WPS 002: You CAN Make Money on Upwork. The Do's and Don'ts with Morgan Overholt

Does the thought of finding new clients stress you out? 

The ups and downs of work and income for a freelance web professional can be overwhelming. Finding the illusive steady income stream can seem like the proverbial needle in a haystack. Of course there are many ways to grow your clientele. Among them is a platform called Upwork.

For those who don’t know, Upwork is a website freelancers can join and apply for projects; these projects have been posted by clients from all over the world. 

So what is the deal with Upwork?

Well in this episode, we get to hear from Morgan Overholt who has achieved pretty remarkable success using the Upwork platform. Morgan will talk about her experience on Upwork as both a freelancer AND an employer. So she describes it from both sides giving us some really juicy insight.

As you listen to Morgan, you’ll hear that she really knows her stuff. At the time of this recording, she had been using Upwork to acquire projects for almost 6 years and made over $500,000 during that time! 

And later in our conversation, Morgan tells us her tips for success on Upwork, and she’ll also talk about the big mistakes she sees  and how you can avoid them!

Tennessee native and Miami transplant Morgan Overholt is a freelance graphic designer, owner of Morgan Media LLC and co-founder of TheSmokies.com. Morgan and her team have worked with nationally recognized clientele from all over the world, including the Centers for Disease Control Foundation (CDCF), Kimberly-Clark, and Stanley Black & Decker.

Morgan transitioned into the role of freelancer and small business owner after spending nearly a decade in the traditional corporate world left her feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Today, Morgan is passionate about sharing her story with other hopeful entrepreneurs who hope to follow in her footsteps. She has been featured on Upwork.com, Parade Magazine, and Business Insider. 

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
https://upwork.com/
https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~017103f1940969128f/
https://www.patreon.com/morganoverholt

SOCIALS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganomedia
twitter.com/morganomedia

Transcript

Morgan Overholt

[00:00:00] Cathy: Hi Morgan, and welcome to the show. 

[00:00:24] Morgan: Hey, Kathy. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:26] Cathy: It's so good to have you, and I've been really looking forward to this convers. Because you are going to talk on a topic that many of us have wondered about, and ultimately we're gonna be talking about Upwork and how to be successful on it, how to actually make some money without pain, I'm assuming, and we'll see

[00:00:47] So I just mentioned a few things about your background, but can you go ahead and embellish and give us a little more history on your career? . 

[00:00:54] Morgan: Yeah. Sounds good. So basically I've always been a freelance graphic designer in some capacity or the other. I started my freelance career, after a couple of clients who I've met through my very first ever part-time job working at Office Max, just retail, barely above minimum wage.

[00:01:10] Kind of got used to working with the, the Photoshop girl at the local office Max. And when I quit, they reached out to me and said, Hey, look, would you mind doing some stuff for us on the side? And that was literally my first ever freelance gig. At the time I had absolutely no idea and my appearance especially had absolutely no idea that you could make any kind of money whatsoever doing graphic arts and especially I had no idea that I could make it, um, doing free. , which is why I continued on the traditional corporate path. You know, I, I went to college like a good girl, you know, on, I worked, I, I freelance my way through college. I held on a corporate career, a variety of different corporate careers and a variety of different industries for nearly a decade, the entire decade, I continued to freelance on the side and this entire.

[00:01:54] Still not dawning on me one bit that I could make freelance , which was the one constant in my life actually work. So maybe I'm a slow learner. . I don't really know. . You know, honestly, I think it's really just Kathy. It's like, it's, it's not something that I think most of us think about, and especially not back then, you know, um, back in like 2003 when I first set out in, you know, in that kind of world, uh, it was definitely not something that I.

[00:02:19] I knew anybody else. I, I didn't know any else that did this kind of thing, so maybe that's why I just never really snapped in my brain. But basically after about 10 years of that nonsense, I was kind of at my wits end. I felt like I was working day and night. I was pulling crazy hours. I was even trying to like change industries and change.

[00:02:39] you know, Nisha's, like at one point I even, um, stepped in the world of home shopping. Like if you do a Google search of me, you'll even find videos of me hosting a home shopping network. Like, I kept thinking if I changed what I did, you know, and this is a girl with a graphic design and digital media degree, by the way, like, and I was selling jewelry on TV, and doing graphic design freelance on the side.

[00:03:01] So if you put a, do a Google search and you'll find all sorts of funny videos. But it wasn't until, uh, several years after that that I, I was just, I was fed up and I felt like it didn't really matter what I did or where I was or what I was working on, that nobody really appreciated my efforts. I felt like a cog in the machine.

[00:03:17] I never saw any, you know, uh, fruits of my labor. I was working holidays and weekends towards the end. You know, and, and the funny thing is, my last corporate job even asked me to take a pay cut. Like I, I had been making a hundred grand a year and they asked me to go down to $75,000 to host the TV show, which is insane.

