Briefs: Better now, or still painful?

[visualstudios]

21 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

I mean, every buyer sets their desired price and sellers also get to choose what briefs they can receive.. It all depends on the budget, you have to realize that not everyone needs $100 or $500 projects.

Of course, but that isn't related to what I said. If a buyer wants to make a brief for $100, or $10, they still could under my proposal - and they would be matched with sellers that actually want to sell for $100 or $10. That's good.

What would stop is people creating briefs for $1000, when they have no intention of spending that, and just want to be seen by more and better sellers.

I set a minimum price for the briefs I want to see. It's useless, because I still get a ton of garbage briefs, that just lie about it. This causes a lot of higher priced sellers, which in a lot of cases tend to me more serious, to simply deactivate the briefs feature altogether.  Just like buyer requests before - 99% of the sellers actively engaging with it weren't the best, since the best wouldn't waste their time there, they would get direct sales, and buyer requests wouldn't even be worth it. What this means is that any buyer hiring through buyer requests (and briefs, even if to a lesser extent) is more likely to get a bad seller, since the best ones, on average, are less likely to waste their time with that, because the quality deals just ain't there.

If buyers actually had to put the money they budget for up front, the situation would improve substantially.

Edited August 10, 2023 by visualstudios

[donnovan86]

15 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

What would stop is people creating briefs for $1000, when they have no intention of spending that, and just want to be seen by more and better sellers.

 

If I were a buyer, I wouldn't spend hundreds of dollars blindly. Even with the current brief system, you can easily talk with the person before accepting and see if they are a good fit. I can tell you one thing, a lot of people will stop sending briefs and I am not sure who, if any, would spend blindly hoping they have a good fit. Especially a business... That's the whole point of Fiverr, you have a large marketplace to choose from. And if someone is not a good fit for the brief, you don't have any money involved, you can find someone else. This suggestion would just make your brief a Buyer Request where it's thrown around to various sellers seeing if it will stick or not, and then refund the buyer if it doesn't work. Then why not bring buyer requests and provide people with the ability to bid on the project, so the paying buyer can pick whoever fits. 

Anyway, I am not here to argue. The brief system is much better than buyer requests in my opinion, and I generated a couple of sales from that myself. I don't rely on it though, I saw a few people that relied solely on briefs and when their BSR was lower, they were not making any sales. Briefs, just like Promoted Gigs are extra tools to generate a few sales, in my opinion. 

Whether it's a good idea or not, it's subjective, but I don't think Fiverr will spend a lot of time and effort on a system that requires constant refunds, especially since they focus on AI and better matching with NEO. At least that would be my opinion. But as we see, Fiverr is making a lot of changes and they bring new features we don't expect, like reviews for canceled orders or NEO. So who knows, really. 

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

If I were a buyer, I wouldn't spend hundreds of dollars blindly. Even with the current brief system, you can easily talk with the person before accepting and see if they are a good fit. I can tell you one thing, a lot of people will stop sending briefs and I am not sure who, if any, would spend blindly hoping they have a good fit.

You wouldn't be "spending blindly". If you didn't find the right freelancer for your brief, you could get your money back. You would still talk to them before accepting to move forward. It's exactly the same thing as placing an order - you also need to pay upfront, "blindly", before you get the work done. This would be no more risk whatsoever. Makes no difference.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by visualstudios

[donnovan86]

13 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

you could get your money back

I hate refunds and I am sure Fiverr hates refunds as well. The idea is to make money, not to take money and give it back.. It makes no business sense to me. Again, it's my personal opinion. A system based on refunds is not exactly a profitable one. 

 

14 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

This would be no more risk whatsoever.

It does because when you place an order, you choose who you are working with. Here you pay for a lottery. 

Again, I don't want to take the discussion any further, in my opinion Fiverr will never implement such a thing. The same with making people pay to create an account, it won't stop bad actors. And having buyers pay for a brief will just deter them from using the brief system, instead they will just pick manually and know they receive a refund and also review the seller even if the order gets canceled. Again, that's just me 🙂 

[visualstudios]

20 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

It does because when you place an order, you choose who you are working with. Here you pay for a lottery. 

I don't understand. No, you don't. You, by placing a brief, still get to chose who you'll work with. If you don't like any of the freelancers that "bid" on it, you cancel the brief and get your money back. Where's the lottery? You aren't actually paying to place a brief - you're only actually paying if it moves forward to an order, which you would pay for anyway. Otherwise, you get refunded.

The point is just proving you actually have the funds for the budget you claim to have, and are willing to spend it if there's a choice you like. If you decide you don't like any of the options, you don't move ahead, and get the money back. No lottery.

20 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

And having buyers pay for a brief will just deter them from using the brief system, instead they will just pick manually and know they receive a refund and also review the seller even if the order gets canceled.

And that would be much better. That's what we need - a way to deter non serious buyers from using the briefs section. Those can just contact freelancers directly, no harm done. Most of the buyers using briefs, shouldn't be allowed to  - they don't use it properly and they do deter good sellers from engaging with the system, which makes it worse for everyone. Only the serious people would use briefs under my proposal, whereas now most buyers using briefs are not serious. This would be win win.

