Hi! I recently held my first webinar to provide an introduction to my course Freelance with Elance. This webinar addresses some common questions (and misconceptions) that people have about freelancing in general and about Elance in particular. I’ve provided examples and screenshots in this presentation to show you how my course can benefit you. Its an approximately 40 min presentation, including audience questions. Watch here:

If you’re in Karachi, you can sign up to take the next course here: http://wordpl.net/index.php/freelance-with-elance/ Once you fill out the form, you will be emailed details about the date, time, venue and course outline.

Thank you!

Continuing my interview series with successful freelancers (seeing as I have no time to write posts these days and am letting these cool interviewees take up my slack!), I am happy to present to you Saima Jamil Ashraf - journalist, writer, teacher extraordinaire! Saima is a fairly recent entrant to the world of freelancing and was a very keen participant in my Freelance with Elance course. I had high hopes from her and she hasn’t disappointed. I hope you’ll be able to take lessons from Saima’s story on how important it is to package your service right and market it well! Over to Saima.

1. When did you start freelancing?

December 2010

2. Why did you choose Elance as your freelance marketplace of choice?

I didn’t do a lot of research into other marketplaces, to be honest, but Elance has in its favour a huge employer base, and very easy-to-use system, a free membership option so you can try it out for size, and a system of escrow for guaranteeing payment.

3. How did you find the getting started process (making a profile, choosing membership, etc)? Was it intuitive or complicated?

It was fairly straightforward. I think the profile is something which evolves, so setting it up did not necessarily result in the finished product.

4. What kind of projects do you wish to do as a freelancer?

Writing projects – I plan to start small with blogs and articles, and then hopefully move on to bigger projects like e-books.

5. How do you differentiate yourself/your services in the competitive international market?

I try to draw on my qualifications and work experience and let employers know that they will get the benefit of a unique combination of skills.

6. How much are you currently earning in freelancing income?

I’m just starting out so I currently have on board projects for under $300. But I don’t plan to stop there!

7. How much do you expect to be earning/would prefer to earn in 6 months’ time?

I’d like to earn at least $500 a month and then see how much time I can devote to work and whether it is feasible to plan for more. I can only devote a limited amount of time to writing, so my earnings will reflect that of course.

8. Do you believe freelancers can earn just as much or more than a typical office job?

Yes – as long as they have a marketable skill and can show an above-average level of proficiency in it. You have to remember that in an office you will generally only be compared to your immediate colleagues, but in the virtual marketplace, you are pitted against peers from every corner of the earth, all looking to prove that they can do the work better than you. Sure, there are always going to be employers who are more concerned about provider fees than the standard of work, but at the end of the day the quality of your work is what will persuade employers to hire you – and pay you well.

9. What essential skills should any would-be freelancer bring to the global marketplace?

Aside from proficiency in their field (ie if you want work in Writing & Translation, can you actually write well??) it helps to know how to sell yourself and your skills, and how to figure out exactly what you are suited for.

When you first start on Elance, it’s tempting to bid left, right and centre on everything, but it quickly becomes clear that once you establish a niche you are more likely to convince employers that you are serious about writing.

Of course, when you are a little more established it’s easy to increase the scope and variety of the projects you pick up.

10. Your top 3 tips for freelancing success?

1. Be prepared to work extra hard in the beginning – work will not fall into your lap

2. Focus on your strengths and sell them well.

3. Develop a thick skin! Many, many rejections will come your way before the first acceptance.

Note from Salma: As you can see, Saima demonstrates that with the right approach, a niche focus and a game plan, its possible to run a successful freelance business. Your success depends on your ability to leverage your talent with your marketing skills. If you believe you have the skills needed to work on Elance, but want to learn how to market yourself better and get the best-paying projects and clients, then you may want to check out my Freelance with Elance course. Its a physical Karachi-based course for now, but I have plans to bring it online soon. If you’re interested, go ahead and register for it! Also check out the Facebook discussion on the course. Registrations are open for a limited time!

Landing your first anything is always the toughest job and it’s no different on Elance or any other freelance job board. You’ve got no project history, no feedback, no earnings – in other words, no reputation or credibility. So how then do you get a buyer to eventually trust you enough to hire you for their project?