[00:03:35] So yeah, I was, I was pretty fed up and I had to get to that point where I was just like, you know what? I would rather do anything in the world, then come back and work for these people one more day of my life and give them one more hour of my life. I, I made a plan to quit. I, I started saving up, you know, I made myself a little nest egg.

[00:03:54] I didn't quite make it 100% to the finish line. I did end up rage quitting a little bit earlier than intended. I snapped , but fortunately I had enough, um, squirrel away and, and everything's okay. And. I mean, after all, I already had the lance income. I just wasn't, you know, ever really thinking about it.

[00:04:13] I already had some sort of alternative income coming in, so it wasn't like I jumped completely without a parachute. I had the parachute on, I just left, I left like before the countdown, you know, that was all . 

[00:04:23] Cathy: Thank you. That was, that was just a great, uh, description of the huge journey you've come a along in and I can relate with the corporate world.

[00:04:32] Um, that feeling of just being, like you said, a cog in the machine and not really feeling like you're making a difference and, you know, wondering what it's all about and all that kind of stuff and, you know, trying different things. Did you always know you wanted to work for yourself or was that just something that kind of came along?

[00:04:52] Was it something you had thought about? 

[00:04:55] Morgan: You know, I always, I've always, always been really interested in business, to be honest with you. Um, I just never thought it was a possibility that I could have my own business. I thought that I was gonna find success in business by climbing the corporate ladder.

[00:05:09] So yes, I was very interested in running a business and, and being, you know, or at least the top of the food chain in a. But it never occurred to me that the quickest way to do that would be to create my own businesses. In fact, it wasn't until a huge blowout fight with my husband and the, and we like almost never fight, at least not serious fights, you know, beyond like, Hey, would you quit leaving your socks here in the floor?

[00:05:30] Whatever, you know, but serious fights, few and far between. I could count them on one hand the entire time of. Eight now, eight year marriage. Right. But he basically got really tired of me constantly moaning and complaining about work, and he saw because he actually came from a family of entrepreneurs, that there was a different path for me.

[00:05:51] And he encouraged me to consider doing the freelance thing full-time because the entire time we were married and even before we were married, he always saw those freelance checks coming in. You know, he'd see $1,500 check come in the mail from my not employer and be like, so why aren't we doing more of this.

[00:06:07] He didn't understand. And I, and I'd always say it all because it's not stable, it's not steady. people don't do that for a living. You know? It just, it just never, like, it just didn't pop. And until one night we had this fight, like went to bed with, I been speaking to each other. Cause he was just like, now is the time you have to pursue this.

[00:06:26] I said, I'm not ready. And uh, it wasn't until a couple years later that, um, I, I finally kind of came around and I hit my wits end and just decided I'd rather try anything than the current path that was. And he, I gave him the biggest, I told you so, of our entire marriage. In fact, I'd say it's like a one time only humongous.

[00:06:43] I told you so, but yeah, that props go to him for, for really encouraging me to do that. 

[00:06:47] Cathy: That is so great. Yeah. I mean, to have your spouse push you that way, it's usually the other way around. Yeah. Yeah. They want you to have this steady job and get the benefits and all that kind of stuff. So good for you and good for him.

[00:07:00] Morgan: Yeah. Thank you. I was really lucky that he comes from a family of entrepreneurs and that was normal in his world, and my parents, they freaked out when I did it. My, my dad, so more so than my mom. My mom was, was very protective, obviously. Um, and worried a ton about insurance and, you know, gosh, even until a couple years ago, continued to worry about insurance for me and all that stuff, my dad, I'm not quite sure he still understands exactly what to do. He, he kept saying, okay, so you're gonna freelance until you find a normal job. Right? Like, so, so you're, so you're looking for jobs, right? Like, no, no, no, dad, this is the job. You know, it, it took a while to get my family like, uh, well not on board, but just like wrapping their heads around what was going on.

[00:07:42] Cathy: Yeah. My folks were old school too, and uh, you know, my dad had the same job from college till he retired. 

[00:07:50] Yeah. And that's my mine. That's what you did. Right. But we don't do that anymore.

[00:07:54] Morgan: My dad has, he still works the same job that he had when I think he started when he was 25 years old. I mean, so yeah.

[00:07:59] It just like blows his mind that. I've done this. Yeah. 

[00:08:03] Cathy: It's unusual to even hear about that anymore, so I'm glad for that for him. Mm-hmm. Um, okay. Rage quitting. What can you describe that? I, I, I know this is a little off topic, but I'm, I'm a little curious about what That's okay. Happened there.

[00:08:18] Morgan: It's everybody's daydream, right?

[00:08:19] So , I, I've lived the daydream. So it was a dark and stormy night.

[00:08:30] No, no, but I'm, but in, in all reality. So I was, working basically in nine days straight. I was at the home shopping network at the time that was fairly par for the course back then. Um, they were always kind of short and always trying to ask us to pull extra shifts and, and go long sprints without having a single day off including a double holiday shift.

