Workshop: How to Jump Start your Freelancing Career with Elance and Win your First Project

Please see updated course details here: http://wordpl.net/index.php/2010/11/freelance-with-elance-course-details/

So who’s geared up for another workshop?

I had so much fun doing the last one, that I’m wanting to hold the next more in-depth session soon. But while the first one was a general overview of online business opportunities mixed with some inspirational stories, I want the next one to be a very hands on, step-by-step kind of tutorial to get started making money online.

So I’ve been wanting to do the first such hands-on session on freelancing (since I got loads of requests on that!) and more specifically on “How to Jump Start your Freelancing Career with Elance and Win your First Project“.

By the end of this session you will be able to:
- Choose a freelancing niche
- Setup a kickass Elance profile that will wow buyers
- Pass the Elance admissions test as well as a few skills tests in your area of expertise
- Choose/shortlist your first few projects
- Discover how to choose serious and high-paying buyers
- Write custom bids for those projects and buyers
- Work out your hourly rate (in $)
- Make/choose a few samples to send with your proposal
- Follow up with communication messages and added detail
- Setup your banking system with Elance to receive direct deposits to your local bank account
- Win your first project !!!

So thats what you’ll get from the workshop. Here’s how I envision the logistics of this session:
- A very small group of people so I can give individual attention to each
- Max 10 people per session (more sessions if others are interested)
- Session will be at least 3 hours long (maybe more depending on content)
- Participants will receive recording of session plus presentation notes as take-home material
- Most probably held on Saturday morning (Nov or Dec)
- Pricing Rs.5000/. Now before you get all hot and bothered about the price, consider this: I will be teaching you and taking you through the first steps of winning your first Elance project. The minimum price that a buyer can award a project for is $50, which is about 5000 rupees. So you will actually earn back your investment amount with your first project! And with my success steps and guidance, there’s no reason why you won’t earn not just your first project but many more and for much greater amounts! After all, I got my first project for $630 And here’s the next reason for this amount:
- Full access to me for troubleshooting and support until you earn your first project! You will be my exclusive client I will work out weekly calls with you and offer post-workshop support within this price (and occasionally whip you into shape and into a positive mindset!).

So who’s interested?

This session is for:

- beginner freelancers

- students who wish to freelance on the side

- housewives and other work at home people wishing to add an extra income stream

- existing companies and freelancers who wish to pitch to international clients

- anyone who wants to get started with a service-oriented business of their own

To be considered to join this session, please fill out the following survey and I will shortlist the first 10 participants to join.

Why Freelancing is Exactly Like Running A Business

So the idea of this post started due to a feature story on “freelancing” in my local technology magazine, Spider. The assumptions in the magazine about freelancing not being the same as entrepreneurship really felt wrong to me. Ever since I started my freelance career, I knew that I wanted to treat it as a “business” and made a conscious effort to do so. Therefore, I feel obligated to address the points made by the writer in the magazine and present my viewpoint.

Let me start by quoting parts of the story that I take exception to:

“Freelancing is not entrepreneurship”

Under this heading, the author goes on to state that:

“Entrepreneurs are people who launch risky and innovative business ventures, in order to pursue new economic opportunities. Meanwhile freelancers may launch their careers without setting up their own firms; in a way this makes freelancing a low-risk enterprise, as opposed to entrepreneurship.


Moreover, entrepreneurs may hire specialists to manage their company’s organizational functions, like marketing or finance. Freelancers, on the contrary, tend to act as lone wolves – managing all aspects of their work themselves, including accounting, business development and following up on receipts from clients.”

Let’s tackle these claims.

Freelancing is a business. It is a business that may or may not include the founder at its helm. It is a business that works just like any standard brick and mortar business – that is, you fill a need, you develop a service, you sell to customers, you get paid. Freelancing in its essence is no different than running a retail store (the only difference being that you are offering a virtual service while the retail store is offering a physical product). But all the other arms of business are there: buyers, sellers, middlemen, overheads, etc.

If anything, freelancing is even riskier than just “another business venture” because the work and money may not be consistent and because the freelancer has to learn multiple trades (selling , marketing, book-keeping, customer relationship management, etc) to survive.

One of the main differences I see between successful freelancers and not-so-successful freelancers is that of entrepreneurial thinking. An entrepreneur, by definition forms businesses that are not dependent on him. In other words, they are scalable. When a freelancer starts to think like an entrepreneur, that’s where the real magic happens.

So just how does a freelancer think like an entrepreneur/business owner?

A successful freelancer must do the following (just like an entrepreneur):

Make a Business Plan

A fly by the pants approach will work only so long as your luck holds out. If you wish to freelance for money and economic support, you MUST have a business plan which lays out your goals, and strategies and timelines for meeting those goals. Included in your business plan must be a marketing plan, which determines your promotional strategies, whether organic or paid.

Take your Freelancing Business Seriously

If you’re going to be lackadaisical about it, you’ll get wishy-washy results. Success follows those with determination and clarity of thinking. The minute you start taking your business as a serious entity is when you will start seeing serious results (monetary and otherwise). Take your business seriously by staying focused on your goals, staying motivated in the face of setbacks, and completing the action steps necessary for your strategies. Other people (including clients, friends, team members, parents, relatives, etc) will take your business seriously if you do.

Invest back into the Business (and in you)

A portion of your incoming cash must go towards building your business – its infrastructure, equipment, people, training, etc. While a freelance business may require little overheads, a freelancer cannot forgo the constant learning and professional development that is needed to stay ahead of the curve. The successful freelance entrepreneur must invest back in the business by investing in himself and his team. He can do this by reading books in his field, attending conferences, staying abreast of marketing and business development trends and by understanding and analyzing business trends.

Excel at Marketing, Client Management & Leadership

At its heart, every successful business owner needs to be a great marketer and a great leader. A successful freelancer will also hold influence within his sphere, be known as an expert on his subject and be a thought-leader in his field. He may do this via his blog, or with his outstanding referrals, or in any other way in which his expertise takes tangible form.

Build Value; Build a Brand

Every successful freelancer knows that running a one-man show is not scalable and not healthy for the long term. Therefore he must focus on building products and value that will exist long after his services cease to exist. Successful freelancers do just that – they take out products built upon their expertise. These products may be in digital form (such as e-books, podcasts, etc) or they may be in tangible form. Whatever your method, everything you do will come under your umbrella brand. Your reputation, your services, your products, the level of trust clients have in your business – all form the basis of your brand.

Build a Team

A key part of this magazine’s contention is that freelancers work solo, and even if a freelancer works with others, it is solely in a collaborative role. This is not true. The world’s best freelancers build a team around themselves and in spite of themselves. The best freelance businesses can rely on their team and their brand, not their founder. Successful freelance businesses don’t fall apart when the owner gets sick, is injured or is otherwise incapacitated. Freelance businesses can choose to register themselves legally as proprietorships or partnerships.

Be Organized

Successful freelance business owners follow the 80/20 Pareto Principle and spend 80% of their time doing 20% of the high-yield tasks. That may mean they outsource parts of their business, hire virtual assistants, etc – just like any other business owner!

Take Time Off

Burnt-out is a very real possibility in the world of business. Every freelancer must consciously take time away from the business as a way to rejuvenate, relax and gain perspective.

Bottom line: you cannot afford to be “just a freelancer”; you must think of your freelancing as a business and work with the same passion and drive that fuels any business-owner.

The magazine article goes on to say that “freelancing is not entrepreneurship, consulting, outsourcing or part-time work.” I disagree. I think that a really talented freelancer is all that: entrepreneur, consultant and outsourcer working part-time (or full time) hours!

Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek – Book Review

I have to admit; initially I was not a fan of Timothy Ferriss. “Extreme personal outsourcing”, for which he became famous, was just not my thing. Then I learnt that he was a judge in a contest in which I won second place. I wrote him a twitter thank you, he replied wishing me good luck. Then in karmic continuation, I won his book The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updatedin an online contest and realized he has much more to offer than just outsourcing tips. And the rest, as they say, is history.

This book arrived at my doorstep at one of the most tumultuous times in my life! I was literally putting out a fire when the package was delivered. Most of my house had just burned down. Yes.

Thanks to the book, I:
Conquered my fear of delegating work and managed to keep my business not just running but thriving through the most turbulent summer I’ve ever had
Have started my first affiliate website with plenty more in the pipeline
Got a product line in development stages in order to automate my income streams and free myself from the daily tasks of running multiple businesses
Have great “bathroom” reading material that I flip open and voilà! Instant inspiration and ideas!

