Yay, @Mark ! That's wonderful how the client sees and appreciates your true value for him.
Well, for me on UW it was back to the usual... nearly invisible.
That's not a win, unfortunately. I hoped it was something new about UW—views for pros, like it's 2022! —but I guess it was just too good to last.
And I got my second contact in two weeks that was also not a win: People write long elaborate listings, right up my alley. Good, but not suspicious pay. I send detailed proposals as always, really laying out how I can bring the goods for them. Then they get in touch, and (Charlie Brown reference) they pull the football away as I'm about to kick: "Well, we've decided to do [project that's way tinier than I ever would have sent a proposal for] and we love your work so we'd like you to do it for [half my rate or less]." I've never gotten contacts like this before, now two in two weeks. Is it a new scam technique that's making the rounds?
It seems the idea is to rope in big, experienced fish with a big project scope, then flatter them about how lucky they are to be kissed by their interest and browbeat them simultaneously, saying "don't I know about the competition in my field" etc.
The win ABOUT this situation is that last time, I just said a big fat NO to the job-lister—but this time, I really enjoyed putting together a polite, professional response about the expert they had asked for in the job title, the value I had laid out for them, and that even (or especially!) on a suddenly-small job, I have more respect for my time and my paying clients than to enter a race to the bottom as a desperate discounter.
They wrote back totally nasty, which I expected, but I really needed to "hear" my voice sticking up for professional pay for professional work, and I was expecting no less than what I got in their response.
(I also went back through my proposal looking at whether I'm not phrasing the value I've provided to past clients well enough—but I've decided that these two weird contacts are either an anomaly or a new scam. I've been doing this for almost 20 years and I know I get across what I've done and what I can do, in prospect-centered language.)
...
The more obvious win is that I've had some really warm contacts on LinkedIn, where I am a brand-new babe in the woods, and I am truly wondering why it took Christine (from Upwork forums) to prod me into it last month. I have my feed tightly curated, of course, and that helps. I'm finding it to be such a positive place! Maybe I should have been exploring LI long ago.
Best time to start is yesterday, second-best time is now...
