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Chris Misterek 0:02
What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Self-Made Web Designer podcast. We have a great episode for you this week. But before we dive in, I want to take a second address what is happening in the US right now. And you're probably saying to yourself, but Chris, this is a web designer/ freelance web development podcast. And I didn't really sign up to hear about what's going on in the US. But I feel like I have a responsibility and a conviction to say something to address the situation. First of all, I'd like to say, if you're a person of color listening to this, I would like to apologize for the injustice that you have endured for centuries. We as a country can do better. And second of all, I'd like to say that I'm taking steps as a white male, to try and gain a better personal perspective to see how I can help the situation and not hurt it. If you'd like to do that with me, I'm going to be leaving some links in the show notes about resources that I have found helpful, and have been encouraged to me to read or consume or listen to. And I know that as a country if we keep going, and if we keep working, and if we keep our eyes on the prize of justice for every single person, we will get there. I want to be able to hear that my kids didn't have the same experience as adults that I have had, and that my friends of color have had as well.
This week, we have an amazing guy. His name is Josh Burns, and he is a freelancer who specializes in SQL Server database administration. I have to say that slow or I'm going to get tongue-tied. Here's the cool thing about Josh. In four years, he went from zero dollars to $500,000 earned on Upwork. And in this episode, he talks about all the things that he did to get there. He talks about his mistakes. He talks about his success, and he outlines a path for you to do the same. You're not gonna want to miss it, stay to the end. And without further ado, here is Josh. Josh, thank you so much for being on the self-made web designer podcast today, man. Hey, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to be where you are today.
Josh Burns 2:45
I'm from a small area in central Kentucky. I grew up on my family's farm. Basically, after high school, I went to Eastern Kentucky University, which is a pretty small college in central Kentucky. I ended up getting a bachelor's degree in Computer Information Sciences. I'm the first person in my family to ever actually graduate from college and pursue freelancing. I say to my YouTube channel a lot that I'm literally proof that pretty much anyone can become a successful Freelancer if you're willing to put the time into it. Another cool thing is I always remember the first time I ever heard about freelancing. It was back in college, I was in a Computer Information Sciences student club. We had a meeting like once a month, and you know, just a room full of a bunch of nerds talking about computers. I remember one girl did a presentation when in one of those club meetings, she mentioned how she had done some freelance work on freelancer.com. That time, that was the first time you know, I pretty much ever heard about Freelancer, a freelance platform. I wrote down the name of it. And then later that night, I went and did some research, looked through a bunch of jobs. You know, I realized I didn't have the skills yet. I was still in college and learning everything at that point. I set the goal that later on when I graduated and developed my skill set that I would come back and explore the jobs again.
Chris Misterek 3:48
Now you've got a full-time job and you're doing freelance as a side hustle, recently accepted a new job and get started next week.
Josh Burns 3:54
It's a full-time work from home job. I don't want to waste a bunch of time traveling, which is something I was trying to get away from and finally did. Freelancing is still a side hustle for me but I'm starting to really grow a business for myself. And it's led to so many opportunities like it would be hard to even begin to describe all of them.
Chris Misterek 4:14
So tell me about the process of after you graduated, you've got your computer science degree. Now it's time to start looking into doing some freelancing. So what were the first steps that you took in the midst of that?
Josh Burns 4:26
After graduating, I ended up starting out at a company that had a career path program, which was important to me. I wanted to, I want to make sure I could start somewhere that had some type of advancement program. I didn't want to just get stuck in one job that I can never get out of. So I started at a company that did have a career path program. They allowed me to explore different positions in the company, find things that I like, and eventually, I could work towards moving into that type of role. I basically just worked insanely hard. I was in an entry-level support position. That's where I started out. I worked really hard to impress management, did really well, and eventually decided that I wanted to pursue database administration. I had a class on that in a couple college courses, and I really enjoyed it. It was something that I always wanted to come back to and explore later on. We had a senior SQL Server DBA. And basically, my manager, let me start working with him. And that's how I first got into database administration, I would pretty much work with him like all day, come home at night, and just you know, on my local computer home, I would just, you know, pour more and more of my time into learning database administration. After I built my skill set up pretty well, around May of 2016. That was a time when I first created my profile on freelancer.com and Upwork. I did my first projects really cheap, you know, basically because I didn't know what I was doing and I needed to build confidence in myself as a freelancer. After I got a bunch of five-star ratings I started to get some like repeat clients. I gradually increased my rate to reflect the level of quality that I was bringing. Starting out I didn't know what I was doing, started to build confidence myself that I could actually perform work online with my own with clients. Yeah, I got started on Freelancer and Upwork in around May of 2016.
