The Upwork Proposal System I Used to Make $500k (Live Applications)

Your ability to apply with high-quality applications to high-quality jobs that you found on Upwork is the number one barometer when it comes down to your success— how many jobs you're going to win, how much money you're going to earn, and ultimately how successful you're going to be on Upwork. So today, as a veteran with half a million earned on the platform, 100% job success score, and an Expert Vetted badge alongside it, I'm gonna go through 2 or 3 applications with you and finding the projects so that next time you go to find whatever niche you're in, you understand some of the key and core fundamentals that I use when I'm surfacing through projects and the ability to be able to apply for them in a way which resonates with the business. Because I'm going to go to this now, find work, but what a lot of people do is they make this common mistake, and this common mistake is that they do— they don't relay the business's requirements back to the business. Why is this important? Well, this business or individual is going to get inundated with applications the minute that their post goes live. You check it 10 minutes later, it could have 50 proposals alongside it. You have to stand out in a crowd. Boosting will help you with that. My last video was on Connects. Go and check that out at the end of this if you haven't seen it. I'll link it at the end. But when it comes down to what you're trying to do is capture the attention of the person who posted the job immediately, and there's certain techniques that you have to implement inside of your application in order to make that a success, and I'm about to show you exactly what they are. Now, my industry is Google Ads management, so therefore I'm going to search for Google Ads management here. When we go through this, there will be an abundance of individual jobs. There are always loads when it comes down to a PPC— from PPC perspective. But as we know, inquiries are good, some of them, and other inquiries are poor. So the filtration system that you use in order to highlight high-quality inquiries is critical to your success. If you spend all day applying to low-quality jobs. You're simply never going to win anybody because they will never pay you if their hire rate is really low, for example. Or I don't like applying for jobs that aren't in tier 1 countries, for example, where they're used to paying decent retainers for a high-quality standard of work. I would rather channel my energy into those than focus on job applications that are pretty small and pointless, a little bit like this one is right here. Well, how do we avoid it? Well, the way that we avoid it is we could go through some categories and we can look at individual marketing elements and select like sales and marketing, digital marketing. But I've done a lot of that filtration by searching for Google Ads management anyway. So really what we're looking at is we're looking at the fixed price values. So we want fixed price and do those 4, which is $100 and higher. Stay with me for a while because this here, when it comes down to the hourly, I'm gonna set this at 30. Now the reason I'm going to set this at 30, and I will go lower, I've won retainers that pay me £4,000 a month off of a $15 job post. Like, they've posted a job, $15, they've ended up paying me £4K. Please remember this: when the business owner or a staff member posts a job, they have no idea what they should pay for it. The value proposition you provide comes from within. You have to showcase to the client why you are worth the money, and if you can, they will pay you. My dad's got a famous saying, he always says it to me, always has, all my life. It's not what you pay a man, it's what he costs you. And what that means is when it comes down to your investment into something, if I'm to give the client $10,000, but I'm only charging $2,500, and that's profitable for them. That's a win in their eyes, and that's the way that you should look at every single project. So I don't focus too much on the pricing. However, I do use it for filtering, which is why it's in there. I don't care about the proposal numbers. I care about payment being verified, and I care about higher rates and percentages. Finally, I care about the country that they're in. So United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Stick both of those in. Now I'm going to go to the top, and instead of filtering by best matches, I'm going to go to most recent. This gives us— we've now filtered by hourly rate and price pricing. Basically, we've done by payment verified, so they've got a verified payment attached to their account, and they've actually hired somebody on the Upwork platform before whilst being based in the tier 1 country. It's not rocket science. That's all that it takes. You can play around with it. We can move this up and down when it comes down to the hourly. Maybe I'll do that if I don't find what I'm looking for. But as I scroll through, I'm looking. So right away here, 2 hours ago, some help with Google Ads. I'm running some Google Ads and I'd like to find an expert who can look at the Google Ads dashboard with me and help me understand some confusing things. So I'm going to open that link in a tab. It sounds a little bit like a consultation, but it's something that you might be able to twist their arm into a fully fledged project. So I'm going to stick with it. Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom. Google AdWords specialist for local advertisement. That looks like a good project. Let's open that one. Google and Meta specialists research peptides. I'm going to skip that because I don't like— SEM specialist for law firm. Now you see this payment verified here. This on the surface looks good. However, if we go inside of it, this is where my alarm bells would ring a little bit because I'm sat here looking at this now and I'm thinking it's great that they've got a good job history, but why do they have 3 stars out of 12 reviews? So I instantly dodge it. That tells you everything you need to know. Out of 12 freelancers, they've got a very, very, very mid-rated review, which means that they could be difficult to work with. Auto repair shop, Google Ads meta in the USA, multi-unit repair shop, Google Ads for B2B, no agencies. We've got a few here. So running some Google Ads, look at dashboard. Now what I'm going to do is I've just found them very quickly with the filtration system that I've put in place and what you should put in place. You can find jobs very quickly, but what now? What do we do as a next step? Well, we have to apply for them. Maybe I'll do all 4, maybe I'll do 1 or 2 just to showcase this to you because I don't— you may or may not want to see me do as many looms, but there are some critical things inside of these job posts and applications that you need to see. So you've got to stick around. This here, $130K spent, $25 average paid, it's basically a home run for me. They're in Philly. I've just flown out of Philly not long ago, so we're going to apply. Now, Bradford is the name which gets mentioned. Let's take another look, see if there's any more. Yeah, Bradford. So Bradford is the name. We hit Apply Now. The first thing I do as soon as I hit the Apply Now button, before I start doing my sort of presentation and pitch, is I will get the Connect number in mind. So 50 connects here, 15 cents a connect. You know, it's going to cost me next to nothing to apply for this job. It's literally going to cost me, I think, $7.50. But I'm going to go even higher because I see the potential in the project. Now, what else do I want to show them? Preparation. This section is preparation. Well, I would like to show them my YouTube channel. Subscribe. I would like to show them my YouTube channel because I have a lot of decent content on this channel that's going to help in terms of the— giving somebody authority when it comes down to their personal brand is never a bad thing when it comes down to winning projects. I have loads of people mention they found me on this platform before, so I want to show them that. But I also want to show something which is blurred on your screen right now, I'm going to show them the individual account section, and I'm going to go back over the last 1,200 days, and I'm just going to show them the spend that I've managed during that period. $35.9 million, so $36 million. So I've got credibility now from a PPC perspective. If you don't have this, don't worry. Not everybody's going to have this level of volume. Like, they're just— they're not in terms of like the substantial amount of data you could share to somebody. However, what you will have is case studies, or you will be attached to a project that was very successful, and you can use that as a reference even if technically it's a gray area. You'd never lie, ever. But if you had a part to play in a project that was a success, feel free to use it. That's as simple as that. Everybody plays the game. For me, I never lie, ever. Like, it's not something that you'll see inside of, you know, clients and relationships, projects. You can't lie because it just sets a really bad tone and you will get you nowhere. But But what you can do is you can use just your— add the VAT and add emphasis onto things that maybe you didn't quite— as a beginner, this is— you didn't quite have the full control over, but you were part of it. Then for sure you should take the credit for that and showcase that as a case study because you were a key component inside of it. And there is nothing wrong with that. Don't let anybody tell you that there is. So it's time to submit a proposal. So this is Bradford, and when we look at his job brief some question suggestions about landing page improvements and campaign optimizations. Conversions are quite low, so let's hit the Loom. I hope that doesn't break OBS. Let's see, guys. Hey Bradford, Michael Elliott here, top 1% Upwork freelancer for Google Ads, half a million earned on the platform. I've managed nearly, what, 36 million in the last 3 years or so. I also have a YouTube channel where I teach people all about Upwork and how to use it. Feel free to go and check that out, but let's focus on your job at hand right now. You're currently running Google Ads, conversions are low, and the Google Ads dashboard board that you want somebody to run through with you and help you understand some things that are confusing you. That is fully natural to somebody who isn't doing this every single day. When you're in that position, things can get lost. But not only that, it can get very, very expensive. It can cost the business a lot of money for things which somebody like myself, of my level of experience working with some of the world's biggest brands— Vita Biotics, Vodafone, to name a few— they give— that gives me a massive leg up. So I strongly advise that we get on a call. I think you'd struggle to find somebody better suited to this job position as what I am. I can't help you though unless you drop me a message. Drop me a message, I will go through the landing pages with you, I'll go through the dashboard with you, and we can look at what the relationship is like from there on. Mine is Michael Elliott Elliott. Just drop me a message and we'll