smashradio

I’m particularly fond of “sugar-bun”. It’s so american to use food as a term of endearment. @michaelscottmk6 I disagree, actually. I guess it comes from the fact that I live in a tourist area where street sellers will use the line “special price for you my friend”. It has become sort of a stereotype when you want to explain what they do for a living. :rofl:

My personal favorite: “my good man”. I’ve used it in a leadership position once, because I got truly pissed off at an employee. “My good man. This just won’t do.” :rofl: The employee quit. (If he didn’t, I would have fired him for pure incompetence).

Haha yeah. I can’t help but laugh a bit. The day I wrote this I got two “Hey honey”-messages in a row. It’s the worst. :rofl:

I think, as a general observation, people from non-western nations tend to be overly polite in their communications, and that might look weird to us from the west. Sir, madam and dear are used in countries where a high degree of politeness is required just to not come across as rude, while other nations and cultures might have a more relaxed way of doing things. To avoid issues both ways, I find it best to be polite but not personal. So I’ll start a conversation like this: “Hi there, John! Thanks for reaching out.” And I’ll end it with: “All the best, Leo” Yes, I know muslims adress even strangers as brother, at least in a lot of arabic countries, but that is mostly done between muslims, not to a non-believer, at least not in my experience, @mdminhaz05

I would avoid “sir” as well. Certain western countries use it a lot, like the US, but in most countries that could give off the same vibes as dear, madam, brother etc. It’s simply not needed, so why would you use it? It’s better to avoid pronouns like that anyway, to avoid misgendering people. You can actually stick to “Hi, name” or even “Hi there, name” (last one if you want to sound a bit more happy). “Hello, name” is also perfectly acceptable.

I think it has more to do with their faith - as it appears certain forum members who are of a certain faith think of others on the forum their brothers and sisters. I guess it is common (not professionally though!) for some Christian faiths to call people this too, but, it seems to be during church services, not outside of that environment. Still, just weird and not kosher being called brother or sister if I am not blood related to you. GG I have a lot of muslim friends and business asscociates, that I work with on a regular basis. I’ve studied religious history and archeology with imams, and I even produced a “crash course on politeness in Islam, and how it pertains to multicultural communication” for a muslim foundation. I think I’ve been called “brother” once, and that was from an intern. Professional muslim business people don’t go around calling random people brother or sister in business matters. In religious matters, it’s a totally different thing. Muslims consider themselves to be part of a brotherhood (ummah), and can call eachother “Akhy” (my brother) or “Ukhti” (my sister), but this is not used for non-muslims, or at least, rarely, especially not in business matters where you don’t even know the person. With all that said - there is also the cultural element - where people from certain arabic speaking countries use brother a lot, but my point is that, online, you should avoid anything that might be percieved as rude or make the other party uncomfortable.

Companies often use “Dear, name” to start off their communication, but this is both old-fashioned and comes across as fake. I KNOW Ebay doesn’t care about me, yet they call me “dear”. I’m sure you used dear all your life, and I’m also sure that you made a lot of people uncomfortable doing so. I’m not your dear. I’m a potential client. Now, “dear” has a place in old-fashioned letter communications and formal notices etc. in a few countries, but when communicating online you’re talking to people from all over the world. Avoiding words and pronouns that can be offensive or put people off is just good business practice. If you chose not to follow it, that’s of course up to you. 🙂

Is the individuals you wish to call “sister” or “brother” your actual sister or brother - meaning - do you share parents? If not - then why would you call them “sister” or “brother”? If I’m buying social media services from you, I’m not your friend, and I’m not your brother - I’m your client. You should adress me by my name, or if you don’t know my name, the username will do fine. I realise that in some cultures it might be respectful or friendly, but it does not belong in professional business communication.

As an added tip: I always end my first message/reply to someone with my first name. For example: "Thanks for reaching out! Bla bla bla… All the best, Leo" Then they know my name. Use it. If you don’t, I always get a good laugh if you call me “Mr. Smash”.

But the fact that your culture uses sis or ma’am when speaking to authority figures does not mean that it should be used internationally. Most countries would not use that, so unless you’re sure about what is culturally appropriate at any given time it should not be used. That’s my point: it’s always best to communicate in a way that’s as universal as possible.