Chris Misterek 6:05
A reoccurring theme that I hear from freelancers just getting started is that lack of confidence piece, and, you know, being scared about what if something stumps them? Or what if they make a mistake? So how did you combat that in the very beginning and overcome that?
Josh Burns 6:23
I basically focused on projects that were in either entry-level or intermediate-range. I set myself up for success by focusing on those top jobs so that client expectations for me, you know, wasn't an expert level, a bit a little bit lower on those jobs, and but it set their expectations lower because they weren't expecting like the level that I give today, which, you know, I charge like $100 an hour. At that time, it was around $30 an hour, so I was able to bid on those types of jobs. And then I was able to build my confidence up by working with clients because their expectations were way lower than what you're going to get with the higher rate projects.
Chris Misterek 6:58
Would you say that now a little of that anxiety about what you're able to do and provide has gone completely or do you still kind of struggle with that?
Josh Burns 7:07
It's pretty much gone completely and I'm a lot better now. I only bid on jobs that I know 100% I can deliver high-quality value on. Initially, I would submit job proposals on tons of jobs, things that I thought I could do a part of it, the other part I was kind of hesitant on. But now I really focus on signing myself up for success and only bidding on jobs that I know 100% I can give them the level of quality that they're looking for. So it's really managing your own expectations for yourself. And then that helps the clients to manage their own expectations for you as well.
Chris Misterek
So talk a little bit about the difference between Freelancer and Upwork because a lot of people are probably new to these terms or new to these platforms. What're the differences between the two that you found?
Josh Burns
Freelancer.com has been around a lot longer. Well, actually it hasn't. Upwork is a newer company, but they were actually merged together from two other freelance platforms, which were Elance and oDesk. Those were before my time of freelancing. So I was never on those platforms. But those two merged together to create Upwork. And that was like, I think they merged early in 2016, like around January or February. So I pretty much started on Upwork, you know, just months after they had actually been formed from those two companies. Freelancer.com has been around, you know, longer as well, like oDesk and Elance, where there are not as many jobs on Freelancer.com that I found for my skillset. Specifically, the user interface is not where you're going to get on Upwork the experience that you're going to get as a freelancer or even from the client standpoint, is not where you're going to get on Upwork. Upwork is by far in my opinion, the best freelance platform that there is today. Upwork has more jobs, they're the largest freelance platform in the world, as far as earning potential on freelancer.com I think. I think I did like five or six projects on their hourly rate ranged anywhere from like, $25 an hour, and still like a max of like $55 an hour is what I did on there. I really couldn't find anything more than that on Upwork. I've been a freelancer on there now for coming up on four years this summer. And I've made pretty much right around $550,000. So far, pretty much every job I do now other than long term clients that I've had for a while and you know, they stay on. All the new jobs that I do now, they're all a hundred dollars an hour.
Chris Misterek 9:30
I think you're living proof of the fact that platforms like Upwork are not a race to the bottom. In fact, they can be really viable, full-time platforms to live off of as a freelancer.
Josh Burns 9:43
That's one misconception is that new freelancers will go on Upwork and they'll start looking at jobs. They don't really know how to use advanced search to find the right job. So they'll end up finding jobs where a client is looking for like lower levels of pay. But there's a wide variety of jobs and different clients. So some clients, they want very high quality, pretty much all the jobs that they post on UpWork and then higher clients for our for, you know, the top talent. And that comes with again, higher compensation.
