Hi Ako!
And welcome to Upwork! There isn't anything that would not allow your proposals to be seen by clients but there may be something missing from them. Your proposal is often your first interaction with a potential client and your opportunity to introduce yourself, highlight your expertise, and show the client why you’re the best candidate for the contract. Here are some important tips for submitting a great proposal:
- Determine and address the client's problem. The client posted the job because they have a problem to be solved that they can’t or don’t want to solve themselves. Determine what this problem is and make that the focus of your proposal, letting the client know how you will fix it for them and the benefit they will receive from having you do the job. Give the client a little extra by sharing your unique approach to tackling and completing this contract. Make sure you answer any screening questions the client asks in their Work Description.
- Tell the client why you are the person for the job. Every customer wants to know why they should pick you instead of any other freelancer out there. This is basically what your application has to be focused on. No, don’t start your application with: “You should hire me because…” Present the advantages of a collaboration with you, as well as your qualities. Don’t brag, but be honest and present real facts:
- Talk about your experience (i.e. how many years)
- Mention your excellent feedback (if you already have some)
- Mention the number of projects you have worked on so far (inside or outside of Upwork)
- Tell them about your education, if it is relevant to the job
- Point out anything that makes you look good as long as you can prove it, via samples or your profile. You should leave the rest out.
- Add examples of your work. If there’s one thing in your proposal your clients are interested in, it’s your work samples. If your samples are good, that is your main advantage for winning the job. So keep your samples as high as possible, maybe after the first paragraph.
- Make your proposal as professional as possible. Ensure there are no grammatical errors and re-read your proposal to make sure it makes sense. Sometimes it's something small like starting with a “Dear John Doe,” which to some clients sounds better than “Hi.” “Thank you for taking the time to read my application” is a great closing line. You can make your proposal more professional or warm with a friendly closing, like “Best regards,” or “Kind wishes.”
- Aim to use uniquely written proposals but also save some time. Clients don’t like to see cookie-cutter proposals. When you customize your proposal to show your interest and expertise in their particular project, you show your interest in them—not just any contract you can find. Creating your proposal in an editor, such as Microsoft Word or Google docs, will allow you to style, edit, and save your proposals for easy reference to certain paragraphs/language the next time you have a similar proposal to send. By referencing old proposals' language/paragraphs, you can determine what might have worked and what didn’t, and test which approaches work better for you.
I hope these tips are helpful and wish you much success on Upwork!
