6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals Get Buyers Hooked with your Bids and Proposals Every Time! Salma Jafri WordPL July 2010
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION _________________________________________________ 4 STEP 1: FIND YOUR NICHE AND BID EXCLUSIVELY IN IT _______________ 6 STEP 2: INVESTIGATE THE BUYER ________________________________ 11 STEP 3: WRITE THE BID USING THESE TOP 10 TIPS _________________ 15 STEP 4: ATTACHING SAMPLES WITH YOUR BID _____________________ 23 STEP 5: DETERMINE A FAIR BID PRICE THE BUYER CAN PAY _________ 26 STEP 6: FOLLOW-UP CAUSE IT’S A GAME CHANGER_________________ 30 APPENDIX: SAMPLE OF ACTUAL PROPOSAL _______________________ 33 ABOUT THE AUTHOR ___________________________________________ 37
6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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Disclaimer
The views and advice contained in this book solely represent those of the author and no other entity. The author has made every attempt at accuracy at the time of publication. This book is offered as a general guide for informational purposes only. The author cannot be held liable for damage allegedly caused by the information contained within. Copyright
All information contained herein is copyright Š 2009-10 by WordPL. While this is a free downloadable ebook, the author would like to request that no part of this book be used for your own work, or that you sell this book in any form whatsoever. The author allows a 50word excerpt of the book with a link back to the original site (www.wordpl.net) for download. This book and its content cannot be sold, published, or distributed in any way without the express permission of the author.
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Introduction Hi! And welcome to the exciting world of high award ratios and on-target bids and proposals! In this book, I'm going to show you the six crucial steps of any successful Elance bid – if you follow these suggestions you will not only get more projects awarded to you, you'll also receive regular and repeat buyers who'll have been extremely impressed with your bid and subsequent work. Who am I to say all this? I've been on Elance since Feb 2009 under the WordPL banner. Since that time, I've racked up over $13,000 in sales with an award ratio just shy of 40%. That means on average I get awarded 2 out of every 5 projects I bid on. I have 50% repeat business on Elance. Clients leave me comments such as "your proposal was perfect" and "your proposal was friendly yet professional" before they award me the job. So what's my green thumb of bid writing and why do I want to share it with you? Well, first about sharing. On the Elance forums and on their Facebook page and in many other mediums, I often see people desperate for information about how to land more projects. This information is not secret; it just means a little bit of extra research time on Elance. But maybe you don't have this time. Enter "6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals". This book will reduce the amount of time you need to experiment to find the perfect pitch and tell you about tactics that have personally worked for me. I believe these tactics are generic enough to work for anybody, in any field of work.
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5 So here I am sharing my strategies with the hope they will lead to more focused proposals from you! Lets get started shall we?
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Step 1: Find your Niche and Bid Exclusively in It One of the first things you need to do as freelancers is to look for projects that match your skill set. The way I see it, if you don't care much for the topic you're writing on, you won't write with enthusiasm, passion or dedication. Although good writers can research and write on just about anything, great writers write about what they're genuinely interested in. Your passion for your topic will come through in your bid. And that’s what clients are looking for: someone to treat their project with the same (or more) care and attention than they themselves would treat it. If you're an established freelancer who already knows his niche, then that's great! But if you're a beginner who's unsure about what topics and what kind of projects to handle, then read on. Why it's Important to Have a Niche A niche is a specialty area. The logic behind having a niche market is simple: it's easier to excel in one dedicated area than be average in several different areas. In others words, be a specialist rather than a jack of all trades. If you have a finance background, start off with financial writing; if you're a mommy blogger, start off with parenting articles; if you're into cooking, write about that. Find what your passion is and channel it with your writing. Don’t yet know what niche market you'd like to claim? No problem. Read on.
