Creating Long-Lasting Relationships With Online Clients
With your online profile established, the next step to self-employment success is to build long-lasting working relationships with your fellow online professionals (as well as clients and businesses).
The relationship-building process begins with finding those jobs that match your skill sets and talents the best, submitting proposals for those jobs, and ultimately, winning those jobs.
Many clients have a limited amount of time, so be sure to cover what is most important first…
Apart from visitors browsing and coming across your profile, proposals are key first impressions. Remember, it’s all about selling yourself and your talents. The client needs to know that you have the abilities to complete the job in a way that matches or exceeds their standards.
What to Pay Attention to When Creating Job Proposals
There are a few easy tips to follow when creating your job proposals.
First – and possibly most obviously – avoid using generic and ready-made templates. Take the time to customize your proposal, because it will pay off (literally).
The best way to customize your proposal is to understand your client and their needs. Review the client’s profile, and be sure to ask the client relevant questions about his or her project or job.
Focus on making your proposal benefits-oriented. Clients and businesses all want to know how you will be able to solve their problem – meaning you need to prove how you can complete the job or project the best, over everyone else.
Essentially, the end goal of the job proposal process is fairly similar to an in-person job interview – both situations encourage you to prove yourself, and to stand apart from the rest.
Second, many clients – just like you – keep fairly busy schedules. Because of this, they may not be able to visit your profile. If possible, attach some appropriate work samples of material you have completed on past projects.
This way, the client will be able to determine your quality of work, and it will ultimately help your proposal stand out from others that are lacking in examples. And while this may seem obvious, be sure to include details about your work samples – no second guesses allowed.
Not only that, but be sure to include some testimonials, or a few client comments from similar projects, at the bottom of your proposal so that clients can see sections of feedback (again, this saves the client time instead of hoping they will visit your profile to discover this information).
Ultimately, following some of these tips will assist you in winning your first job as an online professional.
Making Sure to Focus on Your Writing
Now whether you’re submitting proposals or simply sending a message to a client, be sure to focus on your writing – the presentation of content is pretty important.
When composing your document, focus on being concise and getting to the point efficiently and effectively. As previously mentioned, you know that clients have a limited amount of time and a limited attention span, so cover what is most important first.
Along the same lines, you may have amazing content, and you may have constructed a standout proposal, but the value of those things is greatly diminished if your content is fraught with typos, punctuation errors, and grammatical mistakes.
The easiest way to avoid this problem is to simply proofread your work. Sometimes having a fresh pair of eyes look at it can catch an overlooked mistake. You can even read it aloud to yourself to see how the flow of the content sounds.
Remember, no one is perfect, but that doesn’t mean you can’t at least strive to be – at least where your writing is concerned.
Lastly, as you know, proposals, e-mails, and other forms of client messaging all fall under the broad spectrum of business communication. Because of this, your writing in the business world (online or offline) impacts the way others will view you professionally.
Ultimately, it all goes back to your reputation as an online professional. In terms of communication, respond to clients and other professionals in a timely manner. Make it a priority to check your messages and your e-mails – it’s a big part of showing clients and businesses that you care about the work and their projects.
Your communication is an essential component to building the online version of yourself. By following a few simple tips, you can create awesome job proposals, send out effective e-mails, and all in all, take the necessary steps to winning jobs and creating lasting relationships with clients.
For more information, be sure to take a moment and check out some blog articles published on Elance.