Chris Misterek 10:15
So, you graduated college, you got a full-time job, you started gaining some skills, and then you just kind of went feet first into Upwork. So tell me about those first few months of getting clients. Did you get people that were interested immediately? Or did it take some time?
Josh Burns 10:34
It definitely took time. Well, they had created my profile on Upwork. around May of 2016 was when I actually started my first job on Upwork. But I created my profile, probably like at least two or three months before then. So it probably actually took me about three months to get my first job. And again, it came down to the fact that I didn't know what I was doing. I was just starting out. I submitted job proposals on jobs that I shouldn't have. I just wasted a lot of my time honestly.
Chris Misterek 10:59
You know, diving into the right projects to submit to is really important for platforms like Upwork. Because there are thousands of jobs that could look like they might be potentially good for you. So talk about the process of dialing in jobs that you knew like, Okay, this would be a good one. And this would be one that's not so good. And this was one that I'm going to stay away from altogether.
Josh Burns 11:25
I focus very heavily on Upwork Advanced Search, I use the advanced search, I have that some of my YouTube videos actually of me going through that process. I use advanced search to search for the exact keyword of a job I'm looking for, which is usually in my case, always SQL Server. And then I set all the other criteria that I'm looking for. I only look at expert and intermediate level jobs. Now, when I first started as a beginner and the only ones I looked at that time were intermediate and entry-level. The skillset is a big one that you want to set because that's gonna play a big into the conversation that you're going to be getting for those types of jobs and expectations. So What the client is looking for as well. Other important things that I look at are the number of job proposals submitted. And this is big for beginners. If you're a beginner, you're just starting out on upward, and you go to submit a job proposal, there's a chance that that job may already have 10 to 20 job proposals on it, it could have been created, like, you know, a month ago, for instance. So if you look at it, and it has like 20, job proposals submitted, the chances of you submitting a proposal for that job, and getting noticed by the client is very, very, very slim. I pretty much focus on setting the number of proposals submitted having it somewhere between the like five to like 10 range, Max, and then that ties into the next thing to look at, which is the date that the job was created. And then the last time that the client opened the job. So if you go to a job proposal, and you look at the last time a client opened the job and it was like two weeks ago, they're probably just not even interested in that project anymore or they went a different route and they have Someone outside of work. And now connects is like such a big thing on Upwork. If it was that way back then I would have just burned through all mine so fast because I was submitting jobs, I was submitting job proposals on jobs, I had no chance of even getting noticed.
Chris Misterek 13:14
Talk about that a little bit. Because I know that that's been kind of like there's some tension between freelancers and Upwork having to pay for bidding on certain projects, which is, you know, what they call connects? So do you think that's a good thing? Or do you think that's a bad thing for the platform?
Josh Burns 13:32
I've always thought it's a good thing, even since you know, the first release. And the reason for that is, again, going back to the number of job proposals submitted, it goes into a lot of freelancers, submitting proposals on jobs that they shouldn't be, you know, someone may have like one small skill set out of the entire project, they may not even be able to deliver on the whole thing. But they'll still submit a job proposal line because they're just trying to get as many job proposals out as possible. So I think one of the main reasons But they created this process is that it will limit the number of job proposals submitted on a client's job. And that also helps the client have an upward employer account as well. One thing I can tell you is that when you have a job that you've created, and you get like 20, plus job proposals submitted on it, like 20 to 50, you don't have time to go through and individually look at every single person that submitted a job proposal for your job. One reason they put in this new system with the Kinect is that it will, it will really limit the number of freelancers who are bidding on specific jobs. So the client has a better experience because they don't have to go through as many and they can really narrow down and find the talent that they're looking for.
Chris Misterek 14:39
Are you still today bidding on projects? Or do you find that you're getting more interviews just kind of coming to you without having to take the first step?
Josh Burns 14:48
Yeah, honestly, finding jobs myself is something that I rarely do anymore. I have long term clients that I've worked with for you know, pretty much since 2016. When I started and I get tons of invites, you know, I get invites every single week. jobs. So searching for jobs is something that I rarely do. I think right now I have like 200 connects on my Upwork account. So it's pretty rare that I have to use any of them.
