smashradio

I live in the Canary Islands. I still wear a suit. But in 31 degrees, I might opt for a short-sleeved shirt and some nice kakis.

I usually skip the jacket while working. I must admit that. But I actually think dress pants and a shirt is more comfortable to wear than sweatpants or jeans.

I dunno. I always loved wearing a suit. Even at home. When I was a kid, I insisted in wearing a tux when we went out for dinner. 🤣

Oui, madmoiselle! 🤌

If you want to improve your freelancing career here on Fiverr, you need to build credibility on the platform. It helps prospective buyers identify you as someone to trust. It helps you sell more to the right people. But there's a problem with this. To build credibility, you need buyers to order from you, right? This is a catch-22 holding many new sellers back. Luckily, there are some ways to build credibility on Fiverr, even if you have just set up your account! It will still take time, effort, research and energy, but following these steps can make it much less miserable. Here's how you establish yourself as a true professional without spending years doing it. Disclaimer before we begin: You have to actually be good at something, in order to market yourself as a professional. If you're not, you're nothing but a pretender. Pretenders fail. TL;DR: Stick to your prices, and don't negotiate too much. Maintain a professional and well-made gig and profile. Look the part (no webcam shots at the kitchen table). Use the gig gallery to your advantage by showing off your work. Provide valuable content to your buyers to demonstrate industry expertise. It could be a guide you've written on the forum or a PDF in your gig gallery that is helpful to the buyer. Offer free consultations if it makes sense in your niche. Don't just copy/paste your responses to buyer requests: make each response count. Add your education to your Fiverr profile if it's relevant. Act like you mean business. Don't call people "bro" or "my friend". Take courses on Fiverr Learn to build credibility, and gain new skills. Say no with confidence if a buyer has unrealistic expectations or if you lack the expertise required to deliver the goods. Follow up during the order and ensure the buyer knows you're there for them after the order. 1. Don't be too flexible with your gig pricing It's tempting to accept any offer you get as a new seller. Negotiating when you have zero reviews can be beneficial. But don't keep doing it! When you have landed a sale or two with happy buyers, it's time to stick to your price! If you have any hopes of landing higher-paying clients, allowing too much room for negotiation can hurt your reputation and credibility by telling buyers that you don't know your worth. If you lack confidence in your own abilities, the buyer will probably lack confidence in them as well. P.S. A five-dollar gig instantly shows that you don't know your worth. If you sell anything for five bucks these days, you're not coming across as a professional. It will only serve to damage your credibility. 2. Make sure your profile and gigs are well-made Your gig and profile is like a virtual storefront. If it's ugly, buyers will go elsewhere. A professional-looking gig and profile will land more sales. That means no typos, gig thumbnails made by anyone but a designer, messy gig descriptions, etc. A well-made gig and profile will make you look more credible. Use Fiverr sellers to help you out in areas you struggle with. You also need to look the part. Just because you're working from home doesn't mean you should look like a slob on your profile picture. First impressions do matter! Dress up and hire a professional photographer. Doing all of this will cost you some money. But if you're not willing to invest in your business, perhaps you should consider a different career. 3. Showcase your best work Don't just tell the buyers that you're good at something. Show it. Even as a new seller, you have access to the gig gallery. You set it up when you make your gig. You can upload a gig video, photos, graphics and PDFs. Use the gallery to show off your best work. If you're a designer, create some stunning examples of your work. If you're a voiceover, upload your best demos. You get the idea. Showing prospective buyers your work will help them decide if you're the right seller for the job. Using the gig gallery properly will make you look more credible. 