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1 simple tip for sellers with English as a 2nd (or 3rd, ...) language that will make a big difference


miiila

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It’s hard to learn another language well, but there are some really simple things that you can learn without investing a lot of time which will immediately improve the impression your profile, gig description and other communication makes on people who read it.

The thing that jumps out at me most when looking at seller profiles and forum posts:
Take the time to learn or recap the “use of capital and small initial letters”.

Some quick examples:

There Is A Time And Place For Capital Letters But Make Sure You Know When And Where.
⬆️
Kind of okay as a header, but not really, and definitely overkill as a spelling pattern for a random sentence in your bio or gig description.

i promise you’ll not disappointed.
⬆️
It’s “I”, not “i” - if you don’t know that, I won’t entrust anything to do with writing to you; if you don’t have the time to use the shift key, I won’t trust you have the time to do my order well. (There’s also a grammar issue with the above, but that’s a bit harder to fix, and the spelling error also stands out more, so, first, focus on spelling, and then improve your grammar, if you feel like doing more.)

“use of capital and small initial letters”: Google it, read about it, apply it.

Trust me, just do it. It won’t hurt – even if it won’t net you more orders, more knowledge is always useful – but it could make a world of difference.

And if you’re feeling like doing even more, especially if you are selling things with script on them, like logos, animated video with writing, t-shirt designs, anything with written text on it – brush up your English spelling game some more.

And then, with your new spelling expertise, check your Fiverr profile, bio, descriptions, gig images, everything, and correct where needed.
Good or better spelling also won’t hurt when replying to customer messages and buyer requests.

People who can’t spell themselves, or are unobservant, or hope you were just sloppy, might still order, but people who can spell themselves and are observant and can clearly see you can’t spell correctly already on your profile or gig page, and apparently don’t know even some very basic spelling/grammar rules, most probably won’t hire you for any job where spelling is important, I know I wouldn’t.

I hope this post helps a few people to realize that there might be quite a few things they could do to improve their chances of getting orders.

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Thank you for this helpful post @miiila
If you could add not to use DEAR - SIR - MA’AM - BROTHER - BRO etc would help few more sellers !

I was the one didn’t know that calling someone SIR would be so offensive on forum ! ( although none of my buyer said that ever and they used to call me that from where I learnt that ) but I guess good practice not to use them !

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Thank you for this helpful post @miiila

If you could add not to use DEAR - SIR - MA’AM - BROTHER - BRO etc would help few more sellers !

I was the one didn’t know that calling someone SIR would be so offensive on forum ! ( although none of my buyer said that ever and they used to call me that from where I learnt that ) but I guess good practice not to use them !

Honestly, to me it always sounds like someone is begging for orders if they address someone as “Sir” or “Ma’am”.

Like, “Please, good sir, may I have just a little 5 dollar order from you so my family won’t go starving today”.

In the forum this makes even less sense. But I completely agree with you, the “brother/sister/dear” thing absolutely needs to stop.

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Thank you for this helpful post @miiila

If you could add not to use DEAR - SIR - MA’AM - BROTHER - BRO etc would help few more sellers !

I was the one didn’t know that calling someone SIR would be so offensive on forum ! ( although none of my buyer said that ever and they used to call me that from where I learnt that ) but I guess good practice not to use them !

Good point but there are lots of topics about that already, and I wanted to focus on 1 thing. You contributed this in your comment though, and people who are serious about improving should read comments too, anyway, not just the opening posts, to not miss out on good info 🙂

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Honestly, to me it always sounds like someone is begging for orders if they address someone as “Sir” or “Ma’am”.

Like, “Please, good sir, may I have just a little 5 dollar order from you so my family won’t go starving today”.

In the forum this makes even less sense. But I completely agree with you, the “brother/sister/dear” thing absolutely needs to stop.

Honestly, to me it always sounds like someone is begging for orders if they address someone as “Sir” or “Ma’am”.

Like, “Please, good sir, may I have just a little 5 dollar order from you so my family won’t go starving today”.

Made my day.

However, is it really that bad? I personally perceive this more like someone trying to be polite. But, well English isn’t my first language either.

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Honestly, to me it always sounds like someone is begging for orders if they address someone as “Sir” or “Ma’am”.

Like, “Please, good sir, may I have just a little 5 dollar order from you so my family won’t go starving today”.

Made my day.

However, is it really that bad? I personally perceive this more like someone trying to be polite. But, well English isn’t my first language either.

I personally perceive this more like someone trying to be polite. But, well English isn’t my first language either.

Same. There are already a lot of topics about this, people have varied opinions on this, and it usually leads to long discussions, so I didn’t want to include this. Also, spelling conventions aren’t such an emotional topic (unless perhaps it’s “u” vs. “you” 😉 ).

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Your post is of course super helpful and well intended.

However there is a large part of me that thinks sellers should sink or swim based on their abilities to communicate in English.

