Upwork Proposal Tutorial for Beginners: The COMPLETE Upwork Cover Letter Guide

In this video we're covering everything you need to know about Upwork proposals and how to write cover letters that win high paying jobs. I made more than $100,000 in my first year freelancing on Upwork, but the craziest part is that I recently passed $1,000,000 and became an Upwork millionaire. Most freelancers struggle to win their first job and consistently make money on Upwork, and the one thing they're missing is a simple step-by-step Upwork proposal strategy that I'm about to share with you completely for free, so that you can apply it to your Upwork cover letters and win life-changing jobs like this one. Because when you understand how the highest earning freelancers win the big contracts, you'll be able to consistently make thousands of dollars every week on Upwork. And later in the video I'll be giving you a proven Upwork cover letter template that's made me an Upwork millionaire. Comment Upwork down below if you want me to give away more free cover letter templates. Also, I want to give a huge shout out to Skillshare for supporting the channel and sponsoring a portion of this video. Okay, how many proposals do you need to send on Upwork to win jobs like the most successful freelancers? I get asked this question all the time, and my answer is always the same. It depends on your budget. When I created my account on Upwork in 2016, Kinect didn't exist. I submitted over 40 proposals before I won my first job, and I didn't have to spend any money on Kinects. So Upwork first introduced the Kinect system back in 2019, and each job only required 1 to 6 Kinects to send a proposal. Now that's a big difference from today, where each job on Upwork requires you to spend anywhere from 4 to 16 Kinects to send a proposal. I've actually noticed that most jobs in my niche require anywhere from 8 to 16 Kinects to send a proposal. If I was starting on Upwork today as a new freelancer, then the 43 proposals that I sent back in 2016 to win my first job, minus the 10 free Kinects that you get with a basic membership would cost $75.90 plus tax. In my opinion, I think that Upwork Kinects are both good and bad for Upwork. The good thing is that they help prevent low-quality proposals, which creates a better experience for the client. The bad thing is that Upwork Kinects create a pay-to-win scenario for freelancers. The cost of Kinects keeps going up, and they've started charging Kinects for other things like boosted proposals, boosted profiles, and turning on the availability badge. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if one day you had to spend Kinects just to log into your account and message a client back. I really think that Upwork should give Kinects back to freelancers on jobs that expire. It doesn't seem fair to me that they don't do this already. Okay, so how many Kinects do you need to buy each week on Upwork? First, we need to identify how many proposals that we want to send per day. I prefer setting daily goals because it helps me be more consistent and find better opportunities on Upwork. So let's say our goal is to send four proposals per day, which comes out to 20 proposals per week. With a goal of 20 proposals per week and estimating an average of 12 Kinects for each proposal, we will need to buy 240 Kinects. And let's see how much this comes out to over here. So on buy Kinects, we'll go down to custom amount, type in 240. So it looks like we will need to spend $36 every week if our goal is to send 20 proposals per week. Now, let's assume that each proposal required the max of 16 Kinects. So in that scenario, we would need 320 Kinects and let's see how much that will be per week. So that comes out to $48 plus tax. So how many proposals should you send per day or per week? It really comes down to your budget. I would recommend starting with at least two proposals per day or 10 per week. But if you have the budget to send 20 or 30 proposals per week, then that's what I would personally do as a new freelancer. I'll put a graphic on the screen now showing how many Kinects you will need to buy each week depending on your goal. This estimates 12 Kinects for each proposal. So you may need a little more if the majority of your jobs require 16 Kinects. Okay, I have something really important to share with you, which I've never seen before until here recently. An Upwork freelancer replied to one of my tweets on Twitter saying that it took him 32 proposals to land his first job. He then sent over 100 proposals trying to land his second job, but Upwork suspended his account saying that he submitted a high number of proposals without many contracts or earnings and his account is still suspended to this day. So the key takeaway from this is that you need to be really selective when searching for jobs on Upwork. Sending low quality proposals on as many jobs as you can find is not only a horrible strategy, but it's one that could get your account suspended. What I recommend doing is setting up an RSS feed that will alert you via email or Slack when a new job is posted on Upwork that meets your specific search criteria. I have a tutorial showing you exactly how to do this and I'll put a link to it down below in the description so you can watch that video after this one. So I'm about to give you a proven cover letter strategy that the most elite freelancers on Upwork use, but let's first take a look at the Freelancer Plus membership and I'll give you my opinion on if it's worth $14.99 per month. So the key benefits of the Freelancer Plus membership are the 80 Kinects that you get per month, the ability to view competitor bids on any job. So the bid range, it'll show, you know, let's say the bid range for a job is $10 an hour to $60 an hour. It kind of gives you that range of what freelancers are bidding. And then the other important one is the ability to keep your profile active and visible even if you take time away from Upwork. So this means that your profile will still show up in Upwork search if you're not active and, you know, working on jobs. But are these benefits worth $14.99 per month for a new freelancer? In my opinion, I don't think so. You get 80 Kinects with the Freelancer Plus membership, but if instead you spend the $15 to just buy Kinects, then you would actually get 100 Kinects. So that's 20 more Kinects for the same price. So if you're a new freelancer, I would personally just stay on the basic membership for now and spend that extra $15 to buy Kinects. The Freelancer Plus membership is also going to be increasing to $20 per month, I think within the next