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7 1: Identify your Skills The first step in determining your niche is to make a list of all the things you either love to do (or talk about) or that you have experience in. Fill out the table below as honestly as possible. There may be some overlap, but that's okay. So long as you can clearly identify the stuff that gets your motor running, you're on the right track to finding your passion. Your past or current work experience: _______________ Education: ____________________________________ Hobbies: ______________________________________ Passions in life: _________________________________ Things you're interested in: _______________________ Stuff you have unique insights on: __________________ Awards won or recognition received: ________________ When filling this out, think about what you like to do, think about what people say you do well, think about what past jobs you've enjoyed the most. Here's what a sample filled out table might look like: Your past or current work experience
e-learning, instructional design, marketing, technical writing, copy writing
Education
Bachelors in Business Communication, Masters in Business Administration
Hobbies
gardening, cooking, playing Facebook games, playing tennis, reading inspirational
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8 books Passions in life
parenting, writing
Things you're interested in
tinkering with online gadgets, installing and testing software, giving presentations
Stuff you have unique insights on
entrepreneurship, training, business communication etiquettes, distance education
Awards won or recognition received
Top 10 writing blogs, Certificate in Web Copy Writing
Although this is just an example, you can see that a typical person has many varied interests in life. How then do you determine what your niche is to be? My advice is to pick 2 or 3 topics from the above and experiment with them, carefully analyzing what you have the most success with. It could be that while your three passions in life are parenting, cooking and tennis, you're only good at the first two as a business opportunity and prefer actually playing the third for pleasure not profit. It's okay to have more than one passion. You can experiment with different niches and see what you have the most success with. But know this: chances are that you will have the highest success rate doing what you're most passionate about. 2: Match your Skills with a Project's Requirements Next up, identify how well you fit in with the project's requirements. Use the following checklist: - Do you have the experience needed for the project and can you prove it? 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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9 - Do you have the expertise needed for the project and can you prove it? - Do you have the passion needed for your proposal to stand out amongst many? One of the most important things you can do to demonstrate your passion, ability and experience is to have relevant samples. It's so important a point that I discuss it in its own section at Step 5 of Writing Winning Proposals. 3: Set up Alerts for New Projects in your Niche Setting up alerts is a great way to receive info whenever a project is posted in the niche area that you'd like to work in. Alerts also help you be more productive by cutting down your freelance job search time and replacing it with qualified leads to follow up on. How to Receive RSS alerts On Elance simply sign up to receive the RSS feed of the topic areas you'd want to receive new job posting info on. Just click on any Elance page, click the orange RSS icon on the top of that page and subscribe using your favorite RSS reader (mine's Google Reader). How to Receive Twitter Alerts Simply set up a twitter alert using your key terms and prefacing them with hashtags. So if you're a graphic designer looking for logo design jobs, those could be your search terms. If you're using TweetDeck, which I use, simple add a column for your search term (e.g. #logo #design #freelance #jobs) and the software will automatically update and notify you when those terms are used by anyone in twitterverse. How to Sign Up For Google Alerts Perhaps the most widely-used alert service, Google alerts, is accurate, free and easy to use. Simply go to 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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10 http://www.google.com/alerts and fill in the search criteria in the box. Remember to put your search query in "__" (double quotes) to get accurate results otherwise you might be inundated with trivia and irrelevant items. An example alert query could be "technical writing jobs" or "freelance technical writers". Google will send you an email when it finds results that meet your criteria. Well, that's it. The easy way to identify your passion, carve out a niche from it and start bidding ferociously in it. Once you find projects that speak to you, you'll be racing to write that proposal for them and your words will flow with enthusiasm at finding something that resonates with you. Your mind will be full of creative ideas on how best to tackle the project and your heart will be racing to see if you got the job or not. That is the best kind of work to do. And really, isn't that why you became a freelancer in the first place?
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Step 2: Investigate the Buyer The thing about online work is that typically there's so much distance between you and the buyer that there's plenty of opportunity for miscommunication and mismatch. It's important not to just be a good fit for the project you're working on as discussed in Step 1: How to Find your Niche and Bid Exclusively in It, but also to evaluate whether you and the buyer would be a good fit to work together. And then there's that pesky matter of ensuring that a buyer is legit and serious about the work. In researching a buyer, I would go so far as to say that you need to be a little bit of a detective and ask all the right questions and look in all the right (and sometimes improbable, yet obvious) places. You may not be able to do this for every single project and in every single instance, but it's important to know what you're looking for so that even when you're not consciously looking for clues, your subconscious radar will pick up on them that's how finely tuned you need to be and can be with the help of this handy guide. 1: Find Out the Buyer's Name No, seriously. Do you have any idea what a huge difference it makes to address a buyer directly in your proposal by his or her name? Hello David vs Hello hwueyb67. Get the picture? So how do you go about finding out a buyer's name if they haven’t given it in their buyer profile? Do a Google search on their company name (if they've given that) and read the About Us section to find out who's who in the company Look through past buyer feedback and see if any providers have left feedback addressing the buyer by name See if the buyer uses that same username on any other site, like Twitter, and then look up their profile to see their real name 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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12 This is not sneaky, nor underhanded. You'll be pleasantly surprised how well buyers respond to being addressed as a person rather than a random alphanumeric word, even though they have deliberately not divulged this information in the project description or in their buyer profile. Addressing a buyer by name also shows them that you've got pretty dandy research skills, and that you gave their project enough importance to look them up and read up on who they are and what their needs might be – an important point that we'll follow up on in Part 3 of this series. 2: Look Up and Read the Buyer's Website For my very first project on Elance I looked up the buyer's website and studied her style of writing, learned what she was most passionate about, found out where she was based geographically, and was also able to download her e-book for more information on her and her business. As a result I was able to write a personal and friendly bid addressing her passions and needs directly and also showing her that I was passionate about the same things. She saw in my bid that not only was I resourceful enough to know all this about her, but that I shared her vision and would therefore be the perfect writer to help draft her next e-book. There's so much info you can glean from a buyer's website, I don’t know why anyone would miss out on this crucial chance to really connect with the buyer. 3: Analyze the Buyer's Past Feedback There are many things you should look for when reading past feedback: What has the buyer paid in the past for a similar project?