Chris Misterek 15:10
What do you attribute that to? What do you attribute to the fact that you're not even having to go out there and search for anything that they're all just kind of coming back to you?
Josh Burns 15:17
It's definitely due to the long term clients that I have. Getting repeat work is something that is one of the best parts of being a freelancer, it alleviates you from having to constantly search for new jobs, which it gets really time-consuming, just overbearing. So finding long term clients is like a big part of it, it really goes into the quality that you're able to give clients. So again, that ties into the fact that I only look at specific jobs that I know I can deliver very high quality of work on. When I do that. It builds confidence and trust with clients. And then that leads to repeat work because when they have another project that related to the one that I completed and involves my skill sets, they think of me first. After all, I did a great job on the initial project.
Chris Misterek 15:58
I know that getting good feedback from projects on Upwork is also like super important to what's called your job success score, which makes you look good or bad to future clients or getting future projects. And I know that a lot of freelancers on Upwork have had a hard time kind of wrangling in clients to give them feedback all together or just in the project. So have you had that same experience and what have you done to kind of workaround that?
Josh Burns 16:27
Client reviews, you know, are probably the most important thing of your profile. I really can't stress enough how important it is your client feedback, your client reviews, and your job success score, you really need to get as many as possible because that's one of the first things that a client is going to look at when they come to your profile. They want to see what other Upwork employers are saying about you to give them confidence that you can actually complete their job and be someone great to work with. Going back to the struggle of trying to get clients to give you feedback and give you reviews that you've worked with before. That is something that is is pretty difficult, some of them are great. And they will give you feedback and you know, reviews right away as soon as you complete the project. For the ones that don't even right now I have like 70 open projects on my account, I need to go through and clean up a bunch of them. But when I go through that process, what I do is I'll go through, look at the jobs that I've completed, and I haven't had any recent repeat work from that client. I'll basically just reach out to you then I'll message him on Upwork or email, I usually try to keep all my communication and upward because that's what they prefer. But I'll send them a message and say, could you take the time and just give me a review and feedback on this project since we've completed it, and if you have something else that comes up in the future that I can help you with, then please create a new project and invite me to it.
Chris Misterek 17:41
One time I kept emailing a former client for about a year and a half, they finally had something that they needed help with on their website and I was like I will do it for you. But you have to give me feedback. So it's funny, it's funny because a lot of these projects take so much work and effort, you know, and there is a lot of back and forth between the clients. And so I think the clients kind of feel like, Well, once I'm done, like I'm done, like, I don't have any more to offer you so so figuring out those ways to kind of stay consistent stay in communication is all super important.
Josh Burns 18:16
If it's a client, too, that was new to Upwork, and they haven't had the need to create more jobs like there's a great chance that they're like rarely even logging into their Upwork account after you've completed a job for them. So that's the thing where you were like reaching out to them through email if you have that option. You have to do it and you know, try to get them to log back in and actually give you a review.
Chris Misterek 18:34
Have you ever had clients try to take you out of the Upwork ecosystem? And what did you do with that?
Josh Burns 18:39
Yep, I've had that happen before. And I get that question like all the time, like usually my YouTube comments, always tell them you know, you just can't do it. You don't want to risk it. Upwork is the biggest and largest freelance platform in the world. There are so many jobs that are created there, it's only going to continue to grow. You don't want to take the risk of like saving like just a small fraction of money because The more you make with a client, the lower that your fees drop, it's not worth the risk of trying to take someone off upward to save that very small amount of money when you could, you know, basically get banned from their entire platform and kicked off of it. I'll tell my clients the same thing, you know, I've put too much work too much grind and, and time into my into Upwork. And in my freelance career, like it's not worth the risk.
