Upwork's CEO Stephane Kasriel sends an important email -- The working population as usual did a great job of outdoing themselves in successfully displaying ignorance, panic and paranoia because of the coming change without first seeking the reasons for doing so.
Read Upwork pricing
It's like the big man woke up one day and announced over the meeting table - "Hey, let's try something different"
As with most companies the change you just read in ten minutes then spent the next hour panicking about had to go through an extensive vetting process, months of deliberation, planning, cascading down the internal pipeline and determining the best release date.
Then they had to come up with a perfectly crafted message designed carefully relay the news and then to illicit the best responses - and of course this where the phrase "damned if you do, damned if you don't" conveniently slides in. Mr. Kasriel might have gotten the same reaction with sending a tweet saying "Hey f*ckers, we need to charge extra to keep the business model going. Deal with it"
In times like this, do you really need to spread panic instead of understanding?
As a freelancer, haven't you thought about deciding between two clients, one with higher demands, but low profit because the projects are few and far in between but demand a lot of meetings and upkeep, versus a client who, even if they pay the same rate, is a lot easier to deal with, work is steady, and payments always guaranteed?
When I read the email that got your asses lighted up faster than porn of course I reacted. But to be honest how long does it take you to earn $500 off of one client? One week? Even at the $3 mark that's a little over one month.
What about short term contracts? I thought about short term contracts, how the hell is that ever going to pan out? Or does it force you to change perspective? Maybe it's better to start building long term relationships with clients, or avoid them altogether.
And to be honest, isn't it counter productive to keep chasing after one-off contracts? Let's say the pay-off for each contract is $500 (so you can complain about the rate)- Then there's the fact that you're always scanning for new contracts, sending applications, chasing after interviews, prepping for them, onboarding, new rules, new interactions... When the same effort applied to long term hourly contracts, or recurring fixed price jobs can save you a whole deal of the exhausting effort I just listed above.
And guess what.. It's the same reason just from Upwork's perspective...
"One size fits all pricing is not ideal. Today you pay a flat fee on all projects, no matter how large or small. However, smaller contracts cost us more to serve than larger projects. The costs of acquiring clients, helping you connect with the right opportunities, and providing services like payment protection outweigh the fees currently charged for small projects. At the same time, larger, repeat projects incur fewer of these costs."
Upwork Pricing Increase Blog
And while earning your first $500 off a client can take as little as half a month, THEN everything goes back to normal, there's actually a bright spot ahead where you get %5 back from your contract... It takes a lot longer to accomplish, but rewarding. Isn't that worth working for?
It's how people react to the situation that separates people who are destined for success. Be part of that
#Upwork #Understandchange #kalma
#kalma best one yet Francis! It is a good change. We all need to think for the long term and Upwork has just forced us to do so.
ReplyDeleteThen might think about haggling your rates much better then.
ReplyDeleteI agree, just my opinion ah wala sana magalit sa akin haha kasi if mareach mo naman na ang $500 so balik ka na sa dati na 10% na sanay mo naman ng binabayaran. The good thing is pag nareach mo $10k o di 5% ka na lang. I dont know how hard it would be to earn $500 though kc first client ko tong work ko pro in less than 2mos nareach ko nmn ung $500 non. Look at the bright side mga kapatid. Lets not dishearten mga newbies kasi marereach din naman nila yan. And im sure pinag aralan naman mabuti ng upwork to mapa freelancers and clients side kya chill lang. Lets reach for that 10k! #newgoal
ReplyDeleteThe whole time I was freelancing, I rarely came across clients who didn't need recurring work,
ReplyDeleteI don't know the kind of work that you do but if the change is imminent then the reasonable course of action is to move with the times, arguably, clients can choose to stick to preferred freelancers... you on the other hand might do well to start building stronger relationships with your clients.