Budget Homes

Submitted by bogar on Sun, 2009-08-02 06:59. Freelancing | India | Management

How to win projects in Freelancing. If you are new to freelancing environment, you must read this.

Your communication in Private Message Board - PMB is very crucial to win the bid.

The Project Price and Estimate you quote, your profile are important to win a bid. Above all, how do you relate to the requirement. You communication in Private Message Board - PMB is very crucial to win the bid. PMB communication is more important than Project Price, Estimate, and Profile.

When you bid, you are going to post your general information in the project bidding page. You can see how others are posting the message.

Somebody says three to five lines about their company profile like 'We have 8 years experience in.....'. Somebody says simply 'Please check PMB'.

PMB is the private message board where your communication is direct to the client. Only client can see it. It will not be visible in the common project page.

In this PMB, you have to express how are you related to the project. Why and How you can complete the project.

You have to explain projects similar to the requirement if you have done anything already.

You have to explain the technical functionality as how do you get the project done.

You have to give a compelling reason as why the project should be assigned to you.

Here is an Example:

"I am looking for a freelancer to help me create a custom Drupal Theme from my set of graphics and layout. Bidder should have a sound knowledge of Drupal Themes and how they work. Please save everyones time and post only if you are capable to do the task."

For the above project, your PMB message should be like the following:

"I have good experience Drupal. I have customized several themes.

Themes:
Bluemarine, Democratica, Goofy, Slurpee, pushbutton ... these are the themes, I have worked and customized so far.

Template Engine:
PHPTemplate Engine(Xtemplate)

I know we can use smarty template engine, I have used smarty in xoops CMS.

I prefer to work in phptemplate engine for Drupal, not because of any technical
reasons, but most of the themes available for phptemplate only..
The themes, I have played around all are based on phptemplate engine only.

I have thorough knowledge in drupal hooks related to theme, etc..
Please let me know the name of the theme you choose to customize."

The above message will clearly express the bidder's knowledge and interest in drupal theme customization. I won the project.

Note: This is four years old conversation between me and my client. This was about Drupal.4.7.x Currently Drupal has only php template engine. No Xtemplate or Smarty supported in Drupal 6.x in its official release.

To convince the client through PMB, you must understand the project and technical skills needed to get it done. Do not bid all the projects blindly. Just walk through the projects. If you are able to do it, bid the project, express how are you related to the requirement in PMB.

If you do not understand the project or you are not interested in the project, do not bid it. Because you will have nothing to convey in PMB for that project.

Bid the project only when you understand the project or interested in the project, otherwise skip it. Do not waste of your time and client's time.

Freelancing is not your learning place for basics. If you must have some work experience already and move along with your experience.

If you are good and have experience in wordpress concentrate on wordpress, it would be easy for you to impress the client by how are you related to requirement. If you bid joomla projects you can not convince the client with your wordpress experience.

Without prior experience/skills needed to implement the project, do not bid.

This is applicable to all type of freelancers - programmers, designers, writers, data entry operators, content providers, SEOs.

Bid the projects which you feel you can do it because of your prior experience, skill set, and interest. Express your relation to the requirement by your prior experience and skill set. If you have interest in the project you can express more.

Also, you need luck to favor you. You may have everything suitable to win the project, but it might be awarded to somebody else. Do not fed up. Keep trying. Luck favors among who is prepared and equipped.