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How To Be Successful In Upwork

If you happen to have come across my personal story article. Then you would know that I have been working in Upwork for over 9 years.

And I got thousands of hours logged and counting.

Upwork Homepage

You could say that I have been highly successful in my line of work.

I am going to share to you some tips and discipline I apply in order to be successful in Upwork.

Here are some tips on how to be successful in Upwork.

1. Work On Your Profile

This is the very first thing you should do after you signed up in Upwork. Complete your profile, verify your account, add a picture, include your work history, add a portfolio and in the overview section highlight all the skills you have.

Now you will not be able to do all this in one sitting but every time you remembered something useful for you to include. Immediately go back to your profile and add it. If you are away from your computer, add a note in your phone so you can do it easily later.

2. Choose Jobs You Want To Apply To Wisely

Never ever submit an application aimlessly. Aside from reading the title, you should also carefully read the body of the job opening.

First reason is because in the body of the job opening some employers will ask you to include a secret word or secret phrase which you should include in your application.

Second reason is some employers has a preferred region for the applicant to come from. For instance if you are in Asia then you should not apply for a job which has a preferred applicant set to Europe.

Third reason is the Connects limit. Basically every time you apply for a job you use a Connect, if your account is a Freelancer Basic, you only get 60 free Connects per month.

After you zero out your available Connects you will have to wait for your current billing cycle to finish in order to receive your new 60 Connects.

You can check your billing cycle by going to Settings > Membership & Connect under the Current Billing Cycle.

Fourth reason is you may not be fully qualified for it. For sure you read the title, you know the job and it looks like you are qualified. But when you read the body you will sometimes see that the employer requires the applicant to have used a specific platform to do the job. Instead of the one you are used to.

3. Choose Your Employer Wisely

Yes this is very sad but very true. There are employers out there who do not know how to treat their employees correctly and with mutual respect. This happens in the real world as well as in the online world.

So before applying, always look at the employer’s rating history, a one to three 1 star rating would be fine but three upwards is a warning sign for what kind of employer he is.

I checked this all the time whenever I get a invitation for job interview. I browse the employers history and sometimes I would see multiple 1 star rating saying the employer didn’t pay them or the employer just never reply to them anymore. This is a big turn off for me.

Always do this especially if you are applying for a fixed price job. I mentioned this in my personal story where I worked for a fixed price job. And my employer keeps adding stuff for me to do. Which we did not discussed when we entered the contract agreement.

4. Keep Communication With Your Client Flowing

Once you get accepted to a job it is an absolute must that you keep your communication with your client open at all times. Be it Email, WhatsApp, Skype, Project Management Software etc.

In my case my clients prefer that we go to a Skype meeting before I start working and right after so I can report what I had done for the day.

5. Always Have 2 Jobs At The Same Time

This is merely a suggestion, if you can do it I would always suggest having 2 jobs at the same time. I came up with this because I can’t count how many times I saw people around me panicked whenever they lose their one and only job.

My setup is one part-time and one full-time. Then I accept small hour jobs on weekends.

I also do Forex Trading and have my MT4 platform open at all times so when I see a high probability trade I just order a trade and let it run its course in the background.

6. Never Be Afraid To Walk Away

This is something that should not be done in haste. This should only be a result of the negotiation process failing to accommodate your needs.

In the instance that you find yourself undervalued, or your employer is not treating you with mutual respect. Or you think you are getting underpaid as your skill set has already matured but you are still stuck on your old rate. Then I would suggest that you go and talk to your employer about them first.

If the employer didn’t agree with you then that is the time that you start to look for another job. This is also one of the advantages of having 2 jobs which I previously suggested.

I have done this 2 times, one resulted to me walking away and another resulted to having a raise.

Remember to only walk away after you find the replacement already. Do not resign immediately. Only after you are stable on the replacement job already.

7. Keep On Studying

I am not saying I still do this a lot. But there was a time in the past that I just keep on studying and trying out new things. I got my XAMPP server open at all times and I am always working on new ideas on my test servers.

It keeps me happy as I was excited to try out what I am learning to a live website. Now I still open my test servers from time to time whenever I get a new idea I wanted to try out.

If you really want to be good at something, go read some eBooks, watch guide videos about it and most importantly practice it in action even only in a test environment.

Conclusion

Upwork is one of my primary source of income and I think that it will continue to do so.

The thing about Upwork is if you perform well and if you are smart in choosing which job to take then you will remain successful.