Edited August 10, 2023 by visualstudios

[donnovan86]

7 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

you cancel the brief and get your money back. Where's the lottery? 

You expect Fiverr to match you with someone that meets your preferences = lottery, because there's no guarantee they will. And you pay for that. Sure, you get a refund, but Fiverr doesn't offer refunds to the payment provider, instead they give you Fiverr credit, which would add yet another problem. 

As I said, a system based on refunds isn't something viable. It's much easier to just search yourself and not pay a dime. Again, I am not here to argue about this, clearly we have different opinions and that's fine. I don't think Fiverr will add such a system, they could ask sellers to pay when they register but they don't. So I don't see them creating a refund-based brief system when the current one is ok. 

Edited August 10, 2023 by donnovan86

[visualstudios]

6 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

You expect Fiverr to match you with someone that meets your preferences = lottery. And you pay for that.

You're not paying for that. You're paying for the order, if it moves forward. If it doesn't, you aren't paying. You're temporarily locking up funds that you intend on spending anyway, and that you can get back anytime you wish, if you don't want to move forward. That's not the same as paying.

Paying for briefs would be if you had to pay $x to use them, in addition to an order cost. Or if you had to pay $x to use them, if you ended up not going ahead with anyone by placing an order. What I propose would cost $0 extra for the buyer in the case they picked one of the sellers that apply, it would just be the order cost. And if they didn't like any of the sellers that apply, they would get the money back. So no, they aren't "paying for a lottery".

Edited August 10, 2023 by visualstudios

[visualstudios]

1 minute ago, donnovan86 said:

So I don't see them creating a refund-based brief system when the current one is ok. 

The current one is far from ok, that's the point. The current one is broken.

[veroalana]

3 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

I don't understand. No, you don't. You, by placing a brief, still get to chose who you'll work with. If you don't like any of them, you cancel the brief and get your money back. Where's the lottery?

Or you can use your credits in an order with a seller you choose on the marketplace, in case you as a buyer didn't find anyone with the brief. 

I think that briefs can have a very good place on the platform but it needs to be addressed from a different perspective. 

We can say that Upwork works mainly with briefs and of course, there are many jobs posted on the pool that are not serious at all, and you can see that through the history of the buyer and how they write. Maybe Fiverr can set a questionnaire for briefs so the buyer needs to explain his/her project in a very concise way. 

[visualstudios]

Just now, veroalana said:

Or you can use your credits in an order with a seller you choose on the marketplace, in case you as a buyer didn't find anyone with the brief. 

This could theoretically work, but would be more risky for buyers - what if there isn't anyone on the platform that can fit what they want? They would have the money locked up then, and that would make people afraid of buying in. My proposal (don't find what you like, get your money back no questions asked, since no work was done) is the most frictionless way to do it.

[ads_shanto007]

I believe the revival of buyer requests is essential to attract new work. Currently, established sellers are directly securing clients, leaving little room for acquiring fresh projects. Social media marketing efforts are proving ineffective, as potential clients primarily seek out sellers with established reviews. This presents a challenge for newcomers like us, as our presence tends to be overlooked.

[visualstudios]

26 minutes ago, ads_shanto007 said:

I believe the revival of buyer requests is essential to attract new work. Currently, established sellers are directly securing clients, leaving little room for acquiring fresh projects. Social media marketing efforts are proving ineffective, as potential clients primarily seek out sellers with established reviews. This presents a challenge for newcomers like us, as our presence tends to be overlooked.

But if buyer requests / briefs are attractive and get good buyers, the problem persists. If a new seller applies, and an established seller also applies, who do you think the buyer will pick?

[sadekmiah30]

briefs doesn't work properly. 😞

[ads_shanto007]

34 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

But if buyer requests / briefs are attractive and get good buyers, the problem persists. If a new seller applies, and an established seller also applies, who do you think the buyer will pick?

So what should we do?

[visualstudios]

10 minutes ago, ads_shanto007 said:

So what should we do?

Well, briefs and buyer requests aren't it for sure. What should someone starting on a platform do? Offer something different from what's already out there, or something competitive enough to compensate the lack of social proof and experience. If they can't do that, maybe do something else other than trying to get on a platform that has no place for them. It's just the reality of it.

If you want to start from zero in a place where people already have more experience, portfolio, clients and reviews than you, and you aren't better than them in some way, and there are already enough of those experienced people to take care of all the buyers, there's nothing you can do, you'll never get any clients, because there's no reason for them to go with the worse option. Usually what most people do is to try to compete on price, but at a certain point even that will not work, since there are already a lot of people with low prices and tons of reviews. That means the category is saturated. Supply and demand - if there's already enough supply for the existing demand, you shouldn't start in that field. It's full.

Of course, if someone is amazing at what they do, they can always start out from zero, and they'll beat the competition, even in a full field. But only 1% of people can be the 1%. Most people are not amazing, that's why amazing is amazing - because it's rare.

