Tag: upwork

  • 5 Freelance Platforms That Are Safe And Secure To Work On in 2023

    Freelancing online has been on a steady rise in the past decade and it’s showing no signs of stopping. According to industry studies, the worldwide freelance marketplace is estimated to be worth $1.5 trillion in 2022. In US alone, there is 70.4 million freelancers and is forecasted to grow up to 90.1 million by 2028.

    An average freelance hourly rate worldwide is $28/hour according Payoneer Global freelancing income report.

    5 Freelance Platforms That Are Safe And Secure To Work On in 2023

    On this blogpost, I will share with you 5 freelancing platforms that you should consider if you want to become a successful online freelancer and an entrepreneur.

    Freelancing Platforms at a Glance

    SummaryUpworkFiverrFreelancerPeoplePerhour Guru
    LocationCalifornia, United StatesTel Aviv, IsraelAustraliaUnited KingdomPennsylvania, United States
    Years of Business Operations9 years. Founded in 2013.12 years. Founded in 2010. 13 years. Founded in 2009.15 years. Founded in 2007.24 years. Founded in 1998.
    Annual Revenue $503 million $298 Million $43.1 Million $15.7 Million $374 million
    Payment Methods Payoneer, Paypal, Bank , Mpesa and more.Payoneer, Paypal, Bank , and more.Payoneer, Paypal, Bank, Skrill and more.Payoneer, Paypal, Bank , Skrill and more.Payoneer, Paypal, Bank , and more.
    Payment Processing timeFrom 1 Mins (on Payoneer) to 7 days depending on the mode of payment you use. From 5 Mins to 5 days depending on the mode of payment you use.From 5 Mins to 5 days depending on the mode of payment you use.From Few hours to 5 days depending on the mode of payment you use.Within 24 hours to 5 days depending on the mode of payment you use.
    Escrow ServicesYes.
    		Yes.
    		Yes.
    		Yes.
    		Yes.
    Payment Security Period before Withdrawal5 days from the day payment is released.7-14 days from the day payment is released.15 days from the day payment is released for first payment.

    1day for subsequent withdrawals.    		24 hours to 14 days from the day payment is released for first payment.
    		No security hold.
    Client and Freelancer Accounts Can use one account as a Freelancer, Client or Agency/Company. Can use one account as a Freelancer and Client.Can use one account as a Freelancer and Client.Can use one account as a Freelancer and Client.Can use one account as a Freelancer and Client.
    Mode of Job Acquisition – Bidding on projects posted by clients.

    – Project Catalogues.

    – Consultation Offers.

    – Upwork     Enterprise Invitations to bid.

    – Client invitations and direct hires.     		– Create service Catalogue and wait for clients to purchase.

    – Occasionally apply to job requests by clients on the platform.     		– Bidding on projects posted by clients.

    – Service Catalogues

    – Contests

    – Invitations and direct hires    		– Bidding on projects posted by clients.

    – Create hourly service Catalogue

    – Project invitations and direct hires     		– Bidding on projects posted by clients

    – Invitations and direct hires
    Potential
    Average Annual Earnings per Freelancer     		$42,000 to $120,000 From $12,000UnknownUnknownUnknown
    A Glance at Top Online Freelancing Platforms

    Upwork

    Upwork is a freelance company based in the US and has been there for more than a decade. Upwork is among the pioneers of online freelance services. Originally it was called Odesk before it merged with another premium freelancing platform called Elance to form Upwork in 2013. Elance used to have more high paying projects than Odesk before the merge. Also, Elance was the first freelancing platform to offer Escrow services on fixed contracts.

    Since the merge, Upwork has grown to accommodate all kinds of jobs. Also, their security has been heightened to protect freelancers and clients from fraud. It is reported that Upwork has more than 12 Million registered freelancers.

    Upwork offers 5 ways to find work based on the freelancers experience using their platform. The first one is through bidding. This is a situation where a client posts a job; and freelancers on the platform bid on it. The client chooses the proposal that addresses their needs and meets their requirements. They then award the contract to the winning bidder.

    The second way is though Creating project offers. The freelancer can create a project offer catalogue around the skills that he/she possesses and posts it on the platform. This will be displayed to the prospective clients. If a clients likes a certain catalogue, they will purchase it.

