Sales process that helped us close $800k as an Upwork Agency

Sharing the sales strategy, that helped us close $800k in the past 3 years as an Upwork Agency.
I am Hashir Baig, founder ‪@RipeSeedio‬ and I am currently running a Product Development company of 25+ team members. Upwork has been a major source of our customers and it's been a huge success for us. So I thought it's about time that I share my upwork strategy that can help individuals or companies win clients on upwork or step into freelancing while keeping their ethics and morality intact.
Get in touch with me 👇🏻
LinkedIn: / imhashir
TikTok: / imhashir20
Instagram: / imhashir
Checkout RipeSeed 👇🏻
ripeseed.io/
LinkedIn: / ripeseed
Instagram: / ripeseed
KZbin: ‪@RipeSeedio‬

[@abdulmananchaudary9543]

Exceptional Million Dollar Insights. Thank you Hashir

[@maazashraf4694]

Loved it!!! Waiting for the more valuable content.

[@sherazsheikh4387]

completely as I expected You are really honest guy without keep hiding you told everything and this time I require these information for setting my agency you just need editing on your video with background music or sounds but literally you don't need that because that its perfect.

[@imhashir]

So glad to see you are getting some value out of it

[@SaeedAhmad-kd8vt]

Excellent share Hashir. Keep pushing more valuable stuff.

[@imhashir]

Thanks a ton! Will try my best!

[@badarmasood9587]

Really informative, Thank you for being so open and clear.

[@imhashir]

Try my best!

[@11hamma]

Hashir I know this is much more work, but I think having some basic illustrations or slides would be really helpful. Or even a basic sketch or flow diagram!

[@abdulwahab-w2q7k]

Very informative. Thanks for sharing this with us ❤️ very helpful

[@wajahatworks]

I own an agency on upwork, we made $1M in revenue in last 6 years, 300K of upwork and $700K out of upwork. The problem in this model is that it's super hard to maintain employee retention, When a exclusive/nonexclusive agency member knows how much he is worth, It's a very bad situation to be in. In a country where moral and ethical standards are very low, you can not give a mature lead to a money monger. Sorry i disagree maybe you can change my mind about it. Overall good content, Thanks for sharing.

[@imhashir]

I can understand your point and I'd kind of agree to it as well, but in our case, we never had to face such issue. I'll share about my strategy regarding that as well, why and how we were able to solve that issue.

[@jnqureshi]

What services do you offer in your agency? I am looking to join an agency, I offer copywriting and social media management services, just started in Upwork 2 month ago, however not able to land any clients.

[@NaveedAhmadMayo]

Excellent Video Hashir. Just wanted to know that how you make sure that your team member work honestly with your company and not to go straight with the client as this is a big issue in Pakistan? Can you share how you incentivise them? I have a good profile in marketing and planning to expand for the agency there so just curious to know answers.

[@imhashir]

I can understand your concern and it's a valid one. But we never had to face such issue. I factored that risk in my strategy, and even though my approach is a bit risky, the way we approached that helped us a lot in keeping things transparent. It's a long topic so I am planning to cover this soon in my videos.

[@thebigshift]

​@@imhashiryes plz make video on it. Will be very helpful

[@11hamma]

I guess I would really love to know if all the sales people in your team bid in same timezone, or perhaps distributed

[@11hamma]

Great video Hashir, super insightful!! I guess you mentioned when potential Client responds to the bid, they get sent / added to a Slack channel. I am just wondering if that may possibly violate Upwork ToS as they dont allow pre-contract off-Upwork communication. Any comments?

[@imhashir]

Thanks for the kind words. The slack message will be sent by the Salespeople, to inform Client Success managers about a new lead. Then the CS manager will be added to the Upwork chat where he'll talk to the client on Upwork itself. So we are not taking client off Upwork.

[@devlobb482]

Thanks for sharing insights, I am wondering if a software Engineer left your company what happens to there Upwork account? Maybe i am wrong upwork asks for CNIC/Bank verification for each account.

[@khalidkifayat]

am i correct bro that every one (sales manager/team, client success manager, other team) are using their own personal upwork accounts to login and then negotiating/chating in inbox to proposed lead ??

[@shazaibkhankasi]

Please share your experience about hiring process, retention of talent, agency culture.

[@imhashir]

On my list. Will start a series about hiring as an early stage company, retention and incentivization soon.

[@shazaibkhankasi]

@@imhashir thanks

[@Alikhan-kz5zp]

@@imhashirplease list down every single resource JD and hiring process from the point of view of non technical person

[@SafiullahWasiullah]

Aslkm hashir, let's connect to have a live podcast.

[@jawadarshad7702]

Did you start it with a team first or projects first? I tried getting the projects first without a team and then building up a team from these but that went horrible so now I am thinking of creating a team first and then getting the projects. Ofcourse this means that I would have to pay the team from my pocket if there is no project which would be the case for the first few weeks.

[@imhashir]

My strategy was: Get a project, even for yourself only, so you can pay for your team's salary. And once you can afford to pay some people, hire right away. Don't wait to close more projects first and then hire people. As per my (little) experience, you hire people first and then their fate brings projects for you as well.

[@jawadarshad7702]

@@imhashir Thanks for the reply. What would be the first hire? I guess it should be one of the subject matter experts so that they could help you out with your project in addition to try and get something new as well. Thanks again for the advice.

[@mbilalshahid01]

Do you or the client success managers actively code yourself as well?

[@imhashir]

Yes. If the management workload is a lot, the CSMs sometime don't find much time to code themselves. But it's highly preferable that they keep the management workload only at a capacity that can allow them to code as well. As for myself, managing team and business takes a bit too much time of mine, so it's pretty hard to find time to code. I still try to do so every now and then to keep my gears running.

[@AbdulQudoos193]

Good to see an expert Upworker coming out and sharing knowledge which most don't do. Keep sharing, you'll get the reward for it. Anyway, I have a question. What if one of your agency members decides to leave? Their profile is already built. They can leave the agency and start getting jobs as an individual freelancer. What happens in that case?

[@imhashir]

Then it's fine. You can't bound someone with you for the lifetime. I have considered that risk in my mind and I am totally factoring that in, in my strategy. Your agency's success should not be dependent on any one individual. If it is, it's their agency, not yours. Your question is very much valid and very common. I am planning to release a complete video about that soon. Again, my strategies can be wrong, but I'll just honestly share what worked for us. What worked for us, might not work for someone else.

[@BrownMonster17]

@@imhashir dear sir can you explain the model you followed to make the agency in step by step manner..

[@sazid948]

❤

[@muhammadhassaansiddiqi8586]

Hi Hashir can anyone with an Upwork profile as a Software engineer(Any Software stack) join your Agency? is it possible? Or not, do you think I should contact you on LinkedIn? I shall be very grateful to you.

[@imhashir]

Hi Hassaan! We are currently hiring, but we have already received thousands of resumes and currently reaching out to candidates. I'd recommend staying in touch with our LinkedIn page and follow our recruiters so you can stay up to date about any new openings

[@muhammadhassaansiddiqi8586]

@@imhashir Thanks hashir