Before you start bidding for your first project, let’s assume you’ve already done the following:

• You’ve chosen the right category for your skill set
• You’ve written a crackerjack profile description of your business, its main players, the services you’re providing and the skills you offer. You’ve filled out all the profile details in an interesting, unique and factual representation of you.
• You’ve chosen the type of project you want to bid on and understand its requirements.

Okay then, all set? Let’s get started. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Get to Know the Buyer – Intimately
2. Make a Personal Proposal – but Not on your Knees!
3. Offer Custom Samples – with a Twist
4. Slash your Rates but not in the Usual Way!

And now the meat

1. Get to Know the Buyer – Intimately

To get my first-ever project on Elance, I went to the buyer’s website and read her e-book. I then read her blog and started following her on twitter. By the time I got around to writing the actual proposal, I felt like I already knew her, I knew what she cared about, I understood some of her passions and I found some common ground to relate to her with. (Btw, I’m not a stalker in case you were wondering

So know your buyer. It helps to humanize the person behind the project description because then you can find an area that you’re both passionate about. It helps you choose the right words and the right things to say. So please spend that extra time getting to know the person you want to do business with.

2. Make a Personal Proposal – but Not on your Knees!

Whatever you do, please don’t start off writing the bid with descriptions about you or your company – remember that’s what the crackerjack profile section was for! Instead, in the bid, write about the buyer. Be friendly, be warm, be personable. You want to remind them, hey you’re a person too, and not just a username without feelings.

Write as you would to a friend – not your best friend, but a friend you’d like to be closer to, a friend you’d like to help. Be helpful, show them you care about their project and have read all its details, write about how you plan to tackle it, how it’ll help them, how excited you are to get started on it and how much you share the same passions – wordpress, gardening, iphone apps, whatever!

3. Offer Custom Samples – with a Twist

Here’s the thing. There’s this big mantra on elance and other sites that you should never offer custom samples. Never? Really. Well how else are you supposed to get samples? You’re a first-timer remember? You’re new to the field and you don’t have samples to hand out. You can MUST make custom samples!

Now agreed, custom samples may be easier in some professions than others. But you CAN do it if you really try. If you’re a web designer, you’re gonna have to make a sample website for the buyer. Or if you’re an editor, samples of before and after editing of his project. Or if a videographer, a short video of his production. Or if a writer, a sample of the buyer’s writing project.

Now, here’s the twist. You give incomplete samples. Yeah you heard me right. There’s a reason it’s called a “sample” and not an “actual”. You don’t give it all away for free, but you give just enough to (a) prove your ability and showcase your talent and (b) pique the buyer’s interest. This last point is very important. The buyer’s curiosity must be aroused so that if he/she likes the custom sample, he will immediately want more of it. And from you!

You can make custom samples in any field really. If the buyer wants a 10 min video, show him a 30 second one without color correction, professional voice over or editing (or all those other time-consuming tasks). This is what I did with a custom sample video for a company that requested help videos.

If the buyer wants a writing project of 1000 words, write a 100 – 150 words (and make it snazzy!). If a buyer wants a logo, design a vector one and watermark it. And so on.

Now here’s where the real benefit comes along. Once you’ve made a few custom samples to attract your first few buyers, these then become your portfolio. Voila!

4. Slash your Rates but not in the Usual Way!

Most people think going as low as possible in the money department is a sure-fire way to win a project. It’s also a sure-fire way to ensure you get stuck in that low rate rut and forever brand yourself as a low-class provider, no matter how much excellent work you do.

Instead, here’s what you should say to the buyer:

Tell ‘em you’re new to Elance. Tel ‘em your rates are actually X because you have [insert offline experience, education, qualifications, passion here] but since you’re new here you’re willing to offer them a deep discount of say, 50% off your rack rates! Make it sound like you’re doing them a favor and that they’re getting a really good deal (which they should be getting because you should actually be worth what you charge). Please note I am not advocating over-charging!!

This does two things: it makes buyers feel like you’re making an offer too tempting to pass up and it sets you up nicely to raise your rates with the same client later on if they send repeat work your way. Nifty, hunh?

Everyone starts at zero, so don’t make the mistake of assuming that it’s just tough for you. Yes the competition is global. Yes its killer. Yes only the fittest survive. Question is, are you willing to put in the initial extra effort?

