Another golden goose quitting Fiverr. Is this a trend?

[williambryan392]

1 minute ago, visualstudios said:

It's the difference between being a logistics provider (like amazon) and a dropshipper. The first provides value. The second is just garbage.

You're not necessarily wrong. I could argue that the dropshipper is providing value because if they weren't they wouldn't make sales. They are getting the product visibility. 

Either way what's your goal..? Wanna make money? I think that's the brutal question you have to ask yourself.

I've been asking myself the same recently and I'm trying to decide what to do...

5 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

I don't even have enough clients to fill my schedule now, so that's a non factor. To scale, you need... scale

I price highly, and do the work myself. Like you @visualstudios. It's a good income (recent volatility aside), but I've plateaued.

I feel that what I'm offering at my price point is like a fine dining restaurant. I'm very proud of what I do, and like to think I provide a great experience. But like a fine dining restaurant, there's a limit to how much you can actually make, and I price a lot of people out of my services. I think you do the same. If you lowered your prices you'd fill your schedule quickly, and if you delegated you'd get more time back.

So the question I ask myself is should I be more like McDonalds and lower my prices.

Sure, it'll never be brilliant, it may only ever be a 3.5 or 4 out of 5 (google rating for e.g.), but McDonalds is a billion dollar business. I don't think there is one fine dining restaurant that is because it's just not scalable in the same way. I'd be less proud of my finished product, but I'd sure like the money! 

I guess the key is finding the middle ground.

 

[visualstudios]

9 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

Either way what's your goal..? Wanna make money? I think that's the brutal question you have to ask yourself.

I've been asking myself the same recently and I'm trying to decide what to do...

Of course, but then we get into imposter syndrome, which is already bad as is - if I was doing nothing, or something I don't respect (like shorts and tiktok and ugc, which I truly think are actively harming society and are a blight to the art of video editing in general), it would be even worse.

 

9 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

If you lowered your prices you'd fill your schedule quickly, and if you delegated you'd get more time back.

So the question I ask myself is should I be more like McDonalds and lower my prices.

Sure, it'll never be brilliant, it may only ever be a 3.5 or 4 out of 5 (google rating for e.g.), but McDonalds is a billion dollar business. I don't think there is one fine dining restaurant that is because it's just not scalable in the same way. I'd be less proud of my finished product, but I'd sure like the money! 

Outside of a platform like Fiverr, for sure. Here? Not so much, because I would be increasing risk immensely. Something I learned very fast was to vet heavily and up prices to get rid of nightmare clients, which can tank your business. McDonalds can make billions while being considered c**p, and having a 3 star average review. You can't make that here - here that means you'll go to zero, fast.

You can't be McDonalds here. Fiverr is the McDonalds. Look at their reviews (for the platform itself), they don't need to worry about having 4.7 average. They wish they could get 3, actually. It doesn't matter. They still grow.

We are just the burgers.

Edited May 1 by visualstudios

[williambryan392]

8 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Of course, but then we get into imposter syndrome,

This I completely get. But then I see people with half the knowledge/experience selling bad advice and making a fortune. I often say sometimes the most successful people are the most stupid, because they don't overthink, they just execute.

 

11 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Outside of a platform like Fiverr, for sure.

So do it! Test it! See what happens. We always say don't put your eggs in one basket. Growing in multiple places is a good thing to do.

 

12 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

You can't be McDonalds here. Fiverr is the McDonalds.

McDonalds is an extreme example, and probably a bad one for me to have used. My point is there are some sellers making a fortune through efficient methods and low pricing, and they don't have bad reviews. I always think if they can do it then why can't I. 

[visualstudios]

5 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

My point is there are some sellers making a fortune through efficient methods and low pricing, and they don't have bad reviews. I always think if they can do it then why can't I. 

That's the million dollar question. I have no idea, honestly. I've had people give me trouble and be extremely nitpicky with no reason, and then I look at other sellers delivering garbage with no issues. I don't get it.

[donnovan86]

2 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

My point is there are some sellers making a fortune through efficient methods and low pricing, and they don't have bad reviews. I always think if they can do it then why can't I. 

I think there was a logo seller that was touting here (on the forum) that he was making $32k a month. And he had low prices, around $20 or so at the time of that post, maybe less. However, he was also saying that he has quite a lot of people doing the work for him, so I doubt he was even working on any logos. But obviously, that person never mentioned any outsourcing on their profile, they just said "me", "I", etc. This kind of stuff is unfair towards sellers that work alone, there's no way you can deliver 1 article a minute or one logo a minute like that person did.