Probably it wouldn’t be considered late then, because it was cancelled in the end. An order will not affect your stats until it’s completed or cancelled, I think. But I won’t say for sure. You might be right, too. I’ve seen the red font two times in the past couple of years, because I always try to deliver as soon as possible, instead of checking the timer and go “nah, I can do that tomorrow, I’ve got time”. It makes my buyers happy and it makes Fiverr happy, and it makes me very happy if I get a revision request. By the way, one off-topic note: I love your gig video. I used to work in radio, and my old boss used to say the same about faces made for radio (not that I’m saying you have a radio face, but I certainly do! Lol. )

In the review and used as an exclamation, I don’t think it’s the worst. Just don’t say “Dear Sir, this is so good, bro!”. That would ruin it. :rofl:

No that was what I didn’t do. I didn’t notice it was late and in revision until it was too late, and that gave my stats a hit. So unless they have changed it lately, or something just went “horribly” wrong with the order in my case, I think you can still get a late order if you don’t deliver the revised work soon enough. I know about that bug. Still isn’t fixed? I heard about that almost a year ago (I think)

Yeah, using “bro” or dude" among younger friends etc. is totally different. It’s not meant to be used in professional communications. I blame the millenials. :rofl:

Indeed. Bro is another one. I haven’t seen that for a while, except on the forum. Yet another cultural thing?

Wait, whaaat? A “real” late delivery considers only the initial delivery time, not the delivery time for any revision requests. If a revision is requested, the timer does indeed continue to run down to zero, but it is not really a late delivery if the original delivery was submitted before the deadline. The bold red LATE text honestly should be changed to not pop up if in regards to revisions. There’ve been so many posts on the forum of people who’ve freaked out from seeing it over revisions when they are actually fine. Then they have changed it. I was once #LATE on a revision (about 4 months ago) and the revision was delivered about 24 hours after the revision request was made. That order messed up my “on time” stats.

I know this has been discussed repeatedly, but somehow, it seems never to get better. I’m talking about the use of “dear”, “sir”, and “madam”. Recently I’ve also been called “honey”. What’s next? “Pumpkin?” Ok, so there might be some humour in all of this, but please, stop using “dear”, “sir”, and “madam” when doing business internationally. I’m not your dear. Sir might be seen as respectful in some countries, but then it’s overused and unnecessary. Besides, most countries in the west won’t use “sir” in business communication. I get that there are cultural differences, and yes, I’m sure it’s done with the best intentions. But I feel like this has been brought up many times before, without getting better. It’s gotten worse since more and more people start working online due to the pandemic. We’re communicating across borders, cultures, and norms even more than before, which leads to some interesting situations. If a buyer/seller calls me “dear”, that could be uncomfortable. “Dear” is mostly used for my wife, not for a random person on the internet. It’s personal. Or, at best, it could be a formal way to start a letter to an older person. At best. This isn’t just about comfort. It’s also for your sake: you risk alienating people when calling them “sir” or “dear”, making people more cautious about you. And when you want to earn money, you don’t want people to feel uncomfortable: you want them to trust you. For way too many years, spammers using e-mail have been using “Dear sir”, “Dear madam”, etc. to introduce themselves. For most of us, we instantly react to the words because they are so common in spam. Instead, use the persons named in the introduction if you know it, or simply use “Hi” or “Hello”. And no, don’t say “yes dear” – say “yes”. It’s that simple. I don’t need to be called dear by a stranger. I hope this will help anyone who uses these words to get even better at their communication skills across borders and cultures, especially when dealing with westerners/Europeans. Now it’s time to see what we as westerners/Europeans or any other cultural area could do better. I’m a European, so I’d love to hear if there’s anything we tend to do or say that might put people from other cultures off. After all, this isn’t about putting anyone down: it’s about helping each other to communicate and succeed even more!

If you ask for more time via the resolution center it will go from late to whatever time was asked for and accepted. You should always deliver early to have time enough for revisions.

