I just received my first “brief”!

[catwriter]

I received my first brief, too!

Basically, someone wanted me to do their homework. They didn't put it like that, but they're in college and need a short story analysis, and it will be for an academic audience.

[zeus777]

Well guess what, I myself just received a brief for the first time, and it's translation!

Problem was, it was a German to English translation.
Uh, hello, WHERE in my gig description does it say that I can speak/understand German?
I was BORN in Germany but I lived there for only a year, if I try to gather all the German words I somehow know, it'll be less than 10 for sure.
 

The whole "You're a match!" is so.....I dunno. Just wrong.

[danielwaldman]

I came here to see if others were as dissatisfied with the new Briefs as I am. All the original points...briefs too vague, budgets unrealistic (I just got one that wanted to pay essentially pennies for daily work), many that aren't even relevant, etc. Glad to see I'm not the only one. Fiverr needs to either fix this or do away with it all together. It's an ok idea, but extremely poorly executed.

[filipdevaere]

@danielwaldman

I compare it with the buyer requests. That also does not work for me. 

Indeed, like you said too vague, and the price setting and timings are not realistic. Interesting projects that you can do will never come available. They just send a brief, and they hope that you accept the job. 

I received already 3 briefs now. I will never accept a brief when I cannot contact the buyer. 

[catwriter]

Got another brief. For some reason, Fiverr thought I'd be a good match for someone who needs book formatting. Never mind the fact that it's a service that I don't offer and have never offered (plus I've never even used InDesign).

Turned briefs off. I didn't get the question why.

[frank_d]

Just a quick update:

I forwarded all the feedback and the product leader is looking at all the issues.

I will schedule a call this week to discuss possible solutions, I have something in mind.

Basically there are 3 main pain points:

-relevancy issues (they need to work on the criteria)

-vague budget/time frame (they need to remove the “flexible” options, buyer needs to commit to numbers/ranges)

-absence of proper communication and requirements on our end.

For the latter I think the system should include an additional step after we receive the brief where we reply with a pre-made form that allow us to set/manage expectations and ask for clarification, plus suggest actual terms/deliverables etc.

What do you think? What else can you all suggest as a possible improvement?

[designboom]

I got around 5 briefs. All design relevant to me. But I made an offer only to one. No response from the potential client. The rest are totally too vague or something we need to discuss further before I can make an offer. But I like the feature, and I am sure it will turn better and better 🙂

[williambryan392]

I think you pretty much nailed the issues @frank_d.  These are some ideas that are probably stating the obvious and are rehashing some of what you've previously suggested...

Perhaps a word count minimum on the description would help, although it would be easy to get around.

Re your idea of a form I think that makes sense, but one where sellers can clearly describe what's included, set the price and the delivery time frame.

Re relevancy, it seems to be stuck at the category level, could it go down to the gig level.

Now this might be a crazy idea (and I know it's ill thought out on my part)... but offer a zoom call to the buyer at a flat cost after the form you suggest has been returned. Not sure what it should cost, maybe $30 for 30 minutes. No rating involved. Buyer can choose which sellers they choose to have a call with to then discuss their requirements. Like I say I haven't thought it fully through!

If the goal of briefs is to look after more premium buyers and get away from the BR cesspit vibe this could maybe achieve that.

[surajkartha]

4 hours ago, zeus777 said:

"You're a match!"

Looks like Fiverr accidentally implemented Tinder's code Zeus-san 😅

[melanielm]

4 hours ago, frank_d said:

For the latter I think the system should include an additional step after we receive the brief where we reply with a pre-made form that allow us to set/manage expectations and ask for clarification, plus suggest actual terms/deliverables etc.

This is necessary.

There's a big problem with the budget setting for briefs for people like me who have a huge range of prices. I'll happily write a sentence of two for $10, but it costs a heck of a lot more than that to get a full ebook. There's no way to attract a range of briefs. I suppose the idea is to only focus on high-paying jobs if I want to remove the chance of getting super low bids on bigger projects.

Separate brief settings for different gigs might work, but that's beyond the bounds of this system, I think.

[thiagodematos]

I got one of these, and it had some red flags with it.

The buyer put an unrealistic budget, questioned everything about me on Fiverr, after providing my portfolio said I was overpriced.

I even tried to work with them on pricing, but they wouldn't take it.

Hopefully, they straighten out the "brief" section.

[filipdevaere]

@thiagodematos

How did you contact the buyer?