speak soon. Bye-bye. So I nearly signed that off as a YouTube video, um, but other than that, that was really good, just off the dome, off the cuff, based off of what we'd, what we'd seen. And now I'm gonna go inside of this, this job brief, and this is where the key thing comes never with the rate increase. Okay, and I'm now going to use Whisperflow in order to draft a proposal for me. Bradford, I have calls every single day where clients struggle to understand the dashboard, and I get it. Making sense of all the noise inside of Google Ads is exactly what I am here for. New paragraph, new paragraph. I've put a personalized Loom together for you below. New paragraph, new paragraph. I've handled nearly £40 million in spend in the last 3 years. I'm in an extremely strong position to help you increase that low number of conversions that you're talking about, starting with a review of landing pages and that dashboard. New paragraph. New paragraph. Drop me a message if you need some support. New paragraph. Mike. So I hope you just realize what I did there by listening to what I said, but also by what I put together. I've— I literally fed back everything that he is feeling inside and gave it to him in the first line. Making sense of all the noise inside of Google Ads is exactly what I am here for. He's going to read that and he's going to feel like he's not alone because I explained that other clients struggle to understand the dashboard. And then he's going to understand that I can make sense of all the noise inside of Google Ads for him, and it's exactly what I do. Then he's going to watch the personalized Loom, see what I've handled. I'm going to edit this end bit, and please see the video testimonial from the Canadian YPO president attached. So this is not going to show on your screen, it's going to be blurred probably. Depending on the file names. So I'm going to attach the, the testimonial that is now there. Add Upwork jobs. A tip when it comes down to adding Upwork jobs is that when it comes down to your project sizes, I have like really large project. Look at my largest project here, it's $111,000, right? And it's probably my best testimonial I've got, and I will add it to this, but I don't just add all of the big ones because it makes you Remember, the whole point of this is to get a conversation. It's not to sign the client right now. It's about like, quick ad campaign help, $1,500 fixed campaign. This is what the client is looking for. He's not going to be the huge fish. So I'm just going to do that, then I'm going to hit portfolio, then I'm going to probably hit this big brand here that I work with, Perfect Draft, and I've got a proposal inside of there as well. Add it to the highlights. Now here's the key thing. I think that working with Bradford is going to be valuable, but I don't think he's going to be an extremely large client. So what am I going to do? I see that it's at 50 connects, but I can see that people are applying consistently. One person applied 57 seconds ago when I originally clicked the link. I do not want to be out of that top 4 in that first 2-hour period because that's when the most conversions happen, right around 2 hours mark, 2 to 3 hours, because the client then reopens their job proposal and has another look. So I'm actually going to go and I'm going to apply 100 I'm sorry, 150 connects for this. And you're like, whoa, why are you tripling and inflating the ad spend? Well, one is because I have the financial ability to be able to make myself visible for projects like this, which is key. I understand some of you might have to trickle the bid up, and you can come back and look and make edits if the client hasn't viewed it. But for me, I want to know that the jobs that I apply for and spend time putting effort in are seen. Like, when he opens the project, he's— I know that I'm in the top positions to be seen. And if he chooses somebody else, that's just tough luck. That's just par for the course. But considering I have like a 70% open rate of my applications, that leaves me in a pretty good position. And he's a massive avid Upwork user, so I know that he's willing to pay me. So that's that one out the way. Now, Google Ads specialist looking for local advertisements, $20 an hour, $18K spent. Looking for an experienced PPC to help us rebuild for local specialty retail business focused on booked appointment conversions. Lingerie— this business is is a specialty lingerie boutique in Cherry Hill. Primary goal is not broad e-commerce. We're focused on generating high-intent local traffic that books professional fitting appointments. So this is an interesting one. This is unique, and this is right. So rebuilding after a suspended or frozen compromised account— I'm going to close it straight away. I don't deal with those things anymore. I used to, but I don't— I'm not going to do now. Auto repair shop, Google Ads, $29K spent, reasonable spend from the US, tier 1 country. Out of 34 reviews, he's got basically a 5-star review. 