Let me know how long it took you to get your first project in the comments below!

The science of what makes a perfect proposal can be baffling at times. But recently I found 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.

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_97320.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 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 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. Just be sure to 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.

Did this case study sample of writing the perfect proposal help you? Drop a line below in the comments box with your thoughts!

This is the third post in a 6-part series on How to Write Winning Bids and Proposals. While I will be giving specific examples of bid writing techniques from Elance, the information in these posts is relevant and applicable to all freelance proposals in any online medium. I hope you’ll be able to use this information to bid smarter and significantly reduce your proposal writing time in the long term as well as attain a higher award ratio.

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 Part II How to Investigate a Buyer, start off your proposal (whenever possible) with a personal greeting to the client. Hello Samantha versus Greetings user01.

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.”

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:
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

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:

“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 post 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.

Are you a successful Elance bidder? Please do share your bid writing strategies in the comments section below. Have a specific question about what to include or not to include in your Elance proposal? Send me your questions via the comments section – let’s discuss!

This is the second post in a 6-part series on How to Write Winning Bids and Proposals.

While I will be giving specific examples of bid writing techniques from Elance, the information in these posts is relevant and applicable to all freelance proposals in any online medium.

I hope you’ll be able to use this information to bid smarter and significantly reduce your proposal writing time in the long term as well as attain a higher award ratio.

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 Part 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.

Step 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

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.

Step 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.

Step 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?
• 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?
• 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.

If you liked this post and want to know how to get to the next step in writing proposals, please read Part III: How to Write a Winning Bid or Proposal

Did you have any aha moments from reading this post? Or do you have your own buyer detective work tips to share? I’d be delighted if you leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!

This is the first in a 6-part series of posts on How to Write Winning Bids and Proposals.

While I will be giving specific examples of bid writing techniques from Elance, the information in these posts is relevant and applicable to all freelance proposals in any online medium.

I hope you’ll be able to use this information to bid smarter and significantly reduce your proposal writing time in the long term as well as attain a higher award ratio.

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.

Step 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:

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.

It’s OK 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.

Step 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’m going to give it its own blog post when we come to section 4 of this series.

Step 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 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?

If you liked this article and want to know more about writing effective bids and proposals, please read Part II: How to Investigate Buyers.

Hi all! I’m excited to be starting a new (ok the first) series of posts on how to write winning bids and proposals. As freelancers, we spend as much time (sometimes more) marketing our services as we do actually working on gigs, so its essential to be able to sell yourself convincingly for online customers.

When you take up freelancing, it isn’t just about the next gig or the next paycheck (who’d want that hand-to-mouth lifestyle anyway?). No, it’s about building a business. And that means first building a professional reputation. Everyone has to start somewhere right?

So ladies and gentlemen, bloggers and writers, business owners and professionals, I present to you a comprehensive 6-part series on How to Write Winning Bids and Proposals, which will comprise the following sections:

1. How To Find your Niche and Bid Exclusively In It
2. How to Investigate the Buyer Thoroughly (yes there’s some detective work involved in this one!)
3. How to Write a Custom Proposal (24 carat gems inside this one)
4. Attach Relevant Samples and Other Information
5. Determine a Fair Price that you’re Confident the Buyer Can Pay (whether he WILL pay or not is an altogether different matter!)
6. How to Follow-up and Why it’s a Game Changer

And if I’m feeling generous, I might just throw in an additional post on the first things to do when you land that job. Kidding. I will actually do a series on this next.

So have I got you salivating yet?

What? You want more and you want it now? You want it all? Ok, Ok, I hear you. Instant gratification coming up…

So without further ado, head on over to read the first post in this series: How to Find your Niche and Bid Exclusively in It

I’ve been getting many questions lately regarding Elance’s payment procedure and its legalities from many interested first-time Elancers based in Pakistan and so thought this post might be of help to those who have either just recently set up their own Elance account or are wanting to do so. All of the information contained in this post is applicable to the residents of any country – the only difference may be in payment processing times.

When you set up an Elance account, you have 4 membership plans to choose from: Basic (free), Professional ($10/month), Small Business ($20/month) and Large Business ($40/month).