It’s late because you should have delivered the revision before the timer went out. When they ask for revisions, the gig automatically starts ticking again. I know, I know, it sucks, but that’s just the way it is. That’s why you should always leave time for revisions on your gig. In my experience, if you deliver the revision super fast it won’t register as a late order (at least it hasn’t hurt my stats when I’ve done that) but if you wait for too long it will. My advice is to ask the client for more time via the resolution center if you need more time to deliver the revision; the fact is, the buyer wasn’t happy with the first delivery, and the order isn’t “finally delivered” until the buyer accepts the delivery. So in the end, the buyer didn’t get what they wanted within 24 hours, and that means the order is late. You can ask for more time and explain to the buyer why you need extra time (something like “Hey! Thanks for letting me know about the issue. I’ll get right on it. However, I kindly ask for some more time to complete the needed changes for you. Please accept this request for a delivery date extension, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions!”

I agree with you on this one. Post-covid, it’s been even worse, as the quality has dropped a lot among both the sellers and buyers. Companies are looking for great deals on services that they used to pay a lot more for, so they often go for the cheapest deal possible. Then they are surprised when it turns out to be low-quality or stolen content. With all that said, I think it’s just as much the seller’s responsibility, if not more. When a seller offers stolen crap or delivers horrible content, they lie to their buyers in their marketing and stealing content from others. That’s unethical, even if the price is low. The fact that these sellers are allowed to continue operating is not the buyer’s fault, and I prefer to hold each individual 100% responsible for their own decisions. I wish the bad sellers would be held accountable, even financially, when they offer stolen or lousy content. I think a bigger problem is sellers complaining about bad buyers when it’s the seller’s fault. This happens way more on this forum than the other way around, in my opinion. But, I agree 100% when it comes to expectations. I charge relatively low rates, but if you need anything extra, you have to pay. My base price is for a basic service and nothing more. Still, I do get buyers who seem surprised that they have to pay extra to use my voice in commercials on the radio. And hey, if you don’t like what this platform has to offer, you’re of course free to not use it, but the fact remains that Fiverr has plenty of genuinely great talent at bargain prices. And when I say bargain, I mean 200 bucks for a custom professionally designed logo by someone who used to work as a graphic designer for big studios etc. and not 5 dollars for an automatically generated logo. You’re absolutely right.

Hi, It should not affect your gig ranking, but keep in mind that the promotion might lead to higher placements and sales than your gig would have without the promotion running, so it might cause your impressions/clicks/orders to drop to a level it was before you started promoting your gig. If you haven’t noticed much success using the promoted gig feature to begin with, you won’t notice much. But if a big portion of your orders are now coming from promotions and not organic ranking, it might hurt your bottom line. This is something you have to consider the benefits vs. cons for, to see if promoting your gig is the right thing for you. Hope this helps.

Actually, offering professional services is different from, let’s say, selling a bottle of milk. You might want your money right away, but that’s not how business is done between professionals most of the time. I’ve never worked with a professional client without invoicing. Businesses operate on credit most of the time: if a design agency outsources a logo design to you, you can be sure that they most like invoice the client with a NET14, NET30 or in some (horrible cases), NET90 days! As a voice over, I’ve always refused NET90-jobs. But I’m very used to doing work now and getting paid for it later. This is how business is conducted. There’s other reasons for the wait as well. For example, if a buyer decides to cancel the order or complain to customer support, Fiverr holds your money for a period to ensure that the work has been delivered properly. Another reason is that Fiverr actually collects interest on the cash they keep on hand. They also need cash reserves, just like any business. In fact, I’m wondering why more freelancers aren’t doing this themselves: I keep a “raindy day fund”, and what I earned last month is what I live on today. I make sure to keep track of my finances, and I don’t expect my clients or Fiverr to sort that out for me. This waiting period is something you should plan for. It won’t go away, so you should instead plan ahead, save up money, and make sure to have a cash reserve. That’s my best advice to you.

I got the same keyboard for Christmas from the wife! It’s awesome. Better than any mechanical keyboard I’ve tried, since I type with purpose the noise tends to annoy her, so she bought me this. Couldn’t be more happy with it! Great keyboard.

Haha! Yeah, the level in the requests is a whole new deal. Your 13 year old kid might have been a challenge, but getting anything good to come out of a buyers request is nearly impossible in my opinion. :rofl: It’s not just for us sellers, either. As a buyer looking for a writer, for example, I’d put “Native Speakers Only” in my request. That would, of course, lead to 200 answers from buyers who are clearly NOT native speakers. They would often go like this: “dear sir wirting purrfekt inglish is my best side love plz giv me job!”. At least it’s good entertainment. 😃