A strong and well written proposal will convince clients about your skills and experience and give them a good reason to hore you. A freelance proposal is the first step to win a job after placing a bid in any freelance marketplace. Your proposal is the first point of contact between you and the client, so make it stand out. Sure, the most important objective of every freelancer is to win jobs and handle different projects. No freelancer would like to stay idle. Besides, if a freelancer is lazy with work, then it will surely reflect on his earnings. Who wouldn't want more money? Not you and I, of course.  

Successful freelancers standout from the crowd by understanding and applying simple guidelines when writing proposals. One common trait of successful freelancers is the ability to strategize and restrategize. Yeah! They are not gurus, but they have a flare for trying out things and sticking to what works. Joining a freelance marketplace of your choice is one thing while winning freelance projects is another thing altogether. No doubt, the competition is huge. 

Several other freelancers want the same gig you applied for. A lot of them are experts in their chosen profession. I wouldn't want to point out where you are on the ladder. Hilarious though! Maybe you're just starting out freelancing from home or want to earn more while working at your regular job, that's cool too. However, the only way out of this deep blue sea of competition in every freelance marketplace is writing quality proposals. 

This article will help you understand how to write a quality freelance proposal that converts. Much of this information was gathered from my personal experience having worked as a freelancer for the past 10 years after College graduation.

What is a freelance proposal? 

Freelance Proposal Explained

A freelance proposal is an application letter that gives a freelancer the opportunity to highlight his/her strengths as it concerns or relates to the project description and/or requirements. Clients assess proposals from different freelancers who bid for a project and use this as a yardstick to select which freelancer is the best candidate for handling their project. A project proposal In a nutshell, proposals help freelancers to sell their skills to clients. It is usually the first point of contact between a client and a freelancer. 

Winning that project as a freelancer largely depends on the quality and convincing power of your proposal. Write something too wacky, and you're out of the shortlisted picks. Write something too pushy, and you come out as desperate. Also, if you submit a proposal with lots of typos and grammatical errors that says a whole lot about your unprofessional self. You don't want to meet a client this way. So, writing quality proposals is good business.

Let's get started. Here's how to write quality proposals that win jobs:

1. Read the Job Description Carefully

Each project has a set of requirements and experience level usually outlined in the job description. Before writing your proposal, ensure to read the job description first. This will help you tailor your proposal to a specific client. When I started my freelance career, I made a very terrible mistake. I wrote proposal templates and kept them in a doc file as my template. 

While having a proposal template is not bad at all, dishing out a template randomly without checking to know if it aligns with the job description is a no-no. Here's the error I made. When I found an appropriate job, all I did was copy and paste the proposals I had written before without refining them to suit the job at hand. 

Guess what? Most of my proposals were rejected. I lost a lot of opportunities. I advise you to try not to fall for this. Ensure to read the job description carefully and always make sure that the requirements of the job are narrated plainly in your proposal. This is your opportunity to sell yourself to the client. Again, don't mess it up. 

2. Keep It Simple, Concise and To The Point  

Long proposals often fail to convince the client. Remember that for every project, clients have to review hundreds of proposals. They don't have all the time to do that. In fact, selecting the best freelancer for your project is a job on its own. It is not easy. It is usually a very painstaking process for most clients.  

To make their job easier, clients prefer to skim through these proposals checking to find the experience level of the freelancers using certain keys outlined in the job description. So, you've got to be smart about this. Keep your proposals short and to the point. Avoid using ambiguous words and reduce the word count. Keep it simple and concise. 

3. Proofread Your Proposal Before Submission

Ensure to always review your proposal before submitting to a client. Of course, when writing your proposal, you may be easily carried away with pouring out your skills and experiences as they relate to the job description without actually taking note of typos, grammatical errors, bad punctuation and improper use of tenses. 

Always review your proposals before submission. This will help you spot and correct major errors in your text, as well as enable you standout from the crowd. A nicely written proposal always attracts the attention of clients. 

Writing quality proposals is a very painstaking process you have to become comfortable with as a freelancer. Good thing is, it is not as difficult as you think. By following this guide, you will be well on your way to landing that job. Hope this helps!