4.9. So I know this is a good client. Do not be put off by the fact that the client actually has such a short brief. This feeds into what I'm trying to educate you in this video. Why does the client produce a short brief? The other one that we just saw, this has a 99% chance of being AI written. This one is written by somebody who needs help, a human naturally just typing it in. Once LSAs to multi-unit auto repair shop in the US, the focus should be on automotive repair shops. Proof of previous work is required to ensure relevant experience. That is written by somebody who's ready to hire. That's written by a human being, somebody you could probably speak to, get along with, be friends with, because I'm friends with a lot of my long-term clients now. And that makes me even more aggressive when it comes down to the application. They haven't just stuck it in Claude, they haven't just stuck it in ChatGPT. They've come to the platform, they've spent serious money on the platform before, and they simply just did not want to waffle inside of their summary. And it's the exact response that you go with, like we've just seen. We pair it. We They don't write massive paragraphs of responses because he's not going to read it. He couldn't even be bothered to write out a massive— or she couldn't be bothered to write out a massive summary for their job brief in the first place. See, this is how time-stretched they are. So you want to hit this really hard and fast. I mean, is there any name in here? Yeah, Cody. So we've got Cody. Hey Cody, Michael Elliott here, top 1% Upwork freelancer, half a million earned on the platform. I've been an expert vet and I've been on the platform for many years now. When it comes down to who I am, I teach other people how to use the Upwork platform, which is like a passion project for me. Not only that, I've handled nearly 36 million in Google Ads spend in the last 3 years, a lot of that for local service lead generation businesses. And I'm happy to showcase a few for you. There's conveyancers, there's, uh, body repair shops and things like that. So it suits your industry as well, down to the bone. Feel free, I can showcase that to you, maybe even put you in touch with the owner. But I see that you need somebody to run the holistic marketing strategy for your business. I'm not going to take up any more of your time. You want somebody to come in, generate enquiries that are high quality that can fill your auto repair shops in America. It doesn't get much simpler than that, and that is exactly what I do every single day. When it comes down to the focus, you're bang on. That's exactly what the focus should be on— tight keywords in order to avoid wasted spend. And the proof of previous work I've just showcased to you— nearly $40 million in ad spend managed in the last 3 years. But I'm happy to share any more further deep dives with you on a call. Drop me a message, we can discuss. Speak soon. Cheers, Cody. Second application done. Now we go back in here and I'm going to make this even shorter than what I did with the other one because when it comes down to the actual application process, he's given an extremely short brief and he's done it for a reason. So in this, I currently work with auto repair shops in the US, New York specifically, and I'd be more than happy to run you through what I've done for that individual business, the cost per conversion, and the account structure so that we can hit the ground running. That's my explanation for, uh, recent experience. Now for the COVID letter. Cody, running ads for an auto repair shop is 100% based on granularity of Google Ads structure. Too many people get this wrong. New paragraph, new paragraph. I can generate you high-quality leads that are ready to pay for your service, but I can't do so unless we have a chat. In order to instigate that chat, I've put together a Loom below. New paragraph, new paragraph. You want to focus on running your business whilst the trusted partner runs your Google Ads account. That's what I do every single day for my clients. Clients. New paragraph, new paragraph, drop me a message. New paragraph, Mike. Kind of wonky, but I like the fact that it's in there. I'm going to attach the testimonial again so that it gives us the credibility. But it's, it's a local service business. When it comes down to this, let's search, just scroll through some of these jobs in terms of PPC strategies. I'm gonna do this search ads management, uh, let's put the one in there again. And let's just put that in and that. Add to the highlights. 55 connects. I'm gonna do exactly the same thing I just did a minute ago. I'm going to set the bid at £150. It'll be a small auto repair shop, but it'll pay more than that in the setup fee that it'll cost me when it comes down to applying for jobs. So what have we learned? I think that's good. I mean, the next one is a B2B Google Ads. I think this is actually a really good project that I am going to apply for, but I think I'd rather give you the lessons now of what we've just done. What you've seen by these applications is high-quality looms that are short, dense, but provide value that somebody could literally just watch on their phone in a matter of seconds without thinking. You've also seen how short the applications are with a 70% open rate. Let's say you cut that in half because of my Upwork authority and what I have as an— on my Upwork profile. Cut that in half to 35%, that will give you a 35% open rate. That is still extremely strong. My response rate is very, very, very high because of the way that I do my applications. So if you copy this model, you should be getting like a 60-70% response rate alongside a 60-70% open rate. And when you get those two things, that means that you're going to get— out of every 10 applications that you do, you're going to get a couple of responses. Do 10 applications a day, that's 2 conversations a day. If you win one in every four, that's one client every 2 days. Spread that over the course of a year, you've got too many clients, you don't know what to do, you're growing business. That's exactly what I'm here to teach you how to do. My name is Michael Elliott. If you've enjoyed this video, go and watch this one about Kynex. I'll catch you in the next one. Like, subscribe.