4. Provide valuable content to educate buyers Since you can't send buyers away from Fiverr, you should find ways of showing them your industry expertise on the platform. Examples: Write industry-specific guides for buyers on the forum Let's say your buyer is looking for a logo design but is having trouble deciding on a color. If you respond by sending them a well-written guide (that you wrote) about how to choose the right color for a logo, that immediately shows the buyer that you know your stuff. This is just an example. Be creative! Offer free consultations The goal of such a consultation should always be to land the sale by showing the client that you know your stuff. But make the buyer feel like it's about them (because it is). Use every consultation as an oppurtunity to learn more about their business. Knowledge is power and it will help you deliver better services. Use gig PDFs You can upload case studies from previous clients or work examples in the gig PDFs. Share them with your buyers if they reach out. 5. Submit high-quality responses to buyer requests Using buyer requests can be a pain in the neck. Frankly, I don't recommend using them to any established seller. But as a new seller, you will get access to some buyer requests after you've set up a gig. But making an effective response can be difficult. You have to be fast; otherwise, the request might disappear, but you must also nail the response. Beyond having perfect grammar, you should focus on what the buyer is looking for in the first sentence and avoid copy/pasted lists of what you can do. If the buyer is looking for a WordPress website, they don't need to know that you're a social media marketer. Including irrelevant stuff only tells the buyer that you have copied/pasted your response. Right there, you've lost your credibility. Start by stating specifics from their request. That tells the buyer that you've read their request. Continue with your value proposition, i.e. why the buyer should order from you and not someone else. Include relevant skills. 6. Add relevant education to your profile You can add your education on Fiverr. It will help build credibility, especially if it's relevant to your Fiverr gigs. It's by no means required, but it will make you stand out. 7. Act like you mean business Don't be casual. Don't respond using lots of emojis or call your buyer "bro" or "friend". They are not your brother nor your friend. They are your client. You instantly become more confident and dependable by acting like a professional. Your gig is a business. Treat it like one. 8. Take courses on Fiverr Learn When you take a course on Fiverr learn, it gets added to your Fiverr profile. Showing you've completed courses relevant to your gigs can help build credibility. The best part about doing this, is that you gain new skills while doing it. 9. Say no with confidence If a buyer comes to you with a project you can't deliver, say no. This could be a buyer with unrealistic deadlines, or perhaps you don't have the expertise required to deliver the goods. Being honest with your buyer and yourself will save you from trouble like negative reviews/feedback and help build credibility. I've said no to jobs before because I didn't think I was a great fit. A week later, the buyer returned with a different project and said they were impressed by my honesty and for setting realistic expectations. That job earned me 2000 bucks, and I still work with the buyer to this day. If you're in a situation where you don't have the required skills, refer the buyer to someone else. People remember stuff like that. 10. Always follow up You should follow up with the buyer during and after an order. Because it might come across as spam/annoying to message a buyer after an order, do this inside the order delivery message. Make sure they know that they can reach out to you if needed and that you're there for them. But don't forget: you should never work for free. It shouldn't be free if they need more work done that wasn't included in the original order. It harkens back to the "know your worth" part at the beginning. You should also follow up during the order by asking relevant questions, letting the buyer know that you're working on the project, and when they can expect results. In conclusion If you're a new seller, there are still ways of building your credibility on Fiverr, creating trust and engaging your buyers, even if you have zero reviews. But it takes time, effort and skill to do so, not to mention, investment on your part. How do you work to build trust and credibility on Fiverr?

