disappointed he was. This was clearly the internal employee's fault, but I was never given a chance to explain that. I followed up on his email and never heard anything back. He completely ghosted me. After this experience, I became way more selective regarding who I work with. Now, I put a lot of time into researching the client and I always do an introduction call. However, please do not let this story scare you away. I've worked with over 100 clients on Upwork, made almost $800,000, and only had one bad experience. I just wish I knew how to filter out the bad clients before I started freelancing, but unfortunately, that knowledge comes from experience. And here comes the hard truth. Are you ready? Okay, here you go. Freelancing is not for everyone. You see, when most people talk about freelancing, they only mention the benefits, like working on your own schedule, making more money, and leaving the 9-to-5 grind. But the truth is, it takes a long time and tons of sacrifices to achieve those things. If you're someone who only wants to work eight hours, clock out, and do nothing work-related the rest of the evening and night, then freelancing is not for you. I worked around the clock for years before I had enough clients and the financial stability to become a full-time freelancer. It takes a lot of work, and even when you try to relax, you're always going to feel like you should be doing something productive because your income is tied directly to your productivity. I'm personally always thinking things like, what if next month is a slow month? What if I lose my largest Upwork client? What if I have to go back to the 9-to-5 corporate life? There are no guarantees in freelancing. You will get out of it what you're willing to consistently put in. You see, a lot of people are not willing to sacrifice things in the short term, and that's why they quit. So you really need to think about if freelancing is for you, because it's not easy. It's extremely hard, and it requires a lot from you. But even with all the struggles, I truly love what I do. Every single freelancer starts with zero dollars earned and zero reviews on Upwork. It's important to remember that one client can change your life, just one single Upwork client. You never know what client could turn into long-term repeat work, but that one client could change your life forever. Always remember that when you feel like giving up.