Chris Misterek 19:21
And I know a lot of people that have been kicked off of Upwork because of doing things like that. And they have systems to figure out if you're getting a lot of interviews and not getting a lot of projects, then that's kind of a sign that you're taking those projects off the platform. And I think even after about two years, they give you the freedom to kind of take your work off the platform with a client so if you stick with it and stay connected to your customers and do a good job long enough like eventually you don't have to worry about those fees anymore. They've been changing that up a lot too. I saw like some type of Article like recently from Upwork where you know, they did the exact same thing. They were Explaining how they were making that process better than if you've worked with a client for you know, X amount of years and you guys want to continue your relationship long term off up work, then they're going to help us facilitate it. If if you're doing this off of platforms, like up work or Freelancer or whatever, you're putting a lot of time and a lot of money into finding clients into nurturing clients. And so to say, I'm going to give you you know, a certain portion of this project, it makes sense to me because they are cutting down your work. And to a pretty great degree.
Josh Burns 20:33
Yeah, they're definitely cutting it down a lot. I've actually worked with like a few clients off the board. When they've come from my YouTube channel, they've watched my SQL Server videos that I have on my channel, and they reached out to me to help them with some type of SQL related project, the time that upward alleviates for you from having to find those jobs and only that like if you get a client on your own, then you have to manage the whole relationship with the client. You have to manage the payment, the invoicing, some of them don't pay you on time, more, an upward keep Your hourly you get paid every single week on the same day no matter what and, and having all that and you know them taking all that away from you having to do it is by far worth it in my opinion.
Chris Misterek 21:11
So let's talk about proposals, what have you found is the best way to send a proposal that you know is going to be accepted by clients?
Josh Burns 21:28
Writing compelling and attractive job proposals is pretty much one of the most critical elements when you first get started. And when you're, you know, trying to hook clients and your job proposals. The way that I do this, I pretty much break all my proposals down into five sections. In the first section and the first one to two sentences, it's really important to grab their attention and try to hook them fast. It's definitely the most critical and the most important, whenever clients are looking at all the job proposals that were submitted for their project. Each Freelancer their profile picture shows up their job title, and then the first one to two sentences of their proposal. So when they're going through and looking through all of them, the first one to two sentences really need to stand out. Because that's what's going to give them another reason to click on your proposal and actually read the whole thing. In the second section, I provide examples of my work, I don't go into really great detail on it. But I try to give them a real concise, specific example relating to their project of something that I've done pretty much exactly the same. When you're looking at a portfolio proposal, they want to see a reason why they should hire you. And if you give them an example of something that you've completed that directly aligns with their project, that's going to give them confidence that you can be theirs as well. In the third section, I basically just really briefly describe what separates me from other freelancers. Basically, I'm like one to two sentences max. I'll just dive into the reviews and feedback, my profile, tell them the number of jobs I've completed, and then also we'll even list on my YouTube channel. Pretty much any achievement or accolade that helps you stand out. That's what I use in that section. The fourth part and about two sentences or so I just give them I give them a reason why hiring me the best decision pretty much to list out some things that I'll do differently than other freelancers mine in the various Last one, which is definitely one of the most important ones as well as a call to action. So instead of leaving the client contemplating your proposal, and likely just moving on, take a look at the next one in the list. This is where you can give them a reason to take action. So what I do is I usually use a statement like saying like, hey, let's jump on like a 10-minute call and just discuss your project further, free of charge, we'll just you know, get to know each other better and talk about your project. Not only does that give a client the chance to better understand your skills, but it gives you the chance to decide if they would be good to work with because not every client is good to work with. Not every project is one you should take. There may be things that they left out in the job description. So that initial call is really important for me and it always helps set me up for success.
Chris Misterek 23:44
How do you find the clients that you kind of realize within a call like what types of things are you looking for that tipped you off that this is actually going to be a nightmare?
Unknown Speaker 23:56
Yeah, it's something that I can really tell easily now. Working with so many clients comes down to mainly their attitude and their communication, I can pretty much tell very quickly if they're going to be good to work with, or someone that's not based on how they're describing their project, the deliverables for it, just their whole attitude about going through the whole thing. It's just something that you know, it's already explained, but when you get on a call with someone, it's way different than reading their job description. And you know, by their tone, and you know, how they portray themselves, it's pretty easy to tell if they're going to be good to work with or not.
