A Story From

The Agency Life

Let us tell you a story today. We had a client recently who came to us asking to redesign his website and copy their competitor's site. Interestingly, their website had a better design than an old-looking competitor's site from the 2000th. The competitor did have 25k more organic traffic monthly, so it is understandable that the client wanted to copy it and get the same results.

But the question for us was: should we agree to do what the client wanted?

This question might seem easy to some freelancers - just do what the client asks and collect the money. But the core values of our agency protest this solution. Our goal is to solve the actual problem for the client, not simply perform the list of tasks. Since the real pain, in this case, was a website that didn't attract customers, we advised the client against website redesign.

Instead, we offered a list of actions that would solve the client's pain and bring clients to his business:

  1. SEO analysis & research
  2. Optimizing the website copy & design to improve the ranking
  3. Implementing design & development improvements to increase conversion
  4. Approaching other marketing channels for lead generation (since SEO does take some time to kick in)

Did this approach mean for us that we wouldn't close a big website redesign job immediately? Yes! Would we make more money in the short term if we agreed to do what the client asked in the first place? Definitely.

But copying the competitor's website would not have solved the client's problem and would not automatically bring him clients. It would contradict the nature of Etcetera to do something pointless like this.

So, why did we tell you this story? We believe it is an excellent example of how our values work in real-life situations. Because we can write here every day about our integrity, honesty, or responsibility, but what really matters is the value we bring to our clients every day. Every step of our process aims to solve their problems as a true partner, not just a one-time freelance contractor.

What would you do in such a situation?

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The Gig-Economy:

Impact and Trends

Working 9 to 5 on the payroll from a single employer has been the only reality for millions of people. But this is no longer the case!

First of all, technologies have made is more accessible than ever to work from anywhere at anytime. Global generation shifts also contributed to the change, as more and more younger professionals prefer to work on their own terms.

But the change would not be so radical of course, if it were not for the pandemic impact. Covid-19 has swept through the global economy and entirely reshaped the way people work.

Here are a few trends of gig-economy we picked from the Payoneer industry tips and World Economic Forum Job Recess Summit insights:

  1. Although we are talking about the radical change, in fact gig-economy platforms’ share of total employment is modest – between 1% and 3% of total employment. But according to the OECD it is growing very fast with gig-economy transactions reaching $455 billion by 2023. This means the opportunities for freelancers will be growing.
  2. Going forward, more and more companies will continue to seek freelancers who already know how to work remotely. This enables those freelancers who are looking to enhance their skillsets, to build an even more flexible and lucrative career. So, freelance can turn into a full-time career instead of a one-time gig.
  3. The challenge of gig-economy is to balance innovation with a fair deal for workers. That is why many governments are passing laws that regulate benefits and rights of the gig-workers. For example, Spain set to approve a new law that categorizes gig-economy riders as wage laborers, and the US labour secretary suggested that some workers should be classified as employees, with paid holidays, a minimum wage, and a pension. It will take time for governments to entitle work benefits for gig-workers, but the change has already begun.

What is the takeaway from all these facts?

Imagine working from anywhere, at any time, getting high demand from clients with projects, where you can show the best of your skills... AND getting paid vacation, sick leave, and guaranteed pension! Sounds nice? Seems like it could become a new reality after all.

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3 Tips For

Hiring The

Best Logo Designer

Choosing a logo designer can be frustrating.

How do you make sure that the result will visualize your goals, company mission and values, but at the same time be simple, suitable for the market niche, and versatile for multiple platforms? It also should be rememberable, distinctive, and keep its appeal for many years to come...

Here are tips to find a perfect logo designer for your first logo or identity redesign.

1. Consider requirements

Whether you will get the logo you want depends on how well you explain your requirements to the designer. So, in order to hire the logo designer the right way, set out your instructions:

  • Where will you use the logo? (social media, t-shirt, or a store facade)
  • What is your deadline?
  • What format do you need for the deliverable?
  • Do you have any expectations of the logo elements, color, and style?

2. Explain your brand, product, and customer

Logos form strong associations with your company. The logo should inspire your customers, allow them to connect to the brand, and grow loyal. So, a good logo designer will try to understand your company as much as possible, including:

  • Background information
  • Mission and vision
  • Business goals
  • Products or services
  • Customer personas

3. Check out the portfolio

Logos form strong associations with your company. The logo should inspire your customers, allow them to connect to the brand, and grow loyal. So, a good logo designer will try to understand your company as much as possible, including:

  • Background information
  • Mission and vision
  • Business goals
  • Products or services
  • Customer personas

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10 Books

To Become

a Better Freelancer

Today we want to make a list of books that can help you become a better freelancer, and accomplish more while enjoying the ride.

We will start with 2 books that are personal recommendations of Etcetera team members.

  1. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.
    The book teaches about Essentialism – a productivity technique that allows to make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter.
  2. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chriss Voss.
    This book can change your life by teaching you how to use communication in order to get what you want and receive great feedback as a freelancer.

And here are 7 more books from the freelance classics:

  1. The Freelancer’s Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Have the Career of Your Dreams—On Your Terms by Sara Horowitz
    This book gives a comprehensive roadmap for starting and running a freelance business. Sara Horowitz teaches the most important things for new freelancers, including how to decide on office space, get and keep clients, let clients go, set rates, draw up contracts, or negotiate effectively.
  2. Stop Thinking Like a Freelancer: The Evolution of a $1M Web Designer by Liam Veitch.
    The book illustrates important strategies for creating a more stable freelance career. Veitch teaches us how to grow an online presence, change mindset, and repel toxic clients as we stabilize and scale freelance businesses.
  3. Creative, Inc. by Joy Deangdeelert Cho and Meg Mateo Ilasco.
    This is another book for beginners. It will help to learn about building a portfolio that gets clients’ attention, navigating the legal steps to business-building, and launching a successful business.
  4. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh.
    The visionary CEO of Zappos details his life as an entrepreneur and explains how an emphasis on corporate culture can lead to unprecedented success.
  5. Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way by Steven Pressfield.
    The authors lay out a road map designed to help you chart a course, start, and finish any type of work. This book will help you complete important projects whether you’re a writer, developer, graphic designer, artist, or project manager.
  6. “Remote” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
    This is a book about the pros and cons of remote working. You will read about how to run, embrace and thrive having an organization with a distributed team.
  7. The E-Myth Revisited – Michael Gerber.
    This book is filled with insights for small business owners who want to see their business become bigger and last for many years. It reached to build a system that operates while you sleep.

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5 Tips

for Choosing

the Best Developer

According to Evans Data Corporation, there are 26.9 M developers worldwide. Now imagine you want to find a perfect developer for your project. Talking about a needle and hay, right?

So, we've made a list of tips to make your search faster and more efficient.

  1. DEFINE YOUR PROJECT SCOPE.

    Start with understanding whether your project needs a Front-End or Back-End developer. Maybe Full Stack? Then create a list of skills and experiences you need from a developer including personality type, skill level, primary skills, and work style. Setting up those criteria will narrow your search a great deal. Especially if you add here your budget expectations and preferred countries.

  2. WRITE A TARGETED JOB POST

    Now that you basically have the description of a perfect developer, write a job post specifically for him (or her). Include all your requirements, but also think what propositions and words might attract the person you are looking for. It’s kind of writing a message for your target audience. Describe the problem, explain the business, and make a good offer.

  3. SHORTLIST SUBMISSIONS

    In order to efficiently deal with the candidates after you posted the job, try to shortlist them based on what’s important for you. Here is an example of basic skills and practices, but YOUR perfect developer might vary:

    • Asynchronous programming.

    • Excellent collaboration.

    • Testing approach.

    • Network Security experience.

  4. SAMPLE QUESTIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW

    • Which frameworks are you most familiar with?

    • What are some of the most common mistakes you perceive in development?

    • How do you typically tackle the testing of your code?

    These are just some of the questions you might want to have on your list. You can also ask the interviewee to complete coding challenges using sites like TestGorilla, Coderbyte, Codewars, or CodeFights to test their skills.

  5. START WITH A TRIAL

    This is actually our universal advice for all new collaborations. You can only know how well your cooperation with the freelancer will work after you try it in action.

BONUS TIP: It often takes a developer to hire a developer. So, if you already have technologists involved in your project, it is a good idea to involve them in the recruiting process.

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Yesterday we all gathered once again for a quarterly Etcetera Agency All-Hands meeting. Over cups of hot tea or coffee from different cities and town all over Ukraine we discussed Spring 21 accomplishments, future plans, and hot issues.

Here is a short executive summary we want to share with you:

  • Talked about several Upwork news & updates:

  • We gave our warm wishes to 8 team members who had Birthdays during Spring

  • Honored one of our Profile Assistants with becoming a PA Team Lead

  • Welcomed 6 new Etcetera professionals.

  • Discussed two important novelties in the agency processes:

  1. We now have a Skype bot, which can ask and automatically record scheduled workload for the day or week, planned day-offs for each freelancer, and send notifications on new and ended contracts. Since Skype is our daily go-to communication tool, it is super convenient to work there with the bot just by clicking a few buttons.

  2. Day Planner in Notion allows every freelancer to create a list of tasks for the day and objectively judge and manage daily workload. For those, who want to go a step further, the Day Planner also allows to see the progress on yesterday’s tasks and build a plan to tomorrow.

Now it is even faster and easier for us to coordinate our work and plan the day.

Thank you, everyone, for being with us this great spring! We hope to grow even faster and greater in Summer.