[00:08:47] In fact, this happened the day after Easter in 2017, and I had pulled a double after nine days, and I still didn't have another day off until the day that followed. And my boss wanted to have a meeting with. and and so I walked into the, the room, and to be honest with you, Cathy, I kind of had a bad feeling anyway, you know, and, and I guess that we all feel like that when your boss wants to have a meeting with you, that it's not gonna be like, Hey, you've been doing a great job, and like, we're ready to give you a raise,

[00:09:13] You know, it was never that. It's always like, want something or it's bad news. And so on a whim, I, I already, like, I deleted, I reset my work phone and all this stuff, just thinking if I was wrong that I could always just turn it back on and say I accidentally reset it or something, you know? So like I cleared everything out just in case and behaved as though that would be my last meeting, but I still wasn't a hundred percent sure what I was going to do.

[00:09:32] That's right. I walk in and she's like, yeah. So I just wanna talk to you about spending more time at the office and… I was like, more time, I said more because you realized I've been here for nine days. , like I was here for double yesterday and it was Easter. I didn't see my family yesterday cuz I was, I was here.

[00:09:49] And, and then she's like, yeah, and I also have some other things we wanna talk about. And she opened up this like, manila envelope and, and, and I just, I literally stopped her and I said, I am so sorry. My heart is not in this. And she, she asked, uh, well, are you ready to walk today? And I basically said, gimme some financial incentive I could walk today.

[00:10:09] And they gave me a very mini, mini parachute and I walked . So, yeah. Um. 

[00:10:17] Cathy: Wow. And how did it feel? Were you freaking out? 

[00:10:21] Morgan: I mean, it felt really good. Like I was freaking out a little bit. The funny thing is, because we were planning on, I, my husband knew I was gonna quit eventually at some, at some point during the year, we were actually making renovations to our house or our apartment to put it on the market at the time and, and it was hilarious because while all this is going on, my husband's blowing up my phone about having like a tub installed at the, you know, at the apartment back home. Like, we literally have contractors like ripping up our apartment as I'm quitting my job, you know. Um, so yeah, I, I, I finally walked out and called him and I'm like, hey. so, uh, yeah, you know, answered the question about the tub. And, uh, by the way, I quit my job today, so I hope that's cool. And, uh, I went home and we had lunchtime margaritas, and, you know, and honestly, I, I, I, I finally, after the adrenal wore off, I finally cried a little bit over my margarita, and, but it wasn't because I was scared.

[00:11:11] I cried because I told him I was sorry that I put a job before my family and that I would do my best to never let that happen again. Um, he teared up too, and, you know, and, and, and I've, and even though I'm still a workaholic today, Cathy, I'll tell you this much. I, um, you know, I definitely prioritize stuff like holidays.

[00:11:28] I will definitely make time to see people during the week. You know, um, I, I definitely, I might not have as much free time as I would like still, and it is still a struggle and I still try. But like for instance you know, we're coming up on the holiday season every year I take an entire week off for fall break.

[00:11:43] I take an entire week off for Christmas break. These things are unheard of. I do my best to set boundaries with clients and set reasonable expectations, and then do the same from my subcontractors and give them breaks and treat them well. So you know, and, and honestly that that's been the most life-changing part of it, to be honest with you.

[00:11:58] Cathy: That is awesome. And I think that's something we all have thought about whether we quit a job or just went straight into freelancing, that we wanna be able to be our own boss to make our own hours, to have time for family. Um, that flexibility, which is so great. And there's a lot of boundaries that have to be set, you know, but I mean, it's just, it's what we all want.

[00:12:19] So you, you lived the dream for us, the walkout. That's so cool. 

[00:12:24] Morgan: Yeah, it was, it was a little, it was a little badass. It was right. Oh my goodness. So I even, I even said at the end, I said, do you want a security to escort me out? And she's like, no, you're fine to go . That's awesome. I practically did. Like my dance walking down the aisle for the last time, like, ah, bye bye.

[00:12:49] Cathy: That is so fun. Oh my gosh. And you never look back, I'm sure, because you went on to be a very successful designer in your, as a freelancer. So how are you able to get yourself to, uh, six figure income as a freelancer?

[00:13:04] Morgan: Yeah, so it was pretty cool actually. I did that in the first calendar year, um, within three months, which is great cause that's when my severance ran out, within the first three months. By month three, I was actually making just as much on average as I was at my full-time job, which is pretty amazing now. A lot of that, um, I would say about half of that. In fact, were, were just from my word of mouth referrals because for the past, You know, gosh, since I was 18 years old, I had been building this referral network unintentionally.

[00:13:32] Never thinking I needed to rely on it. And the first thing I did the day that I came home after I quit is I emailed everybody I'd I'd ever worked with in my digital Rolodex and I said, Hey, look, I'm all yours now, baby. Like, if you got new work or know anybody does, let me know. And, and people delivered.

