How to become Freelancer. Following are the tips help you in this regard. You can get project from home, it is very simple and easy. Everyone can do this very easily.
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.
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 writingEducation Bachelors in BusinessCommunication, Masters inBusiness Administration Hobbies gardening, cooking, playing Facebook games, playing tennis, reading inspirational
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?
- 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.
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?
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 name12
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.
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
user01.16
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!
"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 unasked20
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.
"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 ,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.
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.
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).
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!
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: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
"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.
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?
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.
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 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.
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.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
(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.
As a professional content developer with a dedicated
team of writers and researchers, I can offer you at least
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
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.
