This lesson is called how to create winning proposals, and it will show you how to separate yourself
from the competition so you can stand out and land clients.
I'm so excited for this lesson because this will be where I show you exactly how I structure my proposals
and how I land clients on a consistent basis.
The reason this lesson is important is because in order to be a profitable freelancer, you need to
create proposals that actually work.
So many people don't have success with freelancing because they don't know how to send proposals that
get the attention of clients.
It's all about being able to stand out and to make the client want to get in touch with you to learn
more.
From there you go through the rest of the freelance sales process that I taught.
You will be competing with a bunch of other freelancers on every project that you go after.
So if you don't separate yourself, you're just going to be wasting your time with these proposals.
I learned this the hard way because I used to not put the amount of time required into each proposal
because I thought the more I sent out, the better.
But in reality, that's not the way it is.
You need to spend the time and you need to focus on quality over quantity.
And that is exactly what I'm going to teach you in this lesson.
We're going to show you step by step how to create winning proposals so you can go out there and land
clients on Upwork on a consistent basis.
We will be covering the overall proposal format, the cover letter, the winning proposal formula.
Client questions, proposal attachments.
Key success factors.
How proposals look from the client side.
And examples of proposals.
Everything I cover in this lesson is also included in the winning proposal formula handout.
Make sure to refer to this whenever you need guidance on how to craft a winning proposal.
First, let's go over the proposal settings.
This is where you choose, what profile you want to use to submit the proposal with, as well as what
specialized profile you want to use.
If you want to go that route.
This is what this section looks like.
You won't see the agency option unless you're part of an agency.
The reason I have that is because I also have my digital agency attached.
So you'll just see the top part so you can just keep that as is.
And then you get to choose whether you want to submit the proposal from your general profile or from
a specialized profile.
And then it'll show you the amount of Connect's required to submit that project.
A cool feature that they have is that if a job doesn't get filled, it gets refunded, so you get those
connects back.
What that means is if a client doesn't end up hiring a freelancer on the platform, you'll get those
connects back so you can use those to apply to other jobs.
Next, the job details section is the actual job post itself, which contains the description of what
the client's looking for, the time frame and the type of freelancer needed for the project.
That is this section, as we went over in the Upwork job search demonstration.
You can see that this is where they either go above and beyond and describe the project in detail,
or they just list out a couple of things because they're in a rush.
Make sure you're only applying to those jobs that they took the time to fill out the job description
and make sure you're referring to all of the job details when you go and build out that winning proposal.
Next is the term section in the term section is where you place the bid for the job.
So if it's hourly, you choose an hourly rate and if it's the fixed price, you choose your overall
bid for the fixed price along with the different milestones you on offer.
So this is what it looks like on the hourly basis, and it'll show you what your profile rate is just
to remind you and you get to pick.
So this is where I said in the beginning, you don't need to charge or bid on projects with your profile,
right?
You can bid any amount you want.
And then Upwork will show you the Upwork service fee that they take out, and it'll show you how much
you'll actually get in your pocket, which is just a nice little calculation that they do for you.
And remember, those amounts go down.
The more you earn with a client.
So this is the data for the first five hundred you make with the client.
Then in the additional detail section, that's where the entire proposal actually lives.
So that is where you put in your cover letter, you answer all the questions that the client asked.
And then last but not least, you can attach up to 10 files to supplement your proposal.
This is yet again another way you can separate yourself from the pack.
A lot of freelancers aren't taking the time to put together files and attachments to send with their
proposals.
So we're going to go over what that looks like and what type of attachments you can use to really stand
out.
Inland clients.
This is what the additional detail section looks like when there aren't any client questions that are
asked.
It'll just show you a cover letter section and then an attachment section.
From there, you can just drag and drop, or you can click the Upload project files and you can attach
up to 10 files under 25 megabytes each.
And then once you're ready, you just click Submit Proposal and your proposal gets sent to the job post
to that client.
And now I'm going to show you how to craft a winning proposal using the winning proposal formula.
This is how you can create cover letters and answer client questions in a way that differentiates yourself
and provides tremendous value right from the start.
Follow this formula when you're writing your cover letters, when you're answering your client questions.
If you want to succeed, I spent years coming up with this formula and the cover letter is what you
mainly use this formula for because the cover letter is the bulk of what the client sees when you apply
to a job.
It's important to thoroughly read the job post because a lot of times clients will also sneak, in certain
words, they want you to use.