    The last one is through Freelancer Enterprise client invitations and Direct hires. This is where a freelancer is interviewed and hired through Upwork Enterprise. Only freelancers with Top Rating and Top Rating Plus qualify for this offer.

    Among the most competitive skills that are highly paying on the platform include Technical skills, customer service skills, digital marketing skills, creative and design skills, copywriting and more.

    You can withdraw earned income to your Paypal, Local Bank , Payoneer, Mpesa digital wallet and more.

    Fiverr

    Fiverr is a Freelance platform founded in the year 2010 with it’s headquarters is in Tel Aviv Israel. Fiverr is popular for offering every service for $5 bucks. Freelancers can post their $5 service offers in many different categories.

    Today, the company has grown and now hosts an estimated 3 million people comprising of buyers and sellers/freelancers.

    Also, their $5 service offer approach has evolved over time. Sellers can scale up their offers from $5 to $1000+ per offer depending on the service they are offering through packages/pricing table.

    Unlike Upwork, Freelancers can only post what they offer on Fiverr in a catalogue format and wait for buyers to find it through search. This means that if one spends enough time optimizing their offer, buyers will find it and they will in turn get many orders.

    With Fiverr, you can sell any service as long as it can be sold digitally.

    You can withdraw earned income to your Paypal, Bank , Skrill, Payoneer digital wallet and more.

    Freelancer

    Freelancer is an Australian freelance marketplace that was founded in the year 2009. It connects freelancers with clients across the world. Freelancer has more than 900 job categories to choose from. As of June 2022, it had over 59 million users.

    Like Upwork, clients posts jobs for freelancers to bid on. They also offer escrow services on all contracts. On the other hand, they have a special offer called freelancer design contests. Here, the client posts design contests with a set price and any freelancer can submit their mock designs. The design that the client picks is the winner. The winner is made public and is rewarded with the set prize.

    This is an ideal place to start if you are not sure of the category you will want to work in. Also, it is here that you can identify different skills that are hot in the market then learn how to do them and then look for freelance jobs on the platform.

    Freelancer offer a wide range of withdrawal methods including Paypal, bank and Skrill.

    Peopleperhour

    Peopleperhour is a UK based freelance platform. It connects freelancers and clients across different categories of skills. One can sign up as a freelancer or a client. Once your profile is approved, you can proceed to search and apply for jobs that matches your skills.

    Freelancers here also have an option to create a project catalogue telling prospective clients what they can do in a hour for a given price.

    Most clients on Peopleperhour are genuine since they are required to confirm their preferred payment methods before they are allowed to hire. They are also required to fund escrow before a freelancer can start to work on their projects. At the end, freelancers are required to proof that they completed the discussed job by coordinating their communications strictly on the platform.

    You can withdraw earned income to your Paypal, Bank , Skrill and Payoneer digital wallet.

    Guru

    Guru is the pioneer freelance marketplace with it’s headquarters in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania US. It was founded in the year 1998 and has had less hype since it’s inception. They still approach freelancing using the traditional methods of posting jobs and letting freelancers to apply them.

    Despite that, they have many long time clients across the world. At the time that I freelanced on Guru, one could easily be scammed by a new client. That has changed today.

    However, one needs to be vigilant and ensure that the client has funded escrow before they start work. All in all, freelancing on Guru offers individuals a room to get more clients. Competition by bidders on Guru on jobs posted is not that fierce.

    While competition is not that high, the number of projects to bid on here is very small. Generally, they have more tech related jobs than any other category. This is a freelancing site to bundle up with others until you find a bearing.

    Big Downside of These Freelance Platforms

    They don’t accept cryptocurrency as a payment method. This is despite the growing number of people using crypto as a digital currency. Cryptocurrency is here to stay. It is therefore something that all freelancing platforms should consider.

    Conclusion

    There are hundreds of freelancing platforms online today that you can find work on and get paid. Some platforms, specialize in providing certain services like writing, transcription, video production, design, coding e.t.c. If you want to take freelancing fulltime, consider signing up on some of them that you find suitable and begin bidding on jobs posted there.

    You never know where your luck lies. You need to keep trying until you succeed.

    Freelancing is a sustainable career that can make you up to $1000/month part time working from home.

    You only need to commit some of your time daily to achieve the desired results. I have personally made up to $5000 a month on one freelancing platform.

    And these are the 5 Freelancing Platforms That Are Safe And Secure To Work On Today.