Not to be flippant or anything, but this book has given me the courage of my convictions. To follow through. To believe. To stay focused and determined.

In Tim’s own words, this book is “not for people who want to run businesses but for those who want to own businesses and spend no time on them”.

The most important chapters for me in this book (although each chapter and section is inspirational in its own way) were the Income Autopilot chapters. I loved these chapters because they provided:
Very real scenarios and case studies of running an online entrepreneurial venture, which enabled me to visualize pitfalls and strategies
The practicality of the advice; all the detailed steps and resources needed to start an automated income stream were provided with handy website links and descriptions for more info
The overall “you can do it” nature of the advice made me feel confident and knowledgeable immediately

What’s the DEAL?

If you must know, the other chapters in the book all deal with Tim’s DEAL philosophy. DEAL stands for Definition, Elimination, Automation and Liberation (or DELA as prescribed for employees).

In D for Definition he overturns traditional thoughts and pre-conceived notions. Do you really have to watch the news and read the newspaper regularly to be informed? Do you really need to buy that umpteenth info-product? Are you using Pareto’s brilliant 80/20 principle to be more productive and efficient? Are you working 9-5 and just “filling time”? Can you speed read and be selective with information consumption?

In E for Elimination he teaches you to get rid of the unnecessary and the wasteful. Checking email is not “work”. Interrupting people when they go on and on with useless trivia is okay to do. How to batch process similar tasks, like email. How to get people to get to the point when they call you on the phone.

A for Automation starts off with my personal “un-favorite” section on outsourcing your business and your life. I’m sorry but hiring a VA for $5/hour may be cheap and affordable, but it doesn’t translate into a healthy standard of living for anyone in an under-developed world. And I should know; I live in an under-developed world! At first the somewhat condescending nature of this section and the non-native Indian English examples provided made me feel a bit uptight. But then I realized I don’t have to equate myself with that. My business, skills and talent are location independent. I charge my fees not based on my geographical co-ordinates but according to the quality and professionalism of my work. So there’s no need for me to feel threatened in any way by the concept of outsourcing. I can choose to use it or ignore it. I know where I stand as a business owner.

What follows this section are the Income Autopilot chapters – my personal favorites! They take you through the journey of entrepreneurial but scatterbrained Sarah and methodical, Lamborghini-owning Ed. Tim uses these characters to vividly illustrate the importance of having a viable business plan before taking the plunge. Poor Sarah winds up in the red while Ed prices his product exorbitantly high after having determined the necessary demand for it. The latter is the best-case scenario. The trial and error part of your income autopilot project should happen in the initial planning stages, not after you create a product!

These chapters also make a great case for why you should be selling info-products – they are “low-cost, fast to manufacture, too time-consuming for competitors to duplicate”.

Then of course there’s a section on testing your product idea (Tim likes to call it your “muse”) again using believable characters and products via Sherwood and Johanna. And then enters the real life example of Doug and how he earns over $10,000 a month with his website www.prosoundeffects.com.

Tim masterfully pieces together the art and skill of putting together a viable product to sell on the Internet. The aim of this entire exercise is to establish an income stream that will, for the most part run by itself, be fully automated and keep cash coming in to your pocket on a regular basis.

Of course once you are done with creating your passive income stream, it’s time to turn your focus to what you really want to do with your life!

The last step, L for Liberation focuses on what the lifestyle of the rich and mobile really means and why having mobility is equal to having freedom. In his usual entertaining style, Tim provides travel packing lists, destination guides, mini-retirement getaways, and the basics of “adding life after subtracting work”.

You want to believe it because Tim has actually done all this in his life and continues to do so, has friends who are doing it and the book is peppered with examples and emails from people who are liberating themselves in exactly the same ways.

So who is this book really for?

I believe you’ve already got to have a certain mindset to benefit from this book. You must realize that although the concepts presented in this book may deviate from the traditional, they are a necessary part of wanting to change your life for the better. If you know you can do more, be more, live more, then this book is for you. You must intrinsically believe in yourself and then use the book as a guide to achieving financial and personal freedom.

Who is this book NOT for?

Die hard traditionalists unwilling to change even the simplest things and those who see obstacles in every direction (e.g. I can’t follow the principles of the book because I live in an under-developed country, have six children, am a single mother, don’t have a college education, blah blah blah, ad nauseum) Grow up! Who doesn’t have problems?

Why You Should Buy this Book


If you fall in the former category and are a do-er, then buy this book now. I can’t say whether you’ll become rich after reading it since that entirely depends on your ability to act upon Tim’s guidelines, but I CAN say that the book will provide you a comprehensive and detailed path to follow to setting up a steady stream of passive income. I was able to take my freelance business from earning $1000 a month to up to $3000 a month on the strength of the advice given in this book. And I have plenty more income streams in the process. Learn how to do it. Read the book. Follow the steps. The best part is that because it’s all so practical and worded in Tim’s enthusiastic style, it seems oh-so-very possible! Buy Here .

P.S. In hindsight, I think I won this book because I wanted so badly to win it. I entered the contest knowing this was the prize

My “Cloud Commute” – Elance Contest

This video is about how I make the transition from personal thoughts to business thoughts and consciously put myself in the work zone every day. Because the freelancer’s commute to work is a state of mind.Freelancing is often equated with freedom, but the definition of freedom that most people tend to imagine is a world without boundaries, expectations or accountability. That’s not what freedom actually means. Freelancing freedom means the ability to decide when to work, how to work, who to work for and how to get to work.

How freelancers get to work is also called the “cloud commute”.

Contrary to the typical rush hour/traffic/parking commute that most office-goers endure, freelancers or work-at-home professionals get to their workplaces in a matter of minutes or seconds. Freelancers typically work from home offices, cafes, coffee shops or anywhere they can get a good wi-fi connection with minimal distractions.

In doing so, the most important part of a freelancer’s commute to work is not so much the physical journey as it is about the mental journey to a place conducive to work. For some people this journey starts as soon as they’ve reached their home office or place of work. For others it starts after they’ve checked email and social media. For still others this journey starts right after they’ve woken up and started to think about the most important work tasks to be accomplished for that day.

Many people, such as Leo Babauta, have morning rituals that allow them to focus on the workday ahead. Some people need to motivate themselves every day. Others such as Jonathan Fields like to start their day by helping others. Still others, such as Dave Navarro, force themselves to prioritize their work tasks.

Each freelancer’s solution for starting their “commute” is different; however what’s similar is the conscious decision to start work. Without a 9am deadline to get into the office, the only deadline that remains is in the freelancer’s mind. When and how are you ready to start work?

I like to start work every day with a simple to-do list on a piece of paper (my Elance post-it pad, if you must know) and tackle the most important tasks of the day. Most days I don’t even notice the transition from personal/family thoughts to work-related thoughts; the journey for me is so smooth. But once in work mode, I am definitely in work mode – no distractions allowed!

I believe that making a conscious decision to “go to work” every day is a trait that most successful freelancers and entrepreneurs practice daily. It’s right up there with other success factors such as making business plans and sales objectives.

So what’s your cloud commute like? Share in the comments below or put up your own video and participate in the Elance cloud commute contest. Hurry, contest ends Nov 15th 2010!

How to Start Working Online

I get a lot of questions everyday but one question that I get asked almost every single day is: How do I start working online? What’s the first step? How do I do what you’re doing? So today I’m going to attempt to answer that question.

For most people working online means earning a few bucks, or doing something for zero or little effort. That’s not what I’m about or what I teach. I can’t help you get started working online by clicking on ads, or by filling surveys and questionnaires, or by mailing envelopes, or whatever else kind of menial work is being advertised to make you millions.

When someone asks me how to start working online, I assume that they are asking me for a viable sustainable online business that they’d like to start. It could be a part time business, it could be weekends only, but you have to be serious about it. If you don’t ask me seriously then no matter what advice I give, you will not be able to earn money online.

So assuming that you are serious about making money online, here’s what I would say are the first few steps in this order:
Step 1: Know what kind of work you’d like to do online

Example #1: Perhaps you’re a musician with extensive knowledge about learning to play an instrument (or various instruments) – you could perhaps start a website that gives guitar tutorials. Or maybe you’re a singer songwriter who wants to compose music for international clients – you could become a music producer on a freelance website.

Example #2: Maybe you’re a graphic designer fresh out of school and looking for online work. Maybe you could advertise your design services online and start to get work through the internet.