[00:13:47] You know, they told their friends and, and clients who I've been working with started to send me more work. But then of course the real thing that kind of catapulted me over the top was discovering Upwork. And I had actually never heard of Upwork or Odesk, I guess it was called before Upwork at the time. My brother-in-law, remember my husband's family is much more entrepreneurial than my family was. My brother-in-law was freelancing on Upwork, and he was like, oh, well if you're gonna freelance, you should totally look into this. You know, I'm making pretty good money on it, so I'm sure you can too. He does, like he was doing Amazon web services and that kind of stuff at the time.

[00:14:19] He's also in the computer science realm, same as my husband and I. And, um, so I signed up on a whim and I read all the horrible, scary, negative stories and, and everything you could ever read about Upwork. Um, and then I also read a lot of great stories about how people had found success. And honestly, the biggest difference maker for me is that I have this undying belief in life, to not listen to people who, who failed at the thing that you wanted to do. I instead listened to people who succeeded at the thing that I wanna do. Cuz I find like, why would you ever take the advice of people who failed? You know? And I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that it, and let all those people said, oh, it can't be done.

[00:14:58] It can't be done. Get to me. Because fast forward for today I'm coming up on five and a half, almost six years now, I’m about to cross the $600,000 earned mark on Upwork. I've already crossed a 500,000. It only updates, unfortunately, every a hundred thousand increments, but I know I'm very close to 600,000 at this point, so probably any day now.

[00:15:17] And, and that's, like I said, been a substantial part of my income. And the early days it was about 50%. Nowadays, I would say, um, about 30 to 40% of my freelance income, um, and about a quarter of my total. So it's still, it's substantial. Substantial. 

[00:15:31] Cathy: That is amazing. 

[00:15:33] Morgan: And, and, I also wanna point out too, it's actually, um, I can't quite. I can't quite give you like a total, you know, figure about how much that Upwork account has been worth because people on Upwork, clients who I've met on Upwork have also referred me to other clients, some of which are not on Upwork and I, so I've been able to expand my word of mouth and my referral network even offsite because of Upwork too.

[00:15:57] So I can't even really totally quantify that as being just the $600,000. Um, cuz if I really stopped to think about, okay, well this person knew this person, which knew the Upwork person would also referred me over here. It's probably a lot more, to be honest with you. 

[00:16:12] Cathy: That is amazing. Right? So not only the work that you did, but the referrals you get and word of mouth is everything in our business, I think.

[00:16:20] Morgan: Mm-hmm. Um, so with Upwork, is this something that anyone can do, any freelancer? Is it, uh, difficult to get into? Can you talk a little bit about the beginning of the process?

[00:16:33] Honestly, to me it is, it's just like freelancing anywhere else. You know, you're gonna have some booboos, you're gonna make some mistakes and you're gonna have some wins.

[00:16:40] And the most important thing you have to do in business is, well, as a freelancer, let me back up. The most important thing you need to do as a freelancer, no matter what you're doing, is treat it like a small business from day one. Think about things as a, uh, go into things with a strategy. Go into things, thinking about ROI.

[00:16:58] And your return on investment, you know go into things, thinking about failure and growth. Sometimes the biggest lessons that we learn are from the mistakes that we make, right? Sure. I've had some bad clients both on and offsite. Uh, and, and I tell you what, I only made that mistake one time. If, if I, if a client was really awful, I think, okay, what was the red flag in that situation?

[00:17:20] And next time I see that red flag, I ain't touching it with a 10-foot pole, you know. So honestly, that's the biggest difference to me about if you're gonna be successful in Upwork. It's the same as anywhere else. You know, there's obviously the basic advice, like, fill out your profile completely, you know, don't skip on anything.

[00:17:36] Make, don't be afraid to name drop. If you've worked some work for some big clientele, let your clients know about it. Show 'em some, you know, quantifiable data to show your clients how you've improved other clients' lives and how you can do the same for them. Make all of your pitches, your proposals, your profiles, client-focused.

[00:17:52] Too many people talk about themselves. No one really cares about you. They really care about what you're going do for them, and that's what you need to be for them. That's what you need to focus on. If you don't have any, uh, reviews, get some of your other clients to offer some testimonials. You know, there's a lot of like little simple tricks that I can sit there and harp on all day long. Having a clean headshot, et cetera. But honestly, the, at the core of it, Cathy, is, is treating it like it's a business and treating it like it's an iterative process. The first two weeks are gonna be the hardest, though, I'll warn you. If you've never done Upwork before and it's your first time, you got no reviews on that platform, y'all, it took me two weeks to get my first job. And it was for 10 bucks. I was sweating it the whole time. So , that's the other thing. Don't give up, you know, it'll happen. 

[00:18:38] Cathy: So two weeks for one $10 job. 

[00:18:41] Morgan: Yeah. No joke. 

[00:18:43] Cathy: And were you discouraged? 

[00:18:45] Morgan: Oh yeah. I mean, well luckily again good thing my husband here cuz he, he, maybe his ears are burning, but I can't let it us bragging on him go to his head.