    Which is your favorite freelancing platform and why? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

    And if you need help to create professional content to market your business, get in touch with us here. On the other hand, if you need professional video production services, you can request a quote here or start consultation here.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.

  • Is The Freelancing Site You Are Working in Holding You From Your Dream Business?

    Freelancing sites are perfect avenues to work in when you have clients who give you recurrent tasks and pays you well for the services you offer to them.

    photo of woman using a laptop
    Photo by Oudney Patsika on Pexels.com

    But have you ever asked yourself where you will be if the freelancing platform you are in collapses today?

    Freelancing website platforms have a way of holding unto freelancers and keeping them in their comfort zone. I mean thats what they have to do in order to remain afloat in business.

    Many great entrepreneurs lose the vision they had of setting and running a successful online business the moment they start getting freelancing clients.

    One slowly starts allocating more of their time to freelancing and before they know, their drive to own an online business dies.

    So how do you know that your dream of owning a business is dying as a freelancer?

    Keep reading as that is what I will be discussing on this blogpost.

    Tell Tell Signs You Taken Away By The Freelancing Platforms

    #1 All Your Current Clients Are On A Freelance Platform

    Unlike any other job, freelancing is the quickest path to owning a business. This is because you have the freedom to plan your time.

    This is unlike 9-5 job where you depend on someone else to make decision for you. So if you only have clients you met on a freelancing platform, then you are loosing it.

    #2 You Always Talk About The Freelancing Platform

    An entrepreneur should always market his business whenever he or she gets a chance. A freelacing platform is business like yours and has a mechanism of marketing itself. You too should spend more time marketing and telling people about your business instead.

    If you are currently doing the opposite, the

    #3 You Are Signing Up On More Freelancing Platforms

    Thats what will motivate one to take such action by signing up on more platforms in order to tap on more clients. What they forget is, the clients they find there is not their own clients, its the freelancing platforms clients.

    The freelancing platform can decide to suspend their accounts anytime on the platform. If you are currently working on more than 2 freelancing platforms and you are an entrepreneur, stop and think, because you are loosing a lot.

    #4 You Are Doing Everything Yourself

    pexels-photo-5941591.jpeg
    Photo by Eva Elijas on Pexels.com

    Freelancing limits you to doing the job yourself. If you try to have someone do the work, you make losses because the pay is not enough.

    Dont let freelancing take everything from you. If the earnings from freelancing is the one that fuels your business, then dont accept many jobs.

    Be always open to invest in a team even if it means training them on the skills you have. Write ‘

    #5 You Are Always Complaining of Low Paying Clients

    Lets face it, in every 3 job postings on a freelancing platform, 2 are paying very poorly. Complaining on different online forums wont change this, as its mostly up to freelancers to apply on not to.

    Always ask yourself instead is, where can I find well paying clients? Once you find an answer, go out and look for them. Don’t limit yourself to one place.

    #6 Successful Freelancers Hype

    Whoever said there is no free lunch was right. Take the motivation and and if you want, buy the course but never let it blind you from going for your dream business. While in all this hulabaloo, remind yourself that you have a business to market.

    Dangers of Putting All Your Efforts/Mind/
    Focus On a Freelancing Platform

    • Competion becomes fiecer everyday as more freelancers join a platform.
    • The freelancing site can suspend your account anytime they want and you have nothing to say.
    • The clients you meet on a freelancing platform are not your clients. You are not allowed to share contacts and communicate with them directly on e-mail or you will be violating the terms of the platform.
    • Freelancing platforms algorithms can eliminate you without your knowledge. I have been a client there and have seen many applications being hidden. Application being hidden is like an e-mail being marked as spam. So put yourself in that shoe and think.
    • Being in many freelancing sites doesen’t necessarily mean you will be successful. Some clients post same job in 3-4 freelancing sites in order to find the lowest bidding freelancer. And you can know this if you are a freelancer on all those sites. That means they might hire someone in the site you are not in.
    • You might end up leading a lonely life. The jobs you get does not pay enough for you to outsource and build a business. If you work from home, you will find yourself so tied up on the jobs you have and detatched from the outside world. Lonely life is the worst thing one would want live especially in the African setting in the name of wanting to become rich Freelancing.
    • With the growing number of freelancers joining the freelancing platforms and number of clients hiring through the platforms shrinking, its becoming hard to succeed freelancing and becoming rich than it was before.