Example #3: What if you’re a doctor. Can you work online? Well, yes, but that depends on what kind of work you want to do. There are many reputable publications in the health, nutrition and fitness fields that require content for their websites, newsletters, advice columns, etc and would maybe want to hire you as an expert. Alternative therapy and natural medicines is also a fast growing field with not a lot of qualified practitioners; you could maybe get work with them as a side income project.

Example #4: You have an existing t-shirt designing business and would like to find a market for your products online. Can you do that? Yes, and it will depend on finding international buyers ready to stock your products at agreed upon rates. You can do that through various online companies such as www.alibaba.com that specialize in providing physical products via an online medium.

Example #5: You are a journalist, looking for ways to earn some extra money. Perhaps you can start a blog, or write a book, or look for a gig writing for an international column.

These are just five examples; basically you can work online in just about any capacity that doesn’t require your physical presence and you’ll be surprised how few those are. Are you an engineer? You can find work online as a contract manufacturer. Are you a housewife? You can find work online leveraging your expertise in cooking, designing, parenting, etc. There’s online work awaiting you in almost every conceivable field from financial to legal to engineering to writing to design to web programming.

So do you know what you want to do? Figure that out first and then move to step 2.
Step 2: Find your market

The assumption here is that you have a skill or a product that you’d like to make money from. Once you have identified that skill or product, you must find a market that will buy your services/products.

Here are some ideas to get you started:
You can sell your existing products using affiliates. Affiliates are people that sell your product on your behalf for a small commission. You can join an affiliate network and get your product listed for sale. Examples of affiliate networks are www.clickbank.com, www.commissionjunction.com, www.amazon.com/associates and plenty more – just do a search for affiliate networks to get a more comprehensive list.
You can sell your services in a freelance marketplace such as www.elance.com, www.guru.com, www.odesk.com etc.
You can get your products sold globally through international vendors and drop-shippers such as www.alibaba.com, www.wordwidebrands.com, www.thomasnet.com, www.housewares.org, www.expoeast.com and www.expowest.com.
You can start your own WordPress website by registering a domain name through www.namecheap.com, buying hosting from www.godaddy.com and installing WordPress through www.wordpress.org. If you don’t feel confident you can do this on your own, you can start with a free www.WordPress.com account which just requires a username and password to use. Else, you can hire a company such as www.customsocialpages.com to set it up for you.
You can use social media to find prospective buyers and clients, although that is a less direct way and you will have to invest some time in it. It is recommended if you are not in a hurry and are good at having online conversations. Social sites that would be a good fit for finding leads include www.linkedin.com, www.twitter.com, niche forums (search for your niche + “forum” on google), and www.facebook.com (pages and ads).
Step 3: Determine how you’ll get paid

Once you have found your market, you need to sort out payment details. There’s a comprehensive list of payment processors that you can work with here, but only some of these are compatible with Pakistan. Those that work in Pakistan include www.payoneer.com, www.alertpay.com, www.2checkout.com, www.westernunion.com, www.moneybookers.com, and sites that pay you via direct deposits and through checks (such as most freelance sites do).

Payment processors help you determine how you will charge prospective customers and how the money will get transferred into your bank account.

So, I hope this list has given you a starting point. Essentially there’s just a few ways to run an online business, such as you can see in this online business info-graphic. You just need to find the tools and resources that will help you and chart a path that is unique to your skills, products and abilities.

Questions? Mail me at ask@wordpl.net with your very specific question or just write it out in the comments below so that your question and my answer benefits lots of people. Good luck!

p.s. For more in-depth information, check out my presentation How to Start an Online Business (from Pakistan).

Freelance With Elance – course details by salma jafri

Wouldn’t it be great to earn in dollars and spend in rupees? Wouldn’t it be great to earn money from anywhere in the world – while working from home? Wouldn’t it be awesome to be your own boss, choose your own projects and determine how much you want to make every month? Wouldn’t it be totally cool to finally break out of the 9-5 and live a life where you control your work hours and output?

Welcome to the freelance life! Living a freelance life enables you to do all of the above, but requires discipline, motivation and effort. If you think you have what it takes, live in Pakistan and want to dive into the world of freelancing, then Elance.com is your best starter bet.

Elance provides you a marketplace of ready and willing buyers who want to utilize your services. Elance protects you with escrow so you are guaranteed payment. Elance gives you immense marketing and earning opportunities, but navigating Elance and knowing the tricks of freelancing requires a bit of a learning curve.

I am offering a comprehensive course that will take you step-by-step through the freelancing world and put you through your Elance paces. I am also guaranteeing that you will win your first project worth hundreds of dollars with my guidance and help.
Who Am I?


So who am I to make these guarantees?
I have earned over $25,000 from Elance in the past 12 months alone.
I have won second place in the Elance New Way to Work contest.
I write for the Elance blog.
I am ranked amongst the Top 25 freelancers on Elance (out of 74,000+).

As you can see, I have gained a lot from Elance. It’s time to give some back

What will you Gain from this Course?

By the end of this course you will be able to:
Choose a freelancing niche according to your passions and interests
Setup a kickass Elance profile that will wow buyers
Pass the Elance admissions test as well as a few skills tests in your area of expertise
Choose/shortlist your first few projects
Discover how to choose serious and high-paying buyers
Write custom bids for those projects and buyers
Work out your hourly rate (in $)
Make/choose a few samples to send with your proposal
Follow up with communication messages and added detail
Setup your banking system with Elance to receive direct deposits to your local bank account
Win your first project worth hundreds of dollars!!!

How will this Course Work?

So that’s what you’ll get from my Elance course. Here’s how this session works:
This session will consist of a tightly focused group of people
Session will be approximately 4 hours long
Participants will receive presentation notes as well as comprehensive printed take-home material
Session will be held on [next date to be announced soon]
Pricing for Lahore participants: Rs.7000/. Here is how this course is priced: I will be teaching you and taking you through the first steps of winning your first Elance project. The minimum price that a buyer can award a project for is $50, which is about 5000 rupees. So you will actually earn back your investment amount with your first project! And with my success steps and guidance, there’s no reason why you won’t earn not just your first project but many more and for much greater amounts! After all, I got my first project for $630 And here’s the next reason for this amount:
Exclusive access to WordPL’s discussion forum for troubleshooting and support You will be able to share your triumphs, ask for critique on your profiles and proposals, and network with a support group via the discussion forum.
Who is this Course For?

This course is for:
beginner freelancers
students who wish to freelance on the side
housewives and other work at home people wishing to add an extra income stream
existing companies and freelancers who wish to pitch to international clients
anyone who wants to get started with a service-oriented business of their own

Event Details
Date: Sunday March 27th 2011
Time: 2:00PM – 6:00PM
Venue: 27 CCA, Sector DD, Phase 4 DHA, Lahore, Pakistan
Duration: Four (4) hours
Speaker: Salma Jafri, WordPL.net

Note: stationery will be available for note-taking; you are free to bring laptops if desired (please indicate in registration form if you will bring your laptop)
How to Register for “Freelance with Elance”
Registrations are on a first-come first-served basis
Registration is between Wed March 9th – Sat March 19
Please call Alex John on 0314-2968861 for any registration-related questions
Registration for Lahore participants is via direct deposit. Details have been emailed to everyone who pre-registered for the course. Register now for Freelance with Elance

Note: There are limited seats available for this session, so if you want a seat, please register early. Participants who register once registration is over will be placed on a waiting list for the next session. They may be called for current session in case of cancellation.

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COMPLETE COURSE OUTLINE


Freelancing

What it is

What it entails

10 reasons to love freelancing

10 freelancing challenges

Elance

What it is

How it works

Why it’s the best choice for Pakistani freelancers

What you can expect from it

Basic Elance ToS everyone should be aware of

1. Getting Started

How to make an account

How to choose a category

How to choose a membership plan

How to verify credit card

2. Your Account

How to choose a username

How to build your profile for maximum effect

What skills tests to take and how to work them

What keywords to use

How to make yourself contactable & searchable

How to setup your bank account info

How to get verified recommendations & referrals

3. Start Bidding

How to choose a project

How to scout buyers

10 signs this projects isn’t a good fit for you

10 signs this project is perfect for you!

10 signs of a buyer from hell – avoid at all costs!

10 ways to work for great long term high-paying clients

When to use pre-bids and public Q&A

Action Item

[Tea Break]

4. Write your Proposal

The 6 steps of proposal writing

How to determine your freelancing rate

Why do some proposals fall flat while others prosper?

Remember: your proposal is your sales pitch and your personality pitch!