Chris Misterek 24:29
So give us an example of someone that you've been on a call with that you found out, hey, this is not gonna work out and had to actually turn it down.
Josh Burns 24:37
So I've definitely had calls with clients where we would start talking about their project and they would even mention that they had someone else working for them, it didn't work out so they had to get rid of them to try to find someone else. And usually, at that point, that raises a red flag for the client. It could have been the freelancer's fault, but a lot of times it's due to them changing up things or their communication, or do something with the project that There's just unreasonable expectation for the client. That's why reason feedback is a good thing as well for freelancers, you got to be honest and give the client a good review and honest feedback. Because you can go through when whenever you're doing a job proposal, you can actually click on the View job posting. And what that will do is will let you see all the past jobs that the actual client has posted. And then you can go through and look at the feedback that freelancers have given them as well.
Chris Misterek 25:24
Yeah, I've heard that psychologists are taught in college that if you get a potential client that comes into your office, and they start talking about all the other psychologists that they've seen and how it didn't work for them, and they were misunderstood, and but they have a good feeling about you that you should instantly kick them out of your office and not work with them because they're a psychopath. So that's a major red flag. Definitely. So let's talk about profiles because I know that a profile is something that a client will look at, you know, after that project After they see, okay, this person has put together as they seem, they've caught my attention. they've, they've shown me that, you know, they understand my project and they've worked on similar projects before. And then that next step would be, let's look at their profile. Let's see some of the ratings. So what do you do to optimize your profile for potential clients looking at you?
Josh Burns 26:18
yeah, really needs to be clean and like showcase my whole skillset for the type of jobs that I specifically look for. If a client is interested in working for me, and they come to our profile, they need to quickly gain confidence in me and my ability to complete their project. I'll start off describing exactly what I specialize in. One of the things I have on it is the SQL Server database administration. So someone creates a job for SQL Server database administration, they kind of profile that's the first thing they're going to see. So you know, they found the freelancer who can deliver on the skill that they're looking for. Another really important thing that I do is I'll list out by the biggest clients that I've worked with, I have like Stanford University on it, some other fortune 500 companies. And what that does is it gives them confidence. That, that I've worked with, you know, big-time clients, it helps them build their confidence in me as a freelancer. And then again, client reviews, you know, I can't stress enough about how important they are. I always give the example of like, of Amazon. So like on Amazon, if you go to Amazon and you're looking to purchase a product, the first thing you're going to do probably if you're interested in products, you're going to go straight to the reviews and see what every customer has said about it is the same thing relates to your upper profile, if someone comes to your profile, they're going to go straight to your reviews, and see what other Upwork employees are saying about you. So again, that's like, so critical is it's something I've focused on the most always try to make sure that I over-deliver on projects to earn the best review that I can from clients. One other really important thing is the portfolio section that you know, for specific skill sets. It's even more critical than almost anything else. I know whenever I hired a video editor for my YouTube channel, I've worked with them since like 2018 now but one of the first things I did Did mount into his profiles, I went straight to the portfolio section, because I wanted to see examples of videos that he had edited previously, he hadn't linked there to them. So that's, that's why the portfolio section is so critical as well,
Chris Misterek 28:11
that brings up the fact that you aren't. And you've mentioned this before, but you aren't just a freelancer on up work, you're actually a client. And I encourage people who are getting started on Upwork to create a client profile. And to actually do have somebody do a small job for you, you know, don't create a fake job because somebody is actually putting money on those connects, but to put a small job up on there to see what the process is, even if it's different than the skill that you're actually offering. Talk about what you've learned from being a client yourself.
Josh Burns 28:45
Um, it opens your eyes to a lot of things that you wouldn't think of before doing that. Whenever you have a network employer account, the first thing that's, you know, the most noticeable whenever you create a project you're going to be able to see freelancers who are submitting job proposals. So you learn those processes of what a client goes through when they're looking through job proposals, and it helps you better orchestrate yours and figure out how to make them stand out. One of the main things that I realized from that was the first one to two sentences, is what the client sees when they're looking through job proposals. So after I had hired Alex as my video editor, that was one of the first things I did is I started changing up the way that I created my first one to two sentences to make them stand out because most freelancers in the first one to two sentences, they'll basically list out how many years that they have a certain skill, and they'll dive straight into, you know, basically like what it would look on a resume. And what I try to do is change it up to tell them you know, hey, like, your project really jumped out at me It relates directly to this project that I've done in the past for this client. If you can change up the way that you do the first one-two sentences and make it stand out. It makes a huge difference.