[00:18:53] But I remember kind of complaining to him early on about how I was like, I'm on here every day. I'm applying for jobs. I'm not getting anything. I'm wasting my time. And, and then the only job I got was like 10 bucks, you know, after two weeks of this. And, and, uh, he was like, you know, what would you, what would you pay me tomorrow to magically make your Upwork profile more attractive to your clients and like, have a five, a glowing, five star review on the board?

[00:19:16] And, and I said, well pay you. And he goes, yeah. Like, what's that worth to you? Let's call it a marketing expense. If I could just wave a magic wand and like, you make your Upwork profile more attractive and, and get you a bigger job. And it's like, God, I’d pay, I'd probably be hundreds for that. Right. You know?

[00:19:30] And he's like, well then great, I guess you can suffer through that first $10 job and ask your client for a five star review because you're all gonna be easier after that.

[00:19:38] Cathy: Wow. He's snappy with the comebacks. 

[00:19:40] Morgan: And he was. He was right. He was right. Because right after I did that $10 job and luckily it was a really easy job, it only took me like 20 minutes.

[00:19:49] So it wasn't like it was a website for $10 or something, it was just correcting a vector for somebody they wanted to like, there was like a guy with a tie in the vector and they just wanted me to remove the tie. It was very easy. And at the very end of it I just said, Hey look, I'm brand new to Upwork and it would mean the world to me, absolute make or break, if you give me a five star review, a glowing five star review. And he goes, oh yeah, absolutely. He even gave me some advice. He apparently was also a freelancer on Upwork, and he told me to like, you know, always ask for those reviews. At the end of every engagement he told me to, uh, focus on long-term work.

[00:20:19] That's another little Upwork secret that I've always done because really the long-term work in both Upwork and in real life, to me is where you're really gonna produce stability and you're really gonna have, you know, that long term income coming in. So, I I, I never worry about like, oh, am I gonna have a paycheck next month, whatever. I, I was one of the few people during the pandemic that, that wasn't sweating it. I had friends with normal jobs who had had those jobs for a decade, who got furloughed yet I still had, you know, 20 different clients send me work. So yeah, the, the long-term thing is, is an absolute gem. And, and it was incredible. The second I got that first five star review on the board, the second job came just a couple days after that.

[00:20:56] The third job came a couple of days after that. And now Cathy, I cannot beat them off with a stick half the time. My, in fact, right now as we speak, my upward profile says not available. right now, because every time I turn it on, I get an influx of invitations. I don't even, I don't even pitch anymore. I don't reply.

[00:21:12] I don't, I don't look anything on the job feed. I haven't, in years, I don't use my Connects to apply for anything because once you already have like your, your expert vetted or your top rated status or what have you, and they see all those glowing reviews on your profile, the the invitation come flooding in.

[00:21:28] You don't even have to put in the legwork. 

[00:21:30] Cathy: Wow, that sounds like a dream for anybody who's freelancing, what a dream to not have to worry about month to month. Uh, because I know as a web freelancer, the income, you know, it can ebb and flow and, um, it's hard to count on. So that sounds like something that makes income very stable and you can count on it, and you're obviously overflowing with work.

[00:21:54] Morgan: I, I am telling you I cannot hire people fast enough. Like I'm constantly trying to look for top talent, you know, to help me out hiring subcontractors to help us out. You know what? My work is basically transformed into a mini agency, which is amazing. But yeah, I, I actually have, um, I lose less sleep now than I used to working a full-time job, cuz when I was working a full-time job.

[00:22:13] And obviously I wasn't happy, so that didn't help. But when I had my full-time job, I just lived in fear of my boss constantly firing me. I just was, I just thought, you know, this is gonna be, it's, it was such a significant portion of my livelihood that, that and, and one, and just to think that like one person at an office had that much control over my life.

[00:22:32] Like she could say she just didn't like me tomorrow and just let me go and turn my entire world upside down. You know, now nobody has that power over me. And, and it's, and it's a, it's an amazing feeling to think about that even if, if I, even if my biggest client tomorrow, and I, I couldn't even tell you that exactly who that was, because I probably have four or five big clients that share that burden equally. Um, even if one of them left tomorrow would be a nothing burger, I'll just replace them. I mean, it's, it's fine. 

[00:22:58] Cathy: That is, you know how that is priceless, honestly. Yeah. That is so valuable right there. If nothing else. So yeah. That's really cool. I'm so happy for you actually

[00:23:09] Morgan: Diversification and long-term relationships, diversification and long-term. That's what you need to focus on. 

[00:23:15] Cathy: Great. Well, okay. 

[00:23:17] All right, so what are some of the mistakes you see people making that prevent them from excelling on Upwork? 

[00:23:24] Morgan: Oh gosh. You know, the funny thing is I'll tell you, if you really, if you really wanna get an idea of what you're doing wrong or you really wanna like tackle this in a Jedi level, what you should do.