How to play to your strengths

The #1 proposal writing mistake and how you can avoid it

Examples and case studies of good and bad proposals across different categories

Proposal writing checklist

Action Item

5. Follow up

Watch your watchlist

How and when to send follow up messages

Why some projects don’t get awarded

How to keep your award ratios high

6. When the Project Gets Awarded – to YOU!

Congratulations!

Your first correspondence after an award

How to make a detailed scope document

How to set milestones

How to never start work before escrow is funded (hint: it’s all in the way you ask)

Your rights as a provider

What you should know before signing NDA & other agreements

Copyrights and plagiarism issues and how to protect yourself

Why it’s essential to keep all communication on Elance

What to do when projects get awarded to others

7. Living the Freelance Lifestyle

All that and a bag o’ chips?

Managing work and family – the ultimate balancing act

Working evenings and weekends only

Managing multiple projects

When you have too much work…

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What you Get

At the end of the session you will receive:
A printed & bound quick start guide (w/ screenshots) to setting up your membership account on Elance
A checklist for choosing the right projects
A checklist for proposal writing & bid submission
You will have “homework to do” after this session as well. You will be sending me three shortlisted projects each week and three of your best bids to critique. I will help you with 3 bids each week (via email only) until you win your first proposal. If you follow my guidelines and have what it takes, then it won’t take you more than a few weeks to win your first project worth hundreds of dollars!

Join me now in the quest to live to work, not work to live

Elance Success Strategy – Fine Tune your Buyer Radar!

Many people write in to me claiming that they’ve been pitching their freelance services for a month (or more) without a bite. Upon closer inspection, they have the perfect profile, a healthy portfolio of work, some testimonials from past employers or clients, and education and skills to back their qualifications, the whole nine yards really! So what’s missing? Why aren’t they landing the hot jobs?

I’ll tell you what’s missing. What’s missing is their buyer radar!

All projects are not the same and all buyers are definitely not the same. Each proposal of yours must not only be tailored to how well you fit the project, but also how well you can work with a particular buyer.

The success or failure of procuring a freelance project depends on 1. your ability to execute a project based on your skills, talent, and drive and 2. your rapport with the buyer. The second point is also the basis for ensuring (or at least setting up the stage) for repeat business, positive referrals, and long term clients.

So how do you fine tune your buyer radar on Elance?

Practice, practice, practice!

Choose a few projects each day and determine whether this is the kind of person you’d like to work with. You might not have to share a cubicle space with a buyer and you may be sitting in geographic polar opposites, but if your ideology and outlook doesn’t match, trust me, it will feel as suffocating as sitting in a trapped elevator.

Recently I cancelled a project before even starting it because the buyer never made it on time to scheduled Skype conversations, expected free phone consultations throughout the duration of the project (which was over a month), and established bad pre-project vibes with me. I would rather not start such a project at all (and take the initial hit of my time and effort investment) than take on the project only to realize that this attitude would continue and keep derailing my project management schedule.

So, here’s my quick list of bad buyers characteristics to watch out for. These things will often raise a red flag with me.
1. The All for Nothing Buyer

This kind will demand the perfect project (perfect English, SEO’d, 150 articles, formatted to a tee, blah blah blah) at a laughable rate, like a dollar an article. Stay away from him because he’s the lowest of the low and will never respect you or your work.
2. The Scope Creep

This buyer will say stuff like “Oh and can you submit the article to directories too?” “Oh can you format my blog and add pictures as well.” “Btw, since you’re already writing my web content, can you just put the same information in a brochure for me – it’s just copy paste right?” Argggg! These buyers are penny pinchers – they know that this is extra work requiring a whole new definition of the project’s boundaries, yet they want to sneak it in so they don’t have to pay more for it. By making it sound like trivial work, they expect to get away with peanuts. Don’t fall for it.
3. The Donkey and Carrot Trickster

He’ll suck you right in with classic bait and switch tactics such as “there’s long term work to be had if you do this right”. Or worse “if you do this test article, then I may hire you for another one”. Look man, either commit to it or not. You can’t hire me and then choose not to pay me after I’ve already done the work!
4. The Internet Marketing Speaker

I’m an internet marketer, so don’t get me wrong, I think internet marketing and its terminologies are pretty neat. But unfortunately, there are a lot of spammers in this field. This kind of buyer hangs with the spammer and uses cheap tactics learned from them in his project descriptions. Phrases such as “this is easy work for someone who knows what they’re doing” or “you should be able to do this in no time at all” or “I would do this myself considering it’s so easy, but I just don’t have the time”. These are all code words for I don’t respect you and therefore will be-little your work and its complexity. I will determine how much time you need to do it because I am the specialist, not you. Don’t even bother bidding for projects with these phrases; you’re above that.
5. Mister Vague

This guy thinks that “I need an e-book about my life” constitutes a complete project description. Not only has he not bothered to define his project, he scares me because he doesn’t seem to know what his project should be. Even if I know nothing about logo design, I would do some research and surfing to find out how to write a complete project description for a logo designer. How else can you expect to attract the professionals? People who don’t put effort into their project descriptions, and worse, refuse to add/edit/comment on their projects just don’t care about them. I don’t want to work with someone who doesn’t care about his own project. Do you?

This was really just a starter list. There are so many other buyer red flags to look out for. Perhaps we’ll cover them in another blog post and perhaps you will respond in the comments below to your favorite type of buyer that induces your eye roll! C’mon share with us, you know you want to!

How I fared in 2010 – goals vs actions by salma jafri

In Jan 2010 I made a list of New Year’s goals for this year. It’s time to look back and see which ones I accomplished and which didn’t stick to the wall.
Goals
Status
Business Goals
1. Set-up personal website Yes, I bought the domain for my personal website; have yet to customize it and start contributing to it actively. One of the main reasons I’ve procrastinated on this is because I’ve been building up my portfolio of what I’m eventually going to be putting on that page. I’ve decided it’s going to be my page for booking me for speaking gigs and training sessions.
2. Expand the WordPL team, both in terms of projects and writers/designers/researchers Yes! The team now consists of 6 people and we’re hiring more in Jan 2011! Very, very happy about this!
3. Write for print & web publications – local and international I started writing for Spider in the earlier part of 2010, but found quickly that the local mag lacked focus. I then started writing for Aurora, which I think is a much better fit for me considering that I’m a marketer at heart, not a techie. I also guest posted this year for Elance (here and here) and Freelance Folder Must increase guest-posting frequency!
4. Revenue goals: incremental from $1000-$5000 every month achieved through a variety of ways including freelance projects for international and local clients, affiliate programs, e-books and other product lines, niche websites, AdSense revenue, residual income streams & more OK, this one is tricky. Although my business has reached these monthly revenue figures, I personally haven’t. I failed to be specific in my 2010 goal about whether this figure was business turnover or personal income and since the goal lacked specificity, I wasn’t driven enough to apply it to my personal income. Still I am very happy with my revenue figures for 2010 since most of the money has come via freelancing and training. I did, however, start my first affiliate website this year – just need to work on it a bit more next year. Lots of room for advancement in 2011 in this arena!
Personal Goals
1. Take a mini-vacation! ($$) Unfortunately no. No vacation for me in 2010. This was largely due to the major calamity that happened on July 15th 2010 – that was my personal black day, when most of my house was burned badly in a fire. Let’s just say it threw a lot of plans off track and leave it at that, okay?
2. Embark on home improvement projects: new home office décor, house paint, new window installation, new flooring for some rooms ($$) See box above! Home improvement or rather renovation became a necessity rather than a luxury. In fact, it’s still on-going.
3. Buy a laptop (yeah this one’s a must for any business owner and I’ve been procrastinating on it) ($$$) It’s actually supposed to arrive next week! How’s that for cutting it close? For the curious, it’s a Dell Inspiron 5010 series in Red
4. Stay healthy! (flu shots for family, health insurance & other preventive measures) ($$) We’ve managed to stay fairly healthy this year but we chose to forgo the flu shots after researching them a bit more.
5. Get daughter admitted in regular school for next semester ($$$) This one’s still on the agenda for 2011 and we hope to try some really good schools this year for which she’ll be eligible the coming year (she wasn’t in 2010).
6. Track finances via Google spreadsheet (I’m always at a loss as to my incoming and outgoing!) Oh gosh. My accountant (when I get one of course) will totally kill me because I suck at doing book-keeping and accounting. But having an online business account has made keeping track fairly simple now. I just need to pull up my online banking data to see the incoming and outgoing figures. Granted this is not a very good way to do things and it obviously lacks specificity; still online banking has been a life-saver for me!


