Elance Proposal

6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals Get Buyers Hooked with your Bids and Proposals Every Time! Salma Jafri WordPL

July 2010

2

6 Steps to Writing Winning Elance Proposals ©WordPL http://www.wordpl.net

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

3


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 © 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 50-word 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.

http://www.wordpl.net/

4


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.

http://wordpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/bullseye.jpg

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?

6


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.

http://wordpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/holding-the-sun.jpg

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

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?

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

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?

http://www.google.com/alerts

11


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

http://wordpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/fingerprint1.jpg

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?

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?

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.

15


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.

http://wordpl.net/index.php/2010/02/how-to-investigate-a-buyer/

http://wordpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Elance-awarded.jpg

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

clichéd, boring, irrelevant, egotistical or banal set of

statements. If you've ever been guilty of starting a bid

with the following sentences, STOP immediately!

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."

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:

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

http://bit.ly/aCpRTb



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:

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

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.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/toryjohnson/2009/10/need-work-check-elance.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/toryjohnson/2009/10/need-work-check-elance.html

23


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, e-

book, 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

http://wordpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/samples.jpg

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, e-

books, 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).

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!

26


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:

http://wordpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/tug_of_war.jpg

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

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


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?

30


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

http://wordpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/deal-maker-key.jpg

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

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 deal-

maker.

33


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.

http://wordpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/feedback_form_excellent.jpg

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.

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


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!

http://wordpl.net/index.php/2010/03/how-to-write-a-winning-proposal-bid/

37


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 [email protected].

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.

http://www.elance.com/p/blog/2009/12/the_winners_of_the_new_way_to_work_contest.html


http://wordpl.elance.com/


http://www.planningfamily.com/authors/salma-jafri/

http://www.spider.tm/


http://wordpl.net/index.php/2010/05/wordpl-wins-best-business-blog/

http://webstudio.ciopakistan.com/2010/06/01/the-woman-behind-the-winning-business-blog-salma-jafri/

http://webstudio.ciopakistan.com/2010/06/01/the-woman-behind-the-winning-business-blog-salma-jafri/

http://wordpl.elance.com/

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.facebook.com/WordPL

http://www.twitter.com/salmajafri

http://pk.linkedin.com/in/salmajafri

Elance Proposal

Documents

Transcript of Elance Proposal