[00:23:38] Honestly, and I think let's, let's say, I think what everybody should do, every freelancer should do at least once in their lifetime, is you should get hire your own freelancer. You should get on network and create a client profile. And it doesn't have to be a freelancer in like in your field or subcontractor.

[00:23:53] Heck, you can like hire somebody to. Look at your taxes or do some other miscellaneous tasks. I don't care what it is, but you need to go hire somebody. And all of a sudden you'll not only have a crystal queer view about the playing field, what you're up against, how the process works for your clients, and exactly what they're looking for, what they're seeing on their end, but you're also going to have a crystal clear view of the mistakes that so many freelancers make, and they are plentiful.

[00:24:21] I've blogged about this on my blog extensively, actually. Because it, it's so eye-opening when you actually put yourself in the client's shoes and, and honestly, and if you're not able to physically put yourself in the client's shoes and become the client, at least try to mentally do so. You know, the mistakes are, are so common too.

[00:24:40] They're, they're, they're common and, and you would think that they're. But yet so many people tend to miss them. You know, one of the biggest mistakes that was what I referenced earlier are not being client focused. I can't tell you if I posted like a, a graphic design job tomorrow, for instance, and I can, I've, I've done this several times on Upwork.

[00:25:01] I cannot tell you how many times. People reply to me and they act like they've not even read the job post. Like, I'll ask questions in my job post. I'll say, Hey, please, you know, just, do you, are you proficient in these three programs? Or ask some kind of question like that, right? And they won't even answer the question.

[00:25:19] And, and what does that, what does that tell you when they're not responding to things that you're writing? They're just sending in something super generic. It tells me that they're not paying attention to detail and that they're going to continue to pay, not pay that attention to detail when I hire them, you know, to work on my own projects, and that's not a kind of person that I would want to hire, or they completely talk about them and feel to communicate to me that they can do the task at hand.

[00:25:48] Cathy: So it, it can reflect really, the poor communication, just in general. 

[00:25:53] Morgan: Poor communication, poor understanding, and also not communicating to me, like I said, that they can actually do the job, which is the number one thing that I want to see as a client. . You know, it's funny, I was recently attending an Upwork webinar where they had you do one of those like live polls, and so everybody was like on their phone, you know, sending in their like little poll answers and you got to see it populate in this word cloud, right?

[00:26:14] So you could see like what the most popular answers were. And, and, and it was funny because one of the questions that they asked was, what do you think your client is looking for? Like the number one thing you think your client's looking for when they look at your proposals And most people answer, what most people are probably thinking about when they're listening to this podcast right now, price, and, and I can tell you that is a hundred percent not the case.

[00:26:37] Cathy: Wow. 

[00:26:37] Morgan: Especially not good clients. Good. I don't care whether or not I'm paying 50 bucks an hour or a hundred dollars an hour, cuz half the time that a hundred dollars an hour freelancer can probably work three times faster than the $50 an hour freelancer. Now I understand we all have budgets, but like if, if I had somebody apply at 10 bucks an hour and 50.

[00:26:57] Honestly, I'm gonna question the abilities of the $10 freelancer . Now I realize I'm an experienced client, and so maybe they're not all that way. Maybe they don't understand there's a difference in quality or could be a difference in quality, and heck makes me, sometimes there's not a difference in quality.

[00:27:11] But you know what? Again, that's why I'm not necessarily looking at prices. The very first thing. . And, and, and I mean, and, and if I do have a budget, I'll very clearly list the budget. You know, I mean, budgets do exist, but what's most important to me is that the freelancer says, yes, I do this kind of work all of the time, and I have done it successfully for client X, Y, and Z.

[00:27:31] And you can go see it over here, link. And I can do it for you. Doesn't that sound great? And I can do it for you on time. I can do, heck, I can do it for you faster. , no problem. You're not going to worry about a thing. I'm gonna make you a lot of money. And heck, if I do have a budget, then I can do it on budget as well, and I guarantee it.

[00:27:48] And that's the kind of proposal that sells. And I cannot tell you, I almost never received that kind of proposal in my inbox. It's always. Hi, I'm a freelancer. I love to do graphic design. I went to college at blah, blah, blah. State University. Please hop on a i I would love to hop on a Zoom call with. . I mean, it tells me nothing.

[00:28:07] Cathy: RIght. 

[00:28:08] Morgan: You didn't answer anything. You didn't say, yes, I can do this specific job. Yes, I have experience. Yes, you can see it over here. Tells me absolutely nothing. It's those people are a dime a dozen. 

[00:28:17] Cathy: Wow. 

[00:28:17] Morgan: And some, and you'd also be surprised how riddle people would, you know, those proposals all were typos and just other really basic mistakes people don't have, um, graphic designers specifically don't have like portfolios, which is just.

[00:28:30] What, if you're gonna be a graphic designer, you kind of need a portfolio, you know? Uh, I would like to see, or, or at least a portfolio with more than one or two design examples in it. You know, you'd also be shocked that people tend to leave that stuff out too. How in the world am I supposed to get an idea for your abilities if you're not speaking, uh, to it and you're not showing.

