smashradio

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!”

Try clearing your browser cache or try logging in from a different device or browser and see if that solves the problem. If it doesn’t, you can contact customer support for more assistance. I also recommend reading this for general advice on the Fiverr ID verification process.

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.

Indeed, I believe it can! It’s been a limitation for a long time that you’re not able to contact buyers except in chat, so I’m happy to see it implemented.

I’ve noticed that a new functionality for video calls via Zoom has been made available when business clients make an order. Personally I rarely need to communicate outside the chat (thankfully!) but I’m sure video calls is something a lot of sellers and buyers will appreciate! Have anyone actually tried this function with a buyer yet? It would be interesting to know how well it works, and I might start using it for live directions doing voice over work or whenever a buyer actually wants to talk outside of the chat, since that hasn’t been an option before this came.

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. 😃

Indeed! I’m happy to say I never used the buyer requests myself, since it’s very rare for my niche to have any relevant posts there, anyway. But I’ve used it a couple of times as a buyer, and I never liked it. I actually never ended up being happy with what I got through requests, even the well written ones! So I stopped using them and I prefer to manually vet my buyers through search instead.

Marketing your gigs on social media won’t increase your ranking on Fiverr unless the marketing leads to actual sales. Your ranking in search here on Fiverr is based on several factors, including conversion rate, response rate, delivery time, price, reviews, and so on. There are several things you can do to make your gig more attractive. First of all, I’d recommend a new gig image. The one you’re using is very low quality, and frankly, it looks like something from the 90s (I don’t mean to be rude - this is merely constructive criticism to help you become more successful on Fiverr!). To get a good gig image, I recommend using a service like Canva if you’re doing it yourself, or maybe even hire one of the many talented graphic designers here on Fiverr to help you make a gig image that stands out and looks great. A gig video would be the next step. A gig video can make a difference - if it’s well made and of high quality. First impressions matter. If you want to inspire trust, you have to start there. Then, moving on to your gig description. I recommend using a tool such as Grammarly.com to fix any grammatical errors in your description. Beyond that, spamming your gig on social media will not help. It will lead to some traffic to your gig, sure, but it will be low-quality traffic that won’t convert into sales. That means it can hurt your ranking more than it will help. Instead, focus on landing the first sales. If you’re professional, helpful, and truthful in your services, you’ll start getting positive reviews and rise the ranks here on Fiverr. It takes time to rank on Fiverr. From time to time, the Fiverr algorithm will mix new sellers with no reviews into the top results to help them get started. So at some point, it’s probable that you’ll start getting some sales. In the meantime, work on the buyer request section, writing actionable responses to them, and you’ll hopefully get some orders soon. Keep in mind that it’s Christmas, so the traffic on Fiverr is generally lower these days. Spend that time productively by working on your gig, optimizing it for search, and you’ll soon learn the ropes of Fiverr. Welcome, and good luck! 🙂 Here are some guides to help you get started: You can read more great tips in the Fiverr Tips section of the forum.

I just used the feature and dude, it went smooth! 1% fee is totally acceptable, and I got some much needed cash thanks to this. Fiverr <3

Indeed, this is a returning issue for many new buyers. I experimented a lot with increasing my rates, lowering rates for extras, etc. and I found that a low base price of more than 5USD (for example, 10USD) with required extras for popular services yielded the best results for me. My pricing starts at 10USD. That ensures I avoid the 5USD buyers, while at the same time making the entry price low enough for the buyers with a small project or limited budget. I then utilize the gig extras to charge more for additional services. I increase my rates every year to match the average wage growth, but not by increasing my base price; instead, I increase the amount for my most popular extras as needed. I do this based on a calculation of how many orders I’m likely to receive with said extra. That way, I seem to avoid some of the feared disgruntled client issues, while at the same time increasing my revenue. If I see a drop in one extra that causes me to miss out on income, I’ll adjust as needed. For example, I lowered my broadcast rate from 50 to 35 last year, and that increased my revenue since more people ordered the extra. So it’s a balance. You want your base price to be low enough to hook the buyers without a big budget, and be visible in search, even though the buyer filters out high-priced sellers, yet high enough so that you avoid the cheapest buyers who are more likely to cause trouble.

