10/20/21

How to Become a Digital Nomad with the Projects You Win on Upwork

A lot of salaried employees are starting to buck the norm and learning how to become a digital nomad.

The truth is a lot of people spend their entire lives devoting most of their energy to their careers. But, something has happened recently.

Many are starting to ask, “Why am I adjusting my lifestyle for my career, rather than adjusting my career to live the kind of life I want to have?”

There have been huge improvements with global online connectivity and employers are increasingly more open to hiring remote workers OR augmenting staff with freelancers. As a result, more and more people are leaving their day job and choosing to contract themselves out for projects while traveling the globe.

Bali one week. Mexico the next. New Amersterdam for Christmas. Basically, if you’ve got a laptop and wifi, you’re all set.

Robert O’Kruk’s Path to Become a Digital Nomad

This week’s guest is Robert O’Kruk. Robert graduated college and quickly found himself working a normal day job at a company. But, he wasn’t satisfied.

He wanted to travel and see the world. And, most importantly, he didn’t want to spend the majority of his life feeling trapped in a routine he hated.

That’s when he started learning how to become a digital nomad.

He realized there were other options and he didn’t have to settle for a life that didn’t fit him personally.

So, he bought a one-way ticket to Bali.

Using Upwork to Become a Digital Nomad

Fairly soon, Robert realized that he needed to find more projects to work on, or his stint as a digital nomad would be short-lived. That’s when he turned to Upwork.

He’d heard mixed reviews about Upwork itself. Some people had good things to say while others trashed the platform.

He decided to find out for himself and found huge success. He was able to use the projects he found on Upwork to sustain his lifestyle and become a digital nomad for the long haul.

He found there are four pillars to success on Upwork:

1. Upwork Profile Optimization

You need to have a profile that helps you stand out and helps make the clients deciding to hire you a no-brainer. You don’t have to come up with everything on your own to do that. You can look at what other successful Upwork freelancers are doing in their own profiles and use that for inspiration.

2. Automate Notifications for Ideal Jobs

Upwork has some great tools to filter out jobs that aren’t best suited for you. Then you can create a custom feed that sends you notifications the instant a job is posted with those search filters using tools like Leap Frog Leads.

3. Creating Strong Proposals

The proposals you send to bid on projects play a huge part in winning jobs on Upwork. The key is you can’t just copy and paste. You have to be thoughtful about what you’re saying and do your best to connect to what the client is truly looking for. But, you should be able to send in a winning Upwork proposal in 3 to 5 minutes

4. Call Handling

How you handle the call with a potential client is a huge component of your success on Upwork. The key is to be strategic about the conversation. Have a list of things you’d like to chat through with the client and be systematic about it. As you get more experience doing calls with clients you can add or adjust what you’re saying and how you’re saying it to be more successful.

Skip the Learning Curve and Become a Digital Nomad

You can become a digital nomad, too. And, Upwork can be a powerful ally as you travel the globe. There might be a bit of learning curve BUT using advice from people like Robert will help you skip a lot of heartaches as a freelancer and digital nomad.

It’s your turn to chose a career that fits your lifestyle rather than the other way around.

In This Episode You’ll Learn

How to become a digital nomad
How to overcome your fear of becoming a digital nomad
How to use Upwork to find projects and live a digital nomad lifestyle
Upwork profile hacks to win clients
How to make a winning bid on Upwork
How to automate notifications for job postings on Upwork

Resources

Related Episodes

[fusebox_transcript]