So all in all, I think I did okay with most of my goals (7 out of 10 ain’t too bad). Specifically I think I was better at attaining my business goals compared to my personal goals. I let the personal goals slide in the face of emergencies and concentrated on building my business(es).

Some things which weren’t specific goals at the beginning of 2010 but which I accomplished (and am very proud of) during the year were:
I started a social media firm, Custom Social Pages, along with 2 business partners. It happened fairly quickly from idea to execution and felt just right. It is Pakistan’s first women-owned social media firm and the reason why that’s important is that we bring the marketing rationale along with our intuitiveness to the social arena. I find that to be very interesting since social media is largely an engagement platform, not a marketing platform, and I think women get that a bit better than men
I grew this blog with your help to 555 subscribers (as of today!) . For perspective, consider that this time last year, I had zero subscribers because I didn’t have a newsletter option or a subscribe button on my site!
I wrote an e-book by re-purposing blog content and offered it for free on my website
This blog, with your help, won the Best Business Blog category at Pakistan’s first-ever blog awards – an achievement I hope to repeat next year with the hope that blogawards become an annual feature
I was interviewed by CNBC Pakistan regarding opportunities in online work.
I held my first ever Online Business workshop at The Second Floor (T2F) in October. It gave me the confidence I needed for my next venture below.
I started a training course for beginner freelancers called Freelance with Elance which, hopefully, will be a recurrent course and will also be offered as a complete online course due to the requests I’ve received from people not in Pakistan.
I also made some really great new friends this year and connected with other awesome women who are doing so well in their respective fields – to them I’d like to say “you inspire me and I hope we build a stronger foundation in 2011″.

Its been a busy year, yes and I’m very thankful for all the great stuff that happened this year and to all of you who had a hand in making it happen. Thank you so much! But somehow I still feel that I wasn’t laser-focused enough and could have perhaps doubled or tripled my output had my goals and objectives been more clearly defined. I’m still a procrastinator at heart so its very easy for me to just sit on ideas for ages and over-think them. I’ve pushed myself this year to take action on things I feared doing (like conducting the training sessions, thinking no one will come!!) and they’ve paid off in a big way.

I have some interesting goals in mind for 2011, which I’ll share in a later post. Meanwhile, do share your goals for 2011 with me and also what you accomplished in 2010 that you are particularly proud of – I love a great success story!

And on that note, happy 2011 to all my readers – hope it becomes all that you need it to be!

Get into the mind-set of success – interview with writer Fareen Effendi

To start 2011 right, I am very happy to bring to you my first interview with someone who embodies the spirit of action in all she does – Fareen Effendi. This remarkable woman, who is a mother & a wife, heard about freelancing opportunities from me in August 2010 and a month and half later was on her way with her first international client. In just three months, she’s made over $3000 just from freelance writing clients! With her dedication and focused approach, she is definitely going to go far and I wish her all the success! Read on to learn more about what powers Fareen and what kind of a mind-set is needed to thrive as an online entrepreneur.
1. When did you start freelancing?

In August, I attended a session through Weldon Moms where the guest speaker was none other than Salma Jafri. Ripe with the need to move into something that offered me freedom and flexibility, yet afforded me the opportunity to earn all the same, the session sparked within me the desire to begin immediately. At that time, between my day job and managing three small kids’ school rounds, ‘immediately’ ended up being a month a half later. So, one late evening in mid-September in 2010 I sat down to sign up with Elance.

Right about the same time, I began to chronicle my freelancing journey on my blog: http://fareenswow.blogspot.com
2. Why did you choose Elance as your freelance marketplace of choice?

What attracted me to Elance was mainly the platform’s long-standing history (having been in existence for at least a decade, if not more) and the site’s inclusion of things like Escrow payments, a dispute-resolution program and other things that were well-thought out. The other thing is that, of all the freelancing websites and forums out there, Elance is the one best suited for the global marketplace in my opinion.
3. How did you find the getting started process (making a profile, choosing membership, etc)? Was it intuitive or complicated?

I LOVED the initial set-up process. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy tooting their own horn to some degree? So to be able to outline my skills and showcase my talents was enjoyable, to say the least. I didn’t just do it over night either. I took my time, studied the site, went through the profiles of successful providers to see where the edge was in their profiles, read each and every relevant post on the website’s forum, browsed through the Elance blog and of course went through the list of FAQs on the site as well. Only THEN did I feel ready and able to assemble an effective profile that I knew would do justice to my abilities.
4. What kind of projects do you wish to do as a freelancer?

This changes regularly. When I first began just a few months ago, all I wanted was to land that first job. Three projects later, I began to realize that not only was I valuable to buyers on Elance but I was also providing them an invaluable service at very low rates – so I upped the ante and began to charge more, a lot more. To my surprise, the projects evolved and the pay rates increased along with it. To answer specifically, at first I was only doing article writing – then soon after I ventured into some viral marketing, blog writing, business writing and web copy. Now, I’ve slowly begun heading into white papers, academic reports as well as some book editing and I’ve added an off-site team member to expand into some graphic design to go along with some of my projects.
5. How do you differentiate yourself/your services in the competitive international market?

Elance is no different than having a regular store front in a shopping mall. You own a business. You can either succeed, depending on your marketing techniques, or fade into the background if you are not careful. When it comes to my business, whether online with Elance or otherwise, I simply remain true to myself and my abilities. I try to put forth the ‘real me’ with each client, never over-selling but usually willing to go the extra mile. The key is to remain professional, do your very best in everything you take on, keep an open and honest rapport with your clientele and deliver what you promise.
6. How much are you currently earning monthly in freelancing income?

This is always a fun question – because this, too, is ever-evolving. My first two weeks, I earned zip. In fact, the investment I made set me back a few bucks. But with the first job and ever since, I’ve been seeing a steadily rising income of anywhere from $1000-$1200 per month – working part time.
7. How much do you expect to be earning/would prefer to earn in 6 months’ time?

Well, based on the strategy I’m following I expect to see some exponential growth which by my estimate would mean that by the end of June 2011 I hope to have earned about $12-$14k.
8. Do you believe freelancers can earn just as much or more than a typical office job?

Yes, I do but it would take a great deal of discipline and LOTS of sacrifice. I remember Salma saying on that very first day that success on Elance doesn’t come without hard work. This is so true! To work as a freelancer has some risks involved but if you play your cards right and strategize effectively, it can be done. I have a friend who has earned over $50k this past year but not without working around the clock and sacrificing many other things in life. For now, that’s not my agenda.
9. Your top 3 tips for freelancing success?

1. Believe in yourself and your abilities. If you are confident, people are confident in you!

2. Never accept anything less than perfection from yourself. Never.

3. Put your heart and soul into it and realize that this is your business. Treat it like that, and you will find success.

Note from Salma: Fareen is one of those people who can take an idea, research it and follow it to its logical (and successful) conclusion. For those of you interested in gaining a spark about the possibilities, please read my post about how to start an online business. For those wishing for a little more hand-holding, check out my course tailor-made just for you, called Freelance with Elance. We’re gearing up for the Jan session, so pre-register now!

Marketing Secrets for Successful Freelancers – Interview with Saima Ashraf

Continuing my interview series with successful freelancers (seeing as I have no time to write posts these days and am letting these cool interviewees take up my slack!), I am happy to present to you Saima Jamil Ashraf - journalist, writer, teacher extraordinaire! Saima is a fairly recent entrant to the world of freelancing and was a very keen participant in my Freelance with Elance course. I had high hopes from her and she hasn’t disappointed. I hope you’ll be able to take lessons from Saima’s story on how important it is to package your service right and market it well! Over to Saima.
1. When did you start freelancing?

December 2010
2. Why did you choose Elance as your freelance marketplace of choice?

I didn’t do a lot of research into other marketplaces, to be honest, but Elance has in its favour a huge employer base, and very easy-to-use system, a free membership option so you can try it out for size, and a system of escrow for guaranteeing payment.
3. How did you find the getting started process (making a profile, choosing membership, etc)? Was it intuitive or complicated?

It was fairly straightforward. I think the profile is something which evolves, so setting it up did not necessarily result in the finished product.
4. What kind of projects do you wish to do as a freelancer?

Writing projects – I plan to start small with blogs and articles, and then hopefully move on to bigger projects like e-books.
5. How do you differentiate yourself/your services in the competitive international market?