If you’ve been a seller on Fiverr for some time you’ve probably come across some bad buyers every now and then. Whether it’s someone treating you without the respect you deserve, or someone trying to take advantage of the fact that you’re a new seller, this guide will hopefully come to some use. It’s by no means a complete guide or magic potion against bad buyers, but if you follow these tips you might be able to avoid some of the bad buyers out there, or at least deal with them if the order already is in your dashboard. I hope you’ll share your tips and tricks for avoiding this type of buyer below, as I’d love to learn how you guys deal with this as well! #1 The disrespectful buyer You know the one I’m talking about. The first message that pops into your inbox might start with “you have to…” or “I want this done but I’m not paying 20USD for it. What’s your best offer?” Or, it might be that they demand free extras. I’ve worked as a waiter, and let me tell you, if the customer asks for a free dessert, they won’t get one. People don’t go to the gas station to fill their tank, demanding a free tire change on the way out. The same goes for buyers who contact you with a single sentence, most often a “what’s your best price for…?”. There’s no hi, hello, or thank you. It might happen because the individual was short on time, but honestly, showing some courtesy goes a long way. I’m always a bit careful if the first thing a potential buyer sends is a question about my best offer, with no curtesy whatsoever. Red flag! This is the buyer that might demand you do more work than agreed upon or pressure you into lowering your rates. Just by looking at the way the buyer communicates, to begin with, you can begin to sort out the ones you’re comfortable working with, and the ones you want to avoid. Your rates are what they are for a reason. Haggling over price or treating me like a servant is a sure-fire way of getting blocked. This doesn’t mean you can’t negotiate your rate (within reason) if you are working on a long-term project, or the buyer wants you to complete an effortless task compared to what you’re offering in your gig packages. Still, it has must be done respectfully – both in terms of your pricing and the way the buyer treats you. Remember - there’s a big difference between negotiation and demands. #2 The let’s talk outside of Fiverr-buyer This might be my number one alarm bell; If they ask you to do work outside of Fiverr, ask for your contact information, demanding to talk on other platforms, or ask you to deliver the work outside of Fiverr, there is a big red alarm bell, a gong, a few bombs, and a loud voice screaming “don’t do it!!” in the back of my head. First of all, it’s against the Terms of Service. Second, it’s a reason why the buyer wants to avoid Fiverr: these people often wish to circumvent the security that this platform provides in that they have to pay upfront and stick to the terms of service. In addition to keeping revenue on the platform (after all, Fiverr have to pay their bills, too!), this is one of the main reasons why you’re not allowed to share contact info. If someone tries, they receive my standard reply: "Unfortunately, asking for or sharing that information is a violation of Fiverr Terms of Service. Since I’m making a living here on Fiverr, I make it a point to follow the guidelines. I’m sure we can work together, but I’ll only deliver and accept orders here. I ask for your understanding in this matter. " If they ask again, I’ll block them, and most certainly, I won’t do business with them. Things you can do to avoid bad buyers: Be specific in your gig descriptions and custom offers. Never make it " easy to misunderstand " - because I damn well guarantee that someone will do just that - whether on purpose or not. Being specific will ensure that people can’t easily take advantage of you being new to the platform, because they can’t claim this and that after the fact.Don’t sell at 5$. This type of gig almost always attracts the cheapest buyers, and sometimes even the unpleasant ones. If you want to sell your services for 5$, that’s up to you, but I tried, and I’m never going back. I made a 5USD gig, basically offering the same type of service as I do with my 10USD gig, but fewer words included. The result was three bad buyers in a row coming from that gig.Always be courteous, but firm. Don’t let the buyers treat you like a servant. Be firm about what you’re offering, and what you’re not offering, but do so pleasantly and politely.I hope this guide has helped you, and I’d love to see your suggestions to avoid bad buyers below!