This is the question I mostly face by online freelance starters.  Here is my guide to Write Effective Bid Proposal:

- First select project and bid requirements, that you know you can deliver.

- The most effective method I find is to question the client/buyer, but these should be wise questions.

- Read the requirements carefully and list down all questions that comes to your mind, review them and remove any basic questions, but ask questions that show your client that you understand his requirements (or at-least try to understand) and understand the domain too.

- In start if you know the client name (from his profile or message) then start with “Hi ClientName,” this also shows that you read his message carefully. Then simply list your questions in points.

- Do not write lengthy paragraphs, and give proper one line spacing between each point. Make it easy to read.

- So first Questions (or you can add a one liner in start, saying that you understand the requirements but have some questions) and then mention your plus points, mention your experience in similar projects.

- Read the client requirements carefully and mention your plus points based on what client asked for, for example if he mention that he want good testing, then mention clearly that you will do the testing or similar.

- Always try to clear all requirements in start. This shows that you are serious about the project and can complete it too. It helps yourself in doing the project too. (Remember winning the bid is only first step, main issue is always to get it signed off and paid, so be ready for that in start)

- Its better to give a bid amount in first message. But for some complex project or where you are not sure, then you can mention that you will place bid after his answers to clarify requirements.

- For sites that does not allow longer messages in bid, place short message in bid and then send a detailed message with questions as a private message.

Hopefully this will help you guys writing your bid proposals.

Question & Answer

What are the objectives, scope and limitations of outsourcing? What do you mean by freelancer with respect to outsourcing?

First to the first part of your question on objectives, scope and limitations of outsourcing

Objectives and Scope of outsourcing:

Let me cover both of these here. Objectives and Scope of outsourcing a particular task can be muti-tier, and mostly depends on the need of a company. But usually these are:

• Minimizing cost, by outsourcing costly task/operation to cheaper facility, may be within country or outside.
• Minimizing workload on in house team.
• The tasks in hand is out of current capabilities of in house team.
• Acquiring those skills, required for outsourced task, is not beneficial for in house team for long term.
• When in house team can not meet the deadlines, for different reasons, so objective is to meet deadline.

Similarly the scope vary based on the situation and conditions.

Limitations:

Virtually it has no limits, but in reality there are few like:

• Must be managed properly by a manager who knows his work.
• Understanding the task in exact manner as client require.
• For tasks that needed to be done onsite.
• The team who actually do the task, can not always held liable in long run.

Freelancer with respect to Outsourcing

Freelancer plays a vital role in outsourcing, specially when the outsourcing is done to save cost (which is the objective in most cases) freelancers are the ones who get a chance to prove their skills and make some reasonable money, by cutting down management and infrastructure cost.

Nowadays there are too many websites like vWorker.com, Freelancer.com, eLance.com, oDesk.com and others, that offer projects in different domain to freelancers. If you examine projects on these sites most of these are outsourced work, direct customer rarely use these sites. But ts used mostly by individuals and small to medium companies, who want to cut down their cost or want to save time on their development, and in some cases due to lack of their own expertise.

In countries like India, Pakistan, China and Russia. There are several freelancers who were able to develop their own small companies from the outsourced work from more developed countries like USA, UK, Germany and Australia. You can say that it works out for both sides in most of the cases.

So we can easily say that outsourcing still rocks and give results, when managed carefully and does help freelancers and small companies.

The key as a freelancer for you is consistency and always keeping your commitments, specialy for outsourced work.

Question:

I wish to work as a freelance programmer. I have over 2 years of experience in iPhone/iPad, Blackberry and Android development. But the problem that I am facing is in preparing a portfolio of my work. All the projects (16 projects) that I have worked on was done under my previous organization and I cannot show them as my work. If I am gonna register on Freelancing sites such as Elance, FreeLancer, oDesk etc I have nothing to display as projects done by me? I wish to show my work to people but still I can’t. Please guide me, what should I do?