Yes, eventually he got banned/removed from the website years later. But I want to say that yes, there are people that found effective methods to outsource at a very cheap rate, and due to the volume, their reviews were very high even if there were plenty of unhappy customers. But when you have 100 reviews a day, bad reviews are easily pushed back. 

I think the new Success Score and recent changes made this type of stuff a lot harder, but there are still tons of people that outsource and barely do any work. They might have another side hustle and, if we are talking about the same golden goose, they even hire someone they trust/know to manage their account while they travel or do other things. 

As for a quick side not, @emmaki, we are in May and the price for Seller Plus Premium hasn't changed in the dashboard. Did you receive a reply from Fiverr regarding this? 

[visualstudios]

54 minutes ago, emmaki said:

This is the whole digital marketing hustle/influencer culture at the moment. In the quitting video, you can see it in action. She gives the basic strategy: as soon as you have a little experience, start selling digital products and influencing people. It's a modern-day pyramid scheme that requires a certain "cult of celebrity" to work, and, not to put to fine a point on it, requires a certain kind of personality and looks.

The thing that worries me is that generations of people are growing up believing that this is a viable career choice. It is, but it's like any other career that depends on fame and fortune. It's not one where just hard work will get you anywhere.

Yep. I'm not cut for that. There's a reason my name here is visual studios, and my profile picture is a logo. I don't want to show up. I don't want to be my business. I don't want personal branding. 

The "influencer lifestyle" is a cancer. Not everyone should be famous. Not everyone should need to be seen and known. Most people (me included) have nothing of interest to say to the world. We're all screwed.

[visualstudios]

Maybe I should start an anti-motivational channel, where I show on camera with a sock on my head and distorted voice and say stuff like "You're not special. Give up. You don't have the skills, nor the ability to even get them. The world doesn't care about you or your opinions. Get a normal job. The 1% is the 1% for a reason - because most can't be part of it, you included." 

Many more people need to hear that than the positive thinking and hustle scam they are all being bombarded with in social media 24/7.

Because at least it's true. But people don't want the truth. Truth doesn't sell.

Edited May 1 by visualstudios

[donnovan86]

2 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

I have no idea, honestly. I've had people give me trouble and be extremely nitpicky with no reason, and then I look at other sellers delivering garbage with no issues.

It depends on expectations. Some people charge very low and use AI for most of their work, so they can deliver fast. There are cases when buyers just don't care, if the price is low enough. However, there are also people that are nitpicky even at a low price. So it's more of a gamble in regards to who you are working with. For me, the most troublesome buyers are those that get hired by someone else and outsource to you. Those are the hardest people to work with, because they have to talk with their client, revert back to you, maybe they don't understand the exact changes, etc... and it leads to a lot of back and forth, not to mention wasted time. It does depend on the niche too.

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

It depends on expectations. Some people charge very low and use AI for most of their work, so they can deliver fast. There are cases when buyers just don't care, if the price is low enough. However, there are also people that are nitpicky even at a low price. So it's more of a gamble in regards to who you are working with. For me, the most troublesome buyers are those that get hired by someone else and outsource to you. Those are the hardest people to work with, because they have to talk with their client, revert back to you, maybe they don't understand the exact changes, etc... and it leads to a lot of back and forth, not to mention wasted time. It does depend on the niche too.

I had by far the most pita clients the lower my prices were. That's why I'm not willing to go back to that. The more the client is paying, the better they are to work with, on average. That's why I don't get the low price high volume sellers, how does that not turn into a nightmare for them?

[emmaki]

13 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Maybe I should start an anti-motivational channel, where I show on camera with a sock on my head and distorted voice and say stuff like "You're not special. Give up. You don't have the skills, nor the ability to even get them. The world doesn't care about you or your opinions. Get a normal job. The 1% is the 1% for a reason - because most can't be part of it, you included." 

Many more people need to hear that than the positive thinking and hustle scam they are all being bombarded with in social media 24/7.

Because at least it's true. But people don't want the truth. Truth doesn't sell.

I disagree with this. Everyone has something and the great disappointment with the modern education system around the world is that it does not prioritize finding that thing that any one individual has. The modern education system is, of course, a relic based on the needs of factory owners in the early 20th century; designed to bring up generations of obedient people who didn't question authority and who had some basic general knowledge. Yes, it has evolved since then, but only because higher education has become a cash cow for greedy elites. But that's another story. 

We all have something, and we should all be supported in finding that something. However, the world as it is today will never support this. It is governed by money and the need to feed into a system that works on money alone - breaking out of it is  very tough. 