two or three weeks. And that's based on an email that Upwork sent me. So what I would recommend doing as a new freelancer, stay on the basic membership, spend the extra money to buy Kinects, and then later on when you have a consistent client base, you could always upgrade to the Freelancer Plus membership for the other benefits when you don't need to send as many proposals per week. Okay, so now that we know how many proposals that we want to send each day, how do we write cover letters that win the best jobs? We need to hook the client and trap them into reading our cover letter so that you will have so many jobs that you never need to buy Upwork Kinects again. Like seriously, I wish Upwork would let me give these away to you. Comment proposal down below if that's your goal. So I put together a five-step Upwork cover letter process to make sure that clients hire you. But really quick before I give you the five-step process, it's crucial that you figure out how much to charge clients per hour or what fixed price to bid on Upwork jobs so that you get paid what you deserve and you don't end up in a race to the bottom by just offering the lowest price. I've never discussed this topic on my channel, but I found the perfect learning path on Skillshare, which is the sponsor for today's video. Skillshare is the largest online learning community for creatives with thousands of classes led by some of the top industry leaders across freelance, film, design, illustration, and more. I truly believe that investing in yourself and your goals is the best decision that you can make in this new year, and Skillshare is the best place to take your skills, career, or side hustle to the next level. So like I said before, it's crucial to figure out how much to charge clients, and this learning path on Skillshare will teach you exactly how to price your freelance work and negotiate higher rates with clients. The first 500 people to use my link in the description will receive a one-month free trial of Skillshare. So click on the link down below and start the pricing and negotiation learning path today. Thank you so much Skillshare for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel. Step one is to find the best jobs on Upwork. So how do we actually do this without wasting our Upwork connects? The problem is that most new freelancers on Upwork just find a job, barely read the job description, look at what other freelancers have said about the client, see how much it pays, and then apply for the job. Unfortunately, they're making a huge mistake and wasting money on Upwork connects. On my one-to-one mentoring calls with freelancers, I often find they struggle with this, and to fix this problem, all you have to do is scroll down and find the activity on this job section. From here, you can see how many people have already sent proposals and when the client last checked their job posting on Upwork. Based on my experience of over seven years freelancing on Upwork, you're more likely to get noticed if there are less than 15 proposals already sent. Also, the faster you send your proposal, the better your chances of being noticed. But how can you be one of the first freelancers to send a job proposal without always looking for jobs on Upwork? You probably have other stuff to do and can't spend hours every day just searching for jobs. I recently made a full tutorial that will help you be one of the first freelancers to send a job proposal, which really boosts your chances of getting hired. The step-by-step guide will show you how to set up an RSS feed that will send you an email and an instant message as soon as a new job that fits what you're looking for on Upwork is posted. So after you're done watching this video, go to the description and click on the link for that video. You also need to check when the client last looked at or responded to freelancers who applied for the job. So I have a rule that I follow. If a client hasn't checked their job posting in over a week, then I don't apply. This is because if a client lets their job expire after 30 days, Upwork will not give your connects back to you. And since Upwork connects aren't getting any cheaper, they're only getting more expensive, it's important not to waste them. The second step is to hook the client and trap them in your cover letter. On Upwork, clients only see the first two sentences of your cover letter before they open it. So when a client is going through the list of freelancers who have sent proposals for their job, your cover letter's first two sentences must really catch their attention. If they don't, the client will choose someone else and you'll end up wasting money on connects. So how can we make sure that the first two sentences of our cover letter really pop and capture the client's attention? I'll teach you the exact process that I use that has helped me get hundreds of jobs and make over a million dollars on Upwork. First, try to use the client's name if you can find it. Look through their feedback history and see if someone mentioned their name. This is super easy to do, but most freelancers don't do it. I recently posted a job on Upwork and only two freelancers mentioned my first name in their proposal. If you can't find the client's name, just start with hi or hello. Keep in mind that the first two sentences of your cover letter are super important. So next, we really need to grab the client's attention. Like I said earlier, I work as a freelancer, but I also hire freelancers for my content business. And when I post a job on Upwork, I look for proposals that make it clear the freelancer has read my job description and gets what I'm looking for. The best thing that improved my cover letter writing was when I started hiring freelancers on Upwork using my client account. This experience really opened my eyes because I could see things from the client's point of view. So now when I write cover letters, I can think like a client and show them exactly what they're looking for. So for example, let's say I'm writing the hook for a YouTube video editor job on Upwork. Here's exactly how I would do it. Hi Daniel, as a professional video editor, my style is unique because I really get how crucial it is to keep viewers watching on YouTube. I use the latest video editing techniques to make sure this happens, which can help your channel grow faster and bring in more money. Almost every YouTuber wants to get more views and make more money. That's why I wrote the opening part of my proposal to capture the client's attention by showing how my video editing skills can get them more views and help them make more