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13 When giving feedback, positive or negative, what is the buyer's tone? Is the buyer notorious for leaving unwarranted negative feedback? What do other providers say about the buyer – do they leave one line comments or more in-depth, descriptive comments? From analyzing the above items, you should be able to effectively gauge: What the buyer will be most likely to pay you Whether the buyer is courteous and professional in his or her dealings Whether the buyer is grumpy, difficult to deal with and never satisfied with anything Whether the buyer understands the rules of doing business on Elance and is aware of the policies and procedures, whether he pays on time and whether he is clear and precise in his directions and expectations Using all this information, you should be able to determine whether it's worth your time (and money) to even place a bid on this project. If you feel uncomfortable about any aspect of a buyer's portrayal of himself online, then trust your gut instinct and stay away from the project. If you feel a connection, then go ahead and place a bid – your bid will come off sounding that much more genuine because you really do feel a spark, having read up on the buyer and knowing him/her a tad better. There are a few more generic things which you should look for in every buyer that you work with: Do they write out a detailed project description or work order covering all the relevant details you need to place an accurate bid? Are they responsive communicators and answer queries posted on the public message boards and in pre-bids? Are they aware of Elance's policies and rules, and if not, are they willing to be educated about it? 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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14 How long have they been a member of the site? How many projects have they posted since being members? What is their award ratio – how many projects awarded? The richer the buyer's history, communication and past performance, the more reason to take them seriously.
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Step 3: Write the Bid using These Top 10 Tips Writing a winning proposal or bid on Elance and other freelance sites is probably the cornerstone of your business. After all, if you can't sell yourself, your services, and your business, then what chance do you realistically have of winning new clients and sustaining your business? Knowing how to draft a proposal that speaks to a client is a skill, fortunately one that can be learned and perfected with practice. One of the best ways to learn how to write great proposals is to see how others have written them. Hot TIP: On Elance, check out projects awarded in or before 2007; most of them had open bidding so you can see the great and not-so-great bid examples. Components of a Winning Proposal Here are my top 10 tips for putting together a rocking proposal for any freelance project. 1. Personalize it 2. Match the tone of the buyer or the project 3. Start strong with your main USP 4. Make it easy to scan through 5. Make it benefits-oriented 6. Answer all the questions – asked and unasked 7. Restate main points 8. Discuss samples attached 9. Proof-read 10.Signature and links 1. Personalize it As I outlined in Step 2: How to Investigate a Buyer, start off your proposal (whenever possible) with a personal greeting to the client. Hello Samantha versus Greetings user01. 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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16 2. Match the tone of the buyer or project Match the tone of your proposal to either the buyer's tone or to the nature of the project. A proposal for a serious technical writing project should be logical in tone and factual in substance, whereas a fashion blog's proposal should be upbeat, use modern colloquialisms where appropriate and portray you as someone already "in the zone". The tone of your proposal will show prospective clients a sampling of the personality needed for the execution of a project. Moreover it'll also make buyers feel comfortable with you if you're already speaking their language. Here are two examples of completely different styles that I used while bidding for two completely different projects: For a project on razor-sharp, edgy travel content: "You want witty, humorous, original, upbeat, and slightly wacky? It's here. I'm an online entrepreneur who believes in the notion that to be successful (financially or otherwise) you've got be a little crazy. How else are you supposed to think outside the box, right?" For a project on online education: "As a former e-learning specialist, I have been intrinsically involved in developing course material to be sold through online distance learning programs (please take a look at the verified work experience section in my profile). I know the industry, I know its players, and I have insider knowledge about its workings. " 3. Start strong with your main USP The first paragraph of your proposal usually makes or breaks the deal. No one has the time to read through a clichĂŠd, boring, irrelevant, egotistical or banal set of statements. If you've ever been guilty of starting a bid with the following sentences, STOP immediately!
