My first 101 orders, what I think/learned so far

[dimipapa]

Joined fiverr I guess pretty early after it’s creation without realizing it. I was planning to buy some services if I could to help me with internet marketing stuff, though I could never turn a profit and gave up on that.



A couple years after that I thought I would try selling. I was getting somewhat into special FX programs along with my video editing skills and so tried creating video intros. Tried quite a few, a couple of them I’m pretty happy with even today. Spent many hours crafting them hoping to create something I could simply sell, change some text and boom, easy peasy. Did not quite work out that way, actually I only got one sale. I tried I really did, and there are lots of people who sell intros and sell lots of the same one, but it’s got to be one of the most crowded markets on fiverr. It’s full of copy cats and only the best of the best intros make it through the noise. So I gave after up several months.



Last September I got real sick, spent a couple weeks in the hospital and then couldn’t work for months. My rent alone was 600 and I was only making slightly less than 800 on short term disability with very little money left in savings due to having recently moved and gone through several financial cataclysms. OK at this point this probably sounds like ad copy for a make money product “and now I’m dining on lobster and driving ferrari’s”. OK no, not at all. The circumstances were bad is all I’m trying to say, hell they are still bad I’m not gonna lie. But this was the thrust behind me giving fiverr another try.



[Round 3, FIGHT!]



I tried making another Intro. It was POV, and was supposed to be a creature under water. The creature would move forward and text would appear, I thought it was pretty darn cool, but the fiverr community was again “No Deal!” when it came to sales. Here is the intro well, minus the text if you’re curious.

So as a hail mary I tried one more gig, not an intro, just my service as a video editor. I didn’t expect anything to be perfectly honest but the next day I had an order, and then another, and then another. I wanted to do a good job for people while selling for only $5 always but doing everything I could for every video. I remember one early video took me like 6 hours with very complicated editing and creating custom particle effects. It quickly got to the point where I was literally editing for the whole day while making peanuts. I wasn’t complaining, it was nice to have something to do but I could barely get the videos done on time and there was no way I could do this much for everyone once I started working again.



I reached out to the fiverr community forum for advice and got some, especially from landongrace, definitely check out his gigs, especially if you need any media/editing/creating/voice stuff.



https://www.fiverr.com/landongrace



I had to raise my delivery time, I had to raise my prices. Business definitely slowed down a lot, I would say by 75% but I was able to keep up with it even when I started working again In late november. I believe that there is a large segment of fiverr customers that will simply not pay more than the basic gig ever. That’s their right of course, if you look hard enough and long enough you could probably find someone who for a least a while be able to give them what they want for the lowest price possible. Since I couldn’t compete for the lowest price possible I tried to compete by offering value. Sure you may pay a little more if you go with me, but you’ll get a better result and reasonably fast. Things equalized out, former clients and new were willing to pay more for certain types or amounts of editing work. And it has been fairly consistent. Course there was one point I went two weeks without a single order. It’s up and down. I’m not making crazy money, I’ll tell you I make about $200 dollars a month give or take on fiverr. It’s not a huge amount but it’s been a not insignificant boost to my income. I think one of the great things about fiverr though is the traffic is expertly targeted and I’m getting that result while my gig only receiving about 10-15 views a day. This is good because it means there is a slice of the pie for anyone who wants it really and all you need to do if get those few people who visit your gig page to want to order from you.



Working on fiverr has increased my confidence in my own video editing abilities. I see more earning potential on fiverr and I’m also looking for editing work elsewhere. I would love to edit full time and not have to slave away overnight in a bakery, it’s honorable work but your body just starts breaking down after doing it for a while. Probably the best thing that fiverr has done for me is simply show me that it’s possible to do something else, even for me. And if my pessimistic, lethargic, foolish self can think it possible, so should you.



Thanks for reading



Dimitrios

[ww_stashka]

A very honest post. Good luck!

[landongrace]

Great to see you. It has been great watching your journey. I think focusing on products that people are looking for is a big part of it. I’ve been working with audio and video for 20 years, but I didn’t know what white board videos were until I saw them selling on Fiverr. I then evaluated what people were needing and developed the gig. As video producers, we have to be careful with what we offer. Several changes in a video order can add hours to the work. It has to be a simple work flow and has to have a very predictable outcome. If the gig is too creative, you can suffer in the ratings because the customer doesn’t have a clear idea of what you are providing.



I really believe the gig can be designed where only 20% of the people order the basic $5.00 gig. The other 80% place a larger order. Maybe because of the word count or the fact that they needed voice over, etc. Even if a new gig is an awesome idea, I can’t consider offering it if it is not scale-able to the $25-$50 range.



In my experience, most of the customers on Fiverr have been comfortable with $50.00-$150 per order. As the quality of the overall deliveries on Fiverr increase, I can see that average climbing. but I think it is dependent on the communities reputation.



I think you need to continue to work on several streams of income from multiple places. This will give your financial table many supporting legs. Then if one legs breaks you will never collapse. No one can hold your lively hood in the balance. That way when things eb and flow you will be better covered. Good luck!



People will spend more on a product launch video than they will on a Valentine video. They will spend more on products that give then leverage to make money.