how we can improve ourselves

[vickieito]

1 hour ago, jonbaas said:

I apologize if my original inquiry caused concern.

I thought it was a valid point, @jonbaas!

Now Yoav has a proper "Fiverr staff" label, which will hopefully make it easier for him to get the feedback he's looking for. ☺️

[Yoav.M]

@frank_d& @vickieitothanks so much for your support, guidance and patience, I appreciate it.

And to everyone here, I apologize if you felt hurt or distressed by my post (FYI - @jonbaas, @maitasun, @terrygrantvo, @vibronx, @mabelma , @newsage).

I'm Fiverr's Education and Engagement manager for sellers, and my only wish is to help you on the platform and ease your experience with us.

Therefore, if you have any suggestions, ideas, requests for better or new educational assets - please let me know.

Yoav

Edited February 16, 2023 by editors_picks

[mabelma]

Here are the three main points I am currently considering. I am sure with more time I can give even more feedback on the platform.

1- Buyer Requests: In all honesty, I think the fact that Fiverr took away the buyer request tab was a huge mistake. I believe that it was a great way for sellers to get in touch with possible buyers that might want their services and I think the biggest issue there was with it was that sellers were actually able to post requests on there instead of limiting it only to buyers. This made the buyer request page crowded with hundreds of people posting messages like "Hire me" instead of buyers actually looking for services. If instead of disabling the page Fiverr made it so that only buyers could post on there, things would have been that much better for everyone. The current system of receiving offers is somewhat limiting as not everyone knows what they want and matching possible sellers with someone that doesn't know what they want is a hard task.

2- Seller Education and Quality: I think sellers on Fiverr have a bad reputation. Many outsiders think that Fiverr is filled with scammers and this gives an overall bad taste to all possible marketing that can be done about Fiverr, not just by Fiverr themselves but also by independent freelancers like myself trying to grow my business through my own means of marketing. I am of the opinion that this can be solved by educating sellers in each category so that they can be more competent in delivering quality work. The content should be freely available and it should include category-specific experts as well as different types of content like videos, blogs, ebooks, and guides. It is also important to use the talent inside Fiverr instead of hiring outside experts that do not know the way Fiverr works, for this it would be ideal if you hired top-rated sellers to be the ones to create this content, and of course, reward them with official orders and reviews for the content on their gigs. This will give them even more orders in the long run as it will increase their overall standing as not only giving members of the community but also as worthy sellers considering that Fiverr officially hired them to create the content.

3- Social Media Marketing: My last point comes in terms of social media marketing. The overall presence of Fiverr is just good. Let us consider the official Fiverr Instagram page. With over 517K followers, Fiverr is averaging less than 1k likes per post, and with so many great talents on their platform, they are not making use of the wonderful people on the platform to create as compelling, viral content as they could. I also think they could do way better in terms of highlighting users so that they can reach bigger audiences and grow their business through those sorts of promotions. The Fiverr marketing mail newsletter was a wonderful thing back in the day, but it failed in regards to actually showing buyers why they would want those services being advertised. Instead of simply showing possible services, they should do their best to create lists of the top 10 sellers in each category, or top 10 sellers by styles, and make that readily available through email, social media, and on their blogs, perhaps even have a weekly show on Youtube and TikTok where they showcase the amazing talents of the community. I personally want to start doing this by hiring different artists to create fan art of my characters in order to greater grow their exposure through youtube videos, but this isn't something we should be having to do out of our own pockets. It should be something Fiverr already those, or at the very least allows people like myself and many other creators to apply for credit on the platform to get these types of videos done which will exponentially grow the platform. I've seen several videos by big YouTubers being sponsored by Fiverr, but I don't think this is the only way to go, instead of hiring big YouTubers and media influencers they should be giving those opportunities to their own creators on the platform and using their services to grow the business. It's not an either-or thing, but a both. There should be more resources for people looking to not only grow their own gigs but looking to grow other people as well. There should also be promotional material for buyers that want to give their sellers more exposure. Fiverr does a great job in a bunch of places, but it's lacking in terms of its own community and helping them grow first and foremost. Sellers and their knowledge should be the first thing Fiverr focuses on growing because, without amazing sellers on the platform, no one will be willing to invest in it, much less actually purchase services from Fiverr. The goal is to showcase, nurture and enrich the talents of everyone on Fiverr, and then expand outwards toward the rest of the internet. Great sellers will bring great buyers.