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17 "With great pleasure, we would like to introduce us and offer our services as a professional Writing and Editing company. We have been writing on different projects for five years and have a reasonable exposure to these markets and audiences." Bah, who cares? It sounds like a generic bid template with poor grammar! "Hello, I am the owner of XYZ freelance writing services. I am a talented freelance writer with an Honors Bachelor of Arts degree in English and ‌" *yawn* boring! They've lost me already. "I am very happy to learn that you are seeking a professional to help you with your work." Really? Well I'm very happy for you but how are you addressing my needs (thinks the buyer)? The above are all examples from actual bids I've seen that have not won projects. The buyer is thinking "what's in it for me" so stop starting your bid with statements the buyer has no interest in! Instead try starting your bid with your strongest and most relevant points first. Project the most compelling reason a buyer should hire you right at the start, just after your greeting. Examples of some great opening paragraphs are: For an e-book on breastfeeding: "I am bidding on this project because the subject matter is near and dear to my heart. I nursed my two-year-old son until he was 17 months old, participated in nursing support groups, worked with lactation consultants, and conducted my own research. I am intimately familiar with the ups and downs, the tricks for solving problems, and how nursing affects every area of a new mom's life."
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18 For financial website reviews: "I've completed more than 300 reviews for various websites and products on Elance alone. Attached are just 5 samples of our debt consolidation site reviews which appear on this website: link" When you use this approach, the buyer is immediately drawn to your skill set and how it can help propel his project, which is what he's really interested in knowing about you anyways. 4. Make it easy to scan through Proceed convincingly from your beginning sentence and incorporate the following elements into your bid to make it easy and fast for buyers to read and scan through: (remember its all about making it convenient and obvious for the buyer to choose you) Use bullets to highlight points Use links to direct buyers to your online portfolio Use short paragraphs where each para discusses one aspect of your bid (1 para for experience, 1 for price, 1 for samples, etc) Example: "With me as your provider, you’ll get someone with: a) 4 years of instructional design and content management experience b) An eye for aesthetically-appealing design combined with user-appropriate interactivity c) Software skills for Captivate, Presenter, Photoshop and PowerPoint d) Exceptional attention to detail, especially important in an e-learning project" OR "Please see my published works at the following locations: 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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19 Elance Blog: http://bit.ly/aCpRTb Suite101: http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/salmajafri My Blog- WordPL: http://www.wordpl.net" 5. Make it benefits-oriented Use active, first-person, action-oriented language and make the bid about the buyer, not about you. If they want to know your education, your company's history and other side details, they can take a look at your Elance profile or your resume – don't include these details in your bid unless they relate directly to the project. Buyers are busy people too - they don’t have the time to sift through the irrelevant stuff; they want to know the main benefit of hiring you instead of the 50 other applicants for the job; give them some solid reasons. You can only do that by writing a benefits-oriented bid as opposed to a self-centered bid. Instead of saying "I can do this" say "you'll get this". Example: "You'll receive a fully formatted and saleable e-book which you can immediately offer for purchase on your website." Or "These articles will help in establishing you as the go-to authority for financial markets explained in simple, clear and non-technical language." See how the language is focused on the buyer (as opposed to the freelancer) and how your services will benefit him or her? So find out what benefit the buyer is looking for and then show him a way to get that with your services. It could be anything – traffic, sales, goodwill, convenience – it's your job to figure it out. 6. Answer all questions – asked and unasked
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20 Answering all the buyer's questions and being honest and upfront about your responsibilities shows that you respect them enough to read their project description and answer accordingly. Perhaps one of the most important things freelancers don’t do is answer the unasked questions. Recently I had a buyer who needed web content but didn’t yet have a website. Although the project didn’t ask for it, I went ahead and offered a site map consultation to build the web pages that I'd write the content for. Also, since I have digital artists on my team, I can usually also offer images to augment the web content or e-books or what-have-you. Not every buyer goes for it, but those that need it (or want it) but haven't asked for it, are immediately drawn to the value addition of my proposal. So think about what else a buyer may need and see what extra services you can offer them to seal the deal. If you don’t know what else a buyer may need, ASK! Asking questions is the number one way to build rapport with clients. The percentage of projects I've received because of establishing a line of communication with the buyer is 50% more than I would have gotten had I not bothered to. So ask questions. Seriously. 7. Re-state main points I was watching Top Chef one day and one of the contestants won the quick fire round simply because she repeated each order that came to her during her stint as a short-order cook. Repeating the order not only gave her confidence that she'd heard it right, it gave the waiter confidence that the right order was being executed. The same principle applies to your bid. Re-state the scope of the project in your own words to demonstrate that you've understood the scope and terms of the project and to avoid any ambiguity that may arise later. Sometimes it could be a simple few lines like:
