smashradio

Just goes to show how important it is to always check your earnings to make sure the amounts are correct. Glad it got solved for you! 🙂

I speak Norwegian (native), English (fluent), Spanish (conversational) and I can fully understand Swedish and Danish.

You search for it. Then you check out how many gigs are showing up when you search for it. Compare the results, and you'll see which keywords have the least competition. Just a piece of advice: you shouldn't set up your profile based on this, but instead, about something you're good at. I see way too many sellers who base their gigs on low competition keywords, instead of on what they are good at. The end result is unhappy buyers, because you need to be great at what you do to have any sort of success on Fiverr.

Why lie on the forum? We can't help you when you're not speeking the truth about your situation.

When you end up becoming uneligible for gig promotion, it's not without any cause. Access to gig promotion is based on your performance. This could be negative, private feedback given to Fiverr after an order, a drop in response time or rate, on-time delivery and so on. Any one of these could have affected your eligibility to promote your gigs. Keep delivering great quality and service to your buyers, and make sure you improve where possible to ensure your buyer satisfaction rate isn't dropping. Beyond that, it might be that your gig category or type of gig no longer has access to gig promotion. You could always reach out to support and see if they have any additional information on this. You can do so here: https://www.fiverr.com/support_tickets/

I agree, to a certain extent. As a voice actor, I'll often adapt recording times to when I feel like it and my voice is at its best. It's not that I never work "after hours". But I try to set hours for myself to maintain some resemblance of a family life. Without a schedule, it's difficult to plan, and I think having a set time where I'm "done" for the day can be benefitial. But obviously, it doesn't work for everyone. I, too, work in creative fields like writing and voice acting, so I know all about not being "in the zone". I actually prefer to work evenings and relax doing other things at night, going to bed at 4 am. But that's impossible with a family. But hey - if you're enjoying it and you still get your free time when you want it, that's all that matters. I guess a better way to phrase the question, would be "What is the first thing you do when you're not working?".

So you're constantly "at work"? I would think that is rather unhealthy in the long run, at least it would be for me. It's not about technically "signing off". It's about mentally "signing off". I'm also on the app and I'll respond to messages even outside of working hours, but after 15:00 I will not work beyond simple answers to messages. The exeption is voice over record rush orders. Those will get taken care of even if it's late.

Not a bad idea at all. I'm all for it. It might complicate the inbox a bit, though. Another little inbox feature I would like to see is the ability to see and download file attachments from conversations inside an order. Presently, you can only view the messages and have to go to the inbox if you want to download attachments. I'm curious: which use cases do you think folders would have in your inbox? Sorting clients by category? One folder for Web clients, one for Design clients, for instance?

I truly believe that if you stand your ground as a professional, you will command respect. If you let others push you around, you will fall. If a new buyer starts out his career with a mindset that he will get abused, so he better just accept it, he has already lost. Being agreeable is one thing (for example by including an extra revision or fixing something simple "on the house" to make your buyer happy), but when buyers keep coming for more freebies, you're opening yourself up to more abuse, not less. Frankly, if you're unable to stand your ground and defend yourself in a professional manner when buyers try to abuse you, and you're so afraid of a negative review and feedback that you end up accepting this type of behaviour, you are not a professional at what you do. I would encourage new sellers to be firm, yet polite, stand up with their back straight, and if they think it's a good business strategy to give a buyer an extra revision for free, by all means, do so, but know that you risk endless revision loops and falling into bad habits.

You sort of have an option to charge by the hour. You send an offer for a specific amount of time, and voila. So let's say the client wishes to hire you for 10 hours. You set up an offer charging for 10 hours. If you don't know how long it's gonna take, you could always do it in multiple small orders. The thing is, hourly pay is tricky. People prefer to know what they are getting for their money, and they have no way to control that you're actually working for the agreed upon time. Whenever a client has asked me to work for an hourly rate, I simply respond that I prefer a fixed rate per project. Then, if more work is needed, we can always discuss amendments later on. In my experience, if you're paid after the fact because you are working on an hourly rate, you're at risk of not getting paid. I've experienced this a couple of times. Better to have a secure amount of money for a secure amount of work in escrow.

I really wouldn't. I know some businesses have a presence on Fiverr but the ones I've spoken to are using different names. Someone who has an agency and is selling on Fiverr could probably give you a better response. The thing is, Fiverr could see this as an attempt to get clients off of Fiverr. If so, you're account is at serious risk. Why would you mention your company anyway?