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Upwork 2020 Report Review.

Making the World

Better Together

We have mentioned multiple times that Etcetera does not work FOR clients. We develop successful projects WITH our partners. And we only operate on Upwork because it creates a sustainable environment where our agency and members can fulfill their best potential.

What do we really know about Upwork? That's it's the biggest freelance marketplace with secure payments or verified clients? Upwork is so much more! After reading their Annual Report, we wanted to share some of the meaningful things it did over the last challenging year. These are the things that make Upwork a home for our agency and many others who share the same approach to life, work, and want to bring value to this world.

Etcetera shares Upwork company values of Potential, Connection, Vision, and Empowerment, and is proud to be a part of Upwork ecosystem.​

Upwork report 2020 review. Covid 19
Upwork report 2020 review. Climate Impact
Upwork report 2020 review. Equality

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5 Tips for Choosing​

the Best Freelance Designer

Finding a perfect designer for you project does not have to mean getting into details of the design industry. But how do you make sure to hire the right person?

  1. Define hard skills.

    Try to form a basic understanding of what skills your projects requires. Realizing this upfront will ensure a much smoother interview process with the designers. Also, Upwork will help you filter out unqualified candidates based on the skills from their profile.

  2. Consider soft skills when hiring.

    You can judge designers’ critical thinking and creative abilities during the interviews by asking questions that fall out of the ordinary (design-related, of course). This will help you understand whether the designer is capable of thinking outside the box.

  3. Discover beyond the facade.

    If you like a designer portfolio, that’s great. But try to look further and ask them what motivated them to make particular choices for those designs, where they got the inspiration, and how they came up to reach the end result.

  4. Look for niche industry experience.

    The more designer knows about your business, it’s market, and target audience, the better. It will be faster and easier to reach outstanding results with a designer who either specializes in your industry or at least has experience working with it.

  5. Start with a short trial.

    After all, even large companies one day started with a POC. So, pick a couple of designers you like best and hire them to do a short paid pilot.

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10 Posts to Help You Get Started on Upwork
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Etcetera summer 2025 report
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22-09-2025

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7 Hats: a thinking tool that saves time and nerves
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How Personal Responsibility

Helps Etcetera Team

Reach Better Results

The freelance concept has evolved. From those geeks in coffee shops, freelancers have become independent professionals who understand their personal responsibility for the results. We know what we are doing, and we want to bring value to each client we work with.

Personal responsibility for the results is one of Etcetera main work principles. It significantly differs from most agencies and companies values, and we believe it makes our members super-efficient.

Why?

Taking on responsibility starts with choosing The Client, The Project, The Partner.

The Client to whom we become the partner and together will develop the project successfully.

Spending time on the work that aligns with your life values and making influence besides making a profit makes every one of us committed to the results. Etcetera professionals can pick projects, which challenge and motivate them to achieve a great outcome. They are devoted to getting perfect results because they click with the client and want to be a part of the work he is doing.

Everyone in Etcetera sets their own tasks based on a deep understanding of the problem and end goal. Instead of just performing a list of actions, our team members try to find the most efficient solutions for the clients' pains.

Agency flow and processes help our members on this journey. How?

Reaching the best results is fast and easy for our members with Etcetera. The agency helps with guidance, clear rules, logical workflow and a friendly environment. And if a problem occurs, the agency helps solve it with set procedures and a community of dedicated, like-minded professionals.

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The Right Way to Look

At Freelance Profiles. Save

Time & Headache on Upwork

A client once told us that he loves Upwork for a chance to find really brilliant freelancers there. But how do you find these gems among so many average, or worse, unqualified candidates?

We know it can be hard and tiresome, so today we collected a few tips on what to pay attention in the freelancers' profile descriptions:

  1. Check if the freelancer has a specialized profile, connected with your niche. This would mean that he knows specific details allowing you to solve your problems faster, and more efficient.

  2. Check out the portfolios. First of all, you will be able to find a person with the rights style and skill-set. Also, you can choose references that appeal to you the most and show them to the freelancer to be on the same page of what the result should look like.

  3. Consider hiring freelancers with a rising talent badge in their profile. They are highly motivated in good reviews and usually ready to go over and beyond to deliver a great experience.

  4. At the bottom of the profile, you can find past rates the freelancer worked for. This will help you negotiate the best turns for the both of you.

  5. Last, but probably, most important. Avoid freelancers who say in the profile that they can do everything for little pay.

By the way, if the freelancer's personality is important to you besides their skills and experience, you can check out their introduction video.

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Client - Freelancer.

First Touchpoint

First impressions matter, right? So today we would like to describe the process of the first touchpoint with clients in Etcetera.

You will find out:

  • Can clients communicate directly with the agency freelancers to evaluate them?
  • Why each prospective client gets better attention in Etcetera than an individual freelancer can give?