For example, I'll show you later on one client wanted me to use the word avocado in the first line
of the cover letter to show that I read the whole post.
So always make sure you're paying attention to detail.
And that's number one to create a winning proposal.
Number to start to look at ways, you can do some further research on what the client needs.
A lot of people are just copying and pasting their cover letters over.
And if you take the time as a freelancer to really do some research and come up with a thoughtful way,
you can portray what you're going to offer them.
That is how you can start to differentiate yourself again from the pack.
So don't copy and paste anything.
Spend time on every single proposal you send out.
Make sure they're 100 percent unique.
And now I'm going to show you how a profitable cover letter is structured.
So it all starts with the attention snagging opener.
This is also known as a pattern interrupt.
And what this does is it separates what your proposal looks like from the rest of the proposals.
So a lot of people use the same words.
They're very monotonous and nothing stands out, especially when you're sifting through a bunch of different
job applications.
A lot of people will just go on Google search.
What the best thing to say in a cover letter is, and they'll paste that right into their cover letter.
So you need to make sure you do the opposite of this.
You need to use the words that get attention from potential clients.
They need to open up your proposal.
So if you don't do this part correctly, the rest of your proposal doesn't matter.
That is why this is the first part of a winning cover letter and of a winning proposal.
You need to make sure you get this formula down correctly in the right order so you can have the most
success possible.
The attention stacking opener can be a sentence all the way up to a paragraph, and it's a way for you
to separate yourself by showing that you are different.
You can provide value, and you were the one that they should without a doubt get in touch with first.
And then you are going to start delivering some of the work for the client.
This is the most impactful part of a winning proposal and this is one of the biggest secrets that I
will be sharing with you.
This helps you separate yourself immensely.
Your whole goal is to engage with the client and to get a conversation started.
You want to have a conversation with them because that lets you qualify them and see if you're a good
fit for each other.
But in order to even have that convo, you need to separate yourself from the pack.
The truth is, every freelancer out there is talking about how great they are, how much experience
they have and why the client should choose them.
However, I don't suggest going that same route.
You're just going to blend in with the pack.
Instead, I say, take a turn, go on the unbeaten path and don't talk about how great you are, but
show the client how good you are.
Show them by delivering some of the project for them.
Now, this doesn't mean you go out and you complete the full project and spend a full day on it.
But what it does mean is you take some time to show the client.
You're not just using words, you're also using action to show them why you're the best fit.
When you start to think of it from the client's perspective and you understand that they're comparing
multiple different freelancers.
It's very easy to understand how easy it is to overlook a freelancer, even if they might be a good
fit.
There's just so much competition out there.
But in order to be a profitable freelancer, you need to have a way to break through that competition.
And when you're able to deliver value and start to deliver some of the work for the client in your proposal,
that's when you will start to have the most success.
And it took me so long to figure this out, but once I started to show the client not just in it for
the money, I'm not just saying how good I am, I'm showing the client by getting some of the work started.
That's when clients started reaching out to me on a much more consistent basis.
Now you might be asking yourself, what does delivering the work look like?
The answer is it looks different based on what skill you're providing.
So a couple examples are number one.
If you're providing copywriting and the client is looking for a blog or an article written, you can
write the introduction for that article and you can still follow the formula that I'm laying out and
grab their attention with an attention snagging opener and then go right into what you would deliver
as the intro to that article.
This is a great way to show the client what kind of work you're able to deliver them, and it will separate
yourself and increase the likelihood that they'll get in touch with you for an interview.
Another example is if it's a Google ads project and they're looking to build a search campaign, you
can do some of the keyword research for them and you can reach out with that keyword research and a
couple suggestions of how you would structured the campaigns.
All of these examples are supposed to start to shift your thinking.
Don't just write a cover letter like it's your resumé and you're just talking about how good you are.
Focus directly on the clients project that they need done and how you're going to solve their problem.
Another example is if the client is looking for a website or a landing page bill, what you can do is
put together a preview.
A mock up or some wireframes and send that over to them as an attachment with the proposal.
This will help them get an idea once again.
If you're a good fit for them and if you deliver high quality work, chances are they'll be very likely
to hire you over another freelancer that didn't do any work up.
Because in today's marketplace, everyone is very hyper focused about the money, how much it's going
to cost, and if you can put that aside for a second and focus on the value.
Like we covered in the price myth, once that value is at a high enough amount, the client will be
happy to pay you whatever your fee is because you're solving their problem and delivering value.