[00:28:50] Uh, and, and it's, I'm telling you, all you gotta do is post your own job on Upwork or hack anywhere else, and you'll see all this same stuff for yourself. You'll be shocked. 

[00:28:58] Cathy: Wow. That is a great piece of advice and what a great perspective to really get a feel and, and also maybe even kind of see like what the competition's doing.

[00:29:09] And clearly there is a lot to be desired in a lot of the people that are out there. So you, it may be pretty easy for you to go in and shine if we do what you're talking about. Do what you say to do and don't do what you say don't do.

[00:29:23] Morgan: You know, it's so funny too because I think a lot of times we spend so much time worrying about what everybody else is doing.

[00:29:29] Like, don't we do that in life though? That's, that's probably like a fault we all have at all times in our life. Even personal. We worry about what people are doing on Instagram and whether or not they got it, you know, something that we don't, we must, we all have like imposter syndrome and then we. We carry that into like our freelancing, and we especially carry that into Upwork.

[00:29:46] We're like, well, there are a hundred other people who can either do it better, they can do it cheaper, or whatever. We sit there and spend all of our time worrying about them instead of worrying about us, and it turns out that the competition really is not that stiff at the end of the day. They are very few freelancers, even, even in the people that I hire who genuinely are able to take the task, communicate effectively throughout, and hit the deadline.

[00:30:08] I ca I, I, I mean, just finding people who can consistently do that, who I can count on it is, it is an, a nearly impossible task. In fact, I would say as, as a small business owner, that is my largest to date problem still that I am still working on, is learning how to hire better and delegate better. Cuz building that team of people that you can really trust it is the, the most difficult thing that I've ever done.

[00:30:30] People act like, I get invited to do these podcasts a lot, you know, because people think that making 500,000 or $600,000 in Upwork is, is, is something that is, is so completely unachievable. You know, I, to me that was the easy part. The, the hardest part has been finding other people like me who are go-getters.

[00:30:48] You know, who want, who can handle the programs, who understand how to communicate with a client, or at least how to communicate with me, how to translate those communications on paper to the design or to the desired outcome at the end of the day, and do it on time and be men and women of their word. You know, those are the hard things for me.

[00:31:06] I can't tell you how many times I've hired somebody and they write me the night before a deadline. They're like, oh, sorry, I ran outta time. 

[00:31:14] Cathy: Wow,

[00:31:15] Morgan: That's, that's happened to me more than one occasion on Upwork freelancers. So you know that those people exist out there. And so, and, and I guarantee you, Cathy, those, those same people will probably turn around and say, oh, Upwork doesn't work.

[00:31:28] Cathy: Right?

[00:31:29] Morgan: You know, with the people. 

[00:31:31] Cathy: This is so great to, to hear this inside scoop on what's happening. And for anybody listening, this should be great encouragement for you to check Upwork out. You know, get that profile set up and make sure you're reading what people are sending you or what they're saying.

[00:31:47] Morgan: Make sure responding, respond. If they ask a question, 

[00:31:52] Cathy: Respond to the question as if you actually read it and. , uh, let's see, what else did you say? Oh, and make it about the client. Yes. Like make it about them. That's, I mean, that's true. When we do websites in web design the copy and the website is not about the person who owns the website.

[00:32:09] It's about the clients of that person. And we gotta make it about them. And why do they care about this product? Why do they care to come to this website? So we should all be in that habit of thinking that way anyway. But maybe when you're doing it for yourself, it's a little harder.

[00:32:26] Morgan: Yeah. You know, and unfortunately, desperation, you know, doesn't exactly always breed the best decision making.

[00:32:32] And, and if it's still difficult for y'all, y everybody listening to really kind of put yourself in that mindset, then apply to something in the real world. Right? So I just moved, like literally last week, , I'm in a brand new apartment, the whole nine yards. It's, it's literally new construction in a new apartment too.

[00:32:48] So there's like a thousand little things that they're still fixing and trying to update and. Every day I've got like two or three contractors running in and out of here. My phone's constantly blowing up. Right. But the frustrating thing for me is half the time I'll make an appointment with a contractor and we will talk about price and they fail to follow up.

[00:33:05] They don't show up on time, or they show up late, or they don't get the job done on time. You know, and I just sit there and think to myself, oh my gosh, you know, I don't sit there and think, well, I should have hired the cheaper person. I mean, like, I don't think about that kinda stuff. I just want somebody who will show up and do the job on time and do it for somewhere in the range of my budget. That's what I want the most right now. I don't want somebody who's an amateur. I don't want someone who's gonna waste my time. I'm not gonna call some kid down the street to do it for me or to work some kind of crazy overnight, or I, I want a, a professional to come in and complete the job.

[00:33:35] And, and I think honestly, if we just think about the kinds of people that we look for in our lives to make our lives simpler, whether it be your accountant or your doctor, or your dentist or your plumber or your electrician or whatever it may be, and think about the traits that they have and the reasons that you like them or keep going back to them, your hairdresser.