I have a dress code. I wear a suit. It helps me separate work and play. Also, it really does help at client meetings when not working on Fiverr. For Fiverr: Indeed, no damn phone calls, Zoom-meetings, or directed voice over sessions. I can just sit down, record, and fart in the studio as much as I want. Being my own boss. I set my own schedule, making family life a lot easier. I earn way more than I did when I worked for someone else. My day to day life is pretty much the same, every day (except saturday and sunday). I get up at 08:30. I eat breakfast with the wife and kid. I drink a gargantuan amount of coffee along with my huge can of Monster. I sit down at my computer, check my messages, e-mails and calendar. After that, I respond to all of them, before getting to work on todays projects. I'll have a break around noon for lunch, some forum and Youtube. I try to get the writing and translation jobs done early, before I move on to voice overs. At 15:00, I'm done, unless I get a rush voice over orders. If so, I'll do them before dinner. If not, you'll find me at 36.000 feet in Microsoft Flight Simulator until midnight. Since I can go AFK while in cruise, those hours are usually spent with the family. When I go to bed, I usually watch an episode of something, usually Star Trek) before listening to at least one session of The Great Courses or some other audio books teaching me new stuff. At the moment, I'm learning about theoretical physics and dark matter. At around 02:00, I'll fall asleep.

Gig visibility is based on performance. Also, your profile says that you've been here since may. That's more than two days. What have you done so far, to optimize your gigs? You claim to be a "Ecommerce Marketer" on your profile. If you're an expert marketer, specializing in online shopping, marketing your gig should be second nature to you.

Aaaaawhooot? A brief that worked? I don't believe it. The entire way it's set up is just stupid, in my opinion. It doesn't require anything on the part of the buyer. And the algorithm is as useless. I get translation projects in Urdu, voice over projects in belgian, and writing tasks in arabic. I'm Norwegian. But happy to hear you got a great brief and managed to land a project from it! Now Fiverr just needs to rethink the entire way this works. Then throw it out the window, fire the ones who came up with the idea, and start over. It might become something great. But I doubt it.

I find it funny that one of the biggest myths on Fiverr – sharing your gig in social media – is even repeated by Fiverr themselves. I guess the problem is that they don't clarify how or where to share it. There's a big difference between sharing your gig in a "Fiverr seller exparts"-group on Facebook and sharing it in a niche-specific area of Linkedin. If they didn't get my eternally sumptuous wisdom, then they have already failed point 1 on my list: Be great at what you do before you even consider creating a gig.

This might be my shortest post ever. But it doesn't need more. It's one bullet point. A very powerful bullet point. Here it comes.... Drumroll.... Be great at what you do before you even consider creating a gig. .

It doesn't draw my attention. The furniture looks cool. But it's a bit... boring? A bit grey? I can imagine that it would easily get overlooked in the search results. Also, it doesn't say anything about what you're offering? Even though you should keep text to an absolute minimum, it might help it "pop" to add something. Just to give the buyer an instant clue about what you're offering. Right now, it's just a (very cool) chair. Disclaimer: I'm not a designer.

Indeed. I went 100% freelancer during the lockdown (in addition to owning a company). But I already had a healthy buffer and a good portfolio of investments ready by then. I consider myself lucky. If I didn't have that in order before the lockdown, I would probably have struggled a lot more. These days, I'm 100% freelance + my company, and I'm doing well. It's part luck, part strategic planning for difficult times over several years I have to thank for that.

Yes, you can get banned without warning. That's why you need to follow the rules. If it happens to you, you will get an e-mail with a short and very inconcise explanation of why it happened.

Here's the thing. You gotta take care of the basics first. Food on the table, a roof over your head, healthcare for your family and so on. If you're struggling to do that as a freelancer, you have to rethink a few things. First of all, consider if you can continue being a freelancer while covering your basics. You have a full-time job, so that's great. That should hopefully take care of things. Combining freelancing with a full-time job can be difficult if you want any sort of balance. But there is a positive side to this: you don't have to give up. You can delay. Take a step back, look at what you may be doing wrong at the moment. Spend some quality time with friends and family. Enjoy life. While you do, you can keep planning for the day you'll return to freelancing. Maybe you could improve your skills in the meantime? So there's options, beyond just "giving up". I've been there. I've done it. Another alternative is to go all in. But unless you have a buffer that can last you at least a year, preferably longer, that's super risky.

I would say it depends. Is the candidate applying for a job as a writer? Or a job that requires them to be great at writing? If so, I'd say it's a borderline case, not unlike academic work. If I was a boss, and I found out that an applicant didn't write their own CV, I would disregard the individual right then and there. That said, I believe it should be up to the applicant, not the writer. You've been hired to do a job. If the applicant chooses to use your services to misrepresent themselves, that's on them. Let's say I'm applying for a job as a receptionist. The job requires me to speak fluent English. It also requires me to have excellent customer service skills and previous experience. I have all of these things in order. What I'm lacking, is the skill of writing a great CV. The information on the CV is true. I'm not misrepresenting my skills. Yet, I never had to write a proper CV before, because my last job was given to me by my dad, who was the boss at that company. So I need some help putting it together in a way that will get the attention of this new employer. I see no ethical issues with that, whatsoever. But let's say I'm applying to a job as a job consultant at the municipality. Part of my job will be to guide job seekers on how to write effective CVs. But because I know nothing about writing a great CV, I hire you to do it for me. That's unethical.