It's normal for sellers to get rotated around in the search results. After a level promotion, some people experience this. I get that it can be annoying. You can try to make some meaningful updates to your gig, like updating your prices (maybe even increase them a bit?), making sure your tags are all optimized, and to work in improving gig descriptions, thumbnail and FAQ. Expect to drop out of search completely for a little while, since the algorithm does need some time to place you in search again. But I've seen several people saying this helped after a while when they had this promotion-drop. Personally, I never experienced it.

Thanks! Glad to be of help! This is something I see a lot of questions about on the forum so I thought a new topic about it could be useful 🙂

This This might help.

Some buyers will want you to work for free. As a professional, you should politely decline this type of request. Here's some tips on how to avoid endless revision loops and buyers trying to manipulate you into working for free. 1) Be clear about what's included in the initial price from the start. 2) If they ask for addition work, require payment. Try "Thanks for the update! Here's my quote for the additional changes you requested" or something similar. 3) If the client goes "I'm not paying for that. It should be included!" you can respond with "I understand that you feel that way, and I'd love to help you out. However, this is outside the original scope of this order. I'd be very happy to set up a custom order extra for you, but I'm unable to take on pro bono work at this time." 5) If the client refuses to accept the offer and you're sure you have delivered what was promised, according to your gig specifications and agreement with the buyer, deliver the order again, thanking them. Remind them in a polite manner that this order included X amount of revisions. Make sure to include that you're happy to assist with their revision when/if their budget allows for it. There's no reason to work for free. Ever. If you get a bad review, you can respond to it, explaining that the buyer wanted you to work for free and asked for changes that weren't agreed upon for free. 99% of people reading that review/response at a later date, will be a) a person with a grasp of how to do business, i.e. they will understand and appreciate you as a freelancer, or, b) another buyer who wants you to work for free, i.e. someone you'd want to avoid at all costs anyway. And remember: if a buyer threatens you with a negative review to scare you into working for free, you can report them. That's not allowed. Finally: never offer unlimited revisions included in the price! No serious professional would ever do this. Every revision is an oppurtinity to earn more money.

I live on the stuff. I 17 oz can of Monster and a large cup of espresso. If I don't get it, you don't want to be around me. I did manage to quit drinking a gallon of Cola Zero every day though. Now I'm drinking a gallonof Cola Zero Zero – apparantly without caffeine as well. 😇 I think Drucker was a very smart business man. I think he knew that using words like "courage" to describe the simple necessities of success, would effect the optics. If you market a business or a business person as "courageous" instead of "enterprising", you can do all sorts of things with it. It's no different than using words like "mission" or "transformational". It's a buzzword. A nice one, for sure, but when used in business like this, it becomes watered down, in my opinion. But hey – marketing someone as courageous (when in fact they're sitting at a computer, in a heated home, enjoying liberty and security, not presented with any real danger) can at least make it sound like we're on a "mission". "We enable couragious business endevours in the digital enablement space." Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? But it doesn't mean anything. That's what happens when we dillute the real meaning of not just a word, but the entire concept it describes. It's no surprise that buzzwords, at least officially, have their origin in the business study hallways at Harward. (Check out Buzz words at the B School by Hallgren & Weiss.) Yet I think Drucker was just as much a part of this, through his work in business management. You see it in the quote you shared. My favorite Drucker quote: “There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.” I think that's admirable. I truly do. Perhaps not courageous in the true sense of the word, but surely smart! And you should be proud of that. Far too many sellers on Fiverr come here with no plan. From what I've seen, you're an excellent writer!

I have none. 😄 Auch! I'm a sucker for smart homes. That makes what you're doing impossible in this house. My Google Home will just pop up with reminders. I can't escape it. It's looking at me right now. I think it wants to eat me. Help! Ok, so it's not that bad.

I am! I've gotten real good at multitasking. 😆

If they end up not placing the order after talking, I would refrain from contacting them again. The thing is: some buyers might change their mind in the middle of the process, or they could be busy doing other stuff. If you're unlucky, they will view your message as nagging. You risk losing out on their business because of it, or worse, getting reported for spamming.

Did you mark a message that was flagged as spam, as being "not spam"? This happened to me once. I saw a message in my spam folder that wasn't spam, so I marked it as not being spam. My mistake was not checking the date on the message before doing so, because it was more than 24 hours old. The result was a drop in response rate.

The following is from the Fiverr help center: Your username is your unique identity on Fiverr and it cannot be changed. If you want to use another username, you need to close your account and create a new one. If you would like to use the email address in your current account for your new account, please change it before closing it. https://www.fiverr.com/support/articles/360050222673-How-Do-I-Change-My-Username#:~:text=Your username is your unique,change it before closing it.