In any case, the whole influencer thing, which is really how the social media/video thing works, is not,obviously, going to work for anyone. Not even micro-influencers. You need a certain skill set. Expertise is a minor thing you can add. We all know that anyone can fake expertise or borrow other people's expertise. The important thing is to sell the illusion and convince people, whether that's advertisers or your fawning audience. 

EDIT: I struggle to understand why this post was approved but my prior one, which said much the same thing albeit through the lens of social media's destruction of the younger generations minds didn't. I also struggle to see why these posts are somehow more approvable than the... 20-odd other posts I've made in this specific post that have been deleted? Or that the topic I made on this very topic prior to Smash was deleted? Help me to understand you and what you want, so I can post top-notch content, rather than just throwing words at a wall and wondering what's OK and what's not. 

You might want to fix that editing posts doesn't get the post re-hidden, too. Just sayin'. Seems like a loophole someone could take advantage of. Would you like me to look it up in the documentation for the forum software for you? It certainly helped with the double-posting bug, not that I heard a thanks for that, but I'll let it slide other than mentioning it lots of times. 

Edited May 1 by emmaki

[visualstudios]

14 minutes ago, emmaki said:

Everyone has something 

You should meet some people I've met lol.

In any case, I'm talking about something the world needs to know. It's simple mathematics. If 7 billion people need air time, there isn't enough in a lifetime for everyone. By definition, not everyone can have even 15 minutes of fame - warhol was wrong about that. Maybe a fraction of a second. Fact is, most people can't have a spot. For one person to have 1000 people following them, 1000 in 1001 people must be followers.

Edited May 1 by visualstudios

[smashradio]

2 hours ago, williambryan392 said:

Please go on! I'm curious re doing it cheaper (and still hiring capable people who can deliver a quality end result). How would you operate, if say you were a copywriter (and not just using AI)? Or use another freelance niche of course. Really curious!

To scale to 7 figures you have to delegate, and if you can pretty much disconnect yourself from the business then you can protect your mental health to a degree. Not saying you're wrong.

Think it's only increasing in the world of property owners and business owners/CEOs. A million used to be considered a crazy amount of money when I was growing up, kinda like a 6 figure salary. Nowadays less so. Although I still think it's a lot of money!

Scaling can be tough. But I also know freelancers who charge $20K for a project that you or I would typically quote at $2,000, simply because they've positioned themselves as the go-to option for ultra high net worth clients or Fortune 500 companies, dealing mostly with top-tier professionals in their industries. If a consultant successfully manages to demonstrate value though price alone, they can easily command such fees for basic work. Take the case where Norway's TV2 shelled out $2.7 million for a new logo that nobody liked.

They could have gone on Fiverr and would probably get a better logo for 200 bucks. But they didn't, because such companies will hire a consultant instead. Preferably someone charging millions. It doesn't matter if the logo is ugly to them. It was probably concocted by some "modern consultant" lounging on their skinny, pretentious Scandinavian designer chair, churning out lousy million-dollar ideas all day long.

So, even if you’re not very talented, you can still charge exorbitant rates, and it seems the higher your rates, the larger the clients you attract. If you want to scale, don’t do it by hiring a bunch of people at $10K a year. Instead, just charge $10K to show up (or don't show up at all, and call it a "part of your process".)

The small minority who makes it to this point, did it thanks to:

 

 

[visualstudios]

3 minutes ago, smashradio said:

If you want to scale, don’t do it by hiring a bunch of people at $10K a year. Instead, just charge $10K to show up (or don't show up at all, and call it a "part of your process".)

 

That sounds great, but I'm having trouble getting anyone to bite at those prices.

And my chair is scandinavian btw, but I don't think IKEA counts as pretentious enough.

Edited May 1 by visualstudios

[smashradio]

4 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

That sounds great, but I'm having trouble getting anyone to bite at those prices.

Have you tried it? I mean, have you actually created an artsy website filled with ample whitespace, bought an unattractive Scandinavian chair crafted from organic wool and reclaimed mahogany, dressed like you're about to strut down a catwalk, and then explained your "creative process" to a high-profile CEO? How you wander through the woods collecting sticks that spark your ideas as you inhale the earthy air and let the essence of design flow through you? Even better, bring a touch of the forest into their office and insist on sitting on the floor barefoot during meetings. Then, calmly inform them that your time is worth millions per hour, because people will connect deeply with the client’s brand new story (not video, story, that’s crucial!).

Edited May 1 by smashradio

[visualstudios]

1 minute ago, smashradio said:

and then explained your "creative process" to a high-profile CEO?

