The 3-page proposal I wrote for 6 months before realizing nobody reads past the first bullet point

I spent 6 months writing these long, detailed proposals on Upwork with pricing breakdowns and timelines and kept losing to people who charged more. Finally lost a $1,200 gig to a guy who sent 3 sentences and a sample link. The client told me straight up he skimmed my proposal for 10 seconds and the wall of text looked like too much effort. Has anyone else tested shorter proposals and seen better results?

3 comments

3 Comments

knight.uma6d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, did you just say 6 months on one proposal? That's either dedication or a really solid way to avoid doing actual work, and I've definitely been guilty of the second one there. Idk about you, but my longest proposal was maybe three pages and even that felt like I was writing a novel nobody asked for. Tried shorter ones like 2 or 3 sentences with just a quick "here's what I can do" and my portfolio link, and honestly it felt wrong at first because I thought clients wanted all the details. But looking back, maybe I was just overthinking it and the shorter ones actually got more replies even if they felt lazy. I mean, it's kinda wild how a tiny paragraph can beat a detailed breakdown just because the client's attention span is like 10 seconds max.

the_betty6d ago

Actually the attention span thing is a myth from a 2000s Microsoft study that got misquoted into oblivion. The original study said people's attention spans are about 12 seconds on digital devices, not 8 seconds and definitely not less than a goldfish. But you're absolutely right that shorter proposals often work better because clients are skimming 50 applicants, not because their brains are broken. The 3 page novel thing is real though. I once got a 12 page proposal as a client and I stopped reading after the first paragraph because I had other proposals to get through.

lisas786d ago

The real issue nobody's talking about is that clients don't even read the first line half the time. They're scanning for keywords like "WordPress" or "logo design" and if they don't see it in the first two seconds they're gone. You could write the most perfect proposal in the world but if your subject line or first sentence doesn't match exactly what they're looking for it's going straight in the trash. That's why those short ones work better too, because you're forced to lead with exactly what they want to hear instead of burying it in paragraphs.