Identifying The Bottleneck · Upscale (Free)

Identifying The Bottleneck

If you're struggling to sign clients on Upwork and you're not sure why, this post should help.

I'm about to show you how to identify the bottleneck in your Upwork process and solve it.

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Step 1: Measure the number of proposals you submit that get viewed.

At least 40% of the proposals you submit should be viewed by the client. If it’s lower than that, this is your current bottleneck.

To solve this bottleneck, try these 2 fixes:

Make sure you are personalizing the first 300 characters of your proposal based on the job description.

Make sure you are including social proof in the first 300 characters of your proposal.

Examples of social proof are:

Your years of experience
# of projects you've completed
Any awards, or recognitions you've received
Big clients you work for (If Apple is your client, mention it!!)

The reason we want to include social proof and personalization in the first 300 characters of our proposal, is because when you submit a proposal to a job on Upwork, the client only sees a preview of it (the first 300 characters). If they click on it, they will see the whole thing, which counts as a view.

Boosting your proposals will also result in more views.

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Step 2: Measure the number of proposals you submit, who send you a message.

This should be at least 1/10, meaning if you submit 10 proposals, you get at least 1 message.

If it’s lower than that, this is your bottleneck.

This means that either your profile or your proposal isn't optimized (or maybe both).

If this is your bottleneck, review the modules inside the classroom on these topics.

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Step 3: Measure the number of messages you get who book calls with you.

This should be at least 30%, meaning if 10 people message you, at least 3 of them book calls with you.

If it’s lower than that, this could be your bottleneck.

Watch this video to solve this problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SKTeSeA5Kk

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Step 4: Measure the number of people who buy from you from the calls you booked.

This will vary a lot, depending on your industry and price of your services.

This should NEVER be below 20%.

If it is, this may be your bottleneck.

Watch this video to solve this problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYequXKbpDw

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If you have a clear outlier, then obviously address that first. Otherwise, start with the metrics & bottlenecks mentioned at the beginning of this post as they will have the largest impact. For example, if each of your metrics is 5% lower than the ones I reference, start at the top.

I hope this post helped you identify the bottleneck in your current Upwork process.

And more importantly, I hope you take action on the information I just shared.

Speak soon,

Nico

P.S.

@JD Addy

made this awesome KPI calculator which you can access here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iYhapKidFalTEBHzPXf6441ZKWpUVRC9heU0JQ2Mx40/edit?usp=sharing

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