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In this episode of GradBlogger, we answer listener questions about hiring on Upwork, finding new clients for your business, and dealing with constant unsubscribing from your business newsletter.
Disclosure: Some of the links in the podcast show notes and transcripts are affiliate links (indicated with [Affiliate] in front). If you choose to make a purchase through these links, GradBlogger will earn a commission from that purchase at no extra cost to you.
In today’s episode, we have another listener question session. These questions are collected through:
- Our website at Gradblogger.com/ask,
- Communities that we’re involved in, and
- Coaching calls that we do as part of the GradBlogger platform.
Question #1: How do I hire someone on Upwork?
This listener says “I am worried about the amount of effort involved and that it will be a waste of time or money.”
One of the biggest fears of looking for help on Upwork is trying to find somebody to help you with your business. I want to give you some tips on how you can avoid that feeling of remorse, of having wasted time and money when you’re trying to hire somebody new for your business.
First, start small, and start with a paid test. You may be paying somebody else to spend that hour in online research for you and they oftentimes can do it better than you can! In my own experience, it was right around $10 an hour and I saved an hour to two hours of my weekend and got these articles emailed to me instead of having to Google them.
If you’re getting started online or getting started hiring, start really small. It’s a great way to do it. You get some experience on the platform, you get some experience dealing with other people, and you start to learn that whole process.
For bigger projects, I first do the task myself and write down the steps. I even make a video of myself doing it. Then I post the job description on Upwork and note that there’ll be a test which they’ll be paid to complete.
After I select a couple of candidates, I ask them to do the task I outlined with the steps and video. The purpose of this test is to see if they can:
- Follow the instructions
- Make sense of the video
- Get a similar result to what I did or better
Once complete, select whoever was the most cost-effective, did the best work or was the easiest to communicate with -whatever your criteria is for selecting. Don’t forget to let the other candidates know that you went in a different direction or if you might reach out to them for jobs in the future.
These are really simple ways to get started on Upwork. It almost guarantees that you’re not going to be upset if you run this test on something that’s already been done. It’s really small.
Question #2: How do I find more clients for my editing business?
In this case, our questioner is editing manuscripts, but this could be any service. If you’re providing copy editing or proofreading or CV setup or resume service, how do you find more clients?
The biggest tip I can give here is from one of the Jay Abraham books, I think it’s [Affiliate] Getting All You Can Out of Everything You’ve Got. He talks about having a systematic referral system. If you have clients already, this is the number one way to get more.
This is similar to a content machine or a customer insight machine that we talked about before: a systematic, scalable way that you can bring things into your business. But in this case, you’re asking for referrals from your clients.
With every client, you basically say, “I really loved working with you. You are my ideal client. You’re exactly the type of person that I love to continue working with. Do you know anyone else that’s in a similar field or similar circumstance as you who would be a great match for what I’m doing?”
I recommend creating a closeout questionnaire or a closeout survey to give to every client. Not every client’s going to fill it out, but you might be surprised at the return rates, and the information that you’ll get will be really helpful for your business. There’s also a way to put a systematic client referral system right in there.
If you don’t have a systematic referral system in place for finding more clients via your existing client base, put that into your business and you’ll be pretty amazed. In his book, Jay Abraham has a bunch of case studies on how that helped his business or the businesses that he worked with.
Question #3: Every time I send an email, people unsubscribe from my list. How do I stop this?
To properly answer this one, there are a couple of questions we need to ask ourselves. My guess is that the emails are not being sent very frequently, otherwise you wouldn’t have this gigantic unsubscribe rate. You need to ask yourself, “Why are they unsubscribing?”
They’re probably unsubscribing because you haven’t provided anything of value for six months. Then you emailed them with something that’s low value again and they said, “Delete! I’m done with this one.”
Getting the attention of your audience is getting harder. People are not tolerating stuff in their email box that isn’t helpful. Or maybe your client has moved on. Perhaps you helped them with grad school applications, but now they’re in their PhD program and they don’t really need your help anymore.
There are two viewpoints that I want to give you on this.
Do They Still Belong On Your List?
One is that maybe they shouldn’t be on your list anymore. Maybe they’re unsubscribing because they’re not your ideal customer any longer. You might need to look at paring your list down by sending an email and saying, “Hey, if you don’t click on this link, you’re going to be automatically removed.”
Pare down your list to the people who activated and are motivated to be on it. Then you won’t see as many unsubscribes every time. You’ll have a smaller list, obviously, but do you really need those other people on your list? It’s probably not that helpful.
Do They Need Other Services?
If people don’t need your help anymore, can you start to offer something that is a ‘next step’? If you did grad school applications now, maybe it’s helping them with lifestyle choices once they get into grad school or assisting them with applying for scholarships. Can you start to offer information and advice for those next stages so they’re not dropping off your list?
Don’t stop emailing them. Instead, look at increasing the value. One key to doing this is having a good newsletter formula.
My newsletter formula has three parts. The first is what I did, which is content that’s always helpful. Then there’s a roundup of the best posts or news. I’ve talked about this in Episode #23 of the podcast on content curation and repurposing: having a section where you’re bringing the best information together. That’s high value.
The third section is evergreen content and can be created way beforehand. Maybe you offer tips and tricks for better success in grad school or, in my case for DustSafetyScience, ways to be safer in the workplace. You can write 12 of these in one sitting. Write them all out: take a four-hour session and do 12 or 26 or as many as you can. 52 will give you a whole year’s worth of weekly newsletters. Those evergreen parts are there for you to pull in every week.
If you liked this episode, keep sending questions in. Go to gradblogger.com/ask. We will cover those on the podcast and help you grow, run your business, and become profitable so you can make a big change in the world with your research experience and expertise.
Resources from this episode
Companies
DustSafetyScience
GradBlogger: Twitter | Instagram
Books
[Affiliate] Abraham, Jay. Getting All You Can Out of Everything You’ve Got.
Previous Episodes
Content curation and repurposing (The Content Machine Series) | GBP023
