Of crushed hopes and houses

[katakatica]

Disclaimer - part of this is a somewhat personal rant - but halfway through thinking of it I realised how much it relates to many of the Fiverr gigs I've seen (and quite a few things I've ordered myself. But the first part is just me sighing life haha.)

We are moving houses - which is a whole process with a disabled dad, mom-who's trying to keep it all together and a crazy writer...(me, ha) Leaving 2X years of memories behind isn't fun. Knowing the house is going to be demolished is- 

Yeah.

Anyway, we saw a fantastic ad. the other day. HUGE house, near the bus stop, super cool attic space that I can make into an office (and later still have a family there), tons of space for a pool, sauna, etc. in the garden...(yes, we are high-maintenance but this is the Hungarian countryside, nothing actually fancy!)

We went to visit the house today and...

Yeah, it was...far from what we were told. Too far from the center, TINY rooms - (well, smaller than we've expected them to be), really hard to do ANYTHING in the garden...

We left pouty (but we got junk food after, so it was still worth it to go!)

This got me thinking. One of the main issues I've encountered on here - and even unknowingly did myself is... PROMISING too much. Promising things one can't actually do. It's false advertising, really. 

Claiming to be something you are NOT. 

Let it be an expert/professional/teacher/whatever. Which is what happened with that house too, right? It's all around us, I guess - but on Fiverr I've noticed it more lately (I guess because I've been spending so much time hunting for artists for my personal projects. AND logo designers (no luck for the latter but I am going to have that project rest a little anyway). My point is - so many people are basically lying about what they can do - it's sad. Are we (humans as a whole I guess) really ready to promise whatever just for some 'easy' cash? 

If you are reading this (and haven't actually had a single order yet) I want you to ask yourself - am I actually an expert at what I want to offer? If the answer is no - you're still fine. Just... know that there's still tons of room for you to improve (and maybe... maybe don't sell something you wouldn't buy yourself.) 

 

[smashradio]

9 minutes ago, katakatica said:

If you are reading this (and haven't actually had a single order yet) I want you to ask yourself - am I actually an expert at what I want to offer? If the answer is no - you're still fine. Just... know that there's still tons of room for you to improve (and maybe... maybe don't sell something you wouldn't buy yourself.) 

 

I wrote a post on this yesterday. I might be a bit more harsh in my tone towards the pretenders of this world. You must be a nicer person than I am. Hah. 

Anyway, I love your story - and your point! Pretending to be something you're not won't land you any success in life. There's thousands of people with no talent whatsoever, flooding the freelancing community with their claims of being "experts" and "professionals", when they haven't had a day of success in their lives. It's sad to see, and it has very real and serious consequenses for the people involved. 

Hope you find your new dream home soon! 

Here's my harsher version of your point - also inspired by something I experienced outside of the Fiverr bubble, but that inspired me to write it. 

 

[kai990]

Aw, I’m sorry about what happened with the house. Someday you’ll find an actual good house that you’ll really like, I’m sure of it! 😄

9 hours ago, katakatica said:

If you are reading this (and haven't actually had a single order yet) I want you to ask yourself - am I actually an expert at what I want to offer? If the answer is no - you're still fine. Just... know that there's still tons of room for you to improve (and maybe... maybe don't sell something you wouldn't buy yourself.) 

I can definitely agree with you. I also agree with @smashradio’s rant. Unfortunately advertising is a major factor, and if you can advertise well then you can end up getting money even if what you’re offering isn’t the best. Neither of you talked about that though, so I don’t know why I brought it up…whoops. 😅

[katakatica]

3 hours ago, kai990 said:

Unfortunately advertising is a major factor, and if you can advertise well then you can end up getting money even if what you’re offering isn’t the best.

See, I would agree - but 99% of the people (on the forum at least) don't actually know how to advertise themselves - or at least that's how it seems to me. Many of them copy others' gigs (which will very likely cause them to get at least a warning at some point, spam facebook and other social media stuff and just... mess it up for themselves. Of course, many of them do end up with a couple orders but it's no long-term solution (since, for artists for example, you can see their previous works (many times, for writers, if their gigs are messy, why would people order and so on...) (but to be fair I absolutely can't advertise well haha, I don't have that skill so I can't be sure!)

[surajkartha]

13 hours ago, katakatica said:

PROMISING too much. Promising things one can't actually do. It's false advertising, really. 

Claiming to be something you are NOT. 

Let it be an expert/professional/teacher/whatever. Which is what happened with that house too, right? It's all around us, I guess - but on Fiverr I've noticed it more lately (I guess because I've been spending so much time hunting for artists for my personal projects. AND logo designers (no luck for the latter but I am going to have that project rest a little anyway). My point is - so many people are basically lying about what they can do - it's sad. Are we (humans as a whole I guess) really ready to promise whatever just for some 'easy' cash? 

If you are reading this (and haven't actually had a single order yet) I want you to ask yourself - am I actually an expert at what I want to offer? If the answer is no - you're still fine. Just... know that there's still tons of room for you to improve (and maybe... maybe don't sell something you wouldn't buy yourself.) 

I doubt if this message will get to who it is intended for.. I mean it's obvious that communication barrier is a major issue here.. so irrespective of how meaningful a message is, and how much it makes sense, in the end the meaning of the message is in the recipient's mind, not in the message itself...

But that aside, hope things workout for you.. 

 

[kai990]

6 hours ago, katakatica said:

See, I would agree - but 99% of the people (on the forum at least) don't actually know how to advertise themselves - or at least that's how it seems to me. Many of them copy others' gigs (which will very likely cause them to get at least a warning at some point, spam facebook and other social media stuff and just... mess it up for themselves. Of course, many of them do end up with a couple orders but it's no long-term solution (since, for artists for example, you can see their previous works (many times, for writers, if their gigs are messy, why would people order and so on...) (but to be fair I absolutely can't advertise well haha, I don't have that skill so I can't be sure!)

Yeah, that’s why I wanted to say - it doesn’t really apply to what you and the other person were talking about because it’s hard to advertise well, and only probably a small percentage are successful at it. I have noticed how certain gigs are really similar, so the people who created them probably copied. 

Haha, I can’t advertise well either, though I will be taking a marketing class in my school this year. I hope it’ll help in some way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