Right now these are my three major ideas/points of concern. Hope they help out. 

[imagination7413]

I'll echo a lot of what was brought up in @frank_d's topic, rather than reposting:

https://community.fiverr.com/forums/topic/277979-a-personal-milestone…/

As far as education and educating goes, I've got nothing yet, beyond a better onboarding process for new users. What that looks like, I don't know yet.

[vickiespencer]

50 minutes ago, mabelma said:

If instead of disabling the page Fiverr made it so that only buyers could post on there, things would have been that much better for everyone.

How would Fiverr keep track of who is a buyer and who is a seller? Currently I am both.

 

 

51 minutes ago, mabelma said:

The current system of receiving offers is somewhat limiting as not everyone knows what they want and matching possible sellers with someone that doesn't know what they want is a hard task.

I agree, I turned off briefs because too many of the buyers wanted several services all rolled into one brief. 

 

[mabelma]

52 minutes ago, vickiespencer said:

How would Fiverr keep track of who is a buyer and who is a seller? Currently I am both.

Good question, I too am both. Maybe it could be based on how many orders you've placed. Many of the buyer requests made by sellers, where made by sellers with less than 10 orders, as well as no buys at all. So maybe it could be something like you have to have at least 10 bought orders to post a buyer request. Also, a lot of the sellers with orders know enough to only answer requests instead of posting, so maybe it could work for both sellers and buyers if that was the minimum, that way you don't have to track who is what, rather than their experience with the platform. Experienced users wouldn't post buyer requests if they weren't looking to buy anything. 

[grayprogrammerz]

Just curious, imagine if there were no badges and roles were anonymous.

then may be, we start to respect humans, than badges ?

then we may discuss objectives straightly, than who's author, what their background, how they speak...
 

For improving, I believe fiverr short info tips on analytics are worthful. Its best education I ever found on fiverr.

Like they say:

Following these increased sales a lot. So maybe you can increase no. of helpful tips ? on inbox, order page etc ?
That way freelancer can be more successful when they are guided well.

 

Quote

- Buyer Requests: In all honesty, I think the fact that Fiverr took away the buyer request tab was a huge mistake.

Hail Buyer Requests ! Say no to briefs. Very disappointing results for me as well. Same like mentioned on original post.

Edited February 20, 2023 by grayprogrammerz

[newsage]

On 2/16/2023 at 12:31 PM, mabelma said:

I think sellers on Fiverr have a bad reputation.

I don't think this is just Fiverr, but freelance boards in general.

Quote

It is also important to use the talent inside Fiverr instead of hiring outside experts that do not know the way Fiverr works, for this it would be ideal if you hired top-rated sellers to be the ones to create this content, and of course, reward them with official orders and reviews for the content on their gigs.

I would agree but the man-power requirements of vetting tons of posts would be tremendous. I do agree about using the internal work pool of freelancers to put the stuff together, but it is still a huge project. I think a 'job and review' by Fiverr would go a long way to boosting some of the newbies credibility.

In my mind this needs to be a semi-proactive thing from the sellers. In order to protect against scammers they would need to:

1. Not make any clear instructions on the process.
2. Make it appear random.
3. Have some form a selection process
4. Promoting specific accounts on their social media would be more than enough compensation for a freelancer, imo.

I still think that the problem there is the liability aspect for Fiverr, but I would love to see it happen. I just don't think they can do it legally speaking.

[mabelma]

30 minutes ago, newsage said:

I don't think this is just Fiverr, but freelance boards in general.

I would agree but the man-power requirements of vetting tons of posts would be tremendous. I do agree about using the internal work pool of freelancers to put the stuff together, but it is still a huge project. I think a 'job and review' by Fiverr would go a long way to boosting some of the newbies credibility.

In my mind this needs to be a semi-proactive thing from the sellers. In order to protect against scammers they would need to:

1. Not make any clear instructions on the process.
2. Make it appear random.
3. Have some form a selection process
4. Promoting specific accounts on their social media would be more than enough compensation for a freelancer, imo.

I still think that the problem there is the liability aspect for Fiverr, but I would love to see it happen. I just don't think they can do it legally speaking.