Assuming you start with the Basic Plan (which will give you 10 connects to place bids with), you do not need to use your credit card at all since the plan is completely free. The flip-side is obviously that you’ve got to use those 10 connects to bid wisely and even so, statistically, there’s a slim chance of landing a project with just 10 connects and no Elance experience (although it can be done).

If supposing you are one of the lucky ones and manage to land a project (or more!) with those 10 connects, the next thing you’d want to know (apart from doing the work) is how you’re going to be paid. Well, Elance couldn’t be simpler really. You do not need a PayPal account, you don’t need a credit card, and you don’t need a foreign bank account.

All you need is a local bank account.

Elance will wire transfer your money to you as a direct deposit into your local bank account! You can then withdraw it immediately using your ATM card or whatever method you prefer. Simple, isn’t it? So how does it work?

Before we proceed on Elance, you must go to your local bank and ask them for the following information (write it all down EXACTLY as the bank tells you):
————————
A/C Holder Name
A/C Number / IBAN
Bank Account Type
Bank Name
Bank Country
Bank ID Type (you will choose SWIFT here for international wire transfers)
Bank ID Number (8-11 characters)
Bank Address
Bank City
Bank Province
Bank Postal Code
———————–

Now come back to Elance. You will first need to tell Elance the particulars of your bank account. Once signed in on Elance, navigate to Get Paid > Financial Accounts > Enter a New Bank Account

You will be taken through a 3-step process to Enter Your Bank Information. Fill in all the particulars on these three forms using the information your bank gave you above. Choose Destination Currency as the default US Dollar; your bank will automatically convert it to Pak Rupee if you have a Rupee account or keep it in US Dollars if you have a Dollar account.

Once you have correctly entered your financial information, Elance and the payment processing team can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks to verify your bank information (although it states a much longer duration on the website itself for Pakistan). The time periods will differ according to the country and also according to the calendar, discounting for any holidays or other disruptions in normal financial activity.

Once your bank information has been entered and verified as authentic, you can then begin receiving funds for work done. The above process is a one time thing only; you do not need to go through this every time to withdraw funds.

To withdraw funds, you simply navigate to Get Paid > Withdraw Funds and enter the account to which you want it withdrawn (the bank account you added in the steps above), along with a dollar amount. Elance will ask you for your password once before proceeding with the withdrawal. As soon as a withdrawal has been initiated successfully, you will get an email notification from Elance.

Note: There are payment processing fees associated with withdrawing money from your Elance account. So a Basic account holder has to pay $10 for withdrawing funds, while a Small Business account holder gets a free withdrawal every month. Elance also deducts service fees, which is the Elance commission for using the website. Again these service fees vary depending on which membership plan you have and can range from 6.75% to 8.75% of the project’s value. You must keep these and the payment processing fees in mind when calculating your bid amount for projects.

Well, that’s it! Now go and get your first job, gloat about it here and withdraw your first-ever international payment. It’s a heady feeling

Added on Dec 18: We won 2nd Place in the New Way to Work competition! Check out the Elance blog for more details!

Added on Dec 10: Our story is now a Top 10 finalist in Elance’s New Way to Work Contest. Thank you all so much for your appreciation and support!

Follow your passion – make meaningful connections – be fulfilled!

Although I work really hard every day, it never feels like work to me because I’m constantly doing things that I really truly love. I love being with my family, I love writing, I love making money, I love building my business, I love reaching out to help others and I love making valued connections!

My New Way To Work video shows that working online, freelancing and outsourcing are not simply jobs or career choices. The new way to work – with greater control, flexibility, options and freedom – is now a conscious lifestyle choice.

Thanks to embracing this lifestyle and utilizing all the tools and resources available at my disposal, I am able to enjoy a full life – a life with quality family time and the natural high of helping others succeed in their online business ventures.

Today when I tell people that I run an online content development company from home, I get puzzled looks. The concept of being an internet entrepreneur with flexible timings is difficult to grasp and not very prevalent, especially where I live. Thanks to Elance, there is now a huge scope in the market for professionals to freelance and businesses to outsource. I do both. I freelance for Elance, but I have a team of specialist writers based all over Pakistan and abroad who I outsource projects to. Everyone in my company, WordPL, works from home and enjoys the triple benefits of financial freedom, flexible work hours and no commute time.