Thanx,
Nikhil Rastogi

Reply:

Hi Nikhil,

First of all sorry dear, I delayed replying to your question, but thats due to some work overload and then some personal matters. Anyway here is my feedback for you. Let me put my feedback in points or you:

- Be Positive, I believe these days there are not to many people who has skills with wireless device programming. So you have a skill whose demand is growing now. Thats your major positive.

- Off course you can not mention the projects you done during a job as your own, but you can mention them as your projects while working for your employer, People do understand this. So mentioning them is fine, but you can not show them as demo.

- Build a demo program of your own, a small one that shows at least some basic skills, you can give demo of that to your potential clients.

- I recommend to put together a webpage, simply listing your skills, mentioned your projects on job and providing link to download your self made demo, you  can call it your portfolio page, just make it simple html page, you can gradually update it later with time, Just remember every journey starts with first step. So take the first step with positive thinking.

- Now on different freelancing sites, keep on searching for projects and post low bids, and in your bids encourage buyers to visit your profile page and check the demo you made. + for initial projects offer comparatively low price, once you win couple of projects, you can update your rates.

- Also remember to do not prepare a general bid response, but write your bids/proposal based on project requirements, and always be honest.

- Remember creation of profile is not a one day activity, you put it together once, but you keep on updating it regularly, at least once a month.

Hope this will help you to some extent, and answer your question.

Wish you of best of luck, you are welcome to ask more.

Your Feelancer Guides
Faisal and Shane

Question: I am now a junior studying journalism at Towson University. This summer I would like to venture out and cover stories — freelance, if you will. I have never done this before. Do I need to do anything official before I get out and write? And since I would not only like to do print, but video, photo and audio as well to cover stories, what would I label myself as?

Answer:

You are smart to not let this important summer go by without gaining some professional experience — in whatever way you can.

There is no official test, board exam or credential for you to become a freelance journalist. You can start right now without any permissions.

This is one of the things that makes journalism great. It is open to all, and people who attended a far less prestigious program than yours — or no program at all — can make it if their work is good.

The most important thing to have when you start freelancing is a darn good idea for a story. Editors seldom have enough of them and do not want to spend one on an untested freelancer. However, if you call in or come through the door with an idea that someone likes, you might get your chance.

Begin with research. Study the news outlet to familiarize yourself with the type of content it runs. Find out if it will accept freelance work. And make sure your idea is not one that has recently been done or is on a beat that the newsroom already has well-covered. You’re looking for good stories that might fall through the cracks. Those cracks can become niches for freelancers.

Once you get the green light to do a story or project, move Heaven and Earth to do it well. A first assignment done exceptionally well will usually pave the way for the second story — which you should also pitch. (I usually pitch my next story as I turn in the one that is due next.)

The most efficient use of your time is to create repeatedly for the same place rather than to create just once apiece for a variety of clients. Economize on the amount of time you need to spend pitching, invoicing and collecting.

If you become successful at freelancing, you will eventually need to get serious about setting yourself up as a small business. It is not necessary to set up a business structure in advance of summer work, though.

And to answer your question about what you should call yourself, I would go with “multimedia journalist” given all the avenues you want to pursue. That is in demand and leverages your diverse interests.

Reference: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=77&aid=183839

Question: Are there any organisations which directly provide projects without bid?

By Anil Sharma

Answer:

Yes it happen but only after you have established a relationship and confidence in your services by that company. If you are in start of your freelancer career then bidding is the path for you, you can build a relationship with your initial buyers and once a buyer get confidence in you, you don’t have to compete with others to get his projects. There are many frequent buyers on these  sites who prefer to work with same providers/freelancers.

To get your initial job, go low in your bids.

There are a few companies like MetaExpert who maintain a pool of resources and outsource tasks to them, and usually the first one who replies to a requirement gets the job.  I am not sure if they are still doing this.

There is also a site for freelance writers essaywriters.net that gives jobs with almost no big competition of other bidders, but its hard to get get approved with them as their worker.

If any of you know any other site or company who does this, you are welcome to share here in comments.