[00:33:51] That could be another good example. You know, try to be that person. Whatever industry, whatever niche that you are in, be that person that makes your client's life easier. Be that person that you help your client make money, achieve their business goals, what have you, and that's when the money will start coming to you.

[00:34:08] Cathy: So you have, you're caring about. Client. 

[00:34:10] Morgan: Yes. 

[00:34:10] Cathy: You're caring about your customer. 

[00:34:12] Morgan: Yes. 

[00:34:12] Cathy: You care about the, the, what you're doing is helping them. 

[00:34:15] Morgan: Mm-hmm. 

[00:34:15] Cathy: And if we're not in it to help people, then you know, we have to maybe reassess what we're doing in the first place. 

[00:34:22] Morgan: Mm-hmm. 

[00:34:22] Cathy: Because we are in a service industry and that means serving, right?

[00:34:27] Morgan: Yep. 

[00:34:27] Cathy: Serving your client. 

[00:34:29] Morgan: And that's the difference, honestly. So many people, you know, they're, they're used to working nine to five jobs and having somebody else handle all the client side for them, right? And they're, they're used to just kind of receiving marching orders and, and completing those marching orders and, and not really having to worry about the end result or, or put themselves in that kind of mindset.

[00:34:45] And, and if, if that sort of thing does seem very daunting to. I will admit, you know, it is completely possible and don't consider this to be failure at all, cuz not everybody likes running a small business. Maybe you are better off being a subcontractor or returning to a nine to five job, or primarily sticking to a nine to five job and just freelancing on the side.

[00:35:02] But freelance at the end of the day, is small business. And it does require thinking about your client. It does require working on your communication about thinking about the end goal and how to properly execute. Nobody's gonna hold your hand on this side, and that is a difference between a true professional and somebody who is probably struggling a little bit.

[00:35:18] Cathy: Wow. Morgan. This is all been, it's just fabulous information. And it's true, boy freelancing is not for the faint of heart in, um, not everybody is cut out for it, and that's okay. That's okay. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, oh, completely. Okay. Like you said, it's not a failure, it's just you. There's a lot of things besides, like, we go in and we think, well, wanna do web design on my own terms.

[00:35:42] But you know what? There's accounting, there's marketing, there's sales, there's interfacing with the client. There's so much. It's a business, like you said, think of it as a business because it is.

[00:35:55] Morgan: Mm-hmm. And, and, and honestly, the more you get rolling, you know, you can kind of hire other people to help you with some of those other aspects of your business.

[00:36:01] You know? Now I have, you know, a team that handles my accounting a great team that handles my accounting. Actually, it's a service I found online. I have a va, I have, you know, several subcontractors. And so there's lots of things that I don't have to worry about in my business anymore that I was able to delegate.

[00:36:16] And that's really the end goal, right? Um, but at the end of the day, I am still the person bringing the clients in because to me that is my primary role to, and primarily the one that interfaces with most of my clients. Mm-hmm. . And, and that and that. So that is the one thing of all the things that you probably could delegate out eventually, you know, which most businesses do. And Mark Cuban ain't exactly sItting around doing his own taxes, you know, like right. But you're probably gonna still need to be the face of your company.

[00:36:40] Cathy: Absolutely. Wow. Oh my gosh. This has been so great and so helpful. Now, Morgan if we wanna get more information about what you do and information about Upwork and those blog articles you were talking about, and I think you also help coach freelancers with Upwork. Am I correct on that? 

[00:37:00] Morgan: Well, I've got a little Patreon account where I've uploaded some of my template proposals. Like in fact, that first job or job that I landed, that little $10 job on my Patreon for just like five bucks a month, I post this kind of stuff every week or two. I actually posted the screenshot of the proposal I sent to win my first ever job on Upwork.

[00:37:17] I'm pretty transparent so you can go to my Patreon account. It's just Morgan. There. Um, but you can also go to morganoverholt.com and you can, um, read my blog post about how I wanna, how I win jobs, or how I write proposals and all that good stuff. You can even download a free Upwork ebook that I, I made.

[00:37:34] Um, and then of course, you can also follow me on Twitter @MorganoMedia. So the Twitter handle is MorganoMedia or you can just look for Morgan Overholt. And then the website is morganoverholt.com and it's o V as in Victor, e r h o l t . 

[00:37:48] Cathy: Thanks. I was just gonna do. Vs and Bs sound alike. 

[00:37:52] Morgan: I know. Especially when you're Southern. Like I am. It's basically the same letter. A Southern girl with a German last name. Life is not fair. 

[00:38:01] Cathy: That is awesome. 

[00:38:04] Morgan, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Just great information and it was so pleasant talking to you. 

[00:38:11] Morgan: Yeah, same to you Cathy. Thank you for having me. 

[00:38:13] Cathy: Okay, thank you very much.