I can only speak in regard to my experience promoting my services and my knowledge as a Fiverr freelancer. That being said, you can look at the usual replies Fiverr Twitter posts get. They are usually either complaint from freelancers that got their accounts deleted, or straight-up people saying Fiverr freelancers are a scam. I think this concerns the lack of quality sellers on the platform. I would venture to say that out of 10 Freelancers at least 4 are newbies (nothing bad about that they are learning and growing through the work, which is something I did myself as well. 4 are straight-up scammers (people stealing content and posting as their own, tracing images or advertising something that isn't what they are actually delivering) and then 2 are actual professionals. It's a mixed bag of people, perhaps a good way to deal with this and drive further traffic would be to add some sort of price milestone, maybe something like if you're a level 1 seller you can only sell your services for less than $50, and if you're Level 2 or TRS you can go above $50. With a tweak of how the levels are put together, we could make it so that an approved portfolio for example gives you some exp points towards getting Level 2, then the orders, the client reviews, the money made, and the time spent on the platform as well. This way it's focused more on your actual experience as a freelancer rather than based on how many orders you are able to get regardless of if you're doing good work or if you're stealing it. 

I also don't think it should be a human effort, but rather a system of requirements you must complete in order to become an actual seller on the platform and stay as a seller, something to keep the quality of the sellers up rather than the amount of them. Also, I like the idea of only allowing Level 2 and up sellers to sell their services at higher prices because not only does it encourage freelancers to do more and better work to reach higher levels, but it gives buyers the chance to interact with both the pros and the newbies in a way they see fit, for example, if I want to do a large number of orders for a project with different artists, it would be most beneficial for me to pick a lot of newbies that can get the work done for a smaller budget, while if I only need one person to really come through and do an amazing work on something, I can purchase from the pro pool and devote my whole budget on that one creator that is already proven to deliver outstanding results.

That being said, a lot of this is already in place on Fiverr, just a couple more tweaks here and there so we can clean up scammers and raise the reputation of Fiverr as a whole thus driving even more traffic to the platform.

In regards to Fiverr using their pool of freelancers to create their content, I don't think there is any liability on themselves as long as they purchase the appropriate services along with the correct copyright extras some sellers have. I mean if other businesses are using them without liability issues then why would it be any different for Fiverr? That being said, I strongly disagree that promotion is enough compensation. Freelancers don't pay their bills with promotion, they need hard cash to do that, and paying them for their services is the best way to not get into any legal trouble because once money is exchanged then the delivered product becomes work for hire and in most cases remains the sole property of the buyer, which is extra incentive for Fiverr to pay their pool of Freelancers. Promotion would be an added benefit for Fiverr, not for the freelancer because even though it would mean more orders for the freelancer in the long run which of course is a huge help; Fiverr still makes money from those extra orders, while the seller has to work on the new orders, Fiverr simply collects the platform use charges they normally get, so their 20% is guaranteed whether they promote or don't the sellers, however by promoting the sellers they are ensuring that those orders come through at higher quantities, whereas any given freelancer only has so much pull by themselves. Here paying the freelancers and hiring form the pool of Freelancers is a win-win situation for Fiverr and the freelancers. They used to do it back in the day, and I'm sure they are still doing it but I hardly see them hiring intermediate sellers anymore, mostly just pros. Which of course makes sense, but you know taking a chance once in a while with other sellers with less orders will keep things fair, competitive and push all freelancers to raise their standards if they want to be noticed by Fiverr themselves for those extra promotional orders and boost of sales by appearing on their marketing channels. 

[ktekashi]

"How can we improve ourselves?"

For one, stop nickle & diming your sellers. I understand taking a fee for introducing us to buyers, but taking 20% of any tips they leave as well is just theft. No other platform I currently work thru does this. It makes me reconsider using this platform in the future. It's not often that people leave tips for exceptional work in this field. When they do though, you had no part in that and have no right to take a percent either. I was shocked and disgusted when I saw this on my last job. It was only a $10 tip, but that full $10 should go to the seller. 

[grayprogrammerz]

16 hours ago, ktekashi said:

"How can we improve ourselves?"

For one, stop nickle & diming your sellers. I understand taking a fee for introducing us to buyers, but taking 20% of any tips they leave as well is just theft. No other platform I currently work thru does this. It makes me reconsider using this platform in the future. It's not often that people leave tips for exceptional work in this field. When they do though, you had no part in that and have no right to take a percent either. I was shocked and disgusted when I saw this on my last job. It was only a $10 tip, but that full $10 should go to the seller. 

Old question. Short answer: It prevent abuse. Imagine folk order $5. Tip $100. Then fiverr get no commission.

