I've Sent 4,721 Upwork Proposals - Here's How To Get Clients — Transcript

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1. 0:00What if 60% of the clients you pitched actually  read your proposal? Not 10%, not 20%, six out of
2. 0:0710. That's my last 10 applications and every  single one of them got viewed and turned into
3. 0:12a conversation. Meanwhile, most freelancers are  sending 50 proposals a week and getting ghosted,
4. 0:17bleeding connects, wondering what's wrong. The  difference isn't talent like everyone thinks
5. 0:22it is. It's not experience. It's not even price.  And at the end, I'm going to show you the exact
6. 0:26proposal that landed me my last $10,000 job. Juicy  one, right? But it all starts with psychology. For
7. 0:33context, I'm top 1% globally on the Upwork  platform. I've sent over 4,700 proposals,
8. 0:39and I've earned over half a million on the  channel. The landscape on Upwork changes every
9. 0:43single year. AI proposals, boosted connects, new  algorithms. But us humans, we don't change at all.
10. 0:50So, while everyone's chasing tactics, I'm going  to show you the psychology that makes clients
11. 0:55pick you, even if you're five times more expensive  than your competition. The ironic thing is that
12. 1:00the goal of your proposal isn't even to get hired.  And it sounds backwards, right? But stay with me,
13. 1:05okay? Because the goal of your proposal is to  get viewed. That's it. Get opened, get read,
14. 1:11because here's the reality in 2026. You're  competing against boosted proposals. Now,
15. 1:17look at my screenshot again. The four that  didn't get viewed, I got outbid. Someone
16. 1:21paid more connects just to jump ahead of me in the  queue. And the best part about this is this works
17. 1:26whether you're brand new and struggling to land  your first client or you're already toprated plus,
18. 1:30but you're losing momentum because Upwork is only  a race to the bottom at the bottom. Let me show
19. 1:35you what I mean. And like it or not, that's the  game now. It's paytoplay. Upwork is paytoplay. But
20. 1:40here's the thing that most people miss. If your  proposals actually get viewed and it is good,
21. 1:45the replies come naturally. They flow. You  don't need to close in your proposal. You
22. 1:49just need to be worth responding to. Think I  like to think about it like copyrightiting,
23. 1:53okay? Like the headline gets them to read the  first line. The first line gets them to read the
24. 1:57second line. You're not closing, you're opening.  And if any of you do need some motivation,
25. 2:01go and create a client account on Upwork now  and look at how poor some of the profiles are
26. 2:05that are winning jobs in your field. It will  show you how easy it is for you to win. So,
27. 2:10stop trying to win the job in 200 words and  start trying to win the conversation. Now,
28. 2:14once you understand that shift of getting the  conversation started, the next question is,
29. 2:18what actually makes a client want to reply?  Because there's one trick that increases response
30. 2:23rates by over 50%. And do you know what that  trick is? It's one character in a loom. That's
31. 2:28all it takes. A question mark. When someone  reads a question, their brain cannot ignore
32. 2:33it. There's an open loop. They feel pulled  to respond. It's literally human psychology,
33. 2:37right? Is what the brain does. Unfinished things  create mental tension. By ending your proposal
34. 2:43with a question, you increase your reply rate  by over 50%. I guarantee you. It's an easy
35. 2:47springboard to start the conversation. But here's  where most freelancers mess up. And I certainly
36. 2:53made this mistake a lot in the beginning. They ask  the wrong kind of question. What's the big vision
37. 2:57for the company? Where do you see this in 5 years?  That's homework and mental load, right? They don't
38. 3:02want that cognitive load. They don't want to know  that. They don't know you well enough to write an
39. 3:06essay to you yet. So, they pick someone else. I am  about to show you how you can make them pick you.
40. 3:11But if you could just do me a favor, hit like, hit  subscribe. Other freelancers who need to see this
41. 3:15and understand how to win more jobs on at work  would appreciate it and I would as well. But what
42. 3:19you do is you ask something that they can answer  in 10 seconds or less. Yes or no? A number? Low
43. 3:24friction. Would Tuesday work for a quick call?  Is this project live yet or still in planning?
44. 3:29Roughly, how many leads are you generating  per month? Because easy questions get easy
45. 3:33replies. Replies become conversations. And guess  what? Conversations become contracts on Upwork.
46. 3:39All right, guys. So, so far you've mastered the  mindset. You know, to end with an easy question.