I don't have access to high profile CEO's, unfortunately.

I could do the rest easily, and I think I would be great at it, actually.

[smashradio]

Just now, visualstudios said:

I don't have access to high profile CEO's, unfortunately.

I could do the rest easily, and I think I would be great at it, actually.

Then go for it. The trick is to make it appear as if you’re the type regularly hired by CEOs. It doesn’t really matter if you’re actually well-connected, but you must make them believe you are. After that, all you need is some sheer f**** hubris. I once had a client who needed a more complex web design project than I was prepared to handle, so I reached out to a friend who owns an agency to see if they could take it on. It turned out they wouldn’t even consider a project for less than $500K, simply because price was their main status symbol.

[emmaki]

Just now, smashradio said:

Then go for it. The trick is to make it appear as if you’re the type regularly hired by CEOs. It doesn’t really matter if you’re actually well-connected, but you must make them believe you are. After that, all you need is some sheer f**** hubris. I once had a client who needed a more complex web design project than I was prepared to handle, so I reached out to a friend who owns an agency to see if they could take it on. It turned out they wouldn’t even consider a project for less than $500K, simply because price was their main status symbol.

This is exactly what scammers do. They pretend. 

It's all a con trick. Con, of course, being short for  confidence. Smoke and mirrors...

[visualstudios]

4 minutes ago, smashradio said:

if you’re actually well-connected, but you must make them believe you are. After that, all you need is some sheer f**** hubris. I once had a client who needed a more complex web design project than I was prepared to handle, so I reached out to a friend who owns an agency to see if they could take it on. It turned out they wouldn’t even consider a project for less than $500K, simply because price was their main status symbol.

You do need the contacts though. I can make a website stating just that, but I'll get zero contacts, and I need to pay rent. For me not to consider a project for less than $500k, I must not need money under $500k. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

[smashradio]

3 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

You do need the contacts though. I can make a website stating just that, but I'll get zero contacts, and I need to pay rent. For me not to consider a project for less than $500k, I must not need money under $500k. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

You make connections by attending events. For example, volunteer to produce videos for a charity, pro bono. Choose a reputable charity, ideally one managed by influential people, and explain that observing and learning how they operate at fundraisers is part of your process. Just like that, you’re in. Now start shaking hands, hand out your brand new, organic, recycled, ultra-thick embossed business cards that feature just your name, no contact info or anything else. Tell people you specialize in creating exclusive videos for exclusive clients. Don't forget to mention that you're there to get a feel for the vibe of a project you're working on for the charity.

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, smashradio said:

You make connections by attending events. For example, volunteer to produce videos for a charity, pro bono. Choose a reputable charity, ideally one managed by influential people, and explain that observing and learning how they operate at fundraisers is part of your process. Just like that, you’re in. Now start shaking hands, hand out your brand new, organic, recycled, ultra-thick embossed business cards that feature just your name, no contact info or anything else. Tell people you specialize in creating exclusive videos for exclusive clients. Don't forget to mention that you're there to get a feel for the vibe of a project you're working on for the charity.

Well, I live in the wrong place, then. Local market is a zero. No way to attend events that have any sort of influential / budget having people here.

I hear that works great in the US. Here there's nothing, and what there is is totally controlled. People in power will get their nephew to do it anyway. Portugal = extreme nepotism + no money whatsoever.

Edited May 1 by visualstudios

[smashradio]

Oh, and while you’re in the middle of a conversation with an important CEO at the event, interrupt them mid-sentence and say, “Excuse me, I need to go say hello to X,” making X the person in charge of the charity. Your time is too valuable to stay in one spot for too long.

[smashradio]

1 minute ago, visualstudios said:

Well, I live in the wrong place, then. Local market is a zero. No way to attend events that have any sort of influential / budget having people here.

I hear that works great in the US. Here there's nothing, and what there is is totally controlled. People in power will get their nephew to do it anyway. Portugal = extreme nepotism + no money whatsoever.

Perhaps. Spain is similar, but I've dined with top diplomats thanks to that technique, and I just do it for fun, not because I want to work with any of them. 

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, smashradio said:

Spain is similar,

Spain is just Portugal but richer.

[smashradio]

Just now, visualstudios said:

Spain is just Portugal but richer.

Do you live there "by choice", or are you originally from Portugal? 

[visualstudios]

Unfortunately I'm Portuguese. It would be much better to live here by choice - foreigners are treated much better (tax-wise). Pretty great country to come and live in. Terrible country to be a native of.