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21 "I understand and accept all of the requirements you have posted in the project description. The e-book will be at least 100-page-long (300+ words each), grammatically correct, typed in MS-Word format, delivered in a zip file, 100% original, unique, informative, useful, uncomplicated, interesting, and based on your basic outline as well as on my research." 8. Sell your samples Most people just attach samples without ever explaining them. This leaves the buyer to motivate himself/herself to take action in clicking, opening and reading them. You want to make the buyer WANT to click on your samples and for that you're gonna have to sell 'em – it doesn’t take much, just a line or so explaining what's attached and how its relevant to the project. Example: "I've written over 30 e-books on this subject; please see relevant excerpt attached matching the style and tone for your project." Another reason why it's important to tell a buyer what's in an attachment is because people are usually wary of clicking on unknown links or unexplained attachments (especially those with suspicious-sounding file names). So make sure your attachments are named correctly and explained in your bid. Why give buyers a reason not to explore your bid in more detail, right? 9. Proof-read your proposal So obvious, yet so many of us overlook it in haste or carelessness. You have to keep in mind that your proposal is your first impression, it's the basis for any further decisions that the buyer will make about you. Your proposal is the first thing a buyer sees, even before your profile, your work history, your feedback, your testimonials, your ratings, your earnings. Make sure you read and re-read it to edit for typos, grammar, sentence
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22 structure, complete info, answering all questions, and an overall polite and inviting tone. 10. Signature and links Your signature should contain your full name (and if there's any confusion about your gender, that info as well!), your position within your company (even if it's just a one-man shop for now), your company's name, your website's URL and when allowed (Elance doesn't allow email), your email address, daytime phone and skype/IM contact details. The idea is that the more contact information the buyer has about you, the easier for him to choose a channel to contact you on. I'm going to end this step with a quote from Elance CEO Fabio Rosatti's interview with Tory Johnson of ABC News; he said "The most successful people on Elance think of themselves as businesses". That is so true. When you write a bid or proposal, you are marketing your services as a business, make no mistake about it. To survive the cut-throat competition you've got to learn how to market yourself effectively and writing a winning proposal is the first step in that direction. Writing targeted proposals on Elance or any other freelance site takes some practice, but once you start implementing the tips outlined here, you'll immediately see your award ratio rise and buyers contact you as a direct result of your impressive bid and the sincerity and passion displayed in it.
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Step 4: Attach Samples with your Bid Hopefully you'll have used the techniques described in Step 3 to craft a highly intuitive and custom proposal for your would-be client. After reading your tailored proposal, a buyer will eagerly look to review your work and turn to see your samples. If you don’t attach samples, you're going to be in ample hot water and will potentially lose the lead. Simple as that. Attaching relevant samples is not an option. After writing a winning proposal you must follow up with relevant samples to accompany your bid – no exceptions. 1. Make Samples Relevant & Appropriate to the Job at Hand The ideal scenario for a buyer (and which will make it easy for him to choose you) is to view highly relevant samples to his posted project. Obviously the closer your sample is to his project, the easier it'll be for him to visualize you in the role of hiree. So for a logo design project, that may mean you've got to attach previously completed logos that match the industry, the product category, the branding, the styling and perhaps even the size. For a writing project it may mean that you have to match the subject matter, the writing style and the end product (web content, article, ebook, etc). For other categories of work (finance, web design & development, sales & marketing, etc) it'll mean having a portfolio of samples relevant to those categories. 2. Three is the Magic Number of Samples On average try to include 3 samples of work. If the project is very specific and narrow and you've got a sample that exactly matches the buyer's requirements, then perhaps you can get away with just one sample. But 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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24 in general, 3 is the magic number. Most buyers won't have the time or inclination to wade through more than 3 attachments and if they're really interested in exploring your work further, they'll click on your website or portfolio link. But for the initial bid keep samples up to 3 so the buyer can see enough of your work to judge diversity, competence, skill and style. 3. Do Include Web Links Instead of Attachments Its okay, even advisable, to attach links instead of document samples. It's easier for buyers to click once on a link that'll take 'em directly to view the sample instead of the 2+ clicks it'll take to open an attachment. If you can maintain an online portfolio of work, that would definitely work in your favor. 4. Keep Ready a Portfolio of Varied Samples to Save Time When you've been freelancing a while you'll have built up several projects to be used as samples – make sure they're organized according to the types of jobs you usually pitch for – e.g. for my writing content my sample categories are web content, articles, SEO content, ebooks, training and user guides, newsletters, etc. So anytime I want to bid on a project I just need to pull 3 relevant samples from the appropriate category. If the buyer is looking for published works, I just give a set of 3 hyperlinks to my online work. The entire process takes me about 2 minutes to do and presto relevant samples attached! If you're not yet a seasoned freelancer and don’t have a portfolio of samples, MAKE SOME. This is so obvious; I'm genuinely surprised when people lament the lack of samples as a reason for not winning any jobs. You can either make samples as you go along or if you know what kind of work you want to do, just make samples that'll reflect that (e.g. write travel articles if you want to break into the travel writer industry).
