Over the course of a year, clients look at a lot of proposals. Over 80% of cover letters begin with a statement like “I want to work for you because I want to take my career to the next level, it would be a great opportunity for me.” That’s wonderful to have that spark of ambition, but here’s the thing: Prospective employers do not care.
Clients don’t want a list of your accomplishments, they want to know what you can do for them. If they have to read more than one paragraph in to see your skills they will move on to the next one. Tell them what you can do for them. Clients are looking for people to make them look good and make them money. You have to learn how to frame your skills in a way that will be valuable to the client. Here are a few tips for starting your proposal or cover letter in a way that will grab their attention. 1. Name your last client and what you did for them. It doesn’t even need to be a large well-known client. If you can prove that your services made that client more visible and earned them more social media followers, or whatever the end goal of that campaign was, that’s a great platform to spring from in your initial contact with a new client.
2. Value your services. If you are a fast video editor that can provide a modest rate, even for a trial run, that’s something employers will notice. Skills like writing, design and digital video are not ‘soft skills’. People post thousands of jobs for these positions because they themselves are bad at it. Know your worth, and then dial it back a notch to get them in the door. It’s the same idea behind loss leaders at your local shops. Offer something small that you may lose money on to get them in your network, then you can up-sell other services down the line.
3. Show links to your work, look at what you've done in the past. If you haven't had any big clients, don't think that your personal projects weren't valuable. Anything you place value on or something that you've finished is important. It's only by finishing things that you learn anything. Completing a project shows that you have follow through. There are some resources online that you can use. Look at what others are doing for cover letters and proposal outlines on the web. Check out the blog on Upwork or ask a fellow freelancer if you can browse their past examples. There are also templates available on Google Docs that I use often.