After you start to deliver the work for them, that's when you want to go into including relevant experience
or any testimonials that you have.
This is another important part because after you've grabbed your attention and then after you've started
to deliver the work for them, now you need to directly include some outside data in your proposal so
that can build more credibility with the client for you.
And even though Upwork does show your profile and if you have some reviews on there, they will show
up.
That's not until later down on the page.
So the cover letter is the first thing the client sees.
And if you can include some relevant experience right after you've already delivered the work, that
is just another way you're standing out and you're reinforcing that you're a good fit with the client.
If you're just starting out, don't worry.
You don't need to have this, necessarily.
Instead, you can use some third party data.
So back to our example before, if you're speaking about copywriting, then you can give some third
party data about why you wrote the intro the way you did.
Maybe you can write about how you use the keyword a certain amount of times and how that can benefit.
Get creative here.
But the goal is ultimately to include some outside data or outside testimonial that helps you look better.
You can say that you're the best.
You can even start delivering the work.
But until you start to nail all of these different things down, you won't have the most amount of clients
reaching back to you as you could if you follow these steps.
Another way you can include third party data is, for example, if you're doing the web design example,
you could also reach out in addition to with your wireframe or your markup.
But also why you designed the project the way you did.
Maybe you will increase conversion rates, or maybe you have a different mobile design that you have
for them that will help get more people in touch with the company.
It doesn't matter.
What matters is you're providing some sort of outside data.
After that, then you want to summarize your overall approach to the job.
This is meant to be a brief overview and helps build even more credibility by summarizing how you want
to go about the project and how you're going to approach it.
You're not only showing the client that you're thinking ahead, but you're also showing them that you
have the ability to think critically and to plan a project out in multiple phases.
So many freelancers are just so excited to get a client's money and get the project started, and not
many of them are thinking about the long term.
So once again, if you can break down the project into multiple phases and show the client not just
in it for the money, but you're in it to provide them value for the long term and create a relationship
that's profitable on both sides.
This is the type of thing you need to do.
This is how you can start to structure your proposals so you start winning jobs and you don't have to
waste their time and get frustrated, sending dozens of proposals out and never hearing back.
To end a winning proposal, you always need to finish with a clear call to action that builds urgency.
And the way I do it is, I always ask them if they're available to speak today.
Does it matter if I apply to a proposal at 10 o'clock at night?
I'm always going to ask them if they're available to speak as soon as possible.
Every time you send a proposal out, it needs to have that call to action at the end, and that's what
tells them what to do next.
Even though it might be obvious you need to literally ask them in your proposal, When can we talk?
When can we meet?
I think I'm a great fit.
When can I show you what kind of work I can deliver?
When you start to act like this and you build urgency with the client, you provide a clear call to
action.
It also shows them that you don't beat around the bush, you're there to help them.
And it also shows that you're available and you're ready.
A lot of freelancers don't always spend enough time building that urgency with their potential clients.
And what happens is you might have a good conversation with the client, but nothing is finished and
nothing is finalized until they actually signed the deal.
And the money's in your account.
When you build more urgency, you're able to win more jobs because you show them you're hungry for their
business.
It also lets the client know you're ready to start right away.
A lot of freelancers, especially once they get more experienced and busy.
Forget about how important speed is.
And that's another way you can differentiate yourself, even if you don't have much experience.
Focus on speed it is vital in every area of freelancing.
So now, you know, the winning proposal formula, and this is all dependent on you taking action and
putting this into work.
Don't copy and paste your proposals, break them out into these five sections.
And this is all in the winning proposal formula PDF Handout.
So have this open next to you as you're filling proposals out as your answering client questions.
You can also separate some different parts of this into different client questions if they ask a bunch
of them.
The goal is to put together a proposal that has so much value in it, the client almost feels obligated
to reach out to you.
That is the way you can land more jobs on Upwork in send out winning proposals.
Going over in more detail, the client questions in the proposal for these, what I like to do is to
be sure you're spending the time that's necessary to answer them to the best of your ability.
I like to write at least a paragraph or two for each question because it shows the client that I took
the time to fully answer all of their questions.
There's a reason they included them in the first place.
And when you separate yourself from the pack by answering these in an in-depth way where you're not
rushing through them, it's another way to stand apart from all of the lazy freelancers who answered
in a one word sentence or just one word.
If there's not enough information provided in the question, what I like to do is reach out with my
initial thoughts and then ask for any additional info, I need to answer that question.
