Upwork Specialized Profile (Upwork Profile 2020 Update)

Upwork has been pushing users to use specialized profiles since at least 2019. I wanted to find out if these changes are actually in your best interests as a user of the platform, specifically do they lead to an increase in sales?

Last year I tested running specialized profiles on multiple accounts and found that it led to fewer sales and a lower search ranking on the Upwork platform!

Upwork has just announced new changes for “top-rated accounts”, this post will explore how these new changes can help you as a freelancer or agency owner – specifically how to utilize these changes to increase your sales.

How Should You Use Upwork Specialised Profiles?

If you rely on sending out proposals to get clients these changes won't make much difference at all to how you use Upwork, the main change will be how you show up in search results.

You don’t need to drastically change your profile; you can simply add your specialized profile to Upwork now. You should set out your general profile like a sales letter to get clients on calls, use sales calls as your way to close sales with clients. It is much easier to close sales on a call, you can discuss their problems in real-time and show to them that you are a trustworthy service provider. You can set your specialized profiles as a sales letter, but just tailor it for that specific specialty skill set. It might not be what Upwork wants you to do, but you will get the benefits of the changes and avoid the downsides!

You can also use the same reviews from your general profile on your Upwork specialized profiles – just put the ones on your specialized profile that match up to the specialty. You don’t need to build a new profile from scratch, most clients probably won't even see both of your profiles so just choose the best reviews to showcase so that you guarantee that clients will see your best reviews.

The Bottom Line

Upwork seems very committed to try and get users to adopt specialized profiles, so if you want to offer multiple services and have not just one but multiple specialized profiles here’s what I recommend that you do. 

• Firstly, determine if you are going to get regular invites and jobs or projects for that specialization?
• Then determine if it's worth it for your business to offer these other services. Every service you add, adds complexity to your business, and means you will have to have different systems in place to manage them. This makes you an “employee” of the business as it's hard to scale. Instead, you want to have a service that you can offer repeatedly to your clients.
• Next work out if there is synergy between the second or third service you may want to offer? For example, do the same type of clients buy it, can you upsell to them other services that you provide?
• If yes, then: The second or third service should synergize with the other services and I would recommend that you sign up for Upwork specialized profiles.

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