    Conclusion

    All freelancers have high potential of becoming sucessful in businesss. If your original dream was to become a sucessful entrepreneur, stick to it.

    Dont be carried away by freelancing platforms which offer you quick connection to clients by just setting up a profile. Aim for sky. The sky is the limit. Within no time, you will have found those high paying clients.

    And thats it from me here.

    What’s making you hold unto a freelancing platform and forget about your business? Let me know in the comments section below.

    If are looking for professional video production services, let me know here. You can request for a quote on www.techtubestudio.com.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care. Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.

  • How Freelancing is Changing The Traditional Approach to Entrepreneurship

    For the past few years, Freelancing has gotten the attention it deserved. As a result, it has shaped the way people approach business and entrepreneurship. Take for instance business man Elon Musk. When you hear his name, the first things that comes to your mind is TESLA, SpaceX, DOGECOIN just to name a few.

    Businessman Elon Musk

    He is an entrepreneur who has built great brands around his name. People trust anything that is associated with this entrepreneur. That is the direction in which most gifted entrepreneurs take today. They first try different things in order to identify what they love doing. When they find their passion, they then build great brands around it.

    Watch Video

    In this blogpost, I will share ways in which Freelancing can help someone Find their passion and business idea they can run with.

    The Effect of Freelancing

    What freelancing does to someone’s mindset is it enable them to find their niche while making money in the process. In Kenya, most people start Freelance work as content writers. Once they understand how the online system works, they then slowly identify a niche that they love. e.g Video Editing.

    Like any other activity, its not easy to start a business around your passion online. Its therefore important to never stop taking jobs on the freelancing sites like Upwork and Fiverr at your early stages. The income from the small contracts will keep you going as you build traction around your idea.

    Once you have built a good client base around your idea, you can then stop taking small freelance contracts and commit to running your business full time.

    10 Things A Video Production Agency Will Do To Save Clients Time And Headache

    Using Youtube As Marketing Avenue

    Generally, Google products are designed for productivity including YouTube. Many YouTubers with great content that viewers love to watch have built brands around their names. The first step they took was to build trust from the viewers in their specific niche.

    YouTube Market Place

    Once they had gained trust from thousands of viewers, they launched their brands around what they share. In a nutshell, a Youtuber is a creative Freelancer when they start. They have freedom to create what they want.

    It gets even better, the moment they launch their brands. Here, they transform into business owners.

    Rank Better on YouTube with Captions or Subtitles in 2021

    Freelancing is Open to All

    This includes freelancing in websites like Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, PeoplePerHour, Guru just to name a few. These are good places to start from if you are new to online marketplace and don’t know exactly which niche will work well for you.

    If you are a video editor, you can choose a category on Creative Design and Animation. Within time, you will be able identify a niche for yourself besides understanding the terms of working with clients online. e.g payment methods to propose when working directly with the client e.t.c.

    That’s how I was able to identify and invest on Screencast Video production agency.

    When I identified this niche, the first thing I did was to register a business and a website domain. From then, we have been able to get clients who directly contact us from the site and gives us contracts on a regular basis.

    Among the services we offer include scripting, providing professional voice over and producing high quality easy to follow screencast videos. If you need help with screencast video production, you can request a free quote on our site at www.techtubestudio.com

    5 Tips to Start and Grow a Screen-casting Video Business Remotely

    Conclusion

    Online service market place stands independent today as we speak. You can get most of the services online instantly. There are many freelancers online ready to handle any type of service that you are looking for at an affordable price.

    If you want to establish a business that allows you to work anywhere offering services and the comfort of your laptop, then you can start that journey today as an online freelancer. Remember you have to put a lot of hours and investment to get this started.

    And that is it from me here.

    Do you think freelancing is shaping the path to entrepreneurship? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screencast videos, request a free quote here. If you have any other questions or concerns regarding to this blogpost, let me know via e-mail on connect@cheptiony.com

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.

  • I was Almost Scammed On Reddit With a Freelance Job Offer!

    As Covid-19 continue to claim lives and wreck havoc on businesses across the world, remote way of working has become the new modus operandi. Fraudulent business groups on social media are emerging everyday targeting new and existing freelancers who are desperate to make money online.

    In this blogpost, I will share my personal way of identifying a typical fraudulent Freelancer recruitment funnel on social media. This will in give you a picture of how the scheme looks like and how it is very hard to suspect. They will lure you to doing work for free or once you are in, they pay as they wish with false promises of increasing the pay.

