I finally read the Insights on every proposal I have sent. Not one of them was ever opened.

I have been at this a few months, sent 14 proposals, got no replies, and I was starting to think I am just bad at writing them. So instead of rewriting my cover letter for the tenth time, I went through the Insights page on every single one and wrote the numbers down.

Not one of mine has been opened. Not one.

Here is all of it, embarrassing parts included.

Yes, that $5 one. The client set the budget to five dollars and I was new enough to take it seriously. Nobody opened that one either, so at least I was consistent.

What I cannot square is this: in four of those jobs the client clearly did read proposals. One opened eleven of them, another ten. So it is not that clients never look. They looked, just never at mine.

I also do not think it is price. I sat within a couple of dollars of the average nearly every time, and twice I asked half of what everyone else did. Changed nothing.

I boosted twice. Both times I landed in a job where the client opened nothing from anyone, so I paid for a front row seat in an empty room.

So whatever kills me happens before anyone opens anything. What I cannot tell from this data is how much of that is my first two lines, and how much is just being new with no reviews, sitting at the bottom of the pile.

If you got past this stage, what actually changed for you? Did rewriting the opening line move anything, or did it only start working after your first review?