And this is something else I like to do in the proposal.
If there's any missing info because it also shows the client, you're not just there to say that you're
a great fit no matter what, but you're also making sure that you have all the info needed to make sure
you're a good fit and to give them an accurate quote.
So every question a client asks with the proposal, make sure to go in-depth on it.
And if you don't have any experience with what they're asking.
Make sure you still provide an alternative experience or something that shows them that you're a good
fit.
This is how you can set yourself up for success as you go through your proposal and answer the potential
clients questions.
So the next part we are going to go over is winning proposal attachments.
And what I have to say about this is that you always, always, always need to include attachments with
every proposal you send and especially if you're just starting out.
This is how you can separate yourself from the freelancers that don't take the time to do this.
Once again, our goal is to stand out as much as possible and build as much trust and credibility as
we can.
The potential clients don't know us yet.
We need to show them why we're the best fit.
So if you skip this and you don't send attachments, there's no excuse for not hearing back from clients.
So if you want to be a profitable freelancer, take this part seriously.
And clients will then start to take you seriously.
And there are many different types of attachments you can include.
One of them here, my favorite is just holding up the phone, taking a selfie video and speaking about
the specific job posting that they posted.
This is a huge differentiator and will help you get more jobs and build more credibility, even if you
don't have any reviews yet on Upwork.
By sending proposals with attachments and a fully written now cover letter and answering all of the
client questions.
It shows them how much attention to detail you spend on a project, and that is how much attention to
detail you'll spend if the client hires you.
Another type of attachment I like to use in my proposals is including a screen share or a screen recording
of my computer.
And for this, I use CAMTASIA, which is in the profitable tools and apps.
And I love this because you can become a great video editor without any experience at all.
And you can easily record your screen.
You can record yourself speaking about things.
You can navigate through different websites and different softwares and explain things to clients,
and it helps you become more memorable because so many freelancers aren't doing this, they're not taking
advantage of going above and beyond and including multiple attachments, including screen recordings.
You can also include your portfolio, so case studies do show up on your profile when you submit proposals,
but they're not in the actual proposal section, so the client might miss out on them.
And that's why I love to include them in the winning proposal attachment.
And what you can do is send screenshots or you can even just attach the PDF of a case study that you've
built.
This is another way that you can build more credibility and more trust with the potential client.
And if you have a project that is very similar to the one you're reaching out to, then make sure you
mention that in your cover letter as well and talk about why you attach the attachments you did.
That is another way you can start to build even stronger proposals that are intertwined in delivering
value in every single section.
Lastly, you can also send reports that you have from past clients that you've helped, or if you're
just starting out, you can send third party data of clients that are in the same industry.
This is how you can leverage that third party data that social proof that is so needed in today's ecosystem
reviews are vital.
That's why Amazon and Google my business all rely on reviews because customer proof and social proof
is a huge buying factor that people use in the marketplace.
Knowing this, you can send reports with every proposal that you send out.
This will help you stand out and build even more credibility than you had before.
Once you start to combine all of these different things together, you go through the five steps of
the winning proposal cover letter.
You answer every question to the best of your ability and your including multiple different types of
attachments, such as reports and videos and screen shares and case studies.
There's no way you can fail if you're doing all of this and you're doing it the right way.
And this is your online reputation.
This is what you're going to start, including in your proposals moving forward.
So the level I'm personally on allows me to just get jobs based on my previous successes I've had.
It allows me to use Upwork's platform that has all of that building credibility and show clients previous
projects I've worked on and show them why I'm a good fit as you go through this process.
And as you start to build more of a reputation and you start to learn your skills and become an expert,
this process will become easier and easier.
So don't get discouraged when you start.
Put the time into every proposal and you can be where I'm at quicker than it took me.
You just have to listen to everything I'm teaching.
In addition to creating winning proposals using the formula provided, it's also crucial that you follow
these key success factors so you can have the most success possible as a profitable freelancer.
The first is to remember to price yourself competitively and forbidding just under the top bids and
higher than the medium bids.
That's that sweet spot I showed you in the demonstration portion.
You do need the pro plan to see these bids, and that's why it's so worth it if you're dedicated to
your success, which I know you are.
Then only applied to jobs using speed.
So once a job has 20 to 50 proposals, most likely it's too late because the winning proposal formula
I teach takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.
It doesn't make sense to apply to jobs that already have 50 proposals.