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25 5. Explain Complicated Samples Anytime you're attaching a file format a little out of the ordinary, ordinary being .doc. docx, .xls, .pdf, .mp3, .gif, .jpeg, etc, follow it up with a brief tutorial on opening and viewing the files. For example every time I send buyers samples of training content developed in Articulate, the system makes 3 files, which I then zip and send. I always let the buyer know they have to unzip it and open the .html file within the folder. (Yes I know you're thinking I need to upload my training content online so I can just give a link – will get around to that in a bit!). But until you find a simpler solution, explain your attachments if they're complex in any way. 6. Protect your Samples! In this world of plagiarism and blatant stealing, its imperative to guard your samples as YOUR SAMPLES, which means a client may not use them in any way whatsoever except to view to make a decision about your abilities and skill. You also need to protect the client whose sample work you're using. On documents and images it's best to add a propriety watermark saying "sample" or the "property of" or "do not distribute". It's also best to save all regular docs as PDF files or JPEGs for use in samples since that adds an extra layer of protection. Always be sure to just use an excerpt of a client's work as your sample (as opposed to the entire project) and always with the client's express permission. Do not use samples from work that you've previously signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) on. Samples are a chance for you to project and showcase your best work and best fit for the job by demonstrating that you've already done similar work. Use them wisely and to your advantage!
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Step 5: Determine a Fair Bid Price the Buyer can pay So you've decided what your hourly rate or fixed fee for this project ought to be and are all ready to place your bid. But wait a sec, did you know that on Elance a very high percentage of bids gets rejected because they fall out of the buyer's budget? So how then are you going to ensure that (a) your bid price is competitive and (b) that you only bid on projects with a high chance of the buyer being able to pay your stated fee? Even if you've followed the steps of bid writing to a tee, your bid can still go awry at the pricing stage. Therefore it's extremely essential to not just determine what a fair price for the project would be, but to also have some level of confidence that a buyer will be able to pay your asking rate. There can be huge disparities in pricing expectations. For example: a buyer posts up a project expecting to pay $.01 per word for 20, 250-word blog posts (ridiculous I know but bear with me for illustration purposes). Hence he prices the job as falling below $500, expecting to pay $50 for the entire project. You rate is $0.1 per word; hence you'd make the bid for (250 x0.1x20), i.e. $500 (not counting Elance fees and any other expenses). You can clearly see the disparity now, eh? There's no way you'd be able to convince somebody to shell out $500 when they've determined that $50 is the fair price offer. So ideally you want to skip projects like this because you'd just be wasting your time writing a bid for it since the project won't come to you unless you drastically slash your rates. There's at least 4 ways (maybe more) to weed out the buyers who aren’t willing to pay your asking price:
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27 1. Match the buyer's stated budget with the buyer's tone to gauge seriousness 2. Find out how much the buyer typically pays or has paid in the past for similar work 3. Gauge the buyer's reputation for paying on time, paying bonuses, etc both on Elance and on the Net in general 4. Consider whether the buyer has larger sponsors backing him Budget + Tone = Willingness to Pay Conventional wisdom would state that you place bids within the stated budget range and while that's probably the best technique 99% of the time, there are instances when you should bid higher or lower. These instances are when: The project's scope (in your opinion) seems to be greater or lesser than stated in the description The value addition and effort on your part justifies the rate For example, I placed a $1440 bid for a project whose stated budget was less than $500 and got the job – why? And more importantly, why didn't the buyer just say their budget could go higher so they'd attract quality bids? Here's what I think happened: I bid that price because the project entailed creative writing in another person's voice and "tone" and required research of places I'd not personally visited. As to why the buyer started with a low budget, one theory is that often on Elance and other freelance job boards buyers are unsure of the budget themselves (they may not be the expert, you are!) and they may be wondering if there are any quality providers on these sites. So I bid. But how did I know the buyer would be willing to pay my bid price? After all, it seems like such a gamble, right? I looked at the buyer's tone. She used phrases like "show me what you've got" and "name your price", indicating she was a serious buyer and not just a 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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28 "proposal scout". I went with my hunch and it worked, again proving how crucial researching the buyer is. History of Payments This is so easy and do-able; everyone should do it for every project before bidding. Go through a buyer's feedback history watching for what they've paid in the past, both for similar work and for other work. Their willingness to get the best quality will shine through in each and every project they've commissioned. Buyer's Repute Gauge the buyer's performance in doling out bonuses and paying on time. Do more than 90% of providers recommend them for paying on time? Recently I worked with a buyer who promised a bonus for the addition of images. I added non-copyright images and provided them in the file format he'd asked only to never hear from him again – my fault since this milestone hadn't been added nor escrow funded for it. Lesson learned. If a buyer promises bonuses, add it in as a milestone and have them fund escrow on completion of the bonus task. See how they've treated other providers on this issue and you're less likely to get burned. Who's Pocket is the Money coming from? Some buyers are actually scouting for providers to outsource jobs to from their current clients. Some are the end clients. Determine which is which because in the former case your buyer will be taking a commission cut and will want you to reduce your prices as much as possible. I prefer working with clients who are the end client since they're much more likely to pay asking fees and want quality work. So, in a nutshell‌ You've determined your price. Now determine if the buyer will pay that price to the best of your ability and
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29 resources. If you don't you're just wasting time on making bids that won't be accepted and then complaining about how your bids constantly get rejected. And then whose fault will it be?
