This is the second post in a 6-part series on How to Write Winning Bids and Proposals.

While I will be giving specific examples of bid writing techniques from Elance, the information in these posts is relevant and applicable to all freelance proposals in any online medium.

I hope you’ll be able to use this information to bid smarter and significantly reduce your proposal writing time in the long term as well as attain a higher award ratio.

The thing about online work is that typically there’s so much distance between you and the buyer that there’s plenty of opportunity for miscommunication and mismatch. It’s important not to just be a good fit for the project you’re working on as discussed in Part 1 How to Find your Niche and Bid Exclusively in It, but also to evaluate whether you and the buyer would be a good fit to work together. And then there’s that pesky matter of ensuring that a buyer is legit and serious about the work.

In researching a buyer, I would go so far as to say that you need to be a little bit of a detective and ask all the right questions and look in all the right (and sometimes improbable, yet obvious) places. You may not be able to do this for every single project and in every single instance, but it’s important to know what you’re looking for so that even when you’re not consciously looking for clues, your subconscious radar will pick up on them – that’s how finely tuned you need to be and can be with the help of this handy guide.

Step 1: Find Out the Buyer’s Name

No, seriously. Do you have any idea what a huge difference it makes to address a buyer directly in your proposal by his or her name? Hello David vs Hello hwueyb67. Get the picture? So how do you go about finding out a buyer’s name if they haven’t given it in their buyer profile?

• Do a Google search on their company name (if they’ve given that) and read the About Us section to find out who’s who in the company
• Look through past buyer feedback and see if any providers have left feedback addressing the buyer by name
• See if the buyer uses that same username on any other site, like Twitter, and then look up their profile to see their real name

This is not sneaky, nor underhanded. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how well buyers respond to being addressed as a person rather than a random alphanumeric word, even though they have deliberately not divulged this information in the project description or in their buyer profile.

Addressing a buyer by name also shows them that you’ve got pretty dandy research skills, and that you gave their project enough importance to look them up and read up on who they are and what their needs might be – an important point that we’ll follow up on in Part 3 of this series.

Step 2: Look Up and Read the Buyer’s Website

For my very first project on Elance I looked up the buyer’s website and studied her style of writing, learned what she was most passionate about, found out where she was based geographically, and was also able to download her e-book for more information on her and her business.

As a result I was able to write a personal and friendly bid addressing her passions and needs directly and also showing her that I was passionate about the same things. She saw in my bid that not only was I resourceful enough to know all this about her, but that I shared her vision and would therefore be the perfect writer to help draft her next e-book.

There’s so much info you can glean from a buyer’s website, I don’t know why anyone would miss out on this crucial chance to really connect with the buyer.

Step 3: Analyze the Buyer’s Past Feedback

There are many things you should look for when reading past feedback:

• What has the buyer paid in the past for a similar project?
• When giving feedback, positive or negative, what is the buyer’s tone?
• Is the buyer notorious for leaving unwarranted negative feedback?
• What do other providers say about the buyer – do they leave one line comments or more in-depth, descriptive comments?

From analyzing the above items, you should be able to effectively gauge:

• What the buyer will be most likely to pay you
• Whether the buyer is courteous and professional in his or her dealings
• Whether the buyer is grumpy, difficult to deal with and never satisfied with anything
• Whether the buyer understands the rules of doing business on Elance and is aware of the policies and procedures, whether he pays on time and whether he is clear and precise in his directions and expectations

Using all this information, you should be able to determine whether it’s worth your time (and money) to even place a bid on this project. If you feel uncomfortable about any aspect of a buyer’s portrayal of himself online, then trust your gut instinct and stay away from the project. If you feel a connection, then go ahead and place a bid – your bid will come off sounding that much more genuine because you really do feel a spark, having read up on the buyer and knowing him/her a tad better.

There are a few more generic things which you should look for in every buyer that you work with:

• Do they write out a detailed project description or work order covering all the relevant details you need to place an accurate bid?
• Are they responsive communicators and answer queries posted on the public message boards and in pre-bids?
• Are they aware of Elance’s policies and rules, and if not, are they willing to be educated about it?
• How long have they been a member of the site?
• How many projects have they posted since being members?
• What is their award ratio – how many projects awarded?

The richer the buyer’s history, communication and past performance, the more reason to take them seriously.

If you liked this post and want to know how to get to the next step in writing proposals, please read Part III: How to Write a Winning Bid or Proposal

Did you have any aha moments from reading this post? Or do you have your own buyer detective work tips to share? I’d be delighted if you leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!