I try to draw on my qualifications and work experience and let employers know that they will get the benefit of a unique combination of skills.
6. How much are you currently earning in freelancing income?

I’m just starting out so I currently have on board projects for under $300. But I don’t plan to stop there!
7. How much do you expect to be earning/would prefer to earn in 6 months’ time?

I’d like to earn at least $500 a month and then see how much time I can devote to work and whether it is feasible to plan for more. I can only devote a limited amount of time to writing, so my earnings will reflect that of course.
8. Do you believe freelancers can earn just as much or more than a typical office job?

Yes – as long as they have a marketable skill and can show an above-average level of proficiency in it. You have to remember that in an office you will generally only be compared to your immediate colleagues, but in the virtual marketplace, you are pitted against peers from every corner of the earth, all looking to prove that they can do the work better than you. Sure, there are always going to be employers who are more concerned about provider fees than the standard of work, but at the end of the day the quality of your work is what will persuade employers to hire you – and pay you well.
9. What essential skills should any would-be freelancer bring to the global marketplace?

Aside from proficiency in their field (ie if you want work in Writing & Translation, can you actually write well??) it helps to know how to sell yourself and your skills, and how to figure out exactly what you are suited for.

When you first start on Elance, it’s tempting to bid left, right and centre on everything, but it quickly becomes clear that once you establish a niche you are more likely to convince employers that you are serious about writing.

Of course, when you are a little more established it’s easy to increase the scope and variety of the projects you pick up.
10. Your top 3 tips for freelancing success?

1. Be prepared to work extra hard in the beginning – work will not fall into your lap

2. Focus on your strengths and sell them well.

3. Develop a thick skin! Many, many rejections will come your way before the first acceptance.

Note from Salma: As you can see, Saima demonstrates that with the right approach, a niche focus and a game plan, its possible to run a successful freelance business. Your success depends on your ability to leverage your talent with your marketing skills. If you believe you have the skills needed to work on Elance, but want to learn how to market yourself better and get the best-paying projects and clients, then you may want to check out my Freelance with Elance course. Its a physical Karachi-based course for now, but I have plans to bring it online soon. If you’re interested, go ahead and register for it! Also check out the Facebook discussion on the course. Registrations are open for a limited time!

So your Plans got Derailed. So What!

“I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never going to keep me down”

- Chumbawamba – Tubthumping

(video below!!)

Recently I made the mistake of getting too comfortable in my zone. Of putting my eggs in one basket, albeit unintentionally. Of thinking that success could be fully automated. With the spark of a New Year’s firecracker, 90% of my work came to a screeching halt! All my regular clients suddenly postponed scheduled projects, delayed them or asked for more time to formulate them. The response was eerily similar across all channels – we love your work, we want to continue working with WordPL, but … our marketing budget has put a temporary freeze … our client has requested we wait a couple more weeks … we still haven’t received funding for this project.

It reminded me that I was still a very small fish in a very competitive pond. It reminded me that my business was still prone to the economic winds and that I was precariously balanced.

After a few days of near-panic like fear, I decided to get with the program. So okay, I thought to myself, I was planning to expand anyways. I was planning to hire more people, go after more clients in certain niches where I had established credibility. I was planning to delegate more work and more responsibility to key team players. All of this had been on the agenda anyways, so why not just go ahead and do all of it, even without the cushion of existing clients and a regular income?

Because the truth is, that’s how it is in the freelance world. Some days all your dream clients want to hire you on retainer and on other days they all appear to be directing polite smiles and *coughs* your way. If you can’t learn to bounce back and persevere through the good and the bad, then freelancing (or any other form of business) is probably not for you.

So how did I bounce back?

I went ahead with Plan B (and C and D):
I went after companies I wanted to do business with
I wrote pitches and proposals all day long, carefully communicating benefits
I researched business models thoroughly and figured out what kinds of projects to market that matched my team’s skill set the most
I delegated more responsibility and authority to a key players on my team and entrusted him with independent decision-making
I hired 3 more people for the WordPL team

The result of all this aggressive marketing and delegation?
4 new clients in a month
Over $4000 worth of bookings in a month
More autonomy for my team and consequently less hand-holding for me
More team members working with WordPL (expanded from 5 to 8 awesome folk!)
More time for me to focus on my other projects (home renovation, social media firm, print magazine articles, freelance with Elance course, etc)

Lessons Learned

As Gill Fielding once said, once I realized I could make a million dollars even after being bankrupt, I was no longer scared. (I’m paraphrasing here, okay). Point being, if you have the skills to make it in business once, then setbacks may hold you back temporarily but never permanently. If you were successful before, you already possess the juice to re-build your success. You can stop being fearful, because if you did it once, you can do it again. You already have the building blocks in your mind. And you can do it better this time because you’ll have the learned from the mistakes of the past and plan accordingly.

Change is constant, right? So maybe this won’t last long either and I’ll find myself in another new set of problems. That’s okay though, I’ll be ready for them. Who was it that said it wasn’t about winning the game, it was the thrill of the chase!

p.s. Here’s the clincher: I actually wrote this post on Jan14th when none of the above plans had materialized. I didn’t have $4000 worth of booking and I only had a single new client, not 4. But I wrote it as a vision of where I want to be in a month and willed it to happen. You can say the above post was my way of egging myself on and laying out a path for me to follow. Doing it in a soon-to-be-published blog post style made it seem more public, urgent and action-worthy. Take what you will from this disclosure.

As promised, here’s the video. Rock out!

Blog vs Article: Spot the Differences!

As a freelance writer, it’s often tempting to think of yourself as being able to do all kinds of writing equally well. So what if you got your start in technical writing, you wonder how hard can it be to break into the world of copywriting? Or vice versa.

The reality, however, is that each type of writing takes a unique skill set, and while you can certainly move from one specialty to another with as much ease as you would shift from one hand to another if you were ambidextrous, you still need to be aware of the different types of skills required for different types of writings.

In this post we’re going to discuss the oft-confused worlds of blog writing versus article writing. They sound similar enough – after all if you can put together 300-500 words of coherent text in an article, why can’t you do the same for a blog, right? While some principles of writing for the web apply to both blogs and articles, there are some crucial differences too.

So to help you determine whether you are an article writer or a blogger, here’s my quick checklist of what I think the two entail:


A Blog: An Article:
1. Contains more opinions 1. Contains more facts
2. May not necessarily be well-researched 2. Must be backed by factual research and analysis
3. Is written in a commentary style 3. Is written in a news/journalist style
4. May be anywhere between a single word to over 1000 words (e.g. Seth’s blog versus Viperchill’s blog) 4. Is generally between 500-1000 words
5. May liberally showcase the author’s personality 5. Is written from an unbiased, neutral perspective
6. May contain lots of visual interest in the form of embedded images or videos 6. Generally contains more text, along with maybe relevant screenshots or product images
7. Should ideally be updated regularly and frequently 7. Does not have any “recency” criteria
8. May review a product, service or idea based on author’s opinion and experience (e.g. a blog post about a chicken roast recipe you tried) 8. Provides a factual, balanced account of a product, service or idea (e.g. an article containing a recipe on how to roast a chicken)
9. Is written in a friendly, conversational tone (liberal use of first person and second person tone) 9. Is written in a friendly but formal tone (preferred usage is third person)
10. May not necessarily require the use of SEO or keyword incorporation 10. Is often used for the purposes of better search rankings and therefore dependent on a great SEO and keyword-incorporation strategy.


So there you have it. My personal opinion of what differentiates a blog from an article. When I correspond with clients, I make sure to tell them exactly what kind of an article or blog they’ll receive. If it’s a blog project, I make sure I tell them it will be written in a conversational tone, contain author viewpoints, etc. If it’s an article project, I let them know about our emphasis on factual data collection, research and source citations. I think it helps make them feel secure that I know exactly what kind of writing they can expect from us.

Your turn. Please add to my checklist above anything pertinent you can think of that differentiates the two; I’m sure I’ve missed some points! How do you differentiate between a blog and an article? Tell us!

How to Get Started as a Web Content Writer

1. you must be a voracious reader/learner of articles on the web and

2. you must be able to adapt your writing style for the web and constantly practice it

Let’s take a closer look at these two requirements.

How You Read on the Web

The more you read on the web, the more you’ll realize that you, along with everyone else, follow a certain pattern. Your eyes stay in certain parts of the page longer, you tend to skim and scan content more than actually read every single word (as you may perhaps in print), you get intimidated/bored by long pages of unbroken text and you tend to click links that interest you and which may take you several pages away from the page you’re on.

These and other characteristics of reading on the web have been well researched and documented by web usability expert Jakob Nielsen.

I’m going to summarize some of the findings for you here:
Web readers typically scan the page in the rough shape of the letter “F”. That means our eyes travel down the length of the left column of the page and dart across the top right section (where the title usually is) and then skim and scan the rest of the content horizontally, perhaps staying a little longer at the sub-headings or pull out quotes breaking up the text.


Web readers like to click on interesting links. Links that appear spammy or clearly irrelevant are usually ignored.
Web readers like to read simple English. Since people accessing the web come from all walks of life with varying levels of comprehension, the average user is likely to stay and read if the writing is simple, free from jargon, not too lengthy and explains concepts and terms in a clear, simple way.
Web readers love lists! They love articles that contain top 10 lists and how-to material presented in numbered list or bullet form simply because it’s easy to quickly scan and consume it
Web readers will navigate away from your content if they don’t get the gist of it in the first line or the first paragraph (and sometimes from the title itself!)
Web readers generally read text on screen 25% slower than they would in print

So how can you use these characteristics to become a web writer? Simple; we’ll just take the results presented and apply them to our writing.
How to Write for the Web
1. Write a Catchy Title

Since you now know that web readers read the title first, you’ll want to ensure that your web content’s title is catchy, accurate, promising and enticing. Consider these titles: “How to Bake a Cake” vs “How to Bake a Cake in 10 Minutes” vs “How to Bake a Chocolate Malt Cake in 10 Minutes that Kids will Love” Notice how each subsequent title offers more reasons for you to click on it; more benefits, more promise of good information.

The point of your title is two-fold: to get readers to want to read the content that follows and to give search engines something to index your page by. Notice how I’ve used the words “content writing for the web”, “web content writer” etc. throughout this post and in the titles and sub-headings – that’s so that search engines can find these terms in my content and index it so that anyone looking for web content writers will find us more easily.
2. Start with the Conclusion

This might sound like the opposite of what you learned in English essay-writing classes in school, but a long windy opening paragraph will NOT make your content appealing on the web. If it’s not appealing, it won’t be read. And the whole purpose of web content is to be read.

You absolutely must get to the point of your content immediately and then proceed convincingly from there to make your case, give further examples, and make your points. In the web content writing world, this is called the “inverted pyramid” style of writing. Main idea first, details later.
3. Make your Text Visually Appealing

Nowhere is this point more important than on the web. Books without pictures will still be read, but a web page without a single graphic is an eye-sore. And visual appeal need not mean complicated images, but simply good use of white space around your text. That means you MUST break up your text into small paragraphs of 5-7 lines each, use bullets and lists to present linear information, and use images that help illustrate your content.

You can go a few steps further and use charts, tables, flowcharts, info-graphics and other visual data to make your content look appealing to the web reader.

Another way to make your content visually appealing is to add descriptive sub-headings (as I have done in this blog post) – these aid your reader in navigating your content and help you put in keywords for better search engine positioning in strategic locations.
4. Include Hyperlinks!

Outbound hyperlinks (links going to other sites on the Internet) give your readers the option to read more on the subject and shows that you are confident about your research skills and have linked out to quality content. Inbound links (links to other pages on your website) also show readers that you are an authority on your subject and have written more valuable and related information on it.

When linking it is important to use anchor text (like this) rather than naked URLs (like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_text). This serves a dual purpose: anchor text links are prettier to look at within the document and provide a better reading experience and they also help in optimizing your content for search engines since links are one of the criteria search engines use to determine the relevancy or otherwise of your content.
Interesting fact!: If you have any doubts about the importance of anchor text links for purposes of SEO here’s an astonishing fact for you: if you search Google for the phrase “click here” the first result to show up will be Download Adobe Reader. This simply means that the instructions to view a PDF file are often accompanied by a link to download the free Acrobat Reader and the anchor text used for that link is almost always “click here”.

Good quality and well-researched links give your readers a quality product and they will appreciate the fact that they can get all pertinent information from one complete document.
5. Use Simple Grade 7 English

I don’t know how many of you have heard of the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test, but it’s a test built into MS Word that gauges the difficulty level of English you’ve written. A high score of 90-100 signifies that your text can be understood by the average 7th grader, and lower scores mean the text is understood by those with higher learning degrees.

For general web articles, you should aim to write for the typical 7th – 9th grader. Obviously this requirement will vary according to your client, their audience and the technical nature or otherwise of the topic.

In general, a good principle to follow is to assume a cursory knowledge of the subject matter and explain and elaborate for the layperson. For example, this post is written for people looking to get started with web content writing, so I’m assuming they already have some idea of what web writing is.

Also, it is extremely important in web content to write directly to your audience. Assume that you are talking and explaining to some one person and write the article as though for them. For example, here I’m assuming that I’m writing to Irum to answer her query. This means using first person (“I”) and second person (“you”) liberally in your content.

Finally, the purpose of most web writing is to encourage users to take certain action or to think in a certain way; for that reason the tone of your writing should be active, enthusiastic and encouraging. There is no room for passive sentences in writing for the web.
Re-Cap of Web Writing Essentials

So to quickly re-cap, here’s the essence of what a page written for the web should contain:
Catchy title with keywords
Starts off strong with the main idea of the article and proceeds convincingly from there
Has visual appeal using sub-headings, lists, images, graphics and white space
Contains both outbound and inbound hyperlinks with anchor text
Is written in a natural, conversational style of writing with active voice

Once the above principles are applied see how an otherwise mundane piece of text comes alive on your web screen (this example taken from useit.com):Writing for Print Writing for Web
Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail. In 1996, some of the most popular places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446). In 1996, six of the most-visited places in Nebraska were:

Fort Robinson State Park
Scotts Bluff National Monument
Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum
Carhenge
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer
Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park


If you’ve mastered these, check out some advanced strategies for writing for the web.
Resources to Learn Web Content Writing

As we covered earlier, writing well is all about reading a lot and writing a lot. So here I’m going to suggest some blogs that you should check out to get started on that reading list. Pick one or two from this list that resonate with you and subscribe to them; there’s tons of great content in them to help you become a better web content writer!

Copyblogger: Copyblogger is one of the best places to start to learn how to write persuasively. Their tutorial on headline writing skills is one of the most comprehensive ones I’ve seen with some great examples. If you’re interested in specializing as a copywriter, their 10 Steps to Effective Copywriting is an awesome starting point.

Aliventures: Ali Luke is a writing coach and professional paid blogger. Check out her blog Aliventures for some great samples on how to write for the web.

AllFreelanceWriting: Jennifer Mattern and her AllFreelanceWriting team excel at all topics related to writing and entrepreneurship; their no-BS approach is a good guide for aspiring web writers.

FabFreelanceWriting: Angela Booth’s Fab Freelance Writing blog offers handy tips, resources and highly motivating articles to help you get started with writing for the web.

AboutFreelanceWriting: And finally Anne Wayman’s AboutFreelanceWriting is not only a great resource for learning to write but also a handy guide to finding the best paying jobs for freelance writers.

Finally, let me know in the comments section what your tips are for writing better web content. Would love to hear from you!

Is Content Marketing the New Advertising?

A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with an advertising executive which got me thinking. He asked me what I did for a living to which I answered that I run a content marketing firm (called WordPL of course in case you were still wondering!). Of course then I had to explain what content marketing is, the term being unfamiliar to most traditional local marketers or so it seems. As I explained the concept to him, I realized I was making a strong case for content marketing within, as well as exclusive from, the traditional advertising model. The ad guy was nodding in agreement as I talked and gesticulated.

Here’s the gist of what I said:
What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a form of marketing and advertising made popular on the Internet. Traditional advertising (TVCs, prints ads, etc) is typically push-sell and interruption based. Example: an advert in the middle of your TV drama is an interruption. A direct mail flyer distributed to your home is “pushed” at you to read. Etcetera.

In contrast content marketing is non-invasive and pull-based. For example, when you start a blog around a particular topic, say “fusion cooking” or “android apps” or “productivity tips” or whatever, you blog about your topic to attract views. People who are interested in that subject matter COME TO YOU versus you going to them. They are “pulled-in” by your content. They actively search out your content. They seek to know more about the subject your business is about.

So in essence content marketing (much like opt-in email marketing) is based on attractive content. YOU develop the content and your audience/readers/buyers/customers willingly flock to it without the need for traditional advertising. They flock to your content because it is magnetic. It fills a need. It’s what they are looking for or interested in at that time.
Great Content: Check! Now How About the Marketing Bit?

You might think at this point about the ol’ mousetrap analogy and how just because you’ve got great content, it doesn’t automatically mean that the right people will find it.

Enter SEO. Search Engine Optimization. Your great content actually needs to show up on the first page of search results for most people to find it. And so most content marketers endeavor to apply SEO best practices while developing their content.

Secondly, another way for people to find your great content may be through non-traditional advertising such as social media. So you push out your content on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, discussion forums, and other social networks where you’ve built a grouping of like-minded people who are interested in your content.
What Kind of Content Can you Use for Marketing?

The content in content marketing may take many shapes and forms – you are probably only limited by your imagination. The content could be in the form of a whitepaper, a blog, an e-book, a social media channel, a video, a podcast, a webinar, an article, a user guide, a product review, a product description, website copy, or any one of the many content platforms offered by the web.

So that is what WordPL does. We write magnetic content. Content that advertises your business without spending nearly as much as you would in traditional advertising or via using any of the traditional channels. In fact the acronym in our name spells out the various services we offer with regard to content – Write, Organize, Research, Design, Present and Learn – WordPL
Why Content Marketing Works

Personally of course I recommend content marketing as a great promotional strategy for small to medium sized businesses. And the reason is: it works! You can see people all over the internet engaging with great content – be it in the form of comments on a blog post, a Facebook Like, a twitter retweet, a re-share of a great article, etc. Every time someone shares or recommends your content, it builds you up as an authority on the subject. And people like to buy from other people they trust and like. Think about it: who would convince you to try out a new shampoo – your best friend’s Facebook update proclaiming a good hair day thanks to a new shampoo or a model on TV who says it’s the best?

So the reason content marketing works is because when done right, it’s real. It projects a certain authenticity and intimacy with the brand. It helps people relate on a one-to-one basis with your product or service.

If you’re looking for an easier way to market your new or fledgling business, give content marketing a chance. The results are not necessarily as immediate as advertising but for a fraction of the cost, you will have a much more targeted audience who is genuinely interested in what you’ve got to say. Now isn’t that better than being a blaring loudspeaker?
How to Become a Content Marketer

If you want to learn content marketing, you must learn copywriting skills, marketing 101, SEO basics and social media norms. All learnable skills and that too for free on the interwebs! You can start by checking out this great list of blogs about content marketing.

Are you in the advertising field? Or the content industry? If so, would love your perspective in comments below on how/if/whether content marketing competes with advertising!

Does your Business Produce the Three Most Important Kinds of Content?

Using content to generate business and traffic is not a shot-in-the-dark strategy. It’s not just about putting lots of content out there and hoping something will stick. The quality of that content is ultimately crucially important as well.

No matter what your niche is, here are three kinds of content that any business should be putting out there:
Content that EDUCATES
Content that ENLIGHTENS
Content that ENTERTAINS

This trio is often called the three E’s of content marketing.

Content that educates is needed to help explain concepts better; this kind of content is used to spread information and knowledge. Think how-to guides and website FAQ pages as examples of content that educates. Increasingly though companies are turning to video as educational content since nothing explains a concept better than a live visual medium!

Content that enlightens highlights benefits and features that may have not been uniquely featured in other mediums and serves to reassure your readers. Enlightened content may take the form of podcasts, webinars, or blogs. The purpose of using enlightened content is to help illustrate a new angle or a new product use that helps broaden your reader’s perspective.

Content that entertains is typically used for attracting people towards your content. Videos, compelling infographics, contests, polls, quizzes and social media content in general are popular means of entertainment.

So let’s look at how businesses develop content within the three E’s of content marketing:

Blogs: Blogs, because of their regular and frequent nature are a great way to build trust and credibility one post at a time. Blogs take work and the rewards take longer, but the ultimate relationship created is stronger and longer-lasting. Use blog posts to inform, educate and entertain readers, especially since posts don’t need to be limited to text – use images and videos and get creative!

Newsletters: Opt-in newsletters are a great way to send special information to those who sign up to receive it. This kind of content implies exclusivity – in essence you are thanking them for trusting you with their email address and for keeping an open channel of communication. Use newsletters to share stories and features that give your readers new insight.

User Videos: Testimonial videos are a great way to persuade and inform because people love to hear unbiased endorsements and reviews before making a purchase decision. If you can get a bunch of videos of people reviewing your product that’s a whole new level of persuasion!

Webinars: Oftentimes your business may need to hold online seminars (webinars) to field commonly asked questions or dispel common myths. Webinars, because they can be interactive, give your readers a chance to connect with your company on a one-to-one level and can be great for holding product-specific Q&A sessions.

E-books: Short, punchy, instantly downloadable, conversationally written and packed with useful information, e-books have infiltrated the market as one of the most common types of persuasive and informative content that you can put out there.

Content on its own is not the driving force. Content that solves problems is the key. Find out your readers’ problem, and then use content to address those problems in a way that aligns with your brand.

What kind of content is your business putting out there and are you fulfilling the three E’s of content marketing?

Is u should take child at work?

Before you get the over-whelming urge to scream “No!!!!” hear me out

As most of you know, I’m a mom and I work from home – that gives me the somewhat dubious WAHM title. A title I try and embrace most days, but sometimes fear that it may give potential clients an unprofessional view of me as well.

Anyway in most of my basic international client dealings, I don’t necessarily have to bring up this fact. Its business as usual – they get their work done, I get paid and everyone’s happy. But every once in a while a really cool client will come along who ends up becoming more than a client. That client and I start to become *gasp* friends! At that point we make a mutual decision to add each other on Facebook, G+, Twitter or whichever medium we feel comfortable in using.

But let’s take this a step further: what happens when that client is local and I need to physically meet them for meetings? Naturally I must work around my schedule of being a mom and running a content marketing business. And here lies the overlap. I cannot always find someone (read: my mom) to babysit my daughter at a time when a meeting is scheduled, nor can I always re-schedule meetings to suit my convenience (for a variety of reasons). In such cases I have sometimes taken my daughter along for meetings! Yes I know it sounds unheard of but there are some ground rules I use to accomplish this without ending up with a fussy child, an indignant client or an unprofessional view of me:
Taking your child to business meetings depends on the child’s age. I wouldn’t have even considered taking her anywhere business-y with me until she was about 3 years old. Before that she was just too unpredictable and without-warning demanding. So the cut-off point for me was post 3 years.
Taking her depends on the number of people at the venue. Usually if it’s a big conference type event and I know there will be lots of people there, I can usually take my kid with me. Reason being that I know she’ll be entertained for a while and I can usually mingle and network for anywhere between 30-45 minutes which is usually optimal for me anyways. See this pic of me taking her to the Blogawards ceremony last year where she was the only child. In this pic you can see that I even took her up on stage with me to receive the award!
Always get permission before bringing her anywhere. That should be a no-brainer but obviously you need to talk this part out with clients. My experience has been all positive so far – I usually only ask clients that I’ve developed a sufficiently profound relationship with.
Always take along some of her toys/reading material. Our staple is usually one small soft toy and a coloring/activity book. That usually keeps her occupied for at least half an hour, sometimes more. In cases where there’s a computer or smartphone available, video games can substitute really well too. Yups that’s how she’s ascended all those Angry Bird levels haha!
Always try to rope in a partner or friend. If it’s the kind of meeting where the addition of one other person won’t matter too much, then I always try and take someone along who can help me take care of her. Usually that ends up being my husband, especially for business-social events, but it could also be a colleague or friend.
It’s easier to do all of the above with people who also have children! I remember once I was in a Skype meeting with a client in Canada when suddenly there was a *thud* and then some crying. Turns out their daughter had fallen out of bed while the dad was on a late-night call with me. Now my daughter has fallen out of bed thrice, so apart from the huge guilt sessions that invoked, I knew exactly how this client was feeling. We were able to continue the meeting after his daughter had been tucked back into bed and was soundly asleep with more barriers! The post-bed-fall meeting took on a much warmer tone and this client and I are now good friends. Mutual kids can be such a great ice-breaker!

There are certain events to which I won’t consider taking a child. Training events would be a good example of those, mostly for the fact that they require intense focus and zero disruptions. Other events would be one-on-one business meetings to discuss scope or budget where the client requires my single-minded focus. Needless to say, it’s not advisable to take a child to most business meetings but the above few are some minority examples of when you can, under certain conditions, manage taking your kid to a business event effectively.

So, have you ever done the unusual in the balancing act of being a parent and conducting business from home? C’mon share some storie