What I really like about Upwork is if your profile’s success rate is really high then you can expect jobs to land on your doorstep on their own.

This is because clients in Upwork has the ability to invite high performing freelancers directly.

Find out how I started my online journey by reading this article.

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More Ways to Earn Money Online in 2018

In this article, we will explore more ways to earn money online in 2018.

Now this is where it gets tricky. Only do these ones below if you have a capital in hand and only if you can afford losing them.

First and foremost, do not put a large amount on these ones right away. This is a learning process and a very long one at that.

Photo by Pixabay

Some of the suggestions has a demo account available, so use them first until you get a hang of it. Also watch YouTube videos or better buy books that explains reading patterns and signals.

These ones below are all risky. But if you do your homework before placing your money on them, and if you go in with a plan, and you know you will be able to stick on it, then you can go right ahead.

Here are more ways to earn money online in 2018.

1. Forex Trading

First is you need to know what is Forex. To put simply Forex is currency trading. You need to trade currency based on the direction you think the currency is heading. For instance if you think the USD value will go up then you Buy and if you think it’s value is going down you Sell.

In this one, you will need to sign up to a trusted broker. I did a lot of research before I finally made up which broker to signup to. My suggestion on this is to sign up at XM.com broker website.

They offer a $30 dollar bonus on sign up right now and has a 50% bonus based on your deposit amount.

My suggestion is to signup for a demo account first and install their platform. Then you can focus on learning how to read signals and applying what you learned in the demo account.

To give you some ideas, you will need to learn how to use candlesticks, learn what are pips, learn the candlestick signals, learn the indicators and learn support and resistance.

As for managing your money, you need to learn leverage, learn margin, learn stop loss, learn take profit and learn stop out.

After you learn all this, apply it in the demo account. Once you get a hang of it, sign up for a live traders account, verify your account, get your bonus and deposit a very small amount at first.

The reason why I put this as #1 is because once you master reading the signals and indicators, this suddenly becomes easy as you will be able to find high probability trades easily. You should only do high probability trades based on 3 or 4 signals converging together known as Confluence.

This method is only available at weekdays because the market is closed on Saturdays and Sundays. But you can do this anytime you are available on weekdays.

2. Online Stock Broker

This method is mainly available for the US Residents at the moment.

I am still hoping that my top choices will allow international traders soon.

Similar to the Forex, in Online Stock Broker, you need to buy a stock which value you think will go up in the future. And sell if you think its value will go down. You can also re-buy it later ones the value has gone down and if you think it will go up again.

There are two common Online Stock Broker.

The first one is Full Service Broker, this broker provides you with professional people to give you advice in which stock you should buy. And because of this, it would cost you more to signup with them.

The next one is the Discount Broker, this broker does not give you professional investment advice and basically just takes your order and place it to their system.

The best Online Stock Broker websites offer both at the same time, or something close to the Full Service. But I would suggest that you always go for the Full Service Broker, as in order to be successful in this method, you need to know a lot about the company stock you wanted to buy a stock from.

This means reading book size reports, knowing the people running the company, looking at their history and so on. This is where the professionals from the Full Service Online Stock Broker will come in to help.

They would do all the work needed, all the calls, all the readings and you just need to wait for their professional advice of which stock to go for.

3. Binary Options

I put this one as last because between these 3 methods mentioned here, your earning in this one is capped at maximum 92% return from what I observed.

As for the Forex or Online Stock Broker, the return of investment is based on how high or low the currency or stock price will go. So you could easily double or triple your investment in one long or short trade. 

In Binary Options, you also trade options based on which direction the value of the options you think will go. This is basically just like Forex. But the main differences are in Binary Options there is a fixed trade expiry time. You lose exactly the amount you trade and there are no spreads.

If you understand reading the Forex signals and indicators, you can apply it in the Binary Options platform as the graphs are basically the same. You will just notice that you can choose a expiry time and the position goes exactly where you clicked the trade.

After the time expires, you will either receive your profit if you guessed correctly. Or lose the exact amount that you trade if you are wrong.

Conclusion

My overall choice is Forex Trading with a trusted broker, this is because I like the high return amount and I am able to limit what I lose by using a stop loss.

I also find learning about the patterns, signals and indicator fun and exciting. There is this overpowering joy inside of me whenever I do a high probability trade and the outcome I predicted is right.

Find out how to earn money online in 2018 with no risk by reading this article.