It's likely just going to get lost in the bunch.
And you can also look at how many freelancers the client is interviewing at the time if they're interviewing
multiple freelancers, even if the job doesn't have that many proposals.
Once again, it's likely too late.
If you focus on building winning proposals and only applying to jobs that were posted recently, you
will skyrocket your chances for success.
And as you go through this process and as you start to speak with clients, keep this in the back of
your head that your entire goal is to build long term profitable relationships.
You can even see this in your proposals and in your cover letters and on the phone with clients.
Let them know that you're not just looking for that next project and that next payday and that you're
looking to build a profitable relationship and you want to build just that, a relationship that's good
on both ends.
That is how you build a client for the long term.
And as tempting as it may be.
Never copy and paste anything that goes for your cover letters, client questions, whatever it is,
even if you think you can get away with it and it's similar.
Chances are the client will know it's not directly to them.
I like to write every single proposal from scratch, starting from a unique basis.
I make sure to individually craft each proposal.
Treat it with care and it will flourish for you.
Just copy and paste and rush, and it will wilt.
Then also, that gets into quality versus quantity, in my opinion, when you're doing proposals the
right way and you're looking for a job the right way and you're only applying to the jobs that are the
best fit, three proposals done the right way are better than 20 that were just rushed.
That's just the way it is.
Nothing in life is free and nothing good comes quick or easy.
So when you start to put the time in and you start to provide the best proposals possible by delivering
value and starting the work on each one, you don't need to send out.
20 all you need to do is send out less that are much more valuable.
Now, let's get into what the Upwork platform looks like from the client's perspective.
This was for a job post that I hired a freelancer for for one of my clients that I needed some help
with.
And I was just looking to hire a blog writer.
What happened was I got 26 different freelancers, some proposals out of the job.
So this just shows you you're obviously going to be competing with other freelancers.
And as you can see, this is what it looks like.
It shows your photo, your name, the bid that you bid on the project, the location you're located
in, how much you've earned.
And then it shows you the first line or two of the cover letter when you're sending proposals out.
Keep this in mind.
Take a screenshot of this if you need to, because this is why the first sentence of your cover letter
is so important and it needs to grab as much attention as possible.
Remember when I said if that first attention grabbing intro wasn't good enough, your whole proposal
doesn't matter.
This is what I mean by that, because if you're reaching out, especially if you don't have any money
earned yet on the platform and you are not making yourself stand out in that first sentence or two,
you're just going to get brushed over.
And that's what I had to do.
I had to archive 23 different freelancers.
And it wasn't because some of them weren't good.
It was just because I had so many to choose from.
So the ones I already started interviewing that stood out to me in the beginning.
Those were the ones that had a much higher likelihood of getting hired.
Keep this in mind as you start to craft those winning proposals.
Now here is a screenshot of what a winning proposal looks like.
This is just an example.
And I don't intend for this to be the holy grail or to read every word of it.
But in general, just look at it.
Look at what a winning proposal looks like.
Look at how my cover letter is substantially written, and there's much more room to scroll down and
read the other things I wrote.
And when they asked a question, I went into full detail.
I also noted previous successes I've had that relate directly to the job I was applying to, and then
I included two attachments that directly show the value I provided on those previous projects in the
cover letter.
I also started to deliver some of the work, and I told them how I recommended structuring their retargeting
campaigns.
This is what every proposal you send out should look like.
You need to spend the time on this, and I promise you you will be happy you did because you'll have
much more success and now will keep you more motivated on your freelance journey.
Once you've built a rock star upward profile like I have, clients will want to start to work with you.
And when a client sends you an invite to a job, you don't have to spend any connects to apply to it.
And you also have a much higher likelihood of closing the deal and landing that client because they
already express interest to you and reached out to you for invitations.
I make sure to read their full job post.
The one I'm showing you right now starts with the word avocado in all capitals.
You might be asking yourself why that's in there, but if you read the job description, you would have
seen that the client said, Please say avocado as the first word, or I won't read your proposal.
So this was one of those hidden examples of even when a client invited me to the job, I still had to
pay attention to detail.
I still attached my good reviews that made sense for this project, and I still took the time to give
them a little bit of a background on how I would structure their YouTube ads based on what their job
post said.
So now you know how to craft a winning proposal if you follow these steps.
You make sure to provide as much value as you can on every proposal you send out.
You will be putting yourself in the best position possible on the road to freelance success.
I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson.