How To Write An Effective Freelancing Proposal

A common question asked amongst the novice freelancer community is, “how many proposals do I need to write to get to an interview?” This is probably the wrong question to be asking. If you’re here feeling discouraged after writing many proposals, then this was written especially for you. You’ll learn how to write an effective freelancing proposal.

It can be seen on many forums that a freelancer sends 15, 40, and even 100 proposals without getting even a response. However, quality is far more important than quantity. To make things easier you need to make sure that you know your target market, set up your public profile correctly, and know how to filter job posts. This blog post is focused on proposal writing so be sure to check out how to get your first freelance client which discusses the aforementioned topics.

Recognize And Restate The Problem

Assuming you’ve done all the appropriate beginner steps and filtered job posts to those that fit the right criteria for you, you might be wondering what you should actually write. Recall that successful freelancers understand the basics of sales which is to solve problems. Read the job post carefully and try to recognize the client’s problem. Most of the time the problem is clearly stated, but sometimes it’s implied in the form of a want/need statement. Other times, the problem has been already broken down into multiple tasks.

There’s simply not enough space to discuss how the client’s personality will influence the way they write the job post, so it’s encouraged to include practical psychological or sales books in your reading list. With that being the case, let’s look at something we can do right away in a practical sense. Freelancers can write the client's problem in their own words that suggests the problem is solvable. This will signal to the prospective client that you read the job post, understand the problem, and can solve the problem.

It may sound so simple, but it can’t be stressed enough that this is important and powerful. You would be surprised by how many freelancers don’t do this. The author has posted jobs as a client several times on Upwork, so there is a unique perspective to be had if you’ve never done this. On one such job post, about 15 proposals were sent in. All but 3 didn’t even restate the problem or need, and of those 3, one described a solution to a problem not found in the job post. As a client, the author immediately went from 15 (some were Top Rated on the platform) to 2 short-listed freelancers. Neither of those 2 had earned their Top Rated badge, but their proposals showed that they clearly understood the problem and their profiles showed they were capable of doing the work.

Solving The Problem

Recognizing and restating the problem the client is facing is not too terribly difficult. Stating how you’ll solve the problem is mostly an art rather than a science. On the one hand, you must seem confident or convincing enough that you can solve the problem, and on the other hand you don’t want to go into so much detail that you are working for free. There’s a balance to be achieved.

There are a couple of great ways to achieve this, and you should know that restating the problem is more important than your explanation of how. Consider that a restaurant offers you a menu, they don’t take you into the kitchen to watch your dish be made (usually). So the easiest way is to have a profile that shows you’ve solved this problem for other clients or in concept projects. It’s like having a menu that shows the food already served on the plate.

Another way to do this is to explain at a high level how the problem will be solved, and the length of this will depend on the industry or freelancing category. Generally, it can be done in one to three sentences. Alternatively, the solution can be implied in a thoughtful question that relates to the problem that shows you know the subject matter of the skills involved to solve the problem. An example of this will be shown later on.

Call To Action

If the prospective client reads your freelance proposal, you only have one chance to show them that you know the problem, can solve the problem, and are ready to take care of it right away. However, many freelancers fail to include a call to action. Before your signature on the proposal, a request to the client to do something that advances the process will increase your chances of an interview significantly.

Human nature and human needs for relationships increases the tension to answer a question even when no one is looking. Even poorly written proposals with a call to action have a better chance of a reply. The recommended call to action is to move the process to a video call to strengthen the human connection further.

Some variations of call to actions that have been used include the following:

• “If interested in discussing further, let’s hop on a Zoom call to look at the project in more detail.”

• “Is it okay if we meet by Zoom to review your project in more detail?”

• “When would you like to review the project over a Zoom call?”

• “Does tomorrow at 9am or 1pm work for you so we can meet by Zoom to review your project?”

Use whichever variation feels the most like you or create your own. Each variation can be classified as passive, assumptive, or assertive. It’s not really too important to optimize the call to action early on in the freelancing career as optimization may only give you a slight enhancement whereas simply including a call to action will significantly increase the likelihood of being invited to an interview.

Other Considerations

Some other things you might want to consider are how to greet the prospective client, whether or not to include a portfolio, and the total length of the written proposal. These are mostly the fine details that make a little impact on how professional your freelance proposal appears. In most cases, they are not the determining factor of whether or not you get an interview. Also, if the post mentions anything about proving you are not a robot, you should include that as well.

If the prospective client’s name is unknown or unable to be determined by the way that the platform hides the name, a simple “hi” or “hello” will be good enough for a greeting. Of course, if you know their name, include it. Generally, it’s NOT recommended to use “sir”, “ma’am”, or “dear” if dealing with Western countries, but follow what makes sense outside of those countries.

It’s suggested to include your freelance portfolio only if it shows the prospective client that you can do the specific job. If it might show work that you’ve done that has little to do with the job post and it’s not requested in the job post, don’t include it. It’s better for the prospective client to review your public profile instead. As it is said, a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s not a good idea for those thousand words to speak to solve a different problem from the one described by the prospective client. The author limited the use of any kind of portfolio when getting started, so you shouldn’t think it’s necessary to get your first client unless you’re doing something highly conceptual and specialized for freelancing.

A good recommendation for the length of a proposal should follow 3 rules.

1. The proposal should be at least 3 sentences.

2. The proposal should be no more than 3 paragraphs.

3. The proposal should not mention much about you and your skills.

The easiest way to figure out how much to write is to match approximately the length and effort the prospective client wrote the job post. This can be called chameleon writing in sales because it’s meant to blend and attempt to match the client’s personality type. Three sentences to three paragraphs is usually the norm, but none of it should include much about you unless it’s a simple sentence pointing the prospective client to your attached portfolio. Clients care about their problem being solved, that’s it.

Example of Effective Freelance Proposal

Freelancers Journey is meant to be industry agnostic so no matter the skills you may have, the material can be easily applied. The example used will be that of a job post meant for a graphic designer, but the post text and proposal text will be kept simple for ease of understanding. Sometimes job posts are this simple, but in most cases they are slightly more complex.

Job Post

“We are a veterinary company that specializes in working with dogs only. We need a graphic designer that is good at selecting photos for our website because we initially used free stock images, but we need something a bit more premium and customized. Looking forward to your proposal.

-Jan”

Proposal

“Hi Jan,

I’m interested in helping you select and optimize photos of dogs or other images that would reflect your veterinary business. I’d be happy to pull an appropriate selection that fits your brand and then optimize them for the website. Do you have specifications for pixel density or could you show me where on your website these images will be placed?

If you’re interested in working together on your project, let’s hop on a Zoom call at your earliest convenience.

Thank you,

Freelancer”

Points To Review

• We knew Jan’s name from it being included in the job post and included it in the greeting

• Our restating the problem included the key words of “dog images” and “veterinary” to show we read and understood the problem

• Our proposed solution included that the images would be selected and optimized for the website which further demonstrates we understand the problem and can solve it

• Our proposed solution also asked a question regarding specification to show we are skilled in solving problems like the one the potential client has

• We also left a call to action to help the potential client make a decision to reach out to us and continue the process

• We kept the proposal short and to the point.

• We did not talk about ourselves at all.

Summary

Writing effective freelance proposals is done by engaging in a basic sales process. It requires recognizing someone else’s problem and writing it back to them to show that we understand. We have to write a simplistic solution that tells the prospective client we’ve solved this problem before or confident in our skills that we can solve theirs without needlessly telling them how great we are. Lastly, a call to action is included to increase the chances of a reply to our proposal. Writing high-quality and effective proposals will yield better results than simply writing a lot of them hoping for the best.