Two years ago, if someone told me that I could work with international clients and team members without ever having to leave home, I would have probably laughed at them. Today this concept is a reality. Cultural differences, physical locations and geographical boundaries no longer separate the two arms of business: buyers and sellers. The lifestyle opportunities that technology and companies harnessing that technology, like Elance, offer are both overwhelming and awe-inspiring all at once.

Most people want to find international clients but don’t know how to do so or where to find them. Elance has put it all at our fingertips. Now with a click of a mouse button, I can browse through a seemingly endless list of buyers specifically seeking exactly what I offer and immediately connect with them. That is nothing less than magical.

If I, someone from a developing country with limited resources, and grave security and safety concerns, can build a sustainable life around the world of outsourcing and freelancing, then really anyone can! It just takes a lot of determination and the will to succeed.

I’d like to add my heartfelt gratitude for people who either directly or indirectly have helped make my online business dreams a reality and have truly inspired me:

• My husband Ali who helped film and edit my new way to work video and is my soul partner and moral compass in all that I strive to do.
• My parents for babysitting duties whenever I asked them and for supporting me in every way possible.
• Author Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn for giving me my first break on Elance and who continues to inspire me on Twitter.
• Self-made millionaire Gill Fielding who helped me think out of the box by saying “statistically financially successful people are not normal”.
• All my excellent clients on Elance for their professional standards and for believing in my work.
• Elance itself for making my new lifestyle choice possible. And a special thanks to Elance Alex for promptly and courteously responding to my mails in a professional manner.

If there’s any one thing you can take away from my story, it’s that “Do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” – Confucius.

Much has been said and written about low-balling in the freelance community. Essentially low-balling is used to describe the (unethical) practice of pricing a project way below its fair market value. It is done by both freelancers who wish to compete on price (although they just end up hurting themselves and their fellow freelancers) and by outsourcing clients (who want to get the lowest possible price for their project).

I recently had my first brush with low-balling on Elance from the client-side. But thanks to numerous freelancing sites discussing low-balling tactics, I knew exactly what I had to do and say to this buyer.

So here’s the thing: he came through a referral and wanted X number of articles. I placed a bid, quoted my price, delivery time, etc. I got back a response saying the price was too high and he has another writing service lined up (URL provided) that is willing to do the project for a third of the price and would I be willing to “close the gap”?

Well, thanks to the fact that I am now confident about my abilities and sure about the value of my services, I was able to compose (what I thought was) a fairly level-headed, professional response: (edited to exclude specific names and amounts).

I started by thanking him and letting him know right away that I was prepared to stand my ground and give a solid reasoning for doing so:

“Thank you for your response. I do understand your need for cost-effective articles and to that end wish to reassure you that my costs reflect both my experience (both on and off Elance) as well as expertise in completing a perfectly turned-out product.”

Next I regurgitated my excellent feedback and history with providing quality work:

“I started on Elance at [amount deleted] and have since then built up a reputation consisting of 100% satisfied clients in the past year and testimonials which state that ‘Wonderful provider and none of what she provided needed any tweaks at all. That is rare’ and ‘All of the articles were very well written and exactly what I was looking for.’ I have worked hard for these accolades and that is because each project I take on gets my individual and customized attention.”

Then I backed all that up with the fact that I have reached this price fairly and that it is an accurate estimation of my time and effort involved in the project. I ended by outlining the long-term benefits of the content to him.

“The money invested now in article marketing will generate long-term dividends over the months and years in directing targeted, relevant traffic to your business. Since I too, run my own business, I am familiar with the need for great SEO content, perfectly positioned articles and a focused marketing campaign. Hence my current rates reflect the above traits.”

I also offered him a way out of the deal gracefully, by letting him know that I would fully understand if he decided not to award me the project and scout the market further but that I hoped he made whatever decision worked best for his business needs.

At that point I had pretty much given up hearing again from this buyer. So imagine my pleasant surprise when I received a “Congratulations, you’ve been awarded…” notice a few hours later!

Essentially, the buyer (now a client) responded by saying that my confidence in my abilities (backed with facts) gave him confidence in me and that he would be willing to award me the project at my stated price.

I guess it just goes to show that there are genuine buyers out there on Elance and elsewhere who are willing to be convinced if you have the confidence in yourself to be able to convince them. I really dislike it when perfectly talented freelancers let themselves get sucked into accepting projects at lower than their fair market values simply because they don’t believe in themselves.