[mabelma]

On 2/21/2023 at 9:09 AM, grayprogrammerz said:

Old question. Short answer: It prevent abuse. Imagine folk order $5. Tip $100. Then fiverr get no commission.

Hadn't seen it this way before but that makes sense. 

[Guest dmc_art]

Well, we can try to locate our errors for a start. The private feedbacks are a total secret, so the only leads about how to improve and what changes we need to do in order to provide better service/communication is hidden. If you want to figure it out by yourself, I wish you good luck.

[grayprogrammerz]

19 minutes ago, dmc_art said:

Well, we can try to locate our errors for a start. The private feedbacks are a total secret, so the only leads about how to improve and what changes we need to do in order to provide better service/communication is hidden. If you want to figure it out by yourself, I wish you good luck.

I don't think its hidden. The concerns raised by buyer in chat are almost same as in reviews. Most of times we know what client may have wrote.

[Guest dmc_art]

Well, we can try to locate our errors for a start. The private feedbacks are a total secret, so the only leads about how to improve and what change

54 minutes ago, grayprogrammerz said:

I don't think its hidden. The concerns raised by buyer in chat are almost same as in reviews. Most of times we know what client may have wrote.

It is hidden. No seller has access to the private feedbacks, and no - buyers may act in one way, and write something completely else in their feedback. Because of buyers not being honest, they invented the private feedback in first place.

[mabelma]

Perhaps a good way to both not see what they've written but still know what we need to change is by receiving a sort of monthly evaluation based on private feedback. Like you could see how many stars you've got on average on each specific category and if you fall short from the max you will be able to know what to improve without invading the buyers privacy. 

[newsage]

On 2/20/2023 at 10:28 AM, mabelma said:

I can only speak in regard to my experience promoting my services and my knowledge as a Fiverr freelancer. That being said, you can look at the usual replies Fiverr Twitter posts get. They are usually either complaint from freelancers that got their accounts deleted, or straight-up people saying Fiverr freelancers are a scam. I think this concerns the lack of quality sellers on the platform. I would venture to say that out of 10 Freelancers at least 4 are newbies (nothing bad about that they are learning and growing through the work, which is something I did myself as well. 4 are straight-up scammers (people stealing content and posting as their own, tracing images or advertising something that isn't what they are actually delivering) and then 2 are actual professionals. It's a mixed bag of people, perhaps a good way to deal with this and drive further traffic would be to add some sort of price milestone, maybe something like if you're a level 1 seller you can only sell your services for less than $50, and if you're Level 2 or TRS you can go above $50. With a tweak of how the levels are put together, we could make it so that an approved portfolio for example gives you some exp points towards getting Level 2, then the orders, the client reviews, the money made, and the time spent on the platform as well. This way it's focused more on your actual experience as a freelancer rather than based on how many orders you are able to get regardless of if you're doing good work or if you're stealing it. 

I also don't think it should be a human effort, but rather a system of requirements you must complete in order to become an actual seller on the platform and stay as a seller, something to keep the quality of the sellers up rather than the amount of them. Also, I like the idea of only allowing Level 2 and up sellers to sell their services at higher prices because not only does it encourage freelancers to do more and better work to reach higher levels, but it gives buyers the chance to interact with both the pros and the newbies in a way they see fit, for example, if I want to do a large number of orders for a project with different artists, it would be most beneficial for me to pick a lot of newbies that can get the work done for a smaller budget, while if I only need one person to really come through and do an amazing work on something, I can purchase from the pro pool and devote my whole budget on that one creator that is already proven to deliver outstanding results.

That being said, a lot of this is already in place on Fiverr, just a couple more tweaks here and there so we can clean up scammers and raise the reputation of Fiverr as a whole thus driving even more traffic to the platform.

