Pitching and proposals: go with your gut

As your freelance writing career develops, you’ll spend more of your time creating proposals. Why? Because proposals work. You’re showing an editor or a buyer how to get what he wants, which means you get what you want, which is money for writing.

I’ve been teaching writers to write effective proposals for years, and invariably, they want templates.

However, as Aaron says in Free Search Marketing RFP Proposal Template : SEO Book.com:

“The problem with templates, and why I don’t recommend relying on them, is that they aren’t specific. There are no magic words that will ensure clients sign on the line. If you’re pitching for thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars worth of work, then you need to do upfront research regarding the clients specific business problems, and that must flow through into your proposal.”

The best proposals are:

* Short and to the point (a proposal may be 50 words or 2000 words, but in its scope, it’s always short — it covers what it needs to cover, and that’s all)

* Personalized — mass-mailing or mass-emailing of proposals is SPAM, and quite useless. Don’t do it;

* Enthusiastic: you want to write for and work with this publication or company for a reason. You know what they need, and you can help them to get it;

* Unique: they grow from your own strengths.

The best way to learn how to write proposals is to write them.

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