Edited August 10, 2023 by visualstudios

[ads_shanto007]

2 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Well, briefs and buyer requests aren't it for sure. What should someone start on a platform do? Offer something different from what's already out there, or something competitive enough to compensate the lack of social proof and experience. If they can't do that, maybe do something else other than trying to get on a platform that has no place for them. It's just the reality of it.

If you want to start from zero in a place where people already have more experience, portfolio, clients and reviews than you, and you aren't better than them in some way, and there are already enough of those experienced people to take care of all the buyers, there's nothing you can do, you'll never get any clients, because there's no reason for them to go with the worse option. Usually what most people do is to try to compete on price, but at a certain point even that will not work, since there are already a lot of people with low prices and tons of reviews. That means the category is saturated. Supply and demand - if there's already enough supply for the existing demand, you shouldn't start in that field. It's full.

I appreciate your insights, thank you! I look forward to returning one day with a top-rated badge on Fiverr.

[visualstudios]

Focus on skills, and market research. The more you know about what people are looking for and not a lot of people are offering (well), and the better you get at doing that... the better results you'll see.

[leannelrivers]

On 8/9/2023 at 7:44 PM, newsmike said:

Or is it still, "Hallo dear, give me job?"

The last three briefs I've received have been very obvious Telegram scams. I've had some success with briefs, but it seems it's the same swamp material delivered in a different way. 

[terrygrantvo]

5 hours ago, leannelrivers said:

The last three briefs I've received have been very obvious Telegram scams. I've had some success with briefs, but it seems it's the same swamp material delivered in a different way. 

You'd think by now they'd have set up some sort of alarm to flag words like 'telegram' or 'whatsapp'. I mean, come on - how many legitimate briefs could you be in danger of accidentally flagging by keeping an eye out for words like that?

 

I will say though, the brief I got yesterday was an all time fav - A guy is convinced someone is going around and talking dirt about him to colleagues and potential employers, and so he wanted to hire 'an actor' to make phone calls and pretend to be a potential employer who is checking references. He wants to see who says bad stuff about him. Unbelievable.

 

[vovkaslovesnyy]

6 hours ago, leannelrivers said:

The last three briefs I've received have been very obvious Telegram scams.

With attached images and links (so, there's no real content control). 

And this is my personal favorite:

[proconsultn2035]

I have never used briefs. Buyer request in past didn't generate much so I didn't rely on it. All my orders come from search and repeat buyers. 

[newsmike]

Hello Fiverr Briefs, 

I know you are probably busy playing poker with "Buyer Requests", but we have to talk. I recently switched you back on, figuring that maybe by now you had settled into your new gig and had learned the ropes, but sadly, to quote "Talking Heads", -- Same as it ever was!

My base charge is $120 for 150 words, with commercial usage rights that's $170. So thank you for the offer just now to do 2,000 words with commercial usage rights, not at the standard price of $1,650, but the snazzy offer of $12. 

I'm thinking that AI will be a lot like humans, some will be brilliant, while others will be the village idiot. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by newsmike

[visualstudios]

The same applies to video - buyer sets a $2000 budget, I get the brief because it's above my cut off, and then the brief text is asking for 100 YouTube videos within the budget.

Unfortunately, I don't see how they can totally fix that issue, as many verticals are not easily definable in terms of "cost per x". Maybe they could do it for writing and v/o, but for video it's not possible to make this system work. "Budget for 1 video", or "Budget per minute" are meaningless, those can be anything. I have, however, a couple ideas for improvements:

1) Separate buyers by levels, such as Fiverr does for sellers, and only match "pro briefs" with pro sellers, so we don't get hit with crazy budgets. Fiverr business should have been that, however I see a lot of buyers with the badge that are no better at all.

2) Allow us to filter briefs by average buyer spend (since we have that information with the seller plus analytics), instead of brief budget. That way a buyer can't just put a large budget on there just to be seen, he has to actually have spent money on the platform.

None of these are perfect solutions, and there would still be workarounds, but they would improve things. As things stand, though, briefs are only really interesting for low ticket sellers, or people just starting out that need to make their first sales. That means most experienced, high quality sellers that have good business volume won't engage with briefs, and that in turn means that brief using buyers will have a worse experience, on average.

Edited August 16, 2023 by visualstudios

[terrygrantvo]

51 minutes ago, newsmike said:

not at the standard price of $1,650, but the snazzy offer of $12. 

 

I got that one too. Hahaha.

[visualstudios]

54 minutes ago, newsmike said:

My base charge is $120 for 150 words, with commercial usage rights that's $170. So thank you for the offer just now to do 2,000 words with commercial usage rights, not at the standard price of $1,650, but the snazzy offer of $12. 

You shouldn't get any offers for $12, if your base charge is $120, you should set that as the minimum, and you'll only get shown briefs above that. Of course that doesn't fix the problem of people wanting 50k words for that minimum price, which is the real issue. There's no way to fix that.