47. 3:43But none of that matters if you make this next  mistake. And honestly, it's probably cost me
48. 3:48about 150,000 USD in loss contracts before I  figured out the solution. Absolutely nobody
49. 3:55cares about your experience. Harsh, maybe, but  true. Most proposals I see are full of people
50. 4:01trying to convince clients that they're the right  match. I've got 5 years experience. I'm really
51. 4:06passionate about what I do. My service includes  this and it includes that and I'm the best. But
52. 4:11clients aren't bothered about whether you went to  university or not. They're not even interested in
53. 4:15what software you use. They're thinking one thing.  Can this person solve my problem? And it's the me
54. 4:21problem. Everybody wants to talk about me. Well,  no. The fastest way you can prove that you can do
55. 4:26that is to stop talking about yourself and start  talking about them. Before you write anything,
56. 4:31do the work. Open their website if you can see  it. Check their ads if you can see it. Look at
57. 4:35their funnel. Look at their history on Upwork.  Find something specific, a gap, an opportunity,
58. 4:40a mistake, something. Then lead with that.  So, let me give you a concrete example. Client
59. 4:45posts a job. It mentions needing someone to lower  their Google Ads CPC. A generic freelancer writes,
60. 4:51"I have 5 years experience in Google Ads and  lowering CPC is here's my portfolio where
61. 4:55I've done this before." What I would write if the  landing page was available, for example. I looked
62. 4:59at your landing page. Your CPC isn't your issue.  Your quality score is tanking because your ad copy
63. 5:04doesn't match the landing page's headline. Fix  that alignment and your CPC is probably going to
64. 5:07drop 15 to 20% without touching your bids. Do you  see the difference? One talks about me, the other
65. 5:13one diagnoses their actual problem. That minute  shift, that tiny little change from me to you is
66. 5:19what makes the client think this person actually  gets it. And it makes all the difference. They're
67. 5:24not hiring skills, they're hiring understanding.  So, we're cooking now. Okay? Right? But you
68. 5:29could have the best insight in the world, perfect  diagnosis. If you make this next mistake, they'll
69. 5:34never even read it anyway. If your proposal  looks like a wall of text, then it is dead from
70. 5:39the beginning. Put yourself in the client's shoes,  right? They've got 20, maybe 50 proposals to read.
71. 5:44They open yours. It's this huge block of unbroken  text. Massively off-putting. No easy way to scan
72. 5:51it to see what you're saying. They just click next  and not swipe right. Clients aren't reading word
73. 5:56for word. They're scanning. They're skimming,  right? They're getting too many applications to
74. 5:59go through them all. They're looking for signals.  Here's the structure that works. A one sentence
75. 6:04opener, something specific about their job.  Okay? Not, I saw your position and I'm excited.
76. 6:10D something that actually proves that you've read  it. Three or four bullet points in the middle,
77. 6:14real observations, quick hit value. They can  scan in 5 seconds, maybe. Here's a few things
78. 6:18I noticed or here's my initial thoughts. Problem  one, two, or three. Then a loom attached. So you
79. 6:24attach a video of yourself, 90 seconds maximum  of you covering a few points about their job,
80. 6:29maybe experience related to it that you've done  historically. And then one easy question at the
81. 6:33end that we've already covered that the total word  count 150 to 250 words maximum. That's it. Dense,
82. 6:39skimable, valuable. Respect their time and they'll  respect yours. It's like this video, right? I
83. 6:44could easily make it 50 minutes long, but the goal  is to make it easy to consume for you. So I'd like
84. 6:49to think you're not sat there thinking, "What the  hell is this guy going on about at this stage?"
85. 6:52But now you've got the structure, you've got the  psychology, but there's one last piece that took
86. 6:58me over a year to figure out, and this is the one  that 10x my contract value. The best clients don't
87. 7:03buy services, they buy people. People buy people  in general in life. For my first year on Upwork,
88. 7:08I focused on timelines, deliverables, budgets,  etc. Very transactional, very, very forgettable
89. 7:13as well. Then I changed my approach. I stopped  treating proposals like contracts and started
90. 7:18treating them like conversations. I'd ask what  they were actually trying to solve, not the
91. 7:23surface problem in the job listed that they've  got from chat GPT, the real one underneath. Try
92. 7:28and meet them where they are at, right? Be human.  Ask about their passion behind the business. Find
93. 7:33that real pain point. Find something that you can  actually understand. Because on reflection of my
94. 7:40life and my career on Upwork, here's what I've  learned. Clients will pay four times more for
95. 7:44someone they trust than someone who just ticks  their boxes. All right? Budget matters. Timeline
96. 7:49matters. but only after you've built connection.  Lead with curiosity. The money then follows. So,
97. 7:54fellow upworkers and freelancers, be honest with  me. How many proposals have you sent that were
98. 7:59basically copy and paste? No judgment. I did  the same thing for months. Drop your number
99. 8:02in the comments. Let me know if it's still a  problem. I want to know that I'm not the only
100. 8:06one who had to learn the hard way. And if you've  started implementing any of these, especially the
101. 8:10question mark thing, let me know if it's working  because it will. I read every single comment and
102. 8:15I'll check it out. All right, so there you have  it. Quick recap. One, the goal is to get viewed,
103. 8:20then get a reply. Stop trying to close in the  proposal and create an Upwork client account to
104. 8:25see how bad your competition is. Two, end with  a question. Make it stupidly easy to answer,
105. 8:31but so tempting that they can't say no. Three,  talk about them, never you. Diagnose the problem.
106. 8:36Do not list your credentials like everybody else.  Four, structure for scanners. 150 to 250 words,
107. 8:44dense and skimable for the customer. They won't  read it otherwise. And five, be human first. Build
108. 8:49connection before scope. These five shifts took  me from wasting connects to consistently landing
109. 8:54highv value clients. Precision over volume.  That is the difference. You're not just sending
110. 8:59proposals anymore. You're starting conversations  with people who already want to hear from you.
111. 9:03Now, that $10,000 proposal that I mentioned at  the start, I've put an exact template in the
112. 9:07Google doc link below. Just go down there, head to  Gumroad, and grab it. I'll catch you in the next