So my advice to a beginner freelancer (especially on bidding sites like Elance) would be to start with hard work, keep your nose down and build up an excellent case for yourself. Once you’ve become established in your field, make sure you respect yourself and your abilities. Others will respect you more because of that.

Have a low-balling story you’d like to share? Tell us how you got out of a low-balling pickle – would love to hear some interesting takes on this rather unfortunate aspect of freelancing.

Bidding sites – the very term causes some professional freelancers to frown in disdain. But I was introduced to the world of freelancing via Elance and so far have had nothing but great buyers and positive experiences on it. Yes it’s true that if you stay on long enough, there’s bound to be some bad apples in the mix and I’m sure my day of negative/neutral feedback will come (gasp!), but so far I’ve been lucky.

I first joined Elance as part of a company in May 2008. In January 2009 I formed my own account on Elance with a business partner and in July of the same year I went solo. Best decision I ever made! Since then I haven’t looked back. Granted I don’t have a humongous list of projects under my belt yet, but I’m building up my portfolio slowly and steadily, taking on as much work as I can handle at any given time and not over extending myself.

So, here’s in a nut shell, what a savvy freelance businessperson needs to know to start building an online business with Elance:

Invest In Your Freelance Business

There is really no point in wasting time with a free account if you are serious about your business. By all means start out with a free account to test the waters, but when you decide you want to make money at Elance, be willing to invest some first. Small business membership fee costs $20 per month which gives you 40 connects. Connects are used as barter for placing bids on projects. You must buy more connects (at $5 for 10 connects) if you want to place more bids in a given month.

Build A Solid, Credible Profile

Even if you have no or little experience in the marketplace, you can build up your profile page to reflect an honest impression of you as an ethical businessperson. Your profile should contain, at the very least, compelling facts about your expertise, experience, qualifications and skills. Take some skills tests in your designated area – these help you rank higher in search results when buyers are looking for a particular skill. Look into verifying your credentials as this adds some small measure of credibility, but there’s no rush to do this.

Scout Projects Carefully Before Considering Bidding On Them

You want to look at various factors such as: is the project in your specific area of expertise, is the budget appropriate, does the buyer have a good rate of awarding projects, does the buyer have positive feedback from other freelancers who’ve worked with him/her? If the answer to all of the these questions is yes, get to work drafting a proposal for the project.

Never Use Boilerplate Proposals

Write a well thought-out, customized proposal for each project. It’s okay to use a template so long as you customize it for each project. In your proposal, outline why you’re the best fit for the job, what you bring to the project (experience, enthusiasm, etc) and follow up with relevant samples and a closing statement outlining your course of action.

Address The Buyer’s Questions Directly

This shows that you have taken the time to read the project description. Answer both the buyer’s stated questions and his unstated questions by reading between the lines. Does the project require a certain task which he’s neglected to mention? Spell it out, let him know why the task is important, and if it’s menial, how you’d be wiling to do it for no extra charge (e.g. I offer SEO content to all my clients, since it’s easy for me to incorporate it – this way I can offer it up as a value-addition if I feel it will benefit their project)

Get Your Foot In The Door Any Way You Can

It can be really difficult to win that first project on Elance. Many people go months before they land their first project! Don’t let that happen to you. Slash your prices, offer more than you normally would, be extra courteous and extra accommodating to requests to not only snag your first project but also garner positive feedback on your first project. I started at $8/hour and am now up to $20/hour with future rate hikes as my experience (and portfolio) builds up. It’s possible to get well-paying jobs, but you have to be ready to start at the bottom rung of the ladder.

Follow Through

Make sure you do what you’ve written in your communication with the buyer. Make sure all communication is done with the private message boards (which Elance can view in the event of a dispute). Communication takes on magnified importance in a long-distance working relationship so be sure to keep your client informed of the project’s progress at all times.

This list is by no means exhaustive and I’ll be adding to it as my experience builds. What success have you attained using Elance? Do you have any advice to give to newcomers to the world of freelancing in general and Elance in particular? Or are you new to Elance and considering whether you should use it or not? Either way, share your views with a comment below; I’d love to read (and respond) to your thoughts!