If they can’t understand how to use upper and lowercase letters (the basics), then to be honest they’re probably not the sort of people I’d want to do business with. Even a basic data entry job requires an understanding of upper and lowercase letters.

Likewise, while I used to quite enjoy helping people improve their profile and gigs via the forums, I now think it’s actually very unfair on buyers to do so - as it’s misrepresenting a seller’s true abilities.

If someone buys a big based on a polished profile and gig description, but then receives utter nonsense in return with their order - then it’s not fair.

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Honestly, to me it always sounds like someone is begging for orders if they address someone as “Sir” or “Ma’am”.

Like, “Please, good sir, may I have just a little 5 dollar order from you so my family won’t go starving today”.

Made my day.

However, is it really that bad? I personally perceive this more like someone trying to be polite. But, well English isn’t my first language either.

I think that depends who you’re asking, I’ve probably just seen too many “plase sir, why I not get order” posts here in the forum that I started associating it with something negative.

I’ve been working in customer service for a big German corporation for a couple of years and when responding to mails, I’ve been told to mimic what the customer does. So if they addressed me very formally, I would do the same, if they just wrote “hey there”, i responded the same way, because if that’s the way the customer is comfortable talking to you, you should respond appropriately.

Here on fiverr I use the same technique and my clients seem fine with that.

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Your post is of course super helpful and well intended.

However there is a large part of me that thinks sellers should sink or swim based on their abilities to communicate in English.

If they can’t understand how to use upper and lowercase letters (the basics), then to be honest they’re probably not the sort of people I’d want to do business with. Even a basic data entry job requires an understanding of upper and lowercase letters.

Likewise, while I used to quite enjoy helping people improve their profile and gigs via the forums, I now think it’s actually very unfair on buyers to do so - as it’s misrepresenting a seller’s true abilities.

If someone buys a big based on a polished profile and gig description, but then receives utter nonsense in return with their order - then it’s not fair.

Oh, I get your point, I have the same feeling when people help sellers with their concrete profile by pointing out their errors, proofreading their profiles for them in the IMG category, and I don’t do that, but I think giving them a nudge and motivation to google and learn some of the basics, or even more, does more good than harm.

If someone buys a big based on a polished profile and gig description, but then receives utter nonsense in return with their order - then it’s not fair.

Agreed, but if sellers brush up their English enough to not deliver explainer videos that have “i” instead of “I”, for instance, that’s rather an advantage for buyers, I think.

But I do see what you’re saying. I’ve stopped helping individual people to improve their profiles for a different but similar reason.

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Your post is of course super helpful and well intended.

However there is a large part of me that thinks sellers should sink or swim based on their abilities to communicate in English.

If they can’t understand how to use upper and lowercase letters (the basics), then to be honest they’re probably not the sort of people I’d want to do business with. Even a basic data entry job requires an understanding of upper and lowercase letters.

Likewise, while I used to quite enjoy helping people improve their profile and gigs via the forums, I now think it’s actually very unfair on buyers to do so - as it’s misrepresenting a seller’s true abilities.

If someone buys a big based on a polished profile and gig description, but then receives utter nonsense in return with their order - then it’s not fair.

I used to quite enjoy helping people improve their profile and gigs via the forums, I now think it’s actually very unfair on buyers to do so - as it’s misrepresenting a seller’s true abilities.

If someone buys a big based on a polished profile and gig description, but then receives utter nonsense in return with their order - then it’s not fair.

I agree. It’s going to be a shock to find out that the polished gig description isn’t really how the seller communicates.

For most gigs, some education and skill is required. And good communication is a must.

So rather than coach people to in a sense mislead buyers by using correct grammar in their descriptions, let them write them how they usually write everything so buyers can be informed.

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I used to quite enjoy helping people improve their profile and gigs via the forums, I now think it’s actually very unfair on buyers to do so - as it’s misrepresenting a seller’s true abilities.

If someone buys a big based on a polished profile and gig description, but then receives utter nonsense in return with their order - then it’s not fair.

I agree. It’s going to be a shock to find out that the polished gig description isn’t really how the seller communicates.

For most gigs, some education and skill is required. And good communication is a must.

So rather than coach people to in a sense mislead buyers by using correct grammar in their descriptions, let them write them how they usually write everything so buyers can be informed.

So rather than coach people to in a sense mislead buyers by using correct grammar in their descriptions, let them write them how they usually write everything so buyers can be informed.

I’m not coaching people to mislead buyers, I’m trying to make them aware of how important correct spelling is and to encourage them to study.

If you look at one of the only 2 examples I gave for spelling issues, it doesn’t tell people what the grammar issue is (but makes them aware that there is one, in case they don’t know, so they hopefully want to find out what, and will learn), but tell them to focus on their spelling first and to then improve their grammar, if they want to do more. Those who don’t want to do more, will still have enough errors in their gigs for buyers to notice that they aren’t perfect in English.