Firstly, clients can always discuss all project details with the freelancer either over a call or chat conversation to evaluate if they are the right fit for the project.

Sometimes the freelancer who is initially involved in the discussion has no time in the nearest future. If it were a single freelancer, this would mean that the client wasted time and effort starting the discussion. In Etcetera, though, it doesn't. Our manager will try to find out more details about the project and determine another agency member who has time, fitting skills, and experience.

In some cases a client has a complex project rather than a one-time gig. We always want to become a comprehensive partners providing maximum value to our clients. So, in this case our Head of New Business Development gets involved to discuss what other pains we may solve and helps to find the best solution for your business.

From the first touch point, Etcetera clients always receive 100% proper attention to their needs and desires. And sometimes they find even more than they expected.

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Mentor. Mediator.

Coordinator.

And more...

We have already told you about almost all internal positions in our team. There is one left. Besides Profile Assistants, Project Managers and Bidders, Etcetera has 4 Contract Coordinators (CC).

What CC does

  • CC assists freelancers with client communication. They act as a mentor, helping to understands the task, explain details of the work process, build a strategy on how to work and communicate with the client, avoid and solve conflict situations. Freelancers say it is super helpful to have a CC, who is always there to back you up, give advice or just remind you to congratulate the client on his birthday.
  • When the situation escalates, CC gets involved as the agency representative. They become an unbiased party who mediates the issue between the client and freelancer.
  • CC controls the timely performance of tasks, responses to clients and keeps up with the progress on the contracts he coordinates. They also update CRM records on tasks and cooperation progress to keep everything on track.
  • One of CCs functions is to grow and develop relationships with clients. Since the agency can cover almost all design, development and marketing needs, CCs check if other freelancers in our team may be useful for the client.

We strive to become real true partners for our clients, and it is Contract Coordinators' job to make it possible.

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How to Write

a Job Post That Gets

the Right Freelancers

When you post a job on Upwork, your goal is attracting the right type of freelancers to your project, right? And what do you often get instead? A flood of irrelevant proposals that you can spend a whole day filtering through.

How to avoid that and write the right type of Upwork job post

  1. Job Title

    Write specifically who you need and what you need them for. For example, instead of a “Copywriter”, put ” Blog copywriter for Medical Center”. This way you filter out those who do not write blogs and not interested/comfortable with the medical niche.

  2. Description of your business & project

    Tell a bit about your company and why you need a freelancer. While many clients often miss this part, it is crucial to explain to the freelancer not just what they need to do, but also what is your ultimate goal. This helps you get the desired outcome.

  3. Deliverables or tasks descriptions

    Here is the place to use numbers and specific details. It is vital to be on the same page with the freelancer and have equal expectations of the result. Otherwise, you might think you are getting a full brand design, while the freelancer thought you just needed a logo.

  4. Skills and qualifications

    If you are looking for a WordPress developer with experience in E-commerce, this is exactly what you should write instead of a “skilled back end developer”.

  5. What you would like to see in the proposal.

    Some clients just ask to mention a specific word. While it is better than nothing, we suggest providing more details of your expectations. Later just disregard those who failed to care enough to follow your guidelines and you will end up with 1-5 worthy candidates.

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How to Find

SEO Specialist.

Basic Checklist

Have you ever needed an SEO specialist? Most business owners find that their website is not ranking as it deserves and decide to do search engine optimization. This brings them to Upwork or another freelance platform in search of an SEO specialist.

And here it gets tricky!

Because unless they know about SEO (which most of them don't, otherwise they would not need a specialist), it is very difficult to decide if the freelancer is in fact as good as he claims.

So, we made this post for such clients with a basic SEO checklist. You can use it to decide if the freelancer's suggestions for optimization make sense and he is worth hiring.

  • Set up basic tools: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster Tools (why not), and Yoast SEO (for WordPress). You might also want to try SEMrush or Similarweb.
  • Keywords research! This part deserves a whole definitive guide. In short, if the freelancer is using words like ‘long tail’ or ‘exact-match, he probably knows what he is doing.
  • On-Page SEO: optimizing URLs, Title tags, Meta descriptions, H1, H2, or H3 Tags, Images & Content.
  • Linking: both internal and external are important.
  • Technical SEO: mobile, broken links, sitemap, crawl errors.

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Emails &

Messages.

The Right Way

According to Email Statistics Report, 2015-2019, a user sends and receives over 120 business emails per day! Of course, some of them end up never opened, but the number is still astounding. We all use emails daily with clients, freelancers, colleagues, and business partners.

Phrases you should NOT use in your business correspondence and what you should better use instead.​

correspondence tips part 1
correspondence tips part 3
correspondence tips part 5
correspondence tips part 2
correspondence tips part 4

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