I don't doubt it. During the pandemic, everyone with a computer signed up for Fiverr in some countries, it seems. It was a desperate time and people did anything to get food on the table. Unfortunately – and this might seem cynical – I don't think Fiverr as a business made the right decision when they kept the door open the way they did. They didn't raise the bar to ensure a safe, trustworthy marketplace.

My two cents on this, is that it's based on two generations who didn't experience real pain or danger in their lives. Little to no real struggles. I'm not talking on a personal level, because you'll always find people who struggle to get by or with medical issues and so on. But as a whole, my generation – millenials, and our beloved Gen Z, have been put up on a pedestal, handed our liberty, and never had to work hard for anything. So, I can see why young people today will see posting a gig on Fiverr as courageous. I don't agree with that statement, obviously, but when you haven't faced war, extreme poverty and famine, it's easy to lose sight of what this word actually means. Courageousness, to me, is when a woman runs in front of a bus to save a kid. It's when a man goes to war to give his family a future. It's when a police officer risks his or her life in the pursuit of making our community safe. With all of that in mind, I haven't really made any courageous decisions as a seller on Fiverr. I've made some smart ones. I've been determined. One of them has been to increase my rates, even though I knew the growing competition lowered theirs simultaneously. That was a smart decision. Sticking with it was difficult, yet my detemination kept me going, and I don't regret it. I also think your examples (except the one about posting your first gig, since anyone can and will do that these days, regardless of skill) can be tough, and they are all relevant as something we should strive for. I like your list! I just don't agree with the word courageous in this context, and now I'm ranting about it. Sorry about that! I tend to ramble when I've had too much Monster with my morning coffee. 😂

I got the number from the F-1 filing mentioning march 2019 as a month with aprox. 255k "active sellers". How many seller profiles there are, doesn't really matter, since inactive profiles won't be visible to 99,9% of buyers anyway. Many sellers have also deleted their profiles over the years, so it's far more interesting to look at the active seller number. Most of those sellers probably aren't active at all and haven't been for a long time. But the fact that both me and Donnovan found SEC filings for 2019, is interesting. Where are the 2021 numbers? Those would be more interesting, since it would reflect the pandemic and how it affected the number of "exparts". I've had great experience with my SM. The only thing that bothers me is that I, too, had a change. That said, my current SM is great. She's responsive, detailed, always willing to help and she also included me in a lot of other stuff outside of the seller plus program. So I have a very different impression of Plus. I guess it all depends on which SM you get. With that said: as Plus grows, the real benefits will shrink and become more automated. I wish SMs worked exclusively with TRS and Pro sellers. That way, they would have more time to follow up, work with us and solve issues that arises. My SM is US based, so there's a time difference, but at least I don't have to wake up at 3AM to talk with her. The issue with this type of "young company" is that people are never satisfied in one place for any meaningful period of time. Employees are always "moving on to new challenges and oppurtunities". You don't get a chance to work with your SM for very long, most likely, before a new one replaces them. I know how you feel. I don't do character voices (I'm in voice over) - so you're not gonna get a good Mickey Mouse, and no, I can't imitate a 6-year-old girls voice or Morgan Freeman. (Or both, having a conversation - and yes, I got that request once - IN NORWEGIAN! I didn't know Freeman spoke Norwegian.) It's an ongoing problem here on Fiverr, which is why I could see a use case for deactivating the order-button, so buyers have to contact us first. But I guess it would take some of the simplicity out of Fiverr. So I get why it doesn't work like that. Somehow, I doubt it will happen, yet @frank_d has promised us something that will deal with a lot of the issues on Fiverr. He's keeping us on our toes about it. I bet he enjoys himself doing it, too, don't you, Frank? I can picture you with a smug smile, sipping red wine and doing an evil laugh every time someone asks about it on the forum. 😄 That's awesome! I'm happy for you! 😄 Oh yes. I get this all the time. I'm a Norwegian expat in Spain. Buyers will ask me for a "custom demo" proving that I can speak Norwegian. I just send them my demo and a quick note about being a Top Rated Seller with more than 800 positive reviews. You don't get that as a Norwegian voice over, if you don't speak Norwegian. That usually calms them down. 🤣

I don't know about salaries, because most of my clients are businesses. So I don't really see this happening a lot. Sometimes they will order right away. Often, it takes them a few days to get the project going. They often contact me for advice before ordering, so that's to be expected, since I'm often involved early on in the process.