Trying to Beat a Competitor Who Was Already Ahead

There are situations where the outcome can feel decided before we even have a chance to compete.

I encountered one of those situations in my first-ever design contest: a packaging design contest on Freelancer.com. The client, David B. from Australia, was looking for packaging design for a product called TowBall. At the time, I was still new to the platform. I had never won a contest and had not received a single client review.

By the time I decided to enter, the contest already had more than 30 submissions. One of them, created by a participant from India, had already received a five-star rating from the client, along with a fairly detailed 3D mockup.

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Seeing someone else already receive a perfect score should have made me hesitate. Instead, I saw it as a challenge. The design and mockup were good, but I still felt there was room to compete.

I started working according to the client's brief and built my own mockup using Blender 3D. I wanted to make the presentation more informative than my competitor's, so I placed the actual TowBall product inside the packaging rather than showing an empty box. My thinking was simple: if the client could see the product inside the packaging, it would be easier to imagine what the final product would actually look like.

I submitted my design on June 14, 2024. After that, there was nothing left to do but wait and hope the client had not already made a final decision.

On June 27, a notification came in.

My design had also received five stars.

I was now competing directly with the submission that had already looked like the clear winner. Shortly afterward, the client contacted me and asked for revisions to see how closely my design could meet his expectations.

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At that point, I realized that the revision request was not only a design task. It was also an opportunity to secure my position before investing more time and effort.

So I made the client an offer: confirm me as the winner first, and I would then complete as many revisions as he needed.

It was not the kind of request a contest participant would normally make. But I felt it was worth trying.

A few hours later, the client agreed.

I had officially won my first contest on Freelancer.com.

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The win came with AUD 100, roughly one million rupiah at the time, and the first five-star review on my profile, along with a positive testimonial.

The money itself was not particularly significant. The review was much more valuable.

At that point, it was tangible proof that a client had trusted my work and been satisfied with the result. I saw it as a form of capital—not financial capital, but credibility that could help me earn the trust of future clients.

Not long afterward, David B. opened another contest for the same amount. This time, he wanted a storage container mockup for the TowBall packaging I had previously designed.

There were only two or three days left before the contest deadline, so I immediately created the mockup and submitted it on the same day. I then used the same negotiation strategy we had established during the packaging contest:

Win first, revise later.

Once again, the client agreed within a few hours.

From the same client, within a relatively short period of time, I earned AUD 200 and, more importantly, gained enough trust to work directly on other projects without having to compete in another contest.

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This experience taught me that design quality and the courage to negotiate your position are two different things, but both can determine the outcome.

Good design made me competitive in the first place. But having the courage to ask for certainty before committing to more work was what ultimately helped me turn that opportunity into a win.

My first victory was not really about AUD 100 or a five-star review.

It became a starting point.

That first review opened the door to other projects, while the experience taught me that competing in a design contest is not always about being the most talented person in the room. Sometimes, it is also about recognizing the opportunity, knowing your position, and having the courage to make the right move at the right time.