:: Recently, the South Bay members of Women in Consulting gathered over lunch to discuss how members can leverage Upwork and LinkedIn Profinder in their consulting practice. Co-host Angel Rampy moderated the panel and shared her own experience with LinkedIn Profinder: “It landed me a one-year coaching gig with a big social media organization. But I want to learn how to do more of that.”
For those new to freelance work exchanges: LinkedIn Profinder allows companies and individuals to post requests for proposals on projects and send them to professionals who have signed up for the ProFinder network of freelancers. Upwork is a freelancing marketplace with a different twist: “Grow your business with the top freelancing website.” Consultants can hire experts as subcontractors in the U.S. or worldwide. Three guest speakers shared their experience with these employment platforms.
Paul Scott On LinkedIn Profinder: Get Paid to Do Your Networking
Paul is a technical writer for over 20 years, he has had a consulting practice for three years. He targets mainly tech and biotech companies, where he uses his scientific training and technology experience to develop effective technical documentation. “I gotten steady business from ProFinder for the past few years. I connect with new clients over a small, initial project that builds into recurring work. It’s not going to land you a five-figure contact, so I think of it as ‘networking that you get paid for.’ I am connecting with a high value target that has a project and a budget; way better than collecting business cards at a cocktail party.”
To get started, Paul suggests you define a short project under $1,000 that you can do in 2 to 4 hours, 8 hours tops. For Paul it was a blog post. By develop an offering in advance you can save time and make yourself easier to find as those using Profinder often have a specific problem to solve. Then use this introductory project to assess how well you work together. With one project under your belt, stay in touch to nurture the relationship for future projects.
While Paul taught himself the ins and outs of the platform, Angel suggested these tutorials to jumpstart your effort:
As a freelancer, you’ll get 10 free proposals allowing you to test out the system. After that, you’ll be asked to start paying monthly for LinkedIn Premium.
Ellen Grace Henson & Theresa Shafer on Upwork
Ellen Grace is a consultant for business & product strategy including product management and cross-functional team development and in all her spare time she is the president of Women in Consulting. From Ellen’s perspective, “One of the compelling values offered through Upwork – they help you manage contractors. What I would like to see, for Women in Consulting members to tap into the WIC lists first and if they find someone in the community they want to work with, encourage that person to register with Upwork.”
Event co-host Theresa is a customer development consultant for high technology startups focusing on early customer and early revenue. She has used Upwork to find and manage many of her subcontractors. She uses it for both remote and local contractors. Theresa actively moves subcontractors to Upwork to help ensure that they meet the contractor test.
Upwork is a bit more complitcated. There is a membership level for freelancers: Basic which is free and Plus which is $10 a month plus scaled fees based upon the billing amount of any contracted project work. These percentage fees go down with the size of the projects and recurring work with the same employer. Employers also pay a modest fee for Upwork proceesing payments.
Next month the South Bay Satellite tackles other ways to make networking more efficient.
Systems to Expand Your Business Without Working Nights and Weekends: Mary Cravats is a Client Generation Expert and International Speaker who works with driven, busy business owners around the world to help them fill their businesses with great clients without working nights and weekends. Using her methods, the majority of her clients quickly increase their income 50-100%.
Register now for the September 10th luncheon.