Did you accept the brief?  I do not know how to contact the buyer without accepting the brief.

[williambryan392]

1 hour ago, mrsazzad14 said:

What tips do I follow or from where should I research this topic?

Search the forum @mrsazzad14. Frank and others have shared lots of helpful posts already. This could be a good place to start:

 

[donnovan86]

I also received a brief and it required me to write "articles" without saying how many or sharing any information other than it's for a product. Again, these are not very descriptive and without any way to contact the person in question, all you can do is just decline, which is what I did.

 

[donnovan86]

6 hours ago, mrsazzad14 said:

Please help me with my situation. I am a level one seller. One of my gigs was in the first page and also in the first five gigs.  But suddenly its rank goes down. I did not get a text from any customer for 5 months. Please tell me what to do. What tips do I follow or from where should I research this topic?

I know I am not Frank but...There are literally millions of gigs on Fiverr and everyone needs to receive exposure. So.. you must promote your gig, improve it, experiment and see what works. Maybe create newer and better gigs. If you search the Fiverr Forum there are lots and lots of different topics to look at. 

[animie_video]

On 2/24/2022 at 12:15 AM, frank_d said:

We are on the same page.

An alternative is to up your rate to $50,000.

😃 going to try this if I get this feature

[tme2012]

These briefs don't make any sense and I'm concerned they're going to keep people from contacting me the normal way and I'll lose business accordingly. How am I supposed to create an offer for something that hasn't been described? I've gotten 15 of these things and not a one of them has enough information to put together an offer, but there is no way to contact the client without making an offer.

 

 

[anniejenkinson]

So much detail in my first brief! It took me days to just wade through the information! Umm...

It would have been nice to know how long this book is--the script's word count would have been a great starting point.

[miiila]

On 3/9/2022 at 4:42 AM, filipdevaere said:

I do not know how to contact the buyer without accepting the brief.

Same as for BRs, I write something along the lines of "this is a dummy offer, please don't accept it but contact me to talk about details for an actual custom offer, price and delivery time will depend on...", and you can set a high delivery time, to make sure you'll have enough time to let support cancel, in case the person goes and accepts the offer anyway, and you can't/don't want to do it, once they tell you what they actually want an offer for.

I also try to always remember to put my own offer expiration date on any offer I send, in text form, by the way, because, unlike for normal custom offers, you don't get the expiration date dropdown.

Not that I often send BRs, for the same reason I don't like the way briefs work so far. I don't want to have to send an actual offer most of the time, due to not enough info, but just a "maybe can do, more input please" message.

Both BRs and briefs should have 2 options, 1 in case you can actually send an offer, and 1 for just a message to signal general willingness to talk about details if they want to, or list your rates, or whatever applies.

As it is now, it seems that briefs are rather an even more obfuscated version of BRs. 

 

 

[donnovan86]

15 hours ago, anniejenkinson said:

So much detail in my first brief! It took me days to just wade through the information! Umm...

That's the general consensus, these offers lack information and because of that most of us decline them. You can't just send an offer sight unseen..

[tme2012]

I'm just sending an offer with a large amount of money and the phrasing that this is just a dummy offer, please contact me for details. but at the same time I feel like the people will see the high amount and be like "screw this guy." without reading further. I really don't get why this feature was rolled out. The client should be forced to fill out very specific info in order to send the brief.

[sarahkhan97]

On 3/9/2022 at 8:42 AM, filipdevaere said:

@thiagodematos

How did you contact the buyer?

Did you accept the brief?  I do not know how to contact the buyer without accepting the brief.

also I want to know, how we can send the inbox? both from the Laptop/cell-phone, rather that replying on the BR.

[newsmike]

OK, just got my first brief, and remembered this thread that @frank_d started.  It came in as flexible/flexible and I can't understand how in the world I should have been able to help him.  I just sent a standard offer for a VO of 150 words at $125, and he cancelled it right away.  Appears that it was another VO actor trying to get work from me. This feature is really poorly thought out.

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by newsmike

[frank_d]

The good news is that the team is hard at work to implement an intermediate step where you get to message the buyer before sending a custom offer.

Not sure if that defeats the purpose though, but it remains to be seen.

[kendal1747]

On 2/25/2022 at 3:40 PM, frank_d said:

Turning it off is also providing Fiverr with data. 🙂 

I checked the page that explains briefs and decided that I would let the sleeping volcano erupt on someone else and see what happens.