    These rackets are all over Reddit. This does not mean Reddit is a bad social media network. It’s the bad motives by some of the users.

    If you have never been to Reddit, all I can say based on my personal experience is, it’s a good social media network where people share valuable information for free. Note the word FREE. This is the catch that fraudsters are using to get free service  from You -the user- without you suspecting anything.

    For the short time have been on Reddit, I have enjoyed every bit of information that I found shared on Reddit groups.

    It got even better when I noticed that people were posting work opportunities for Freelancers. Me being a full time Freelancer, I decided to respond to one of them by messaging the person who offered the opportunity.

    Here is a snippet of the offer.

    Hiring Freelance Video Editors

    Please take note of what the client is offering here. I have highlighted them in yellow so that you can see their hook.

    They offer $10-100 to edit 1 Minute Videos

    It means they will pay each editor that gets into their funnel based on how the negotiate for a given assignment. If you are confident enough to negotiate, you will be paid better. Sadly, many new and even experienced freelancers are afraid to negotiate because they fear being denied the opportunity. So if the client fixes a budget on a given video, they will accept. This takes me to the second hook.

    10-20 Videos Per Week

    This is very enticing to anyone looking for sustainable income. Any Freelancer will do a quick math using the average pay which is around $55 per video. If you do 10 videos a week you make $550 and if you do 20 videos a week, you make $1100. This is good money. Moreover, it will be recurrent work. One has a potential of earning $2200-4400 a month working directly with the client. In fact if you are paid $100 per video, you will earn $4000-$8000 a month.

    This is enough to blind any freelancer. I mean this is good money. One can do anything to get the job:-). This is where they begin their show now that they have your attention.

    The Screening Process

    Like any other interview, before you are considered, you are required to submit your portfolio. That’s what Freelancers do everyday right inside their cover letters when bidding for work.

    As you can see, they will first review your porfolio and if you are fit, they will ask you to do a ‘test project‘ to confirm your capability. Now, this is where one knows if its going to end well or it is going to turn out as a fraudulent opportunity.

    Trusted freelancing sites like Upwork have implemented a policy regarding to test project to protect freelancers from fraudulent clients who their sole purpose is to waste Freelancers time. The condition is; that clients have to pay Freelancers for any test projects.

    Having found this policy helpful is protecting myself, I apply it everywhere.

    Now, in the post, the client concluded that the test project will be paid-which is still in line with the policy.

    Next Steps After Submitting My Portfolio

    The client liked my portfolio and not elevated me to the next stage of their Freelance Recruitment funnel, a slack channel for Video editors working for them. The channel had more than 40 members.

    All instructions on how to go about the test project was in there. After, going through the files, I was happy. The instructions was very clear. Seeing that I had all that I needed to proceed, I contacted the team lead to clarify 3 things;

    1. How they pay editors – Is it via Paypal, or bank transfer e.t.c
    2. If they have an Non Disclosure Agreement to sign before starting work
    3. How much they pay for the test project which looked like everyone in the channel was supposed to work on.

    The VA could not answer that. This was the first sign that was something was not right. In response, she referred me to their accountant who deals with paying freelancers.

    She avoided the question on having and signing a contract before work. That’s was alarming. I mean, who works for a company without a contract in place especially when you consider the amount of money one will earn while doing the job?

    This is very important. Loosing $4000 a month is not a joke. What if they pay at the end of the month and after you do the job, they remove you from the slack channel or stop responding to your concerns. Anything is possible.

    Having a contract is a sign of commitment.

    Contradicting Statements

    In their video editing post, they said they were going to pay for the test project. But on persistently consulting the accounts clerk on Slack before working on the test project, I was surprised to learn from her that they DON’T PAY for test project.

    This is enough. If they don’t pay for test, withdraw from the interview and forget it.

    But how many Freelancers do this?

    If all of the 40+ Freelancers in the channel had started doing the job without confirming if they were going to be paid for the test or not, what does it tell you about their level of seriousness towards freelancing? Its vague right.

    Those are the same freelancers you will hear soon crying that they were not paid.

    Conclusion

    The only way we can stand out as full time freelancers online is upping our game based on our experiences for us to gain trust and respect from new clients looking to hire online.

    What do you think of the jobs being offered in reddit?

    Until next time, be vigilant and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.