Your first week of pitching properly: a day-by-day checklist

A good first week of pitching is mostly preparation. Do it once and every proposal afterwards is quicker and better. Here is a plan that fits around a job or college, at about an hour a day.

Day 1: collect your proof

• List every project you have done, paid or unpaid: jobs, internships, college work, favours for a family business.
• For each, note the problem, what you did and what changed afterwards, in your own words.
• Write a 12-word version of your best three. These are the lines you will paste into proposals.

Day 2: know your floor

• Add up what you need to take home each month, your costs and an amount set aside for tax and quiet months.
• Divide by the hours you can truly bill, remembering that proposals, calls and admin are unpaid.
• Allow for the platform's fee. The result is your private minimum. Confirm tax questions with a qualified person.

Day 3: fix the profile

• Change your title from a job label to a service for a kind of client.
• Rewrite the first two lines of your overview around the client's problem.
• Ask a friend outside your field to read it for forty seconds and tell you what you do.

Day 4: read ten posts, send none

• Find ten real jobs you could do.
• For each, write the result wanted, the signs of pain, any risks and a score.
• Notice how few deserve a bid. That is normal, and it is the point.

Day 5: send three proposals

• Pick the three best-scoring posts.
• For each: their problem in their words, one matching proof, the first step, one question.
• Keep each under 150 words. Read it aloud. Send it yourself.
• Log each one: job, score, angle, proof, date.

Day 6: get ready for "how much?"

• For your most common job, write what is included, what is not and how changes are handled.
• Prepare three scopes at three sizes, so a client can choose between options.

Day 7: review

• Look at your log. Which were viewed? Which got a reply?
• Choose one thing to stop, one to repeat and one to test.
• Plan five careful proposals for next week, not fifty hurried ones.

What to expect

Three proposals will not tell you much on their own, and nobody can promise you a reply. What the week gives you is a system: proof you can find, a rate you can defend, a profile that says one clear thing and a record you can learn from. Freelancers who keep that system for a month usually find the pitching takes less of their week and worries them less.

Bidcraft packs this week into prompts, a playbook and a five-tab workbook, so each day's task is a paste and an edit.