And if people do know and learn about the use of upper and lower case, they do know more about it and can apply it; if I learn about a few snares of a language and apply my knowledge, I’m not faking anything, I have improved my skills and can, and probably will, apply my knowledge not just to my gig description but to the jobs I get as well.

I see this more as a public service, because if too many buyers take a look at the platform and see all the spelling errors, they might leave before they even see that there are sellers who can spell correctly.

Well, anyone who thinks my post contributes to misleading buyers, you are free to flag it, and the mods can take it down if they agree. I promise I won’t even take it personally (anyone who isn’t sure about whether this should say “personal” now, check “adjective/adverb” but reserve more time in your advanced language learning schedule for this 😉 ).

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So rather than coach people to in a sense mislead buyers by using correct grammar in their descriptions, let them write them how they usually write everything so buyers can be informed.

I’m not coaching people to mislead buyers, I’m trying to make them aware of how important correct spelling is and to encourage them to study.

If you look at one of the only 2 examples I gave for spelling issues, it doesn’t tell people what the grammar issue is (but makes them aware that there is one, in case they don’t know, so they hopefully want to find out what, and will learn), but tell them to focus on their spelling first and to then improve their grammar, if they want to do more. Those who don’t want to do more, will still have enough errors in their gigs for buyers to notice that they aren’t perfect in English.

And if people do know and learn about the use of upper and lower case, they do know more about it and can apply it; if I learn about a few snares of a language and apply my knowledge, I’m not faking anything, I have improved my skills and can, and probably will, apply my knowledge not just to my gig description but to the jobs I get as well.

I see this more as a public service, because if too many buyers take a look at the platform and see all the spelling errors, they might leave before they even see that there are sellers who can spell correctly.

Well, anyone who thinks my post contributes to misleading buyers, you are free to flag it, and the mods can take it down if they agree. I promise I won’t even take it personally (anyone who isn’t sure about whether this should say “personal” now, check “adjective/adverb” but reserve more time in your advanced language learning schedule for this 😉 ).

@miiila I know you didn’t mean to actually coach people to mislead buyers, it just came out that way. I know you meant to educate sellers.

And I think if they do learn how to use the capital i correctly then it will provide them a very valuable lesson as long as they use it consistently.

I would never say I thought you were deliberately coaching people to mislead, I just don’t put things correctly sometimes.

I’ve actually thought about making the same comment as yours many times about using a capital i. It’s a common mistake I see here a lot.

But I still don’t want to see a perfect gig description if it’s totally unlike how the person normally communicates. If they do learn to correctly capitalize i when used as a pronoun and do that not just in the description but all the time that would be an immensely valuable lesson.

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I think that depends who you’re asking, I’ve probably just seen too many “plase sir, why I not get order” posts here in the forum that I started associating it with something negative.

I’ve been working in customer service for a big German corporation for a couple of years and when responding to mails, I’ve been told to mimic what the customer does. So if they addressed me very formally, I would do the same, if they just wrote “hey there”, i responded the same way, because if that’s the way the customer is comfortable talking to you, you should respond appropriately.

Here on fiverr I use the same technique and my clients seem fine with that.

I’ve been working in customer service for a big German corporation for a couple of years and when responding to mails, I’ve been told to mimic what the customer does. So if they addressed me very formally, I would do the same, if they just wrote “hey there”, i responded the same way, because if that’s the way the customer is comfortable talking to you, you should respond appropriately.

Yeah, that’s a thing we Germans get tought pretty early. And it seems to work. Didn’t know that this was a German thing. Thanks for making me aware of that!

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I don’t think it’s a German thing, though, it’s more an applied psychology thing.

We also tend to unconsciously mimic people we like, all over the world. That can mean crossing your legs the same way as the person sitting in front of you, or can lead as far as suddenly using “u” instead of “you”. And so, can be used to “reverse-engineer” in a way, to make people more comfortable/like you more, as in Janali’s post. Very interesting topic.

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I’ve been working in customer service for a big German corporation for a couple of years and when responding to mails, I’ve been told to mimic what the customer does. So if they addressed me very formally, I would do the same, if they just wrote “hey there”, i responded the same way, because if that’s the way the customer is comfortable talking to you, you should respond appropriately.

Yeah, that’s a thing we Germans get tought pretty early. And it seems to work. Didn’t know that this was a German thing. Thanks for making me aware of that!

Perhaps it has something to do with the “du” and “Sie” or formal vs informal language in synthetic languages that just isn’t really a thing in English for example. So French people working in customer support for example may be dealing with the same thing.

Somehow I didn’t realize by your nickname that you’re German as well 😃

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  • 1 year later...

Hello, today i disscus about the importance of developing communication skills in freelancing journey now, the world language is english so we must learn english and it's
the good way to generating our success freelancing life, improving your communication skill through reading, writing, watching video etc. Lastly i am not a professional in english
but having some knowledge to keep myself, thank you.

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