In regards to Fiverr using their pool of freelancers to create their content, I don't think there is any liability on themselves as long as they purchase the appropriate services along with the correct copyright extras some sellers have. I mean if other businesses are using them without liability issues then why would it be any different for Fiverr? That being said, I strongly disagree that promotion is enough compensation. Freelancers don't pay their bills with promotion, they need hard cash to do that, and paying them for their services is the best way to not get into any legal trouble because once money is exchanged then the delivered product becomes work for hire and in most cases remains the sole property of the buyer, which is extra incentive for Fiverr to pay their pool of Freelancers. Promotion would be an added benefit for Fiverr, not for the freelancer because even though it would mean more orders for the freelancer in the long run which of course is a huge help; Fiverr still makes money from those extra orders, while the seller has to work on the new orders, Fiverr simply collects the platform use charges they normally get, so their 20% is guaranteed whether they promote or don't the sellers, however by promoting the sellers they are ensuring that those orders come through at higher quantities, whereas any given freelancer only has so much pull by themselves. Here paying the freelancers and hiring form the pool of Freelancers is a win-win situation for Fiverr and the freelancers. They used to do it back in the day, and I'm sure they are still doing it but I hardly see them hiring intermediate sellers anymore, mostly just pros. Which of course makes sense, but you know taking a chance once in a while with other sellers with less orders will keep things fair, competitive and push all freelancers to raise their standards if they want to be noticed by Fiverr themselves for those extra promotional orders and boost of sales by appearing on their marketing channels. 

Yeah, a bunch of people posting negative stuff on Twitter is probably SOP for the different freelance websites. It is easy to create something that can spam a bunch of 'lifelike' complaints.

I am not sure how it is 'easy' to get rid of scammers.

I would point out that my 'promotion as compensation' is the only 'easy' solution to dealing with scammers.

Consider:
I make a new account.

Fiverr reaches out to me with a job. (Note that the conditions for what they look for aren't transparent. So it isn't easy for scammers to figure out the conditions)

They offer me a job. I do the job. If they like the job, they do a free promotional gig for me.

I think that the issue is that you are too used to being on Fiverr. I am a newbie and no one really knows if I am 'real' person or a scammer. I have clients that pay me very well to edit their books, but because that is all word of mouth it doesn't help me use a job board to find new clients. I get seven gigs on Fiverr. Every client that has hired me has liked the results, but it is always small fry offers.

Honestly, I would rather do ten 'free' gigs to earn some credibility real fast than to be forced to negotiate 5-20 dollar.

This applies to other sites and not just Fiverr, there is absolutely nothing more annoying that putting up with someone who is trying to negotiate me from 20 dollars to 19 dollars. I have better things to do than argue over pocket change.

[mabelma]

On 2/27/2023 at 2:35 PM, newsage said:

Yeah, a bunch of people posting negative stuff on Twitter is probably SOP for the different freelance websites. It is easy to create something that can spam a bunch of 'lifelike' complaints.

I am not sure how it is 'easy' to get rid of scammers.

I would point out that my 'promotion as compensation' is the only 'easy' solution to dealing with scammers.

Consider:
I make a new account.

Fiverr reaches out to me with a job. (Note that the conditions for what they look for aren't transparent. So it isn't easy for scammers to figure out the conditions)

They offer me a job. I do the job. If they like the job, they do a free promotional gig for me.

I think that the issue is that you are too used to being on Fiverr. I am a newbie and no one really knows if I am 'real' person or a scammer. I have clients that pay me very well to edit their books, but because that is all word of mouth it doesn't help me use a job board to find new clients. I get seven gigs on Fiverr. Every client that has hired me has liked the results, but it is always small fry offers.

Honestly, I would rather do ten 'free' gigs to earn some credibility real fast than to be forced to negotiate 5-20 dollar.

This applies to other sites and not just Fiverr, there is absolutely nothing more annoying that putting up with someone who is trying to negotiate me from 20 dollars to 19 dollars. I have better things to do than argue over pocket change.

I agree with your last point on arguing about pocket change. Most times clients that argue over little things like that end up being really hard to work with and one does best to just pass them on to someone else. Speaking of, perhaps a better way is to use the worth of mouth to our advantage and create a network of professionals in our individual fields that we can reference whenever we either don't want to take a job or can't take a job. Giving those opportunities to other people we know will deliver a high quality work will work far better than free gigs in my opinion, and there is added value to being recommended by another seller that almost always ensures the final sale.

[mandyzines]

On 2/14/2023 at 2:30 AM, Yoav.M said:

Hi everyone, as a Fiverr team representative who want to know how we can improve ourselves and offer new educational tools that will benefit you more with our platform, may I please ask if you are a member of our competing platforms and would be willing to share on educational assets you receive from them (webinars / courses / e-learnings / etc.)? 

I'm on competing platforms but they don't offer education that's specific to the service I offer. I haven't taken the one course on Fiverr that applies to my service because I was in an academy with multiple weekly classes specific to it--so it was far more in-depth and interactive. Now I am getting one-on-one weekly coaching with someone who resonates well with me and whose professional background is aligned with the niches I have mid and long-term goals to get into.