Chris Misterek 29:52
So are those templates are those all from scratch every single time?
Josh Burns 29:55
so I do have a template that you use, but it's only for repeatable stuff and redundant things that remember proposals, like when I do list out some of my accomplishments and like my YouTube channel and things like that. And then my closing as well, it's, it's really just to repeat and redundant things. But I always custom tailor my job proposals for the specific job. If you have like a template, you pretty much you don't change much up in and you just submitted them tons of jobs, it really puts you in a situation where you don't have a great chance to get hired, you really need to customize it and make it fit the specific project that you're bidding on. So the only things I use from a template are just really redundant things that I'll always include,
Chris Misterek 30:32
If you could go back and we'll just see like a time travel experiment here. If you could go back and and and start the process on Upwork. Again, without having any experience, what things would you keep the same and what things would you change about the way you did?
Josh Burns 30:48
Early in my career freelancing I just, you know, really didn't know what I was doing. My peripheral had too much content on it, and it really wasn't optimized or attractive for clients. So there are tons of online resources for freelance causes on my YouTube channel, I have tons of rands content on it. There are so many other online resources for freelancing and Upwork. Specifically, I wish when I first started out freelancing that I would have looked more into those, it would have helped put me in a better position when I first started out with my profile my job proposals. And yeah, working with clients, I've pretty much learned a lot less of my own, and I didn't look into enough resources that could have helped me out. So take it slow. Do your research study a little bit before you just launch and get going. So talk about the future for you. what's coming up next. And what do you have in the pipeline, still focusing very heavily freelancing on Upwork? As I said, I'm over $500,000 now. So you know, next step, there is a million dollars, I know I can definitely get there within the next two to three years, my YouTube channel and continue growing it over 16,000 subscribers now and trying to get to a point where I'm uploading consistently every single week, just really focusing on the content I'm producing there. And then on top of that, I'm also working on a course that I'm going to be hosting on teachable The first one I'm doing is a, it's basically a SQL Server database administration course for beginners. So I'm putting a lot of time into that right now, down the road After that, I'll probably work on a freelance course at some point as well, whenever I get that one finished, uploaded, and everything.
Chris Misterek 32:13
So if somebody was trying to find you online, where would they go?
Josh Burns 32:16
Josh burns tech on everything. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, on all those platforms. It's all Josh burns tech.
Chris Misterek 32:24
Well, Josh, when you hit $1 million, will you come back on the self-made web designer podcast and tell us about that?
Josh Burns 32:30
Absolutely. I would love to.
Chris Misterek 32:32
Awesome, man. Thanks so much for being with us today. Such great insight, appreciate you, and all the best for you.
Josh Burns 32:36
Thanks again for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Chris Misterek 32:38
Wow, such great insight from Josh, I hope you're encouraged by what he had to say. Especially the fact that if he can do it, anybody can. And I've said that several times from my own perspective because truthfully, there's nothing special about me. There's nothing special about anybody who figures this stuff out. They just kept going long enough that they found access. So check out Josh's YouTube page, Josh burns tech, he's got a lot of insight on SQL Server database administration. I'm getting faster at saying it. He's got a lot of insight on Upwork how to become a good Freelancer and you're not gonna regret subscribing and watching his videos next week, we've got another amazing guest. And in fact, we've got amazing guests for the rest of the month guys. People that I have looked up to for years are going to be on the podcast and you're not gonna want to miss it. To subscribe to the channel, put notifications on, do whatever you got to do. Because next Tuesday night at midnight, another episode is dropping so glad that you're on this journey with us. And don't forget, if you don't quit, you win.