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Step 6: Follow-up cause it’s a Game Changer You've finally placed your bid. Now the interminable wait starts. Is the buyer going to award you the project, is he going to reject your bid or is he simply going to do nothing? The last is the most agonizing since you have no way of knowing if the buyer will EVER award the project to anyone! Well, what if I told you there's a way to significantly reduce your anxiety and ensure that a channel of communication opens up with the buyer? There is. And it's called "follow-up". A follow up simply refers to an action taken (after proposal is sent), to seek dialogue with the buyer. There are ways to do this for maximum effect but first let's see the advantages. Why Follow-up? It gives you the chance to increase the number of times the buyer's eye will look at your name/company name/username. Everyone places bids, how many follow-up that bid with another personal message? Exactly. It gives you a chance to show the buyer you're human and personally care about your business and your clients. It establishes you as pro-active and confident; traits many buyers look for when they choose to outsource. It gives hesitant buyers a chance to talk with you and gives you a chance to add further value/clarifications to your bid/proposal. It shows your interest and can-do attitude to the buyer – trust me, they love that! It may get you not just the project at hand, but many more projects the buyers haven't even posted yet
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31 How to Follow-up 1. One day, or a couple of days before the bidding time is
about to close, send the buyer a message via the personal message board re-stating your interest in the project and inviting the opportunity for questions or more info from the buyer. 2. Once the bidding time has passed and a buyer hasn't
awarded the project to anyone, send them a PMB note asking if you can help them in their decision and give all your contact information to them. This may include email, phone, cell, skype ID, messenger IDs, Twitter & Linkedin IDs, etc. Chances are most buyers' interest will be piqued and they'll click on a link out of simple curiosity and appreciate the diversity of options available for contacting you. 3. If a buyer responds to your follow up messages,
immediately put them at ease by talking as though you've already been hired to understand their problem ("our" project instead of "your project"). But also remember that there's a thin line between helping someone and harming yourself; be sure the buyer understands you're not going to do any actual work beyond understanding the scope of work until they formally award the project to you. So your goal at this pre-award dialogue stage is to be helpful, courteous and above all, show them how you'll add value to the project. It could be because you have world-class equipment (for an audio/video project), or because you can help them in various areas (SEO as well as content). The most important thing to remember is to keep the channel of communication open. You might be surprised at the results. I once bid on a project worth about $3000. I didn’t get the job but because of the excellent channel of communication I'd opened with the buyer during the follow up phase, they contacted me a few days later for another small job. Then a few weeks later they gave me some more work. This buyer is now a regular client – I've 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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32 already done work worth about $3000 for them with bookings of $25,000 (no typo) more over the rest of the year. I'm just saying; don’t underestimate the power of communication. It really goes beyond the bid. The bid is just a starting point; the follow up is where the value is at. In a social context, the bid is the hello + handshake; the follow up is the ice-breaker. Or in this case, the dealmaker.
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Appendix: Sample of Actual Proposal The science of what makes a perfect proposal can be baffling at times. But it can be quite simple too. I placed a bid not so long ago for a project on Elance to which the buyer responded: "Your proposal is perfect, Salma. You clearly understand what we are looking for, and you articulated your understanding very well." I'm going to reproduce the exact bid here for you and then dissect it to find the 3 main take-home points that I believe made this bid such a success. Here's the project description: "We are looking for a talented researcher/writer to develop timely, interesting and even controversial topics that can be used for blog posts and articles. The subject matter of all topics must be nutrition related, preferably protein related. The topics should be timely (e.g., ‘breaking news’ in the world of dietary protein or nutrition). The topics should be interesting so that they encourage a reader to ‘click through’ the title to learn more. The topics may be controversial as they relate to social issues such as health care, economy, or any other popular social issue. We are also looking for the writer to draft a short article (less than 300 words) about each approved topic. The first paragraph of the short article should provide a summary of the entire article. Each article should reference some connection to our company, so that the article is relevant to our company and contains references to our company and our products.