money. If you think from the client's point of view and focus on what they really want, you'll be way ahead of the competition. Step number three is to show specific examples of your work. So when I posted a job on Upwork to find a video editor for my channel, I really wanted to see examples of videos they've edited. And it was actually the main reason why I chose the freelancer who won my job. Their work samples were exactly what I was looking for. When you show examples of your work, you should pick the ones that match what the client needs. For example, if they need a video editor for a personal finance YouTube channel, then it probably wouldn't be a good idea to show them a fast-paced editing reel that doesn't match what they need. The examples of your work that you include in your cover letter really need to match what the job description is asking for. Don't get this part wrong because showing the wrong type of work is a big reason why people don't get jobs on Upwork. Let's take the YouTube video editor job on Upwork as an example. Here's exactly how I would present specific examples of my work. My videos have generated over 4 million views and gained over 124,000 subscribers. Here are some of my top videos that showcase the quality of my work and align perfectly with your job description. Keep your cover letter concise and to the point. You don't want to give the client too much information. Pick 3-5 of your best work samples that are a good fit for what the client needs. You can also add a link to your portfolio website, but make sure it doesn't have any contact information that could take conversations off Upwork. I believe that every freelancer should have a portfolio website and I've made a detailed tutorial on how to create one. I'll put a link to it in the description below. In my opinion, the best place to create your website is on Hostinger and you can use the promo code JoshBurnsTech to get a 10% discount on your website hosting. So Upwork recently introduced a brand new feature where you can add profile highlights to your proposal. This feature allows you to showcase the best parts of your profile. You can choose up to 4 profile highlights from your work history, portfolio, and any certifications that you have. I recommend selecting items that really align with the job you're applying for. So the main thing to remember is that you need to provide really good examples of your work that fit what the client wants. As someone who hires on Upwork, the samples of work I see influence my decision to hire someone more than anything else. Here's a pro tip, look at the highest earning freelancers in your niche, see what kind of work they're showing, and then add similar things to your profile, but make yours even better. Step 4 is to showcase your value to the client. We need to read the job description again to make sure we're not missing anything, and tell the client how we can add value to their business. Try to see things from the client's point of view and think about what they would really want from a freelancer. You need to focus on things that will make you stand out from everyone else. I usually like to list a few key points just like we did in the last section. For example, if I were applying for a video editor job, here's how I would show the client what I can offer. Try to think from the client's point of view and ask yourself, what are the main things that I would want in a freelancer? Then list a few of those things in this part of your cover letter. It's a really easy step, but it can make you stand out compared to other freelancers who applied. Step 5 is to convince the client to meet with you by using a call to action or CTA. So at the end of your cover letter, it's really important to encourage the client to take the next step. I do this by asking the client to schedule a quick 10 minute introduction call with me. This is really powerful because I've been offered the job almost every single time after doing an introduction call. For example, I've made over $167,000 from just one single client on Upwork across two projects that we've worked on together. And they hired me during our introduction call. So here's the call to action I used in that cover letter. The goal is to get the client to move forward with you instead of considering other proposals. So I would argue that the call to action and the first two sentences of your cover letter are by far the most important. I've completed over 100 jobs on Upwork and almost all of them have a 5 star review. I think my lowest rating is around 4.85 stars. So how do I get so many 5 star reviews on Upwork? The main thing I do is carefully choose which clients I work with. The introduction call lets the client get to know me, but it's also a chance for me to identify if the client is someone that I can work well with. I've met so many great clients on Upwork. But there are also some tough ones that can be stressful. Your reputation is super important as a freelancer or business owner and your goal should be to get as many 5 star reviews as you can. So always try to have an intro call or at least message the client about their project before you accept a job. The more 5 star reviews and positive feedback that you have, the more money you'll make on Upwork. Upwork proposals will either make or break you as a freelancer and they're typically the number one reason why freelancers struggle to win jobs on Upwork. So if you want to see one of my Upwork cover letters that helped me land a job where I've made over $167,000 and still counting, then click on the link down below in the description or visit joshburnstech.com forward slash cover letter. I'm sharing this with you completely for free. I just want to ask one small favor from you. On the back end of my YouTube channel, I've noticed that 89% of you that watch my channel frequently haven't hit the subscribe button yet. So I want to ask you a favor. It helps this channel so much when you hit the subscribe button. It allows me to create more and better content for you. So if this video was helpful or I've ever helped you in any way, could you please hit the subscribe button? Thank you so much and I promise to repay you by making sure that everything on this channel continues to get better and better. That is a promise I'm willing to make you. If you follow the step-by-step proposal guide from this video, then your chances of being hired will increase dramatically. But there's something else I do to make sure I win jobs over the competition. So check out this tutorial where I show you what it is and how you can use it to win jobs on that board.