Maybe some day 😄 But not day. Probably not tomorrow. A lot of sellers have little to no formal training. That doesn't mean you're not good at what you do. I think the issue is 18-year-old guys in certain countries who have been told that they can just make an account on Fiverr and they will get rich. There are so many "Get rich quick" guides for Fiverr out there, mostly tailored towards people in developing countries where opportunities are few and far between. They likely went to a school where they didn't have access to computers (or some Windows XP laptop shared by the entire class, at best). They come from countries where being a fully educated doctor will net you a few hundred per month. For most of their lives, they had the entire family to support them. They had programmes helping them from the international community. They are used to getting things handed to them. So they go on Fiverr, write "Am expart marketing engineer consulttint forr u pro pro pro pro", add a thumbnail they stole from some other seller who did the same before them, and sit back, waiting for the orders to come in. It's a vicious circle perpetuated by the "gurus" who promise riches online by doing as little as possible. That's your "liars". Not a sincere seller who says to herself, "Hey, I'm actually rather good at writing. Maybe I'll try putting those skills to good use!". The liar, on the other hand, has no skills. At least, no relevant skills.

Nice summary, @vickieito! I agree with most of the points on the list as being factors for the TRS badge. One thing I'd like to add. I belive consistent improvement on level two over time (increasing satisfaction rate, higher earnings and so on) could be a factor. That upward arrow might be something they look for when identifying sellers they want to look closer at. But it makes sense to see who's improving even while on level two. The ones that stay "flat" might have a harder time getting shortlisted. It's just a feeling I have. No idea if it's true. So your improvement by raising prices, earning more and over-delivering consistently, should not stagnate, just because you're "stuck" on level two. The moral is to never stop improving, no matter how stuck you feel.

I see. "Your opinion is based on the idea that the article is complex and the video is simple." Exactly. And that's my point. Every project is different. That's why I don't think we can conclude that video editing should cost more than writing or vice versa. It depends on the video and it depends on the article. I know editing can be time-consuming. I've done a lot of it over the years, just never sold that service since I've done it out of necessity at my own projects, and not because I love doing it. I think we could have a lower limit on articles as well. But naturally, some projects can generally take longer. I do understand your point, though, and right now I'm just being a nitpicking, rambling muttonhead. But like I said: I was curious. 😂

How so? If I spend four days researching, writing, re-writing, and proofing a high-quality long-form article on a difficult subject, how is that less time and effort, compared to a video edited with some transitions from stock photo that took an hour to collect? I'm not saying all projects is like this, and it's just an example. Each project is different, so I'm just curious as to how you reached that conclusion?

You can. I charge less than many other sellers in my niche, yet I am (and I don't mean to brag) one of the more professional sellers in the categories I sell in. But it can affect perceptions. It can make you look less professional. So that's something to keep in mind when you price your services. That's a fair point. I'm a good example of this. I work in the Norwegian market, but since I live in Spain, I can maintain a lower price point. This is true in all markets; you can outsource to low-cost-countries and save money. Then again, you have to consider things like language barriers, cultural differences that can affect the sellers understanding of your audience and so on. This in turn, can affect turnaround-times due to revisions or spending time explaining concepts to the seller. Time is money, so if you factor in the two added hours you spent explaining something to a seller that would be basic common sense in your own country, you've probably paid a similar price in terms of worth. My point being: Yes, you can get high quality at low cost. But it might take more time and effort to get it, identify which sellers are the right ones for you, and work around issues that might arise during the project.

Even so, you should never sell anything for five bucks. Not even if it's your first day. But charging 200 might be a bit much. Depends on the service. I just ordered a video for 60 from a seller with just one review. But they had a nice portfolio, great gig description, and clearly know what they are doing. So you can get nice orders, even if you're a new seller. But you need to take great care of your gig first and have the expertise to back it up already. You can create a gig video and showcase content from your portfolio in that video. 🙂 Exactly. The cheapskates of this world are usually rude and not very fun to work with. So if they don't like my prices, I'm happy to send them on their merry way. Tactical! I like it!

OR... Did you not do good?

What can I say. I'm a philanthropist. 🤑

Aaaw, that means a lot! 🤩 I forgive you in my awesomenessesesesss. 😄

Hahaha. Yes, indeed. 😆 Good lord. I needed a good laugh.