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34 The format, style and quality for the articles should be comparable to articles seen in either the Wall Street Journal, or other reputable journals. This is an ongoing, long-term project, and we are looking for at least 50 articles each month. We will provide you with information about our company and our products. Each article must be unique, original and expertly written. We want to avoid over-promotion of our company and our products in the articles, however, our company and our products should be referenced [for example, you may add information into an article that either (1) delivers a message that profiles our company's understanding of a challenge in the field of nutrition, and our unique value proposition for addressing that challenge, or (2) discuss a case study that demonstrates how a specific customer's use of our products helped them. In either case, our product and company should be subtly (not too overtly) promoted in the article]." And here's my bid: "Hi Steve*, After reading your project description, I did some quick internet research on breaking news topics in the field of nutrition (especially protein-related). I came up with some ideas and I'll appreciate if you let me know if this is the direction you were looking for. Example 1: I could tie the breaking news in this article American Diabetes Association Helps Moms Find The Right Balance (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/184956.php) to how [name of product] can be used for when moms haven't been able to strike the perfect nutritional balance for their family (and we all know moms have days like that!). Example 2: This news story on Middle-Age Americans Less Mobile than Ever (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_973 20.html) can be related to how [name of product] stimulates your metabolism & reduces fat stores.
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35 As a professional content developer with a dedicated team of writers and researchers, I can offer you at least 50 expertly-written, error-free, 100% original, informative and click- and share-worthy articles every month. All articles will be approximately 300 words and contain a short intro summary paragraph. The articles will be written in an unbiased journalistic style. Please see some sample reference articles attached with this bid. If you require more samples, I shall be happy to provide them. I am available to discuss your project on Skype (username below) and am very responsive via email. I would really welcome the opportunity to work with you on a long-term basis to our mutual satisfaction. Thank you so much for your consideration - I hope to hear from you soon!" * named changed to protect privacy
3 REASONS WHY THIS PROPOSAL ROCKS 1. It Connects with the Buyer Notice how I addressed the buyer by name even though I've never worked with him before, nor does he mention his name in the project description. Researching his name was a simple matter of scanning the buyer's feedback history and reading the reviews, one of which addressed him by name. A quick Google search of the company verified that a person by that name was indeed part of the firm. (Note: I also scan buyer feedback to get a sense of the buyer's work ethic and payment history). So addressing the buyer by name immediately caught his attention, personalized my bid and (hopefully) made the buyer feel like I was directly talking to him since I had taken the time to find out about him and his company. 2. It Prioritizes the Buyer/Project's Needs Notice how in my proposal, I barely talk about myself. No reasons as to why I'm so great for this job, no hoopla 6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals
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36 about my experience or qualifications. Nothing. Just a straight-forward approach to showing the buyer that I understand his project. This can be achieved in many other ways, including providing a short re-cap in your own words of the project's needs, scope and depth. Just make sure you communicate to the buyer that you understand the project and can add some real value to it. 3. It Gives Specific Examples of How I (Provider) Can Help Him (Buyer) The examples I give in the bid are really the crux of the entire proposal. They instantly show the buyer that I know what I'm talking about, have the goods to back it up and have actually spent some time and effort on his project, thereby indicating that I'm eager and willing to put in the required effort for this project. Elance doesn't allow specific-to-the-project, custom samples and I wouldn’t really spend my time making them either. But simple research such as this, which took me less than 5 minutes to do, is a definite, concrete and professional way to show you care. This buyer is now a steady client. We've increased the number of articles each month, and its regular continuous work for my team. 15 minutes. That’s all it took for me to research and write this proposal and now I have a long term client on board who I'm very happy to work with.
Your perfect proposal need not be long, wordy, full of your qualifications, or impressive in any way. It MUST provide real value and address the buyer's and the project's needs. Your only role is to figure out how you can best help. Articulate that in the clearest way possible and you've got it made. Good luck!
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About the Author Salma Jafri is an award-winning internet entrepreneur and a work-at-home mom. She has been a professional freelance writer and marketer for the past three years after working in the corporate sector for nine years as an e-learning specialist. She runs her own content development & online business building firm, WordPL, which currently caters to an exclusive roster of delighted international clientele. Salma is a prolific writer and regular contributor for various publications such as the online Canadian magazine Suite101, an American parenting site Planning Family, a Pakistani print technology magazine Spider (for which she writes the monthly "Money Matters" column) and she blogs at http://www.wordpl.net. Her blog at WordPL recently won the Best Business Blog award at Pakistan's first-ever blog awards ceremony. You can hire Salma on Elance for writing and research work. Her area of specialty is business writing where she concentrates on e-books, newsletters, web articles, web content, copywriting, reports, training content, technical writing, user guides and help manuals. You can also email her directly for a quote at salma@wordpl.net. Salma is an active and vocal participant of utilizing social media for business. Through her Facebook Page she connects with other online entrepreneurs. She has over 1000 followers on Twitter, the popular